On September the eleventh, 2001, Desmond sat in the light-filled living room in Palo Alto, Peyton at his side, both staring in disbelief. The news channel showed a live view of Manhattan. The people in the buildings were burning alive, just as Desmond’s family had on that day in 1983. This tragedy, however, wasn’t a natural disaster. It was an act of humankind—the worst kind of evil. The sickening, cruel slaughter of innocents.
“Something is very wrong with this world,” Desmond said.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
The US stock market stayed closed until September seventeenth—the longest closing since 1933, during the Great Depression. When it reopened, stocks tanked. The market fell 684 points—the largest single-day decline in history. By the end of the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down over fourteen percent. The S&P lost almost twelve percent. Nearly 1.4 trillion dollars in market value was lost in that week alone.
While others were dumping American stocks, Desmond was buying. He returned to his criteria for identifying a successful company: a founder who instinctively knew what his customers wanted, and a tightly managed operation. He loaded up on stock in Amazon and Apple.
On the news every night, he watched sabers rattle and the world go to war. He was mad as hell too. He even considered applying at the NSA or CIA. But he barely had the energy to get out of bed. He seemed to get worse every month.
Peyton saw it—was worried about it.
“What if you start your own company?”
“Doing what? Why? There’s no point. I have no ideas. No drive to do it.”
“You could start a nonprofit. Child welfare. Find something you care about and go for it.”
He thought about it for a few weeks, researched it, and began volunteering at a group home in San Jose.
That helped him pass the time, but it wasn’t enough. Deep down, he knew the truth: he was never going to change. He would never be able to love Peyton the way she loved him—with reckless abandon. It wasn’t fair to her. She deserved more.
In the summer of 2002, he sat in Dr. Janson’s office.
“This isn’t working.”
“It takes time, Desmond.”
“I’ve given it time. I’ve been coming here for over two years now. I’ve tried medication, exercise, volunteering. Hell, we even retraced the tragic events of my childhood. I’m not getting better. I don’t feel any better than I did the day I walked in here.”
“Please realize that every person has emotional limits. Your… range may simply be very confined. It’s also possible that two years isn’t enough time.”
“You want to know what I actually do feel?”
Janson raised his eyebrows.
“Guilt.”
The man looked confused.
“I feel guilty because I know she’ll never leave me. And I’ll never make her as happy as she deserves to be.”
That afternoon, Desmond packed his things. The gifts from Peyton he placed very carefully in a large trunk. He scanned all their pictures, printed copies of them, and returned them to their frames. He waited in the living room, and when she got home, they sat on the couch, feet from each other, her nervous, clearly aware something was very wrong. He said the lines he’d rehearsed a dozen times.
“I have this vision of you in a few years. It’s summer. You’re sitting on your back porch, drinking a glass of wine while the kids play in the yard. Your husband is manning the grill. And he’s playing in the back yard with the kids, and he knows exactly what to do, because he played in his back yard as a kid with his dad, who loved him. You all eat together, and he knows exactly how to treat you because he grew up with an actual mom and dad and they treated each other right. He reads a story to the kids before he puts them to bed, because his parents did that for him. When they act up, he knows what to do by instinct, not because he read it in a book, but because it’s how he was raised, in a normal home. And he loves you. And them. Because he’s able to love, because he hasn’t drifted from one tragedy to the next in the years before he met you. Your life isn’t perfect, but it has a real chance to be, because one of you isn’t broken beyond repair.”
“Desmond, I don’t care—”
“I know you don’t. I know that you will stay with me wherever our road leads.”
“I will.”
“But I won’t let you.”
“Desmond.”
“I care too much about you, Peyton. You deserve to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
“Not as happy as you will be.”
She hugged him and cried more than he’d ever seen her cry.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Please stay.”
“I’ll stay the night.”
She looked him in the eye. “Stay until Monday. Please?”
He agreed. They were the most agonizing and joyous three days of his entire life. They made love every night. And twice each day. It was a long goodbye. It was painful—even he felt it. He couldn’t imagine what she was going through.
When he stepped out on the front porch Monday morning, she hugged him so hard he thought his ribs would collapse.
He pushed back just enough to look her in the eye.
“Will you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Don’t wait for me. Live your life.”
That set off a new bout of crying.
An hour later, he was driving south, the Airstream trailer in tow behind him.