Midnight Sun Challenge Chapter 1.21 "Ian In The Running"

Two months had passed since Ian woke that morning to find the note on the bar and Maya gone.

Dearest Ian,

When you read this, I will be gone.  Please believe me that I never meant to hurt you but staying would only hurt us both and I felt like I had no choice.  You are a kind, loving, wonderful man and I count myself blessed that I met you that day in China.  But this isn't the life that I pictured for myself when you asked me to marry you.  I have always had dreams of living in the Western world in a busy town full of modern advances and all the world had to offer. No matter how much I care for you, if I were to stay, I would be miserable and that would not be good for either of us.  I only ask one thing from you; when you speak of me to Jin, I hope you will tell him kind things about me.  Tell him that I love him and always will.

Please forgive me,

Love Maya

He was absolutely stunned to say the least.  He knew that she was struggling a bit with the whole isolation and becoming a new mom.  But he never thought it was so bad that she would consider leaving.  Since she had left, he must have read that note a hundred times trying to make sense of it all. But in the end he focused on two things.  She loved Jin and she loved him.  He knew deep down that she did.  He couldn't just have been a matter of convenience for her.  An easy way to get out of China.  It had to be something more.

Over the past two months he had seen every article in the newspapers and magazines she was in.  She wasn't hard to find. Since she and Eddy had been dubbed Celebrity Favourite Couple, all he had to do was type her name into Simgle, and there she was. At first he was furious, and then he was just plain hurt.  If she loved him, how could she cheat on him like that?  But it also occurred to him that not once in any interview or article was there any mention of him.  No mention of anyone knowing she was married.  She was keeping him a secret, even going so far as to use her previous married name. He thought that was her way of being kind-trying to keep him out of the spotlight and those blasted paparazzi off their island.  His friends would say he was just deluding himself.  Maya was looking out for Maya.  But knowing her as he did, he didn't think that was true.  There was real regret in that note she left for him.  Like she really didn't want to leave but felt she had no choice.

When he studied the photos of her and Eddy, they just looked off to him.  In every picture, it just looked posed.  He had yet to see any evidence of anything that looked like real love.  To him it all looked like a show for the cameras.  He was really concerned that this relationship might be a publicity play on Eddy's part.  He knew that Eddy was already benefiting from it because there was such a big deal about all these new shows that had been added to his schedule.  There also was speculation reported that he had been offered a major part in a movie.  Ian wondered if Maya had also been offered any parts. 

He understood now too why she avoided Jin as much as she had before she left.  She knew it would be hard and she was trying to protect them both.  Good intentions aside, it didn't work.  Jin was inconsolable after she left.  He cried for long periods of time for absolutely no reason other than he missed his mother.  He had to put his work aside and just spend all his time with him.

He taught him how to walk and talk. Read him books and played toys with him.  Jin had mastered the xylophone quite quickly and it was obvious that his talent was going to be musical.  But Ian couldn't wait to put a paintbrush in his hand, as soon as Jin was old enough to stand at an art easel.  If he was anything like his mother, he would paint beautiful paintings.

A month into Maya's leaving, Ian was commissioned to sculpt a statue out of stone for a wealthy client.  The client was so impressed that she introduced him to another wealthy client which eventually led to Ian being asked to sculpt a statue for Olivier Harbucks in Roaring Heights, of his newly adopted daughter Shirley Templeton.  The sculpture turned out truly beautiful and Olivier was so grateful that he previewed it in his annual town gala that he hosts in his home.  It made a few of the papers and garnered him quite the attention from the art world.  Ian was paid handsomely for that statue.  Enough to set him up for quite a few years.  He started receiving invitations from the art world and became known to many wealthy people.  Which led him to wiggling his way into an invitation to Collette Cohen's fashion show, just so he could be near Maya.

Sculpting gave one a lot of time to bounce ideas and issues around in one's head.  He had spent quite a bit of time mulling around all these thoughts about Maya and Eddy, Maya and himself until he finally made a decision.  He was going to fight for his wife and he was going to win.  So he made a plan to woo his wife back into his arms.  He would be subtle, yet persistent.   He had to make her believe that it was all her idea and definitely not that she was forced.  Eventually he knew that the world she had thrown herself into would lose its shine and he would be there.  It started with attending that fashion show and never letting her see him, yet letting her know he was there.  Flowers ought to do it he thought. This would be fun and ultimately it would be the ways it should have been when they first met.  He was going to make her fall deeply in love with him until she never wanted to leave him again.

And he didn't care how long it took.