Almost 48 hours had passed since the ill fated honeymoon. And Root had spent the entire time searching.
But now in the twilight of the second day of searching, he was tired and despairing.
The years that followed the first encounter were sad ones for Root, but he never gave up hope. He sold his extravagent home and moved to the center of Havana, believing that he could spend more time searching for his husband.
He remained in Cuba even after the revolution. Though
no one who knew him as a young man in Washington D.C. would have ever
believed that he would be the type to remain in Cuba after the revolution.
When he was not obsessing about his lost love, Root would
notice changes all around him. This Cuba was not the same one in which
he had made his fortune.
Now a lonely old man, he gave his time over to reading,
mostly romances, which were increasingly difficult to find on the island
and to searching for the mechanic.
On what would have been their eighteenth wedding anniversary,
Root finally spotted his husband at a bookstand. The mechanic did not
see Root however. Root devised a plan. He would return to the bookstand
dressed as a man, and admire his husband from afar.
The mechanic would periodically feel the eyes of the
odd little man following him as he searched for books to read. He would
look over and notice something hauntingly familiar about the man staring
at him, but he could not put his finger on it.
And so it went on like this for years. Root felt a thrill
each time they encountered one another. And it made it all the events
that had passed since their wedding worth his while.
the encounter
:: the search :: the discovery
