My Irina Ch. 02

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Their life and marriage change dramatically.
12.4k words
4.31
129.3k
57

Part 2 of the 3 part series

Updated 10/30/2022
Created 08/29/2009
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ohio
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Irina sat sobbing, her face buried in her hands. Sitting across the room I just stared at her, too stunned to feel the anger and grief I knew would be coming.

I was vaguely aware of tears on my cheeks, as I gazed past her out the window to the beautiful sight of the sun sliding down into the Pacific. It was a spectacular sunset that couldn't have meant any less to me at that moment.

She lifted her head and I saw her face again--that gorgeous, perfect face, the face of the woman I had known since we were children, and had loved so deeply for the past eight years. She was saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," in a choked voice, so that I could hardly hear her.

And all of a sudden I couldn't stand to be there--I literally couldn't bear it. I got to my feet and headed for the door, hearing her cry out behind me, "no, Tommy! Please don't go!"

The Porsche was still right in front of the house and I sped down the driveway to the canyon road, then tore down the road at a dangerous speed. I didn't know where I was heading--and then I remembered the cliff. Our favorite spot in Malibu, in all of California.

I was there in less than fifteen minutes. I parked the car and walked up the dirt path through the low brush until I reached the spot. I was on the edge of the American continent, maybe 250 feet up, looking out over a cliff that hung over the Pacific ocean.

Irina and I had joked, in one of our happy and loving moments, that this would be the perfect spot to commit suicide, with a picturesque jump to our deaths on the rocky shore below. We could laugh about it then, I thought--when we were both so contented that the very idea of suicide was an absurd joke. Now it didn't seem so funny.

I knew I wouldn't jump, though--I couldn't do that to the twins. If for no other reason than Earl and Lily, I knew that sooner or later I would get into the car, drive back up the hill, and face the nightmare that my life had just become.

I must have sat there for two hours or more, looking out at the Pacific as the sunset turned to dusk, then to darkness. How did I get here? How had Irina and I arrived at this point--this moment of such pain and despair?

****************

Nothing ever happens for just one reason--that's something I know. There are always a lot of factors that come together to lead to an important event, whether it's something wonderful or disastrous.

For nearly seven years Irina and I lived happily together in Madison. My work went well, and later on spectacularly well, as I'll tell you about in a minute. But even before then I was quickly making enough money for us to afford a small house south of the Arboretum, in a nice part of the city.

About a year after we lost our baby Irina started school again, majoring in accounting. It was difficult for her socially at first because of her face, just as it had been at Denison. But at least this time she had a husband to come home to. Academically she did brilliantly and finished in two years, graduating magna cum laude in May 2003.

She was looking at job offers from three good firms in Madison when one of life's big surprises fell into our lap. Irina had joined the congregation of the small Russian Orthodox Church in Madison, and had made a number of friends there. Her interest was not so much religious as cultural--before her mother's death Russian art and the Russian language had been part of her life, and she wanted to maintain a connection to it. I joined her occasionally, but for the most part she went to church on her own.

About a week after her graduation, Irina came home from Sunday morning services with a very strange look in her eye. She was somehow giddy and yet serious at the same time. She made us a beautiful lunch, then took my hand and led me into the bedroom for some lazy, mid-afternoon lovemaking.

And when we were done, lying relaxed in one another's arms, she finally let me know what was going on.

"Tommy, is it all right if we talk about something serious?"

"Of course," I said.

It turned out that the seventeen year-old daughter of Irina's friends the Lementovs, from the church, was pregnant with twins. Tatiana was a smart girl who had taken a couple of college courses at the University and been seduced by her (married) history professor. Terrified of what her parents would do, she hadn't told them about the pregnancy until the fourth month--and now it was far too late to consider an abortion.

"They're planning for her to give the children up for adoption, and--well, Tommy, do you think we could possibly consider taking them?"

Irina looked up at me, hopeful and worried. We had talked a little about adoption, in those grief-filled days after Walter's death, and agreed that it was something we might think about "sometime in the future". But now, nearly three years later, I realized we'd never returned to the subject.

How did I feel about it? I felt excited, judging by how fast my heart was beating. I loved Irina and our life together--but the prospect of children and a real family seemed marvelous to me.

"I don't ... really know," I said to Irina, keeping my face serious. "I've heard that an awful lot of mothers pretty much abandon their husbands once there are children in the house. You might move me into the guest room, or even stop cooking for me. I don't think I'm willing to take the risk."

She was on the verge of an angry reply when she saw my face broaden into a wide smile, and she laughed instead. "You stinker! For a moment I thought you were..."

Then she stopped, and looked into my eyes. "You would ... really do this, Tommy?"

"I would love to have children with you, sweetheart. And the idea that they'd be part Russian makes it even more wonderful. They'll probably be smart, too, even if their father was a son-of-a-bitch.

"I think we should do it. How much--"

But the rest of my question was smothered as Irina leapt upon me, filling my mouth with kisses and squeals of joy. We made love again, passionately, without another word being said.

Earl Lementov Lawrence and Lily Tatiana Lawrence were born on August 22, and became part of our family that very day. Giving up the children was hard for Tatiana, but she had gotten to know Irina and me and knew that we would be loving parents to them. She also knew that she could visit them whenever she wanted. And for the first year or so, Tatiana did come to see them at least once a month. After that, she went off to Duke University and we didn't hear from her much.

Irina had decided to put off taking an accounting job for at least a year--she was dying to be a full-time mother and nothing else. Everyone who's ever had a baby or two can imagine the chaos and confusion of our household for the first few months, as well as the joy in our hearts. Our babies were beautiful and smart, and we were fascinated by them. As they grew we were also amazed by the bond they seemed to have between them, as many pairs of twins do. We were perpetually sleep-deprived, and supremely happy.

****************

In my software design job in Madison, I was paired with a guy named Rick Torgerson, a recent graduate of Wisconsin who was a year older. It quickly turned out that we made a fantastic team. He was brilliantly imaginative but not always practical, and my down-to-earth approach helped provide pragmatic solutions to the creative ideas he dreamed up. Within a few months we were the stars of our department.

Even more than that, we liked each other and liked working together. I had introduced Rick and his girlfriend Lisa to Irina--after quietly explaining to them about her face--and the four of us got together frequently on the weekends for dinner or to go to the movies.

On one Saturday afternoon in June 2004,when the twins were about ten months old, the women were playing with the babies and Rick and I were idly talking shop--about some search algorithms our firm was working on, and how they might compare to what Google was up to.

Suddenly we looked at each other, as though lightning had struck us both at the same time. "It's a flaw, isn't it?" Rick said, and I nodded.

"Yup, I was thinking the same thing. The way they combine their searches isn't as efficient as it should be--as the rest of the structure is. I'll bet we could do better."

We sat at my dining room table and spent more than an hour sketching and scribbling and talking excitedly, dinner completely forgotten, while the long-suffering Lisa and Irina laughed at us and ate with the twins in the kitchen.

Rick and I got together the next day for several more hours, and by the end of the afternoon we thought we had something that might really be promising. We had a long discussion about whether to take this to our supervisor at work or keep it private and work on it only on our own, nights and weekends.

I argued that at least the birth of the idea came from work we'd done on company time, and that we needed to work out a deal with them. After some discussion, he agreed.

At the end of that week we sat down with Roger Handler, our project supervisor, to hash out an agreement. We gave him the bare bones of our idea and suggested that we'd share 20% of whatever profits resulted from our work, but that we would file for the patents and control the rest.

It took five more meetings, including two with lawyers for us and the company, but we got the deal worked-out. We agreed to let the company have 25% and to have first call on buying or licensing the software (rather than selling it to a larger company, which was the other likely possibility). They also agreed that Rick and I could use 50% of our work time on the project, but the rest of our hours had to go to our other responsibilities.

After 8 months we had our first patent in process; and after 21 months our improved search algorithm, by then protected by four different patents, was auctioned off. Not surprisingly, Google bought it--they didn't want any upstart company with a faster search engine competing with them.

I will never forget the day when I first knew that the deal, or something like it, was going to happen. It was 3-4 months before the actual sale, but Rick and I could see that what we'd created was going to make us a pile of money. I came home with flowers, a bottle of champagne and some strawberries, and said, "let's get the twins to bed--we need to do some celebrating tonight."

We ate a quick dinner, bathed and played with the twins, and had them in bed by 8:30. Then I pulled Irina into the shower and we washed and played with each other, just to get our motors running.

Then I brought the champagne and strawberries to bed. Proposing the first toast I said, "here's to my fantastic wife Irina, who is about to be a frightfully rich woman."

We'd been talking regularly about my work, of course, and Irina knew it was going well--but this was the first time I was absolutely sure that we were going to make a lot of money.

"How rich?" she teased. "Rich enough that I should stay with you? Rich enough that you're worth sharing this sexy body with?"

"I hope so," I said. "How does, say, $15 million sound--would you sleep with me for that?"

She just looked at me, her mouth wide open. "Oh my God, Tom--REALLY?" I smiled and nodded.

After a moment she poured the entire glass of champagne down her throat. Then, her eyes sparkling, she said, "okay. For $15 million I'll fuck you."

I laughed and grabbed her, and we fucked like two teenagers. As we did it we took turns whispering, "we're rich!" or "$15 million!" to one another, and giggling.

When we were done, lying together in bed, Irina stroking and kissing my chest, she said, "this is really going to happen? $15 million?"

"It could be a lot more, but yeah. Probably within two more months or so."

She nodded, looking serious. "Well, I haven't seen any money yet, but--

"I think I need to give my $15 million husband a million-dollar blowjob. After that, he can fuck me until he's had his $14 million worth."

We laughed again, and hugged, and made love for another two hours.

When the deal was finally concluded in March 2006 it was incredibly complicated, but it included an upfront payment of $120 million, plus yearly royalties based on the number of searches performed each year on Google's site. After the shares for the company and the various lawyers were deducted, Rick and I each received the staggering sum of $34 million. In addition, our royalties were likely to be $10-12 million a year each for the life of our algorithm--which would be until someone came up with a better one. That could be in one year or in five.

Either way, we were unbelievably rich. In March 2006, at the age of 28, Irina and I had more money than we could have ever dreamed of. Needless to say, my life and hers were about to change, in ways we couldn't begin to imagine.

A week after the deal was signed Rick and I hired a stretch limo and took our wives--Rick and Lisa were now married and the parents of a one year-old boy named Jake--to the fanciest restaurant in Madison. We drank too much, had a great meal, and repeatedly toasted one another and our good fortune. As Irina and I tipsily found our way to bed that night, we agreed that having good friends to share our joy with was one of the nicest parts of being happy.

****************

There were a million decisions to make, but really just two big ones: Where did we want to live and raise our children? And, did I want to keep working? It certainly wasn't a financial necessity any more.

We'd been talking about these things for weeks, ever since it became clear that we were about to be very rich, and it had taken a while to work out what we wanted. You'd be surprised how hard it is to decide what you want, when you have the money for absolutely anything! Buy a yacht and cruise around the world? Build houses in France, Italy, South Africa? Buy a penthouse apartment in New York? No problem!

In the end, though, we decided to move to California. Neither of us liked the Wisconsin weather, and we were both excited by the idea of living near the ocean. California was also an ideal place for me in terms of a future in the software business. That related to our second decision, or rather mine: I was going to take a year or so off, but after that I would probably go back to work. I liked what I did, and I couldn't see spending the rest of my life at home, however much I loved my wife and children.

I wanted Irina to go with me to California to look at houses. But at first she resisted, uncomfortable with all the new people she'd have to meet (and who would see her face). Now that we had money, though, it was easy to work something out.

By that time Elaine, our nanny, had been working for us for nearly a year. She was crazy about the children, so we were comfortable leaving them for a few days. I chartered a private plane to take Irina and me to California, and then around the state whenever we wanted. And, most important of all, I found an excellent real estate broker in LA named Angela Simon. She agreed to devote a week just to showing us around.

Once Irina was convinced she wouldn't have to see crowds of new people she came along on the trip, and we had a fantastic time. Angela showed us palatial houses from San Diego nearly to the Oregon border. Everything we looked at had a view of the Pacific, and the ones we liked best had both luxury and privacy.

In the end we settled on a large, airy four-bedroom house, very modern, on a private road in one of the canyons in Malibu, just north of Los Angeles. We were not far from where Johnny Carson had lived--not a bad neighborhood! There was a two-bedroom guesthouse in the back yard for a nanny to live in, and an excellent private school for the twins no more than ten minutes away.

Since money was no object we bought the house right away, even though we weren't ready to move yet. And I sat down with Irina to discuss another project--something I'd been thinking about for a long time.

****************

As I've said, I'd grown perfectly at ease with Irina's poor monstrous face, with its scars, its slanted eye and its horribly misshapen nose. But I also knew how much pain her appearance caused her, and how much it affected the way she led her life.

At the end of 2005, when it was becoming apparent that in a few months we'd be worth a great deal of money, I began quietly doing research on plastic surgeons. I got the name of the best guy in Madison and went to see him, bringing a few photographs of Irina. He thought he could help her, but said that there were a few high-tech people in Europe who were doing the most advanced work in the world--that's where he'd go, he said, if money were no object.

I pursued the leads he gave me, as well as a few others, and in the end had the names of three top people: two in London and one in Geneva. I wrote to them all, sending photographs and requesting their advice, and the answer I liked best by far came from Dr. Ingrid Mühlhausen in Geneva.

I did some more digging on Dr. Mühlhausen--everyone seemed to agree that she was about the world's best. So one day in April 2006, when Irina and I had had a few weeks to start getting used to the idea of how rich we were, I took her for a walk out to one of our favorite places, a quiet spot with a view of Lake Wingra.

"Baby, I want to ask you a question--I hope it won't sound silly."

She looked at me with interest, and I said, "if there were a way to--to do some more work on your face, to make it more--"

"Normal-looking?" she snapped at me. "To make me less of a freak, you mean?"

She got up and walked quickly away; surprised, I let her go. I knew this was a sensitive subject, but I still thought we'd be able to talk about it.

After about twenty minutes I watched her approach the bench I was sitting on, looking serious but calm.

"I'm sorry, Tom," she said, "for over-reacting like that."

"It's all right, honey. I know that you live with the pain of it every day. The last thing I'd ever want to do is hurt you more."

She smiled, and kissed my cheek. "I know that, and I'm sorry. Why were you asking me about it?"

Carefully, I said, "well, I really wanted to know whether you'd want to do something about it--if you could. I mean, if there turned out to be improvements in plastic surgery or something...."

I stopped, and watched her. "Have you been looking into this, Tom?"

I nodded; and she sat down abruptly on my lap, threw her arms around my neck, and started to cry noisily on my shoulder. I held her for several minutes until she grew calmer, and she sat up and looked at me. I took a tissue and gently wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"You are more than I deserve, you know that?"

I smiled and shook my head. "Sorry, Irina, you've got that one totally wrong. On my very best days I figure I'm just barely good enough to be what you deserve."

We kissed then, for a long time, and held one another.

Then she said, "okay--spill. What have you been up to?"

I told her about my research, my conversation with the doctor in Madison, and everything I'd learned about Ingrid Mühlhausen. "I hope you don't think I was presumptuous, Irina.

"And I hope you know that I love you--I adore you--just the way you are. If the idea of doing something about this angers you or upsets you, I'll--"

"No, honey," she said very quietly. "I think I might want to do it. Just give me a little time, okay?

"I've gotten so used to thinking that I will always have this face--I'm just going to need some time to get used the possibility that...that I might not have to look this way."

We stood up and strolled for a while, holding hands, not saying anything more.

****************

Ten days later we flew to Geneva for a consultation with Ingrid Mühlhausen, whom we found we liked a lot. She did a thorough examination of Irina and took numerous photographs and measurements, a process that lasted several hours. The next day we met in her office to talk.

ohio
ohio
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