The Third Time's the Charm

"It's not just me you'd give up," she said. "Remember when you asked me to marry you? I told you that I was a package deal. If you married me, you married my kids too. If you divorce me, you lose them too. So you have to choose, Dale. You can choose to forgive me and try to work this out. I promise you, that I'll make you glad you forgave me. In time you won't even remember this. Or you can choose to walk away from me, our kids, and our family. You can choose to be a husband and a father, with a wife who loves you. Or you can choose to be a lonely old man with nothing but your rules and your morality to keep you warm at night."

Neither of us was really hungry after that. I left money including a generous tip and left the restaurant.

* * * * * *

Brenda

The meeting at the restaurant had stunned me. I had reacted by attacking. The best defense is a good offense after all. I felt awful about doing it, but I had to use what I had to do to keep my man. It sounded funny to me. I had never been able to keep any man during my life. Hell I'd spent most of my life just trying to get them; whether they were mine, single, or someone else's. I did everything I could just to offer them the temporary usage of that furry patch between my legs. And most of them were gone almost immediately after getting it.

Sure they often came back occasionally, but only two of them had ever wanted it or me on a regular basis. Andy just wanted to drop by and get his dick wet occasionally. Over the last few years, he showed up once or twice a year. It always started out as a casual thing, just running into the ex who happened to be in town. It always ended up with us in bed. And I knew it was wrong, but it never became a problem until we got caught.

Andy was no threat to us. Dale had to see that. After I had been with Andy, my guilt drove me to give Dale even more sex than normal if that was possible. It also always made me realize just how blessed I was to have Dale in my life.

Of course, my threat against him was groundless. My kids were adults. There is no way I could tell them what to do or who to do it with. And anyone trying to keep Shannon away from Dale would be in trouble. I was sure that I couldn't do it. I didn't think anyone could. And Andy interacting with my older two, had done nothing but convince them of how much better Dale had treated us over the years. Everything I said at the restaurant had been a desperate bluff.

Over the next few days nothing happened. I didn't call Dale, though I longed to, because I had to give him time to make his choice. I hoped against hope that his love for me and his love for our family would win out against his stupid male pride.

I missed my house. I missed my life. But more than anything else, I missed my husband. As much as I was grateful for a place to stay, I was beginning to hate being in Jeff and Mindy's tiny house.

Anyway, one morning about four days after the meeting in the restaurant, Mindy came into the kitchen to get me.

"Brenda, there's a woman here to see you," she said. I walked out into the living room and saw a young woman sitting on the sofa. She smiled at me and exposed a mouth full of teeth so white that she could have done tooth paste commercials.

I hated her on sight. She was one of those tall blond types that seemed to defy biology. Her hair was very long and wavy with a shade that was too perfect to be natural. Her eyes were so blue they made me dizzy. Her boobs weren't huge, but they looked to be slightly too big for her frame. And her legs were so long that they seemed unnatural. Then she stood up and I could see the way that the whole package fit together and hated the bitch even more.

She reached out to shake my hand and then asked me my name. When I told her who I was, she pulled out a small card and looked from it to me. She cracked her gum several times and nodded her head. Then she handed me the card that I recognized as my own driver's license.

Then she reached into her slim metallic briefcase and handed me a stack of papers cracking her gum again.

"You've been served, Brenda," she said warmly. Then she cracked her gum again, picked up her briefcase and headed for the door,

"Served what?" I asked. I looked at the sheaf of papers and realized that Dale had made his choice. Tears rolled down my cheeks and my pain went off of the charts. I didn't understand any of the papers. I realized then that I needed a lawyer. The stack of papers contained information that would allow me to contact Dale's attorney.

I took a chance and called the number on the card. I spoke with a woman that I assumed was the attorney's secretary. I was wrong. The woman was Dale's attorney.

She was actually a little miffed about me mistaking her for a secretary. I began to wonder what she looked like, and why she was so eager to help Dale divorce me.

Things got really snippy on the phone between us. I'm not sure whether it was her blatant sarcasm, or my downright hostility, but by the time she told me for the third time that she couldn't help me, I just slammed the phone down.

"Are you okay?" asked Mindy.

"No, I'm not," I told her. "Dale has some husband stealing bitch as a lawyer. I may have to track her down and kick her ass. Maybe I'll kick his ass too. He knows how I feel about other women hanging all over my man. I went through that shit with Andy. Every time I turned around, he had some new waitress hanging on his arm. And he always claimed that they were only friends."

"Has Dale ever cheated on you?" she asked. I just started laughing.

"Of course not," I laughed. "Dale loves me like there's no tomorrow."

"Yet, you cheated on him," she said. She just shook her head. "Doesn't it seem kind of ironic for you to be jealous of him hiring a woman as his lawyer, after what you did?"

She left the room with me still thinking about what she'd said.

For the rest of the day, it just felt as if I was floating above the ground and not walking on it. Nothing seemed real. I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that Dale and I weren't just having an argument. He was going to court in order to legally remove himself from my life.

This was also my second divorce. When I divorced Andy, it had been fun. It was just a legal formality I'd gone through so I could marry Dale. Andy had signed some papers. He'd been glad to. The papers gave him the freedom to marry someone else if he wanted to. Or at least to list himself as single and have it stand up in court. He had also been able to sign papers so that he was no longer responsible for child support for our three kids. Not that he'd ever given me a cent anyway, but now he was no longer legally required to do so.

I was surprised later on that afternoon when Shannon called me. I got the impression from talking to her that Dale had gotten her to check on me. He'd probably known that the papers were going to be served on me that day and wanted to make sure I was okay.

What angered me was that my twenty one year old daughter knew more about the divorce procedure and what we were doing than I did. Shannon was the one who told me that I should get a lawyer of my own. She was also the one who told me that Dale hadn't canceled any of my credit cards or accounts. She told me that until we agreed to a settlement, I had full usage of the household accounts and that Dale expected me to use some of that money to get myself a lawyer.

Shannon explained to me what Dale was going through and what he wanted. He wasn't trying to get revenge on me or humiliate me. According to her, he loved me just as much as ever, but I had just broken his heart. Dale, on his own, had spoken to a counselor.

He wasn't angry at me. He had no intention of filing for the divorce under adultery or anything that would shame me. Michigan is a no fault state. He just didn't want to be married to me anymore. He would keep the house, since it had been in his family for three generations. He was also keeping his lake front property because it had also been his long before we married. Everything including cash and investments that had accrued since we got married would be split fifty/ fifty. As soon as we made the settlement agreement, Dale would write me a check. He preferred to just give me one check as opposed to regular payments so I could use the money to find a place to live. But also because he just wanted me out of his life.

I started crying right there on the phone. It was very clear that Dale and Shannon had talked about this a lot. Unless I pulled a rabbit out of my hat, I was going to lose the only man who had truly loved me over a fuck with a guy who didn't give a damn about me or his own children.

That was when I came up with my plan. It was really simple and it was all I had. So I went with it. Lauren was the first and she was really easy. I just convinced her that Dale was really broken up by the divorce. I convinced her that I had initiated the divorce because Dale wouldn't forgive me. I told her that Dale needed some space for a while, so the best thing she could do would be to give him some breathing room to adjust to being alone.

Jeff and especially Mindy were harder to convince. She kept suggesting weekend outings so Dale could spend time with the girls because as she kept telling us, he loved them and they loved him, whether he and I were married or not.

The hardest nut to crack was of course Shannon. And it didn't work. So I went to plan B. I told Shannon that she had to pick a side. Either she could choose to be on the side with her family, or she could side with Dale. I told Lauren, Jeff, and Mindy a complete lie. I convinced them that Dale and Shannon had been fooling around and that was the real reason that he was dumping me. It was shaky, but a man who loved a much younger woman as much as Dale loved Shannon would always raise some eyebrows. And it also helped to get them even more on my side.

For three weeks, Dale and I worked out the details of the divorce. Except for losing the two most important things in my life, namely my house and Dale himself, I had to admit that he was very generous. The problem was that it simply wasn't enough. I was still crying over that man almost every night. Of course the fact that Lauren often told Jeff and Mindy about my tears didn't hurt my case any.

My plan was simple but effective. It was also very tenuous and ultimately doomed to failure. Looking back on it, I guess I'm surprised that it worked for as long as it did.

I was kind of like Wile E. Coyote in that I didn't see that the only way my plan could succeed was if I was able to keep most of my family members separated. Or at least keep Shannon and Dale from talking to the other three. And my daughter Shannon is like a force of nature.

As soon as she spoke to her sister, Lauren, she got pissed. In less than an hour, she had driven home from college and had Lauren, Jeff, and Mindy assembled at Jeff and Mindy's place. Shannon herself was the last to arrive. As soon as she got there she started screaming. I had a bad feeling about things when she pulled into the driveway and left her car door open. Both she and Dale treated their Mustangs as if they were golden.

Shannon was like Dale in that neither of them cursed very often. So when they did everyone took notice. At the same time Shannon had my tendency to yell a lot. So when Shannon got really pissed, people tended to run away.

"What the hell is wrong with you people?" she yelled as soon as she stepped into the room. "Lauren, I thought I asked you to check on Dad," she said. "All you needed to do was to pick up the God damned phone once or twice a day. Seeing as how he bought that friggin' iPhone for you, it shouldn't be that much of a problem."

"But..." began Lauren, looking at me. I could feel the way the wind was blowing so I figured that getting the hell out of there was a good idea.

"Mindy," hissed Shannon at her sister in law. Even though my daughter in law was older and larger, she shrank before the fury of my pissed off youngest.

"Mom told us to stay away from Dad because he needed time to get over the divorce," gushed Mindy. "And she told us that he had dumped her for ... you!"

Shannon threw her head back and started laughing. Then she understood what I had tried to do and turned on me.

"Mom, sit your ass down or your cushy divorce is over," she yelled.

I knew that I was in trouble so I complied.

"Mother," she said in a very soft voice. "Why would you do something like this?"

"I ... it ..." I began stuttering.

"You tried to arrange it so Daddy would think that none of us were on his side in this fucked up situation that YOU caused!" she said. "Then you tried to insinuate that Daddy and I were doing something wrong. You wanted everyone to think that he dumped you for me. So maybe that way he could be the bad guy here and everyone would forget what you did."

"Look, kids," I began. "I know that "technically" what I did was wrong. It was WAY wrong. I probably crossed several lines. But I don't care. I was trying to save my marriage. I would do literally anything to save my marriage. So if I fucked up ... so what! I just figured that Dale loves all of you guys. I just thought that he loves you all so much that maybe if I took you guys away from him for a while, he'd take me back to get you back too."

Shannon just looked at me for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few seconds. Then her anger melted and her face softened. She came closer to me and the tension in the room seemed to evaporate.

"Mom, I love you," she said. "I really do. But I love my Daddy just as much. But this time you're as wrong as you could possibly be. You're so far wrong that you're right. You told Lauren, Jeff, and Mindy that Daddy needed space. And you were actually right. But he doesn't need space from us. He needs us to wrap ourselves around him and make sure that he knows he's still a big part of this family. The person that he needs space from is you, Mom."

"No, you're full of shit!" I screamed. I looked at Lauren for help. "See I told you. She wants Dale for herself."

Shannon composed herself and sat down beside me. "Mom I know you're upset, but let's talk about this," she said.

"If I let him, Daddy would torture himself to death. He loves you so much, but every time he sees you, it rips him in two," she said.

"But why?" I whined. "I didn't intend to hurt him."

"But you did anyway," She said. "Mom, Lauren told me how upset you were and how crazy you acted when you found out that Daddy's lawyer was a woman. You never saw the woman in person. And you never even saw her with Daddy, but you started an argument with her over the phone. Can you imagine how he feels?"

"It's different," I said.

"Yes it is," she said. "Daddy actually had to walk in and see you having sex with someone in his own bed. Every time he sees you, he remembers that. As much as he loves you, he can't wipe that out of his mind."

"Oh God," I sobbed. It suddenly hit me, what I had done. I began to doubt that I could get Dale back. I had ruined my family. I saw images flash across my mind. I saw Dale and me, holding hands on camping trips or to amusement parks as the kids were growing up. I saw us together at graduations and at Jeff's wedding to Mindy. I remembered how nervous we were at the births of our grandchildren and how ecstatic we were when the little ones were brought home safe and sound. Lately one of our favorite things to do was to all get together at the cottage and have fun at the lake. I'd had a truly idyllic life with a man who worshipped me and I'd thrown it all away.

"Mom, I'm not saying that this is the end for the two of you," said Shannon. "But I think that you have to give him some time. After a while, his pain won't be as sharp and maybe you guys can become friends again. Mom it's going to take a while before he trusts you again. But from there, who knows. Just give it some time," she said.

The next few weeks were a busy time for all of us. Though it broke my heart doing it, I signed the divorce papers. The lawyer I hired was a waste of time because all she did was took one look at the offer Dale had made me and told me to sign it. Dale as I'd already known had been very generous. He had allowed not only for me to keep my car, but he would continue paying for it until it was paid off. The only thing I wanted that he wouldn't give me was the cancellation of the divorce.

The funniest thing about it all was that with the money I got in the settlement, I was in no hurry to look for a job. And when you consider what I did for living arrangements I made out like a bandit.

Instead of finding a house or an apartment, I moved in with Lauren.

Since Dale was paying half of her rent and I was paying the other half, my daughter made out like a fat rat.

Towards the end of the summer, a few weeks after our divorce was final, something happened. I noticed that Lauren was really excited. She told me that they were having a big barbecue and the whole family was going to be there. My heart sank. My favorite thing that we did was to go out to the cottage and grill and just relax.

Shannon came by early the next morning to pick up Lauren. They were both wearing swimsuits with shorts over them. I had to admit that my girls were beautiful.

I made coffee, because I just didn't feel like eating anything. I sat down to drink it. I had one of our family albums so I could look at some of our pictures. Someone knocked at the door loudly, interrupting me. I figured it was one of Lauren's friends.

"She's not here," I yelled through the door. The person on the other side knocked again. I opened the door prepared to let my anger fly, until I noticed that it was Dale standing there.

We looked at each other silently for a couple of minutes before he spoke. "Wanna go to a picnic?" he asked. I just started crying. He hugged me and I felt better than I had in all of the time, nearly six months since he had caught me with Andy.

"Come on get your stuff," he said. "The kids are already on their way. Shannon is going to try to grill." I ran around the apartment as if I had wings on my feet. I grabbed clothes and went back to the living room. He looked me up and down and informed me that we were staying overnight and driving back the next afternoon. So I had to grab more clothes and something to sleep in, as well.

During the drive up to the lake, I felt as if I was reborn. Everything I saw seemed special and more alive. I even loved the loud droning sound of his Mustang's engine. It was like out first date all over again.

When we got to the lake, Dale pulled in beside Shannon's Mustang. We looked around the area at about the same time that the kids saw us. Mindy came up first holding the girls' hands and stopped short when she saw me get out of the car. At the same time, Shannon came around the side of the house with a scowl on her face.

"Dad, how do you turn this grill on?" she asked. "I can't find the..." The words died in her mouth as she noticed me.

No one said a word until Dale spoke.

"It's the end of the summer," he said. "We're supposed to be having our last big weekend barbecue, with the entire family here, right? It just seemed like we should have the ENTIRE family here."

"Okay," said Jeff. "Let's do some fishing."

"No kay," spat Mindy. "Someone has to watch the girls while we cook. I figured Dad could take them out on the boat while you cut some wood for a bonfire later."

"I didn't come up here to work," said Jeff.

"Then I guess you didn't come up here to eat," she said. Jeff started grumbling and she kissed him before he headed off to the shed where we kept dry wood.

I went into the kitchen to help Mindy prepare the side dishes, while Lauren and Shannon stood around the grill. After twenty minutes, Mindy started taking pictures of them with her phone. Then we explained that it was a charcoal grill, so there was no turning it on.