Life Long

When are you too old to make logical choices?

I was reading something about honesty as it relates to trust. It hit me that time, specifically age, might play a role in full honesty and trust. For example, does a person who feels betrayed by someone close to them find it easier to walk away or start over based on age? Is it easier to forgive?

Further, how are decisions centered around trust and honesty weighed with people in long-term relationships, especially when you know each other as well as you know yourself?

This one could have easily gone in my normal writing genre - Loving Wives - but it just felt better in the Romance category.

Relax; it's just a story, people.

The house was eerily quiet. It also seemed darker, even though the lighting was the same as any other night since I'd lived here. The 'quiet' part was easy. I was sitting alone waiting for my wife to return tomorrow. I'd just come back from visiting our daughter in Phoenix, an extended trip of almost three weeks. I'm pretty sure I'd worn out my welcome and put a cramp on her love life with Barry, her fiancé, but I'd needed the time with her. Lindsey was my stepdaughter but I never saw her that way after the day seventeen years ago when we finally clicked.

I'm Devon McDermitt, husband to Mary, although that's somewhat up in the air now. We met in high school, dated, and were exclusive for all of the time until graduation. Mary and I mutually agreed to break things off for the summer and then figure out if we should continue separately or together heading into college. She was off to UCLA and I to Michigan State.

Mary never made it to California. Well, she did actually make it, but two weeks later, found out she was pregnant. We stayed friends by phone during my freshman year and her pregnancy. Her parents had made her tell them who the father was and they wanted a shotgun wedding. His parents, wanting a better life for their son, sent him off to places unknown, claiming he ran. Mary never believed that.

I often asked her why she did it. She claimed it was only once and didn't bother with a condom. She was very matter-of-fact about it. We were officially split up and she wanted to try new things. In my opinion, she got what she deserved. Other times, though, I felt bad for her. She was carrying twins and she'd be a single mother.

I stayed friends with Mary for the next two years. We weren't in a relationship, not even a long-distance phone relationship. While I did feel empathy for her, I had enough sense to understand that we both made personal decisions and that my life was heading in a different direction. I couldn't see myself raising some other guy's kids and I'm sure Mary knew me well enough to agree. On some occasions when we were reminiscing about our days together, the "L" word did come up. Neither of us tried to hide from those feelings, we just knew it wouldn't ever be the same again.

I'd even seen Mary when I was home and had met her lovely twin girls. They were too young to ever remember me.

Near the end of my junior year, I was juggling a heavy class load and had little time for social activities. Mary and I stopped talking, all very organic, and one day when I realized we hadn't spoken in over two months, I became too embarrassed to pick up the phone.

That was that. I graduated at the top of my class and ironically, I was off to California to start my career. I ended up taking a job with a fortune-fifty food manufacturer. Over the first couple of years I learned the business, how brokerages worked in our industry, and the marketing and sales side of the business.

That's where I met my wife, Claire. The details are unimportant. We dated, fell in love, married, and began our family. Somewhere around the fifth year, things changed in our marriage. Both of us worked hard. We spent a lot of time with the family we'd made - three wonderful children. As they began school, Claire and I found more ways to get involved.

For me, it was coaching sports, the leader of my son's Cub Scout troop. Claire worked a forty-hour week to my fifty-five. She still squeezed in soccer mom duties and was President of the PTA, four years running.

That, combined with church, and visiting our parents a little too often (both sets lived in different states) began to take a toll. Many years later I learned that what happened to us also happened to a lot of 'power' couples. Claire and I would have made great business partners. Unfortunately, both of us overlooked our intimacy as a couple until it was too late.

After years of using our bed only for sleeping, and with one child in college, and the others in high school, things turned towards the inevitable. The snide remarks and put-downs in front of friends, neighbors, and parents from the kid's sports, I finally put a few things together. Yes, I was a bit slow then.

The problem wasn't the lack of love or trust. I know how stupid that sounds but the first thing I noticed was the disrespect - or rather the lack of respect. When I finally started paying attention things were much worse than I could have imagined.

Claire was also in the same industry as me. She flirted shamelessly with people in my circle of influence, be they customers, fellow employees, or competitors. She forced my hand. I could accept a failed marriage, even take some of the responsibility for it. What was unacceptable was the loss of my dignity and everything I'd done within my profession. I wouldn't be made a fool of in front of people whom I'd worked with, in many cases, over a decade.

By the time I'd decided to go through her emails, I'd already contacted an attorney. I soon discovered I did not need a private investigator. It was all there. The divorce went through quickly and quietly, with only a little jockeying for this and that. Possessions mostly.

I'll admit it was hard for me to accept failure. In the recesses of my mind, I understood that both of us had let our relationship slip. There I was, a thirty-eight-year-old executive with a corner office and some late teen kids who didn't have time for their parents. I felt deserted and shit upon.

So, with my influence and money, I sowed some wild oats, a thing I hadn't partaken of in college. Looking for love in all the wrong places doesn't even begin to cover it. All my life, I'd never been much of a drinker, but during that first year after the divorce, I over-indulged.

Then, the day after New Year's, I received a connect notice on FaceBook. It was from a Mary Tomlinson, not her maiden name, but I knew who it was. I wrestled with myself for two days before answering.

Mary was as talkative on a computer as she'd once been on a phone. I'd gotten the full experience of her life from the time we'd stopped talking. She was recently divorced. It sounded a lot like mine; they grew apart as the older kids flew the coop and the younger ones became teens.

Over a few months, I found myself as enamored as when we were in high school. That didn't mean friends and family, even my eldest daughter, didn't try to stop me. I heard all the horror stories about high school sweethearts and false soulmates. None of them were able to deter me. Mary and I set up an in-person reunion for the summer.

Mary had become something of a celebrity in her tiny town. Hearing about it, I was glad it happened during her previous marriage. I could never have pulled it off. Mary had been a long-time foster parent to teenage girls. In fact, she knew right from the start that she didn't want to parent babies or small children. She was on a mission to help those girls make something of their lives. I never got up the courage to ask how much of that had to do with her getting pregnant at eighteen. Besides the fostering Mary had the twins, and then three other children with her husband. Only one of our combined children was integral to this tale so I'll leave it there.

Mary and I spent the first two days getting reacquainted ourselves and it was damned magical. We hardly ever left the bedroom unless we needed refueling. It was like no time had passed at all. We continued our daily conversations and began to talk about a permanent thing.

I invited Mary to California for four days. At first, we planned on her bringing her kids, a son, Thomas, fifteen, and her youngest, Lindsey, thirteen. They were gun-shy, electing to stay with their dad. I was a bit disappointed but decided everything in its time.

By the end of those five days, Mary asked the obvious question.

"Why would you ever leave a place like this?" she looked at me as we stood on the beach near my home. "I'll move here if you'll have me."

Preparations were made. I knew I'd have my hands full, especially with Lindsey. She was used to a great many things that were foreign to me. She'd grown up too fast, with all those wayward teen girls in the house. At the same time, I was looking forward to the fatherly gig again. I'd done pretty well the first time around.

The wedding happened six months after Mary and her kids arrived. My kids were there but they were hesitant to accept Mary. I understood and so did she.

Life goes on and my house was full again. With his love of math and science, Thomas had many possibilities for a rewarding future. He graduated from USC with a Master's in Biochemical Engineering. For his age, he was also uncanny with the stock market.

Lindsey was tougher. The colored hair and the nose ring, for example. Then she wanted gauges in her ears. Somehow, I was able to talk her out of that. I'd done research and downloaded some pics of older people in business attire with earlobes hanging to their shoulders. Somehow, we became very close despite all the confrontations.

I was promoted. In reality, I was offered a job on California's central coast or a pink slip. Lindsey was nineteen and wanted to stay behind to move in with her boyfriend. Mary and I didn't like it but we'd done a fair job setting Lindsey on the right path. Far better to let her make her own mistakes, as well as her own successes.

One year later, Lindsey was back home, as a result of a breakup, living in a new home up north, with us. Then she decided to go to nursing school in Phoenix. Mary and I became empty nesters.

It was a difficult time for me. The kids were gone. My entire industry not only in North America but worldwide was in turmoil. I'd lost my worth and value. Mary had to do something too, so she didn't go stir crazy. She found a job overseeing senior citizens in a small group home. Many of her shifts were overnights. It suited her and her caretaker characteristics. At least she didn't bring home a homeless puppy.

That lasted all of two months when she realized that her man was semi-depressed and spending his nights all alone at home. Two months later she was working part-time at a big box store.

Things changed for the better shortly after that. I was offered and accepted a job in Utah. Mary supported me all the way. The kids were scattered throughout six states and we would be saving a ton of money leaving California. During that first year of getting acclimated, we started receiving calls from friends and even some of my former clients who were also thinking about moving. Many of them were looking at Arkansas, Idaho, and Tennessee.

Mary and I were honest about the pros and cons of Utah life. To our surprise, four couples that we knew, fairly to very well, moved to our area. We began connecting as soon as they arrived and suddenly Mary and I had eight people to help fill our time.

Joe and Tina were a recently retired couple who had a healthy stock portfolio. Joe and I were instantly closer than Mary and Tina. Byron and Nancy were in their mid to late fifties and were the wilder ones in our group. I wasn't sure initially that they wouldn't become bored with us old fogies but they seemed to genuinely enjoy being part of our little band.

Ron and Barb Speer quickly became our closest friends. Ron had been my client going back nearly twenty years when I was married to my ex. Barb and Mary got on so easily that it almost seemed like they were sisters. Some of us attended church and Barb and Ron attended ours.

Life was exciting again. Mary and I still worked but had plenty to look forward to then. Cycling trails, fly fishing, days on a rental boat out on a lake, and many other things.

Four years later I was only a year or two from retiring myself. My wife could have retired already being a year older than me, but she liked keeping busy. Then we got some very bad news. Barb was sick, with an inoperable brain tumor. All the couples rallied around our friends and Mary spent the most time with them.

I made it a point to get Ron out of the house whenever possible and the others were there to attend to Barb. It took a bit, but I was able to get Ron to open up about his life, thus getting his mind off the obvious troubles. It turned out that Ron was an accomplished guitarist and in earlier years actually wrote a few country songs. He'd also worked in Hollywood editing films of the 1960s and 70s. We became even closer those few months before Barb passed away. In the following months, Mary and I were either at Ron's house making dinner, or he came to ours. It took a while to get Ron back in the swing of things, living life again, but eventually, he became his old self.

But the trouble wasn't finished yet. Mary called me at work around ten-thirty on a Thursday morning. Ron had been in a car accident and was taken to the hospital. He was in surgery. I left work and rushed over. By the time I arrived, most of our friends were there.

Things weren't good. Ron wasn't in his pick-up. He'd begun Door Dashing as a means to getting back out into the world. To save gas he took that damned little Kia of his. The accident turned that thing into a pretzel. First responders had a tough time getting him out of the wreck. Because of the prolonged ordeal, Ron lost his left leg and arm. The leg was saved above mid-thigh and his arm near the elbow. His left hip also needed replacement and they needed someone to sign off on that since Ron was unconscious and already in surgery for his limbs.

Mary and I had power of attorney, thank God. After they gave us the standard 'over-sixty' laundry list of possible complications, we signed immediately. Ron was in very good health and not overweight by even a few pounds.

He would be a good candidate for prosthetics but that would be down the road. His prognosis for recovery was positive but lengthy. He would be in the hospital for four or more weeks, depending, and would get physical therapy once he could get out of bed. Convalescing past that would be very problematic if we weren't prepared to send Ron to some facility.

Mary was a mess in the days following the accident. I didn't see it as anything forlorn, she'd always cared about people deeply. Her kids, the fosters, The folks at the senior home, and even that damned Pomeranian that was hit by a car in front of our house back in California. He'd died quite a while back, but for six years he was a pesky little shit to me.

Finally, on Sunday, she seemed less depressed and anxious. I made us a nice breakfast. We'd been mostly at the hospital for the past three days.

"Devon," she began, "what are we going to do about Ron?" I recognized her soft approach.

"I don't think we can answer that just yet," I replied honestly. "It's too soon. We've seen him awake for only four or five minutes."

Mary was thoughtful for a bit. She was always deliberate, thinking problems through.

"We can't send him to some home, honey," she said with compassion. "It would kill him."

I knew what she was saying and had a pretty good idea of what she was asking, too. "You want him to convalesce here?" I asked. She met my eyes hopefully.

So we did what we always did, we worked as a team to solve the issue. During breakfast and for hours after, I played devil's advocate and she made notes. Two pots of coffee and a quarter of a binder later and we'd laid most of it out. A few things remained.

"I suppose," she said, "we can enlist some of the others to stay here with him so I can still work part-time. Or I can try to restructure my hours to work around your schedule."

I grabbed my laptop and fired it up, going to my Fidelity account and then, to my retirement health dashboard. I smiled as she came and sat on my lap looking at what I was doing.

"What's that?" she quizzically asked.

"That," I said drawing it out, "was supposed to be a surprise. As you can see, we're ninety-nine percent to our retirement goal and don't run out of money until 2068, when we'd be in our mid-nineties. You don't need to work unless you absolutely want to. You're old enough to go on Medicare or I can add you to my insurance for the next year or so."

Mary studied the chart, then she threw her arms around me elated.

"That's it!" she proclaimed. "I'm retiring and Ron can move in here until he's healed."

I pointed out how long that would take. Mary seemed perplexed by my statement so I clarified. "I know you want to do everything you can to help him just like I do, but I want to make sure you understand all the ramifications before you jump in."

Mary wasn't some airhead. She'd likely been thinking about most of the things during our morning and afternoon powwow. She waited patiently for me to lay it out. Plus she did that kind of work for a bit so she knew.

"One," I stated, "we live in a two-bedroom, nine-hundred and eighty square foot home. His new room is going to be as close to ours as most people's closets..."

"All the better," she butted in. "In case something happens we are right there."

I put my hand up to stop her from thinking I wanted her to counter all my points. She got off my lap at that and sat down in her seat. I'd never done something like that with her before.

"Two," I restarted. "The only two ways in or out of our house involve three steps. You'll need to figure that out so he can go to the hospital or PT. We may need to build a ramp."

"Three," I held up the third finger. "He'll be here three months at least and the first two he'll need constant care. You and I will have no alone time whatsoever and no away time either."

She gave me that look as if I was being selfish in my predilections. Mary also hesitated to think things through again.

"We'll have our time," she declared confidently. "I'll recruit the other women to spend a night or two, once each month so we can get away and reconnect."

She was convinced and excited and I was neither. We talked some more, but in the end, it was the right choice to let him stay, even if I was an insufferable bastard. At the hospital later that evening, and after talking to Ron's attending doctor, we told the others our plan. Tina and Nancy thought we also might be able to recruit a few people from church. Both were concerned that, besides getting away once a month we should schedule time out like dinner and a movie every week.

Other suggestions were offered and we left feeling better about our mission of mercy.

At our age, Mary rarely initiates sex anymore, but she attacked me that night. Afterward, I asked her about it.

"What," she asked, "you didn't like it?"

"Of course, I liked it," I replied. "Just curious what spurred it, is all."

"Well," she said thoughtfully, "our 'you and me' time is about to take a pretty good hit."

I frowned at her. "Don't worry, baby," she giggled. "It's only for a short while." Her idea of 'short' and mine were a bit different. Plus, recruiting our friends mostly meant for us to reconnect emotionally, not necessarily physically.

Ron's recovery started slowly but toward the end of his hospital stay, things got better in leaps and bounds. I think a switch had been flipped. One that likely had him thinking about joining his deceased wife instead of living. Something or someone got him refocused on living his life. Like Mary and I, our friends visited often.