Drifting Away Part one.
Catcher78 all rights reserved
These is my story and cannot be copied
I am thirty six years old. I am Callie Owens. I have red hair and freckles, I'm five foot six and weigh one hundred and thirty five pounds, borderline voluptuous. I've been married twice, widowed due to Afghanistan and my current husband. After I lost Dave, I got some insurance money and went to school and went back and lived with my parents and went to college at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington. I was twenty five and had two girls. Mom and dad helped me buy a distressed home for a song and it's paid off now.
My dad Thomas was in his late forties and mom Mary was forty four. He is a dentist and mom works in his office which is on our property and the home is back a hundred feet or so. I have a younger sister who was Julie twenty two and brother Tommy, who was eighteen, when I lost Dave.
My girls were four and identical twins. They are fifteen now. I remarried after I finished my degree at Central. Bachelor's in history, I had got teacher's certificate.
Tim taught geology at Central, while I taught history at the high school and was assistant girl's tennis coach. Both girl's were playing tennis and were entering their sophomore year. Tina was left handed and Angie was right handed and were three inches taller than me at five foot nine. They had good court coverage because of their height and their stride more than speed helped with that. I could still beat them at forty yards, four hundred meters, not so much.
I wanted to have some more kids with Tim, but he said two was perfect and Angie and Tina adored him. Geology at Central was the big deal and Tim attended symposiums and did lots of field work. This summer he was part of a team doing field work in Eastern Oregon and into Idaho, looking at the historical flow of the Snake River. When they presented it filled the auditorium and there were YouTube videos, a seriously big deal.
He also taught night school during the year. We had not fucked since May and there were some phone calls and typical family chats during the summer dig, I realized last night he was having an affair. I could not remember when he had last said that he loved me. It was ten at night and I was watching this stupid rom com on Netflix called Dash and Lilly in our bedroom. Dash's dad was a serial cheater. The demeanor of the actor was just like Tim. I got up and started rummaging in his chest of drawers looking for clues. In the bottom drawer I found a box of condoms, the package said they were old, but it was within the time of our marriage and I was on the pill. It was buried under some hunting clothes.
My brother Tommy worked for the Washington State Patrol and I texted him and asked if he was still up. He was and I asked if I could come see him now. He was living in a cabin at the back of our parent's property. His brief marriage ended when had been shot, not seriously, but she said she could not live that fear and though she loved him, she was gone.
I drove an old rebuilt 1990 Isuzu Trooper, SUV four by four, auto locking hubs, five speed, tuned exhaust and AC.
I knocked on the door and he opened the door. He gave me a hug and asked after the girls and immediately wanted to know what was wrong. I told him that I was pretty sure Tim was cheating on me, the condom stuff and our dead sex life and he never expressed his love for me.
He said, "Do you still love him?"
I said, "I do, but it feels as if we've drifted apart mostly, because he's gone. Even when he's here he teaches nigh classes. He never goes to Mass. I have to call him.
"Is there a private investigator I could hire?"
Tommy said, "There are two down in Yakima."
"Can you set a meeting for me?"
He nodded yes and said, "I will let you know. Can I make you a drink?"
He made us each a double whiskey sour and halfway through the drink, I started sobbing and he picked me up and held me. I finally stopped and said, "I know it's true, I can feel it in my core."
I stopped calling or texting Tim, to test whether he noticed that I had stopped and if he did he did neither in return.
Tommy apparently not only set up the meeting with the investigator, but paid for it.
He called and said, "Hey can you call in sick and meet me here tomorrow, the investigator will be here."
I said, "Oh good I want him to get started!"
Tommy said, "He's done and has the report."
"What, I mean, how?"
Tommy said, "I owed you a favor or two for being the best big sister a guy could have."
I said, "Sure, I can do that, but I won't be able to sleep now, fuck! Do you know?
Tommy for the love of God, tell me."
"Callie I don't know, they would not transmit anything electronically, for fear it would be hacked. Come over early I'll have some stuff from Vinman's."
I said, "By the end of the day I'll be heart broken and fat. Wonderful."
I did sleep a little bit and was at Tommy's at eight thirty in the morning. He had chocolate eclairs and apple fritters. He used an old wood fired stove with six burners and he had a steel percolator, with one of the glass bubbles on top.
My prediction was right. I ate two fritters and one éclair, with two cups of super dark coffee and a bit of cream. It was nine thirty and he had some old jazz fusion playing, Pat Metheny.
I said, "If there is nothing, I'm going I'm going to see a shrink. Maybe there is some PTSD from Dave's death or something and it's coming out."
"But not if there is something," asked Tommy.
"What's the point? Our marriage has been dead for a very long time. I probably won't say a thing to him that I know. Angie and Tina deserve that. I'll let them finish high school and I think both of them might get athletic scholarships to somewhere warm, which would be good for them, especially to open the pool for potential husbands. Once that's all put together, I'll file and move on. Right now, it's more important to me that I'm not nuts."
He said, "You've thought this out?"
"It's my home, I had it before we got, you know, he has not been to Mass since I don't know when. He used to be regular as clock work."
There was a knock on the door. Tommy got up and walked to the door and opened it.
A tall Hispanic man came in and Tommy and he hugged and slapped each other's back. I was wringing my hands, Tommy said, "Callie this is Dennis Martinez, we used to work together and he was wounded and had to leave WSP. Dennis this is my sister Callie."
He came over and shook my hand. He had a big manilla envelope. I felt like I was going to throw up, there'd be no envelope if he wasn't fucking around. I turned and stumbled but was able to sit down.
"Dennis, can I give you some coffee?"
He was looking at me and looked sad, but he said, "Sure Tom."
They both sat down and he took a sip from his coffee and put it down. He handed the envelope to Tommy and said, "Mrs. Owens, there is a report in there and pictures and a DVD. Do not watch them or look at them or even read the report unless Tommy's with you, maybe ever. Your husband is very active sexually. We see no affairs, but he is a bi-sexual and fucks student's mostly, boys and girls. Your entire marriage."
