Was I Strong Enough? Part 1
Copyright Catcher78 all rights reserved
Author's notes: These are my stories and nobody can copy them or sample them or use them. This is a complete work of fiction. There are aspects of rank infidelity, sociopathic behavior and abject loneliness. There is also talk about suicidal ideation so if you're there or on the edge of there talk to a doctor or your minister and get help. I did.
We had married young driven by different family dynamics, mostly everyone in my family was dead and she and her sister had daddy issues that I knew about indirectly, but could care less about now.
I had dropped our youngest son off for his first year at Lewis & Clark State college a division two baseball factory. I was driving a rebuilt 1990 Isuzu Trooper, a very stout four banger SUV, Motor Trends off road vehicle of the year a long time ago, thirty four years ago, but it was rough, durable and pretty quick.
My sons were Nick who I'd just dropped off, Joe and my daughter McGee. Joe and McGee were long out of the house and now so was Nick.
My name is Teddy Benedict and I am married to Hanna Benedict. She had not been able to come as she was busy working on Saturday for the new budget or something. It was the middle of August and bull shit, of course.
We had left on Thursday and rolled in midday Friday and we spent the evening and stayed at a Days Inn. We had some incredible soft tacos from a Taco truck, beef pot roast and lamb and fresh trout. We got milk shakes, Nick got a banana and honey, I got a blueberry.
We were back in the Days Inn and I said, "Why don't you find a movie or something, we have to get you over there by nine to check you in and get a dorm assignment and a roommate, then you get to formally meet your coach.
Nick said, "Dad can we talk?"
I turned and looked at him and shrugged my shoulders. Nick was the one that made the whole family laugh and stopped tension, so this troubled me. He'd gone to some dances, but fuck if I knew what he was going to tell me, was he going to tell me he was gay, if so I was going to accept him and see what he wanted to do.
He took a deep breath and said, "McGee and Joe saw mom at a club in Bremerton Thursday night with her boss and followed them to the hotel up past Walmart on top of the hill by where our doctors are located. They took pictures, I'm going to forward them to you."
I slid off the bed and went over to the mini bar and took out all the bourbon bottles. There was a bucket on the chest of drawers and I asked him to get some ice from the thing in the hallway outside our room.
My dilemma was that I knew and had known of her cheating for almost twenty years.
I was not sure exactly when it started, but I knew the first time I caught her. She stood me up at a lunch then did not come back from wherever she went until I had gone home on a ferry and she called at eight forty five. Which meant she fucked somebody for over eight hours.
I heard this on our home voice mail and let it go to tape. She caught a late boat and had to get a taxi home. She was pissed and yelled at me.
I said, "We were supposed to have lunch today, you stood me up."
She fired back, "Like I'm going to say let me call my husband?"
So I said, "So I embarrass you?"
She looked away and I knew that I did embarrass her, which given that she was pure white trash which was ironic I guess. Given that she was gorgeous and was my whole world, she broke my heart. It was about money of course.
I had gone to school on some VA related money and some money from my grandmother. By the time I was making serious money the only reason I was around was because of Nick.
About two years after McGee was born I'd hired an investigator through my attorney Levi Feinberg and she was hooking up with a doctor at this clinic she now worked for and she was fucking her old boss. Videos, pictures and transcripts that were not remotely flattering to me. She claimed to me that she was still nursing McGee and had no time for sex and was not interested.
Nick was back with the ice and I said, "I thought she was done. I was going to leave but then she was pregnant with McGee. I didn't know for sure that McGee was mine. When you were older I got paternity tests and you're all mine. So I think that I'll have to have a talk with her."
Nick said, "Divorce, "with an eyebrow raise.
I nodded yes, and said, "We have not had relations in over seven years, so yes I am sick of the whole betrayal and contempt for me, but I really don't care anymore and I want to have a life with what time I have left."
"For what it's worth, one of my concerns is not disrupting your guy's lives."
He said, "Well on that note, she had an affair with my little league coach, Zac's step dad and everyone but you knew. Kids would see them at Zac's house."
"No I knew, again stupidly I thought I was protecting you guys."
"What about you, no revenge events?"