Since Chapter 1 was First Time, this one will be too. Subsequent chapters will likely be in Romance, with that whole theme of "drama, risk, and happily ever after" -- or as close to it as can be gotten.
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Some marriages end through adultery; others, through spendthrift ways. Still other marriages end because two college friends find they're more compatible as friends than as a married couple; into this category fell my own ten-year marriage to Caroline Kendall. We'd met through mutual friends in Lincoln in the spring semester of 1982; I was a junior, majoring in finance with a subspecialty in accounting, whereas she had been a freshman majoring in the biggest field to hold her interest and her heart since she was seven -- elementary music education. That fall, we began to keep company, and started a more serious relationship once I began my master's program a year later; in 1985, with a master's in my hand and a bachelor's in hers, we got engaged, though she would not agree to set any kind of date until she got within a semester of completing her own master's. Once she got that close, though, we had our date; she graduated on a Saturday morning in May 1987, and we were married that afternoon.
During the two years between her master's and mine, I worked at a firm in downtown Lincoln, long enough to establish credentials before moving with Caroline (and her master's) to Wyandotte, a fairly well-off Kansas-side suburb of Kansas City. She'd taken a position in the Lower School at St Mary's Episcopal, on the Missouri side. Within four years of that move, we had two sons -- Danny, Jr (whom everyone calls DJ, even now), and Joe, whom we named after two of the few men in history for whom quantity was quality: Joseph Haydn, he of the hundred and four symphonies, and Johann Sebastian "Needs No Introduction" Bach.
Even though she did well in it, and continues to do, it was Caroline's own career that came between us, because her chosen occupation can actually be made interesting and fun, especially for young children. Think about it -- everyone knows, or can learn, of the great composers of Vienna, Austria. The great graduate-degree-holding CPAs of Vienna, Illinois? If you meet any of those, let me know.
Additionally, I was able to get along well in the West Omaha circles Caroline moved in, those of the upper middle class and better exposure to her types of music and literature. She, however, didn't seem to fit in with visiting a country town like Ashwood, but certainly not for lack of effort on her part. Now, please don't misread me; she got along great with my parents, while they lived, and also with my brother Chuck and sister-in-law Dawn. The town's majority interests, though, simply didn't run toward her preference of musical and literary classics. That's no one's fault -- it's merely how it was.
So, as you can see, we weren't completely compatible to start with, and were becoming less so over time. While I was disappointed when Caroline asked for a divorce in the summer of 1997, I was at least thankful that she had had the honor and dignity to do so when she did, instead of either of us taking a lover and then asking. (When I had asked if she did have someone else, she smiled, albeit sadly and sardonically, and said "All the man I'm gonna need"; she then held up three of her right fingers in Darth Vader's Force-choking gesture.)
Additionally, though Caroline would be the boys' chief custodial parent, I kept close for scholastic activities and other such, for as long as I could; she and I were both determined that our sons would see more of me than merely my signature on a child support check. For the sake of that closeness, I would have been content to live the rest of my days in some weekly-rent motel along Highways 24-and-40 toward Lawrence and Topeka if that's what had been needed, but Caroline wouldn't countenance such a living arrangement. "You're worth more than that," she said; the light of encouragement in her blue eyes put a determination into my own. (Genetics came easily for us; since Caroline and I both have brown hair and blue eyes, so do our boys.)
I had a midsize apartment for up to a year after our divorce was final; after that, I began to look for a small house in proximity, but fortune was not completely on my side. Unbeknownst to anyone but myself and God, I began looking somewhere outside the Kansas City metro, somewhere familiar -- and there met with success.
At first, Caroline was disappointed that I was going as far from her and the boys as I was -- west central Omaha. DJ and Joe, however, only cared about one word: Nebraska. They were already looking forward to vacationing to see me, living as closely as I would to their Uncle Chuck and Aunt Dawn (who lived, then as now, in South Lincoln), to all four of their grandparents (my parents in Ashwood, and Mr and Mrs Kendall in northwest Omaha), and to their godparents (my and Caroline's respective best friends, who had introduced us in 1982 and were now themselves a married couple in Omaha). Besides, if any emergency should arise, I needed only to get on the interstate, and I would be at their sides in three hours. I tried to console Caroline and myself with these facts, but such a distance hurt all our hearts, and would for some time to come.
The die being thus cast, however, I said my "it's not really goodbye, it's 'until later'"s to Caroline and the boys, renewed my Nebraska CPA license, and was settled in my new life soon enough. All was going decently, I thought, until shortly into January 1999.
It seemed an ordinary phone call from my parents, until Mom slipped something in. "Someone from here in town's looking for you, asked about you... something about your twentieth reunion?" She was right on that score and such a date, but I only told her to go on.
"Sweet girl, you remember her, don't you?"
Not being interested in suspense, I urged Mom on. "Who?"
It's not often that a name could warm my heart so, yet simultaneously make my blood run so cold -- but this name did: "Melanie Clayton."
It took me three seconds to find my voice again, but once I did, I tried not to stammer. "Yeah, I remember her... you can give her my number if you need to."
After exchanging "thank you"s and "I love you, talk to you soon"s, I hung up and sat at my kitchen table, my mind racing. I hadn't seen Melanie or heard from her since that morning we shared in the basement so long ago, but she still had part of my heart, and a spot in the back of my memory. Caroline knew about Melanie, even if only in passing; during our engagement, she had been curious (as any young woman might be) whether I had ever been with anyone else, and so I came clean with her -- but until Mom's phone call, that single morning in the Claytons' basement had been the extent of Melanie's sexual involvement in my life.
The following Saturday morning, my phone rang. My heart leapt up at the caller ID, and I answered slowly and deliberately. "Hello?"
Absent the influence of twenty passing years, the voice was still as happy as I had remembered. "Danny?"
"Melanie -- great to hear from you!" And so it was.
We said our "how ya doin'"s, after which she came to the point. "You know why I called, right?"
My mind rolled over the numerous possibilities, landing at last on what Mom had told me earlier in the week. "Twenty years, can you believe it?"
"Yeah, I'm coordinating the reunion -- you free to make it?" She pointed out that she had in mind to schedule for July; since most of us Vikings still lived in Ashwood, Lincoln, and Greater Omaha, she was thinking of picking one of the varied casino-hotels across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Once the reunion committee (of which she was organizer and chair) could secure a venue, a date would be finalized.
In the main, however, these details proved immaterial. "Just tell me when and where," I said. To that end, we exchanged email addresses and "keep in touch" admonitions, and both of us closed with heartfelt "Good to hear from you again!"
At no point, then or until we saw each other, did we discuss the morning in her basement in 1979. In the course of our emails, I told Melanie about my work as a freelance accountant, belonging to no firm; I also began, closer to March, to feel free enough to tell her about Caroline, our sons, and my divorce. In so doing, I had not been angling for anything romantic with her, but merely sought to exchange information; all Melanie would tell me was that she was single, living in Villa Vista (a middle-class southern suburb of Omaha), and working as a travel agent. Whatever children or personal life she had, she wasn't discussing at the moment -- and I was mostly all right with that, except for an occasional fragment of wondering to myself whether anything had come of what we did.
By May, there was a date (second Friday and Saturday in July) and a venue; I sent my RSVP to Melanie, and everything was in place. Once that July weekend came around, I went ready. I knew there would be the happily married; those on the make, married or not; the happily single; and those such as myself, who only wanted to reconnect with friends. I refused to let anything else, such as whether the popular kids had let themselves go, be my concern.
