A Surprise Visitor

I've been criticized for my frequent reconciliations, and I suppose I'm guilty as charged. The truth is I'm not really one to hold a grudge forever. I won't put up with being treated badly, but I don't hold on to it. And I believe that people make mistakes and can learn from them, so second chances are almost always possible.

That said, not much in the way of reconciliations here. That might make a few more of you happy.

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A SURPRISE VISITOR

Talk about a blast from the past.

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"Henry, there's a young lady here to see you."

The voice over the speaker phone startled me, as it did most every time even though it happened several times a day.

"How young?"

There was quiet talking heard before the response came.

"She's 18."

"I don't have any appointments today."

"I'm aware of that. She doesn't have an appointment."

"What's her name and what does she want?"

"She won't give me her name and she says it's personal. She doesn't seem like much of a threat here, boss. Why all the questions?"

"We never get surprise visitors except OSHA or the Department of Transportation."

"Well, she's neither of those."

"All right, send her in."

The door opened and a lovely young thing walked in. She had long brown hair and was dressed casually but stylishly. She seemed nervous, but then she would have heard me giving Libby the third degree about her so I guess that was to be expected. I offered her a chair and a bottle of water, both of which she accepted.

"What can I do for you, young lady?"

"You don't recognize me, do you?"

I looked more closely at her and I could pick out features that looked familiar, but I suppose you could say that about a lot of people. I gave up.

"I'm afraid not. Should I?"

"I'm told I resemble my mother."

So that was her ploy: Some trumped up paternity accusation to get her hands on some dough. Well, I may own this trucking company (most of it anyway) but that sure didn't make me rich. I looked at her even more closely, trying to find some hint of recognition that would connect her to some lady I may have been intimate with, but the timing of it, when I considered her age and counted back, didn't fit with anything I could recall. More conversation, I guess.

"You sound like that should mean something to me."

"It should. My name is Kim Clark. My mother's name was Karen Clark, and of course her maiden name was Karen Weston."

I felt like a brick had smacked me in the forehead. I was completely dazed by what I had just heard. It couldn't possibly be, could it? But then I thought again about the timing, and it would fit. Karen had been 3 months pregnant the last time I had spoken with her.

"So that would make you my granddaughter. Wow."

"Yes, sir."

"Sir?"

"Henry?"

I just looked at her.

"Grandpa?"

"Good. You're a fast learner. So how does your mom feel about you coming to see me?"

"She was against it."

"Was? Did she change her mind?"

"No, she...died...6 months ago."

Despite the 18-year estrangement that my daughter had imposed on me, this news hit me hard. I had loved her unconditionally growing up and her betrayal of me had been extremely painful, even more so than her mother's.

"I'm sorry to hear that. We were so close when she was young, until everything happened. May I ask what she died of?"

She hesitated, probably not wanting to answer the question, but in the end she did, though I had to strain to hear her.

"AIDS. Or rather, she got pneumonia and couldn't fight it off because of the AIDS."

AIDS? Jesus, what a way to go. And I had actually thought they had that pretty well controlled, but then I wasn't exactly up to date on things like that.

"How's your dad holding up?"

"He's fine. They divorced when I turned 14. He's married and has another baby girl. They live a couple of hours away."

"Do you and he get along?"

"Oh yeah. I lived with him after the divorce. His new wife was my sophomore English teacher. I'm a freshman at State now or I'd still live there."

"Why'd they divorce?"

"Mom felt that she should be able to have sex with any man she wanted as long as she used condoms and always came home to dad, and gave him all he could handle. Dad didn't happen to agree with that. Like I said, they divorced when I was 14 but the marriage had been over for years."

"So why divorce then?"

"Because that's when I could choose who to live with under state law. Dad stayed because he didn't want to lose me."

"You seem to know quite a bit."

"I heard them fighting a lot. They weren't quiet about it. Mom told him straight up that he may as well accept it because otherwise the only things that would change would be that he wouldn't get laid and she'd do everything she could to keep me from him."

"Did your dad get sick?"

"No. Mom swore she used condoms every time to make sure they never caught anything, and I guess she was telling the truth. She thought that was somehow showing her love for dad. I guess once he left she figured she had no one to protect. By the time they realized what it was it was too late. She actually went pretty quickly."

"How's your Grandma Fran?"

Fran was Karen's mom, Kim's grandmother, and my ex-wife.

"Okay, I guess. I haven't seen her in a couple of years, except for mom's funeral. Dad talks to her on the phone occasionally just to make sure she's okay and doesn't need anything. She stopped doing much after mom died. Apparently she blames herself for some reason."

"I'm sorry to hear that, too. That's not the woman I remember. She's not with Aaron anymore?"

"Her old boyfriend? No, not in years. In fact, I never met him. I've heard his name mentioned before, but I don't think he was around for very long."

"Interesting."

"Dad said if I wanted to find out what happened I'd need to get it from you or grandma, and grandma wouldn't ever talk about it."

"Is that why you're here, to get the sordid details?"

"That's one reason. Mostly I wanted to finally meet the grandpa that my mom forbid me from seeing all these years. She wouldn't even tell me your name. Dad finally gave me everything after mom passed. All she would tell me was that you had walked out on grandma and she would never forgive you and I was to have nothing to do with you."

"That's all you were told? That I walked out?"

"Yep, although dad did tell me it wasn't that cut and dried, but it wasn't his story to tell."

"It's been a long time but I still think about it. It all started when I went to Afghanistan."

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I wasn't a soldier; I was a logistics expert. I was a civilian contractor and was offered a crazy amount of money to spend 18 months in Afghanistan helping establish a distribution network over there. A lot of people there live in rural areas and for them to truly stabilize the country they needed to be able to get supplies everywhere.

I spoke with both my wife and my daughter regularly, though phone communication was still sketchy in those days. We exchanged a lot of letters and felt like I was pretty up to date on their lives.

I was only 20 when Karen was born. I had worked for Enos Trucking since graduating from high school, and I proved to have a knack for organization and efficiency. I had actually expected to just work in the warehouse and eventually get my commercial driver's license and go on the road. But William Enos, the owner of the company, apparently saw something in me and he sent me down another path.

Franny and I had fallen in love during our senior year in high school and we talked about marriage but were in no hurry. That changed when she got pregnant and we quickly arranged a wedding. It was really just moving our plans up a couple of years.

When I went overseas I didn't actually quit working for Enos. It was actually more of an 'on loan' arrangement; a contractor that did work throughout that part of the country had been given my name and they worked out a deal with Enos to send me over there.

Fran and I discussed it at length. The money was really too good to turn down. I was paid pretty well at Enos but this was nearly 5 year's worth of salary for a year and half of work. Of course, ultimately it all came from the feds. You've got to love the U.S. Government's willingness to overspend.

She wasn't thrilled by the idea of my being gone so long or my being in such an unstable country, but the folks sending me trotted out all kinds of statistics about how safe it was and we were convinced. Once the safety was established, the only issue at that point was the time apart. Karen was grown at this point. She had just graduated college and had married Brian Clark, whom she had dated since her sophomore year in college. I was concerned about Fran being alone but she had friends and Karen, and she even talked about volunteering or a part time job to keep her busy. Obviously, in the end we accepted the offer.

The time overseas moved quickly for me. There was always something going on. There were plenty of temptations for me to be unfaithful. Many of the people working over there were married and away from their spouses who remained stateside, and there was no shortage of hooking up that took place.

Most of them claimed they had an understanding with their spouses back home, though I suspect that wasn't true in every case. The thought never even occurred to me to try and broker that kind of deal, but I was also older than a lot of the other contractors. It wasn't that there weren't plenty of attractive women and plenty of offers, but I just couldn't imagine disrespecting Fran like that.

Franny had taken a part time job at our local library and told me that she went out a few nights a week with friends and had dinner with Karen every Sunday. I was really glad that she was keeping herself busy and had no concerns whatsoever about her going out. Heck, we had social events here, too. I spent time with the people here and danced with some of the ladies. It was all perfectly innocent.

The first I knew there was a problem was when I got home. As I said, we had spoken by phone regularly and exchanged tons of letters and there was no clue at all that something was going on.

I actually arrived home 2 days earlier than anticipated, an almost unprecedented event for the government. I was supposed to arrive home on a Saturday but I had landed at the airport on Thursday afternoon. It had been a hectic travel schedule and I was very tired. I had intended to call Fran and let her know I was ahead of schedule but I just never got around to it.

I walked into an empty house, which was disappointing but not exactly surprising. There were some immediately noticeable changes in the décor of the house but that was to be expected after 18 months. I took the opportunity to tour the house and see what else had changed.

Our house had 3 bedrooms, and the biggest change was Karen's room, which had been converted to an office, albeit with some sort of exercise machine in the middle of it. Obviously with Karen married and living her own life there was no need to maintain a room for her. I smiled as I remembered all of the bedtime stories I had read her in this room.

The guest bathroom had been totally made over and had fairly new towels. It didn't look like it was used very often, but again that was not unexpected.

It was in the guest room that I first found the indications of a problem. The bed itself looked undisturbed, again showing no signs of recent or regular use. The closet, however was filled with clothes. Men's clothes. Clothes I had never seen before and that were far too small to fit me.

I considered possibilities.

Perhaps Fran had taken in a boarder, but she hadn't mentioned anything to me and I would be surprised that it would be a man if she did.

Perhaps these were some of Brian's things. It wasn't inconceivable that Karen would have so many clothes that she would take up all of the closet space in the apartment she and Brian shared, but this was a fairly complete wardrobe I was looking at. I could see keeping a few things here but not this much.

Perhaps some friend of Karen or Brian's was in a tight spot and Fran had offered the use of our spare room, but again there had been no mention of it or any evidence of it, and it just seemed an unlikely scenario.

Of course I was avoiding what seemed to me to be the most obvious answer: that there was a man living here with Fran that she hadn't told me about, and there was only one reason I could think of for why that would be the case.

As I pondered the possibilities I heard activity in the front room, which I assumed was Fran coming home from wherever she had been. I glanced at my watch and it was almost 7:00pm. I heard her speaking, which suggested she was not alone.

I walked out of the bedroom and down the hall, emerging in the living room, which was also empty. The voices were coming from the kitchen, and one of them was unmistakably male, but I didn't recognize it. As I entered the kitchen their backs were to me and they were focused on each other as they unpacked some takeout from a bag.

They were obviously familiar with each other, and their interaction carried an intimacy that I wasn't happy to see. These were not friends or acquaintances, or even fuck buddies; these were lovers. I waited about 30 seconds before I spoke.

"Did you get enough for me?"

Franny jumped and screamed, and the guy immediately placed himself between her and me. How very chivalrous, I thought, but of course he had no idea who I was and I wasn't supposed to be here for two more days. I waited silently for the glimmer of recognition to hit my wife. My eyes shifted back and forth between them and I was breathing; otherwise I was perfectly still.

"My God, Henry, honey, you scared me half to death. You're home early. I wasn't expecting you until Saturday."

"That seems obvious."

Fran walked over to me and wrapped her arms around me. I made no effort to hug her back and didn't accept the kiss she tried to give me.

"Aren't you going to hug me back, Henry?"

"Who's he?"

"That's, um, that's Aaron."

"I assume those are his clothes in the spare room."

"Yes, yes they are."

For his part, Aaron was just standing there, obviously unsure what to do. I had half expected him to come over and try to shake my hand or something when Fran told me who he was but he just stood there by the table, waiting.

"I suppose we have some talking we need to do, then."

"Yes, Henry, I suppose we do. Could we eat first? I haven't eaten since breakfast and I'm starting to not feel well. You know how I get when I don't eat."

"Sure, go ahead."

She turned and walked back to the table and hesitated, realizing that there were three people but she had only two meals in front of her, and neither of them was intended for her husband. She seemed to reach a decision and then began dividing the food so that it would feed 3. I put a stop to that.

"I'm not hungry. I'll go for a walk so you can eat."

I walked out the door and could feel all 4 eyes burning into the back of my head as I did so. I didn't bother looking back at them. I was gone for an hour, assuming that was enough time for them to eat and talk about how they intended to handle the situation.

When I got back to the house the car that had been there when I left for my walk was gone, and my first thought was that they had left with the idea of putting this conversation off for a while longer, but Fran was waiting for me in the living room. She answered my unasked question.

"Aaron left so we could have some privacy."

"How nice of him. So, is this what I think it is?"

"I guess that depends what you think it is."

"He's been living here, and you guys are in some sort of relationship."

"That's as good an explanation as I could give you."

"How long has it been going on?"

"We reconnected a couple of months after you left."

"Reconnected?"

"You don't recognize him. Of course you don't. Why would you? That's Aaron Humphreys, the guy I dated in high school before I met you."

Now I remembered. His family had moved away in the summer after our sophomore year when his father was transferred. Fran had told me about him in passing when we talked about people when we had started dating. I had known who he was but didn't really know him.

"My, what a coincidence."

"Can we skip the sarcasm, Henry? It was a complete coincidence. His company transferred him back here and I happened to run into him when I was out with friends one night. I didn't even recognize him; he recognized me. We spent the evening catching up but nothing happened."

I could usually tell when Fran was lying to me so I trusted that this was the truth so far. Obviously something happened eventually but it wasn't that night. She continued.

"He started coming by the library a couple of times a week and taking me out to lunch. It was nice. I wasn't exactly lonely, but I did miss your company, honey. I had spent the last 20-plus years having the devoted attention of a man and I missed it a lot."

"So this is my fault?"

"Of course not. I'm just explaining, okay? We started seeing each other more and more. He knew I was married and that we were just keeping friendly company while you were out of the country."

"Apparently that changed."

"It did. I started having feelings for him. Not lust, Henry, but genuine feelings for him. I never loved you any less but I began to fall in love with Aaron, and he confessed that he loved me, too. He always had."

"How sweet."

"We had been seeing each other for a couple of months when we made love for the first time. Please understand that this wasn't about you, Henry. I wasn't dissatisfied with you or looking to cheat on you. I just wanted to express my feelings for Aaron physically. It was just the natural progression."

"And I'm sure he was all too willing to go along."

"Actually he convinced me to stop and think about what I was doing, and did I really want us to take that step. He didn't say the words but he obviously wanted me to consider the effect on our marriage."

"And did you? Consider the effect on our marriage, that is?"

"I knew that I loved you and that you loved me, and that was all I needed to think about. I wasn't worried about us and I just had to be intimate with Aaron, to show him how I felt about him and feel how he felt about me."

I had been pretty strong up until this point. I knew I had been gone for a long time and there was a part of me that wouldn't have been entirely surprised if Franny had needed to get some relief, but hearing her talk about love and feelings and intimacy was getting to me. I never in a million years thought something like that would happen. My voice caught as I spoke next.

"So, um, he moved in at some point, obviously."

"You had been gone for about 7 months. The lease was up on his apartment and we had, well, like you said, we were in a relationship, so it just made sense. God, Henry, I'm so sorry. I never meant for this to happen."

"I assume he's been staying in the master bedroom with you, even though his clothes are in the spare room."

"Well, uh, yes. Actually, his clothes were in the master closet until a few days ago. Your things had been in the spare closet. I mean, you weren't here and it wouldn't have been convenient for him to constantly have to go to the spare room for his things. We moved them back in anticipation of you coming back."

That confused me, and it was here that I finally found out how things actually were.

"Why didn't you just pack his things instead of moving them?"

"What do you mean?"

"I was due back in two days. I got home early so I understand you not being fully ready, but it would have made more sense to pack them so he'd be ready to move out when I got home."