Do You Like Them? Who Was She?.
Whose Love Story. Part one/
Copyright Catcher78 All Rights Reserved.
Author's Note: This is a story with aspects of infidelity, pornography, violence and learning to be alone.
I recall that because of our schedules and conflicts Renee and I had not been together in almost a month. We talked every night, professed our love. Teddy Benedict is my name, Renee and I have been married nineteen years now and our two sons attend school in Newburg, Oregon, playing small college baseball John was a short stop and Tim a catcher. I was looking forward to the upcoming season, nervous as a parent but fun.
Renee worked for a Seattle based film company as an assistant for the top director. They make these romance comedies, happy ending like the Lifetime and Hall Mark movies, but second tier to those studios that end up on the lower tier streaming platforms Tubi being an example of one. They did summer Christmas Movies, generally made money hand over fist.
I was sitting in an old Volvo turboprop, high wing plane flying in from Bozeman, Montana having set up a disposal of inventory for a bankrupt business that, built machine parts for farm implements, locomotives, it had gone well, good prices with some luck and the former owners and the trustee was pleased. The plane sounded like an old blender and it finally set down at Boeing Field. It was hard to get from Seattle to Bozeman, but this worked.
I looked at my phone and there was a text from Renee, on location have to stay over, lets connect tomorrow-xxxooo R. She had not said anything about being on a project on any of our calls. It felt off.
I had found an old home, rundown before we were married, going through foreclosure and bought it for nothing, $45,000, four bedrooms, overlooking the ship canal and the Ballard Bridge. Hardwood floors throughout except the kitchen with tile, white and blue. Got some deals on Persian rugs, felt like a home.
I pulled into the attached garage, my old rebuilt Isuzu Trooper SUV rebuilt V4, four by four, five speed. I closed the garage door and got my bags and walked into the kitchen. There was some fading sun coming in the windows and I could see dust particles floating in them, like the house had not been cleaned. I set my bag down on the floor and opened the big fridge door and looked at the milk carton, it was now February fifth and the milk carton said, sell by November 30th. Nobody had been here for a month or more, Renee had milk with her coffee.
I picked my bags up and took them to our bedroom. The shirt boxes from the laundry I'd taken them out of before my trip were still there. The bed had not been slept in since the night I was last there. I went over to her dresser and opened up drawers and they were all mostly empty. I looked in her closet and there were only a few things. So she was leaving me I thought.
I stood there and tried to think my way through this. There was a box under one group of dresses, old, frayed cardboard box. I lugged it out and there were picture albums. Renee and the boys with another man, skiing vacations, a trip to France a picture of her under the Eifel tower, a selfie as they hugged. There were wedding pictures with them, before we were married. A marriage certificate signed by her priest from the Episcopal Priest she grew up with. Her parents and his.
Then there were birth certificates for John and Tim, type AB positive, Father Bell.
I'm an O positive kind of guy.
So I was trying to keep things in order, I was not legally married, and not a parent. I had a job and house. I called John, he and Tim roomed together in Newburg, Oregon.
He picked up, "Hi John!"
