I was sitting in my office late on a Friday, reviewing a few applicants who had heard an opening was coming up within our office staff. I worked as the regional head of a Chemical company that supplied chemicals for weed control, fertilizer and water containment for the soil. Our livelihood depended on the farmers who grew or fed what we ate. With the push to go green, we were the first company to have our products proclaimed to be one hundred percent environmentally safe.
Two of my office staff husbands' had been promoted by their employers and as a result, they had given their notice. Both were moving away within the next three months. The scramble was on to replace them as soon as possible. Our sales team covered eight states here in the heart of flyover country. Our sales growth this year was well beyond expected.
Cathy my executive assistant stuck her face into my office and said, "Ed, all eight have confirmed their appointment times to be interviewed for Monday. I'm heading out so good night."
Every Thursday I would head out to one of the states under my area to hold a half-day sales meeting on Friday and then head home. Thursday night, as a result, had become my wife's night to go out with the girls. Over the years it had cost a lot in babysitter fees.
My weekly trips gave our sales rep a needed personal contact to help them with problems related to the job and their performance. Over the years it had paid big dividends. In eight years, I had not lost one man and that was considered a company achievement. I had just made it back today in time to check over a few things before going home.
The company had been trying to get me to give up that part of my job for years. But I found the time alone gave me time to think things out in my own way. Having a know it all wife and three children the quiet time I got driving was priceless. Besides, it saved our branch from having to hire a sales manager. I had a record of coming under budgeted expenses and wanted to keep it that way.
With our children all in junior and senior high school, the oldest a girl my pride and joy would be graduating and starting Southeast Missouri University in the fall things were looking good for us as a family. She had been awarded a full scholarship from my employer.
My youngest daughter had just turned sixteen and was busy studying to get her learners. Grace my wife of twenty years was the Executive Assistant to the District Attorney and had been since a year before our youngest was born.
He had just been offered a new position as a lawyer for the federal government and he had accepted it. The feds seemed to like his no-nonsense hard-line approach. He would have been a fool to refuse it as it was double the money. He would be starting in four months. I had never been able to figure him out. He was about the same age as me, yet he never had married. I didn't know for sure but contrary to the rumors I did not believe he was gay.
Every second weekend of the month for the last fifteen years my three children had been picked up by my parents to give my wife and me some quality time together. When they had started doing that, my wife and I were both at a crossroads in our marriage.
My parents felt we needed private time without the kids around. I have to admit that was the greatest gift they could have given us because it gave my wife and me the time to find ourselves again. Without them doing that we would have been another divorce statistic.
They had about three months before this would have to come to an end as Amy my oldest was going to working in our senator's office in Washington for over the summer, before starting her post-secondary education in the political science field.
A while back, my dad on a lark had bought our three children each a kit from Ancestry.Com. with my permission and had submitted it as a joke. Under their instructions, we knew that there would only be a match if someone related to them had submitted their DNA into the same program.
My children had talked to me about it and I had given my approval saying we all have distant relatives we don't remember or know about. Maybe it will expose us all to a new adventure. It was Amy that suggested we keep it as a surprise for their mother until we got the results. We knew that it could take up to five or six months to get an answer.
This weekend we were headed down to Nashville to take in the Grand Old Opry and would return home on Sunday. My wife was the one who had planned this special trip as a way for us to build another memory in our walk of life.
----
I had met my wife Grace during the last year of university at a football game. No, I was not one of the players in the field I was one of those never known grunts selling food at inflated prices to the patrons in the stands. She was one of the medical coaches' youngest daughters, so she always had free tickets supplied to her.
She got into an argument with her date for the day over some stupid thing one of them took the wrong way. With pushes comes shoves. I got caught in the middle. She pushed him and stepped aside. He did see her move and hit me with all his weight from the backside. Down I went rolling down the concrete stairs my food tray tumbling with me. The next thing I knew I woke up in the hospital with my head all bandaged up. According to the doctor I had twenty-five stitches because of a spit forehead.
I guess Grace felt guilty because she showed up every day to make sure I was alright. She had met my whole family before I began to see daylight once again. I was told later that I had been in a coma for almost a week because of internal injuries.
As the fog surrounding my vision began to clear I saw an unknown Goddess standing before me. At first, I believed I had arrived at the pearly gates and she was my guiding angel. Then my girlfriend became clear as light standing beside her. Esmeralda was not impressed by the vision standing beside her.
I closed my eyes and drifted off back into sleep praying that Esmeralda would not be there when I woke up and that this was all a dream. When I awoke the dream was still there, but Esmeralda was not. Esmeralda had decided she had to find herself a new honey to dote on her. God had granted a favorable prayer to me.
Grace stood by me, asking nothing as I slowly got my life back together. I never asked her, but we ended up dating. One thing led to another. Once we had graduated I went into sales and she found her first job as an Executive Assistant. At one of her family functions her little cousin asked her why she wasn't married yet and she responded because Ed hasn't asked me.
Three months later I stood at the alter watching the goddess walk towards me. At five foot eight inches with long blonde hair, deep blueish almost black eyes and a figure that men drooled over. Grace and I got wed. By year five we both had reached the spot where we were both ready to walk away. To date, I couldn't understand why or how we were being pushed apart. As far as I knew neither had she.
-----
We had just left Lamberts on the way back home. A restaurant to me that was living off its rep. The biggest thing going for them was the tossing of their huge buns across the room through the air to be caught by the customers because the rest of their food was outdated over cooked crap. We had stopped at the tourist trap because it reminded my wife of her mother's home cooking. Need I say more.
For some reason, my wife reached over and turned our sound system off. When she did that it meant she had something serious she wanted to discuss. I reached into my jacket pocket and turned my voice recorder on. It was a trick I used for private conservation when I thought I might need to be able to verify what I said later on.
"Ed," My wife Grace asked, "Have you ever thought about having an affair?"
My first thought was what brought this on. My second one was why is she asking this? Is she having one or does she know someone who is? Why does she now consider this important enough to talk about right now? I had to clear my mind of the questions before I could speak.
"Grace let's be honest here," I said. "Everyone has thought about having an affair. The better question would be, have I ever acted on it and the answer to that would be no."
