At 44 years of age, Pauline Lindsey should have been enjoying the best years of her life. Having just celebrated her 20th wedding anniversary with the only man she had ever loved, finding herself in good health and at the top of her chosen career as a social worker, Paula should have been basking in the light of all she had worked for.
And to a point she was. Her and her husband Randy had been able to save enough money over the first 15 years of their marriage to afford a nice house in one of Topeka's finer neighborhoods. They had enough money in the bank to feel safe when they closed their eyes at night and they had found some connection within each other that made it clear they were comfortable spending the rest of their lives together.
Still, Paula often found herself wondering what might have been. Six years into the marriage it was discovered, after several attempts to conceive a child, that she would be unable to bear children. Paula knew the depression over that fact would never completly go away and the reality that many of her close friends were frequently off attending thier own kids' high school or college graduations made for a very difficult pill, for the otherwise fulfilled woman, to swallow as she navigated her way through her mid forties.
That hurt was only heightened by the silent way Randy Lindsey went about dealing with the fact that he'd never be a Father.
"It's no big deal," He would often say to Paula when the topic came up, only to follow it up with an extended period of awkward and sometimes painful silence.
It was such a divisive topic, Paula and Randy never even seemed to be comfortable discussing the other alternatives such as adoption, fertility drugs, or a surrogacy that were open to the couple. Instead, they quietly decided to simply grow old together.
To keep some sense of vitality, The Lindseys buried themselves in their work. Being a social worker who helped get children out of turmultuous family situations and trying to help them get a foothold into adolescense, Paula had found a career that in a lot of ways helped illeviate and substitute for the inability to have children of her own.
Randy, on the other hand, was the general manager of one of Topeka's largest grociery store chains and over the years had successfully diverted his emotions into the nonstop flow of profit margins, schedule making and inventory control.
By the time both Randy and Paula were safely in their mid 40's however, it had become clear that each was nearing some level of professional burnout. Inevitably, the stress they were feeling at work transferred easily to the home, and eventhough they each could see it blossoming like a slowly emerging mushroom cloud on the horizon, they were both usually too exhausted by the end of the day to acknowledge it.
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One of Randy Lindsey's most important, if not most frustrating tasks as general manager of his grociery store was the hiring of new help. With a stable array of full time help already in place, the biggest hurdle when it came to hiring was finding enough quality kids from the wealth of teenagers in the area to help out with bagging, clean up and stocking the shelves.
Looking down at the store's sales floor from his upstairs office's large bay window, Randy lazily watched one of his hires that was actually working out.
The curly black haired 6 foot 2 inch frame of 19 year old Dylan Hyatt strode quickly from register 5 to register 7 to help every checker he could get their grocieries bagged so they could move onto the next customer.
"There's one I didn't think would work out..but I'll be damned," Randy contemplated out loud.
The day three months earlier when he interviewed Dylan, Randy was pretty certain he wasn't going to hire the kid. Dylan had put on his application that he had dropped out of high school two years earlier and was trying to find a job so he could work to save some money before he got his GED. After that, he told Lindsey, Dylan was planning on enlisting in either the Marines or the Army.
Randy had been hesitant to hire Dylan, fearing the same person who would quit school wouldn't have any qualms about quitting a job on the spot if things got rough. Still, Randy was impressed by the young man's candor and taking a look at his stocky and well defined 6 foot 2 inch frame, he knew Dylan's presense could come in very handy considering all the heavy lifting that needed to be done around the store. So on a lark, Randy hired the young man and three months later, he managed a small but satisfied smile over how well it had turned out.
In fact, Randy had decided to build a fence around his backyard at home to keep the neighbors' children from trampling across the grass and his wife's flowers. Knowing his back wasn't as dependable as it use to be, and that his wife wouldn't be crazy about him having several of his beer drinking buddies over for an entire day to mess up the house, Randy decided out of the blue to ask Dylan if he would mind giving up a Saturday, for $50 tax free, to help.
The young man hesitantly agreed when he thought about the money, and perhaps a chance to get on the good side of the boss by coming over to help with the fence.
Over dinner later that night, Randy and Paula had been making small talk when the topic of what each had planned for the weekend came up. Randy told his wife that he had finally decided to put up the backyard fence, hoping she would be happy about having a line of defense against the children from next door.
"You gonna do that all by yourself," Paula sarcastically asked, knowing full well the limits of her husband's physical as well as mechanical expertise.
"What..you don't think I can," Randy replied between chews of his pot roast.
"Uh...Huh," Paula's brow silently furrowed.
"Actually.....I got a guy from work to volunteer to help me with the heavy stuff for a few hours Saturday," Randy sheepishly admitted.
"Good," Paula dryly replied, happy her husband wasn't attempting such a demanding endeavor alone. "Anyone from the store I know?"
"Probably not..just a stock boy I hired a few months back..I don't think you've met him yet....Dylan..Dylan Hyatt's his name."
"What's his name?" Paula asked with increased interest.
"Hyatt...Dylan Hyatt...what...do you know his folks or something?" Randy grunted back.
"How old is he?" Paula asked.
"19 I think...he told me during his interview he dropped out of high school a few years back..he's thinking about joining the Army...why?"
"Name just rings a bell..that's all," Paula replied as she briskly excused herself from the dinner table.
"Where are you going?" Randy huffed incrediously.
