Dave should not have been in Denver, he should have been at home with his wife, Janet, and their three children.
He would have been home but there was a bus accident and he wasn't even on it. Accidents happen, one moment of inattention is sometimes all it takes. As it turns out, life is a series of events, one thing leads to another, many lives can be affected.
The Metro system had those safeguards, the bus driver should have been warned but something happened to catch his eye. That was just a rather young and cute gal wearing skimpy clothing, he turned his head to get a better look.
The light rail transport train hit dead square on the right front corner. Most of the people on the bus were just fine, except for Harrison. Harrison was one of the company trouble shooters, the vast majority of the time he was gone somewhere trying to figure out what was going on with one of the big automatic sorting machines for the shipping company they both worked for.
Harrison had decided to move to another seat, he had also noticed the young woman out the window.
He got to his feet and made it just a few steps when the crash happened. There was a scream from one of the lady passengers, then Harrison was flying down the aisle.
He was loaded into an ambulance, sirens bellowed as they headed for the trauma center.
Martha, Dave's boss called him into the office and explained that he was needed in Denver and they had no one else to send.
The airplane took off just two hours later, Dave had called his wife Janet and explained. She was upset, it was a Thursday afternoon and her class reunion was Saturday night.
Janet had been upset quite a bit lately, he knew something was on her mind. He had promised to take her out for dinner and dancing Friday night, then her class reunion was on Saturday afternoon.
Later, the plans were for them to all meet at a local lodge, for drinks and visiting. They even had a live band scheduled.
Dave had hoped that it would make her happy, he liked her best when she was happy. Janet was a good mother, a good housekeeper also. She kept her body in reasonably good shape although at the moment she had that soft little bulge in her tummy.
Normally Janet never denied him sex, but now she didn't reach out for him on the spur of the moment like she had before.
He loved her totally and completely, he was trying to be patient figuring she would get over being depressed. There had been a short period of that right after each of the first two children, but she quickly went right back to normal.
This time it was lasting longer, enough so that it worried him a little bit.
The third child had been a surprise, they had decided to stop at two of them but one night they had gone out to play Bingo. Dave had won the blackout, that paid $500 so they stopped at a bar to celebrate on the way home.
There was an attractive tall man there, he came over and asked Dave if he could have a dance with Janet. Dave really didn't mind the men that asked directly, the ones that waited until he was up at the bar or in the bathroom always pissed him off.
Janet knew how Dave felt about that, any man that tried it was always met with rejection.
But this man seemed all right and was courteous, so Dave told him that it was up to her.
He was mildly surprised when she got up and took the man's hand and they danced for several songs. Janet did love to dance, normally if a stranger asked her she would decline. Sometimes she would dance with men she didn't really know, but usually only after conversation or something like that.
But there she was, smiling and laughing when the man leaned in a few times to say something. Dave watched, he saw nothing at all that seemed out of the ordinary. Janet's movements were fluid like always, she looked very nice out there.
Dave found himself enjoying watching her dance.
That was all that happened, but when they got to the car she started giggling and tugged him into the back seat. It was dark, no one could see or tell what they were up to.
That was one of those crazy and naughty rare incidents, such great fun. The sheer nastiness of having sex in the back seat of their car right there in the parking lot got Dave up and raring to go.
Then on the way home, she had her hand inside his pants, not an easy thing to do with seat belts on but she managed.
Afterward at home, Dave asked her what had gotten into her. She told him she wasn't sure, but that the stranger she had danced with had gushed about how attractive she was and it had been a long time since anyone had done that.
"That just made me feel good, honey. I guess a little bit of my vanity was showing."
Dave asked her if he had tried anything, she told him that the man had been a perfect gentleman and simply told her that her husband was a very lucky man.
"Then when he led me back to the table you were looking me up and down, I suddenly got in the mood."
Her reaction when they got to the car was out of character for her, but it was also exciting. Much more exciting than alone at home in their bedroom.
Nine months later little Sarah was born. Dave hadn't had a condom with him that night, and Janet refused to take the pills. Their making love like that in the car was way different, it just happened.
Billy and Bonnie were both older, and soon would be teenagers. Dave and Janet loved their kids but they were also looking forward to the day they would be off to school.
Then along came Sarah. She was tiny, just 5 pounds with a shock of jet black hair exactly the same color as Janet's.
Now their plans for taking some cruise ships to far away places, a tour of France and Italy, then Greece were all put on the back burner, a decade added to that, probably more.
Even worse, now Dave was stuck on an airplane to Denver, and forced to break his promise to Janet. He had been hoping that some nice nights out, friends around would cheer her up. For a couple of months she had even begged off lovemaking most nights, claiming a headache. Next it was her time of the month or she claimed she had cramps, finally she was taking so long in the bathroom that Dave just fell asleep.
He was thinking that maybe she was worried about yet another child, it was making him unhappy. But he did make great efforts to not let it show.
After a decade and a half of marriage, they knew each other very well. Dave thought so anyway. Janet never once showed any signs of ever being unfaithful, Dave certainly never had been.
Something like that simply had not even crossed his mind, so leaving her home with the kids wasn't a concern. He was just unhappy about circumstances having disappointed her.
When Dave got to the client's facility, he first checked for a mechanical problem. He was hoping that was it, otherwise it was in the program itself. He knew if the problem was there, he was in for a long term effort to try and figure it out.
Harrison had a similar problem with the same machinery and he spent two full weeks in Dallas just a month before resetting everything.
Harrison was quite a bit better and faster at that part of it than Dave was, which is why he was the company trouble shooter in the first place. Dave's expertise was in the mechanics, he had traveled quite a bit in the early years with the company as a machinery setter.
It didn't take very long for him to discover the alignment problem. A bearing had begun to fail, the outer hardened layer was flaking off like the heat treatment was bad. It meant one main shaft replacement and the bearing assembly, plus the bearing housing. Normally that would be a job for one of their machinery setters, but Dave was the one there now and he knew what to do.
That should have been easy, and it would have been except the closest replacement parts were in China. He found that out much to his chagrin when he called the company warehouse.
After a flurry of activity, Dave discovered that the replacement inventory order had been cut, and was on the dock already to Portland. He made a mental note to have a chat with the warehouse about tracking orders and shipments, it cost him two hours to figure out that the part they said they didn't have was already on the way.
The Shipco invoice was finished, customs dealt with, and all they needed was to schedule a truck.
That meant it would be nearly a full week before he could get his hands on the part and get them installed. He called Martha, wanting to fly home. She told him to stay there until it was finished, and she wouldn't budge at his protests.
"That is our second best customer and they aren't real happy with us right now. I need you to do whatever it takes to keep them purring, OK?"
Dave resigned himself to a boring week in a motel room.
He called Janet and explained, she seemed to accept it OK.
"I love you, honey." He told her.
"I love you too." She answered, and hung up.
The weekend was terribly boring, Dave found a small cafe where he could get some food. The tiny motel room he was in had a bed that could not possibly be any harder.
