This story is about two ordinary people who are struggling to save a marriage and their family. Life is what you make of it, and they are doing the best they can. If you can't accept forgiveness and redemption, you won't like it.
Copyright, Chilleywilley, January, 2012. Noone has the right to publish this story elsewhere
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My family is an ordinary one, living in a small town in Pennsylvania. Our physical appearances are not remarkable, clean, reasonably well groomed. I'm not a wealthy guy, I manager the local sewage treatment plant so you could say I'm big in shit. The work is interesting, challenging, and I'm home most nights. Unlike many of the characters in these stories, for my wife and I, sex is a part of our lives, but a fairly minor part. Neither of us was a virgin when we met, but then we weren't promiscuous in our single days either.
Now a days many jobs are insecure, automation, outsourcing, he quest for cheap labor mean almost any job can disappear overnight. Wastewater treatment jobs are different. With a high school education you can take courses to improve your knowledge and by experience and testing get certified for higher valued jobs in wastewater treatment. In this way the Mayors' brother in law can't leave his job as an insurance salesman and run the plant. I have reasonable job security. My wife worked for several years before the children came along, but chose to be a stay at home mom. It meant sacrificing a second income leaving us strapped for money, but it was well worth it.
She did a very good job. Our two daughters (Stacy and Annie) are now in middle school and high school respectively, both very good students but now not needing so much guidance. It was time for Ann to rejoin the workforce, fulfill her life, and more pragmatically, earn money to help pay for their college education.
She had a tough time of it as this is a lousy time to look for a job, especially if you haven't been employed for years. After almost a year of ego shattering cycle of search and rejection, sending resumes that were never acknowledged, herself esteem suffered. She shed her dreams of what a good job would be, rejections beat her down until she would take about any honorable work she could find. At last she was hired by an insurance company for a public relations position. Like so many people, she didn't particularly like the work, mostly because it was to obscure and/or justify actions by the insurance company that the general public thinks are somewhere between wrong and despicable.
However from a human perspective, she liked her co workers, liked the idea she is supporting her family financially, and liked being recognized for doing a good job. Her ego was at a low ebb due to the horrible job search, and maybe that was a lingering problem. I don't think our sex life fully recovered from the hit it took during those discouraging months.
Part of any job is fitting in and making connections to others at the job, so it was no surprise when she mentioned that the girls at work were going out for a pub supper and a few beers Thursday night, and did I mind if she went along?
"Sure, you'll enjoy yourself, you should go. Tell me where you'll be, who you'll be with, and when to expect you be home, just so I don't worry. Anyone I know going as well?"
"Well as it turns out, Vicky Freeman works in accounting and she's going. They go to Finn McCool's and I should be home by 8 or 8:30. "
Finn McCool's is a nice Irish pub near her job, about a 35-40 minute drive from here. The pub was named for Finn McCool, a mythical Irish Warrior, of Paul Bunion stature. Vicky and her husband Charles are casual friends of ours...we get along better with Charles than with Vicky. Vicky imagines what is good for Vicky is good for everyone, but she doesn't bother me that much, I didn't marry her. Don't misunderstand, they're good, upstanding people, just not my cup of tea. Nothing more was said until she reminded me Wednesday night:
"Remember, I won't be here for supper tomorrow night, you're on your own with the girls."
"I remember. You have a good time. I know you won't drink much, but if it should creep up on you, don't get in the car. Call me and I'll come get you."
"Right, like I'm going to get drunk in front of my new co workers!"
"No no no, of course not! You don't drink much, and that's a good thing, but because you don't, you haven't much tolerance for it. I just mentioned it because I care about you, and don't want you to hesitate to call me. I'll think better of you, if that's possible, when you can admit to yourself that you shouldn't drive."
The kids and I had fun. We made homemade spaghetti and meatballs which involves mixing handling cold hamburg, cheese, garlic, breadcrumbs, parsley, and raw egg with bare hands. Stacy, our youngest liked to do it first of all because she liked homemade meatballs, and secondly because she could complain "Eeeuuu! This is awful! Like cold puke!" while she mixed and shaped the meat balls. Annie did the salad, salad dressing, and set the table, I drank a beer and chopped bell peppers and onions. I delegated Annie to mince the garlic cloves.
"Aw come on Pop, my hands stink of garlic for a couple of days!"
"Well that's good thing, don't you know. You know why in the old days gentlemen use to kiss a lady's hand, don't you?"
"No"
"Well, first they would take her fingers in their hand, and feel for calluses, so they would knew if the woman did useful work or not, and then as the bend down to kiss the back of the hand, they sniffed to see if they could cook...they also only kissed the right hand."
"You're kidding! Why only the right hand?
"The left hand was 'unclean', their toilet hygiene left something to be desired
Daad! That's awful!. Is that true?"
"The part about the left hand is true. The rest, I have no Idea, but it makes sense doesn't it? If you are wealthy, you might not want a lower class woman, as a middle class person, a woman who can work and cook is a desirable woman. So for out class of people, if a lad smells garlic on your fingers, it's a good thing!"
"Maybe a hundred years ago, but not so much these days, Pop."
The wife came home right on time, smelling of beer, but sober, and happily regaled me with a recap of the evening.
The girls nights out became an every other week event, with Vicky and the girls from work at Finn McCool's . By early summer I noticed she was coming home later and later each time. So when she said she would be home at 10:30 or 11:00PM, I had a problem with that.
"I can see having supper and a couple of hours in a bar with friends. But four or five hours of sitting around chatting seems excessive, even for a bunch of women. "
"Well, I was telling you when I expected to get home, not asking your permission."
I picked up my ears! If I understood her right, she just said 'my way or the highway'.
