Time is the Ultimate Revenge
DD Day - Devastation Discovery Day - My life leading up to it
My name is Mike Wilson, and up until that night, I thought my life was pretty good. Little did I know that it was about to descend into hell. In one night, everything I loved would either be taken from me or threatened to be taken from me. Still, I survived, and over the years, took comfort in one particular bible verse - "
The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned, but time and chance happen to them all.
"
I married Jenny Smith three months out of college, and we had been married for a little over seven years when Jenny totally betrayed me. I have gone back over every minute of our married life that I could dredge up and found nothing to indicate that my life was about to turn to shit. I was totally blindsided.
Jenny and I met in college. She was very attractive at about five foot six with auburn hair and emerald green eyes. Jenny was not overly endowed, but in my mind, she was perfect. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being a goddess, Jenny was a nine, maybe even a nine and a half. But she had a charm about her that just drew people in. Jenny had me, body and soul, at "Hello." And we meshed together so well, and our goals seemed to match perfectly. Or at least the goals that Jenny talked about with me. Anyway, we dated and eventually married.
While Jenny was a nine or a nine and a half with fantastic charm, I'm an eight or an eight and a half, but I'm more of the strong silent type. I'm six foot even, about a hundred and ninety pounds, and have sandy brown hair. My social life was quite active during high school and college, and I had my fair share of bedroom romps. I would never be confused with a sports star or a movie star. However, I would get an occasional second glance from an unattached woman.
I won't bore you with a long story about how Jenny and I got together other than to say we met in a statistics class our junior year. Over the next eighteen months, we became like two peas in a pod. And just before graduation, I was fortunate to secure a good job, so our future looked very bright indeed.
One thing that should have set off some alarm bells for me was that Jenny was very reluctant to take me to meet her parents, John and Alma. I didn't realize until after we married that Jenny was totally embarrassed by them. In fact, I believe I might never have met them if I hadn't insisted on speaking to her father before I would ask her to marry me. For a day or two, I thought we were on the verge of breaking up. But then, Jenny relented and made arrangements for us to visit her parents at their house. At this meeting, I learned that Jenny had grown up very poor, and she was deeply embarrassed by that fact.
But to me, I felt they were lovely people, and Jenny had nothing to be ashamed of. They were warm, compassionate, and very friendly. They didn't have much, but they were always willing to share whatever they had. My father died when I was fourteen, and my mother died when I was twenty. So, I came to love John and Alma Smith as though they were my real parents.
They lived in a small house in an older, less than desirable neighborhood. It was a single-story dwelling of slightly more than a thousand square feet. The design was simple, with three bedrooms and one bath. They had a decent-sized living room but a small kitchen. Still, John ensured the outside was in good repair and the lawn was neat and trimmed. For her part, Alma kept the inside spotless.
Over the years, it was sad to see Jenny snub her parents. But anytime I brought up the subject, it sparked a fight. So, I avoided any mention of John and Alma but always kept tabs on them. I would call them at least once a week, and sometimes, I could get Jenny to talk to them. But aside from wanting to keep in touch, I would listen to see if they needed anything. Like one time, I knew that John's lawnmower had broken, and he didn't have the money to have it fixed. So, I bought a used mower and told John I had a new one, and did he know anyone who could use my old one? I think he knew what I was doing, but he accepted the mower gratefully. As I said, I had a good job that paid well, so I was more than willing to help out if needed.
I started as a staff accountant for a fair-sized manufacturing firm with factories in five states and two foreign countries. I worked at the firm's headquarters where the accounting department consisted of only eighteen people including myself. Despite the small size of the department, we handled all the accounting and taxes for all the firm's entities. Even though I was an entry-level accountant, I was paid a high five-figure salary. But three years after I joined the firm, two things helped advance my career. First, John Stanton, our department manager, retired; second, I passed the CPA exam.
At first, they tried to hire a new manager from the outside to replace John. But after the second one failed miserably, I was offered the job. I was promoted to accounting supervisor, and my pay was bumped to low six figures. This thrilled Jenny as we could now afford a bigger house and buy more expensive cars.
Jenny got pregnant shortly after we were married, and we had twins - a girl and a boy. At first, Jenny was not pleased to find out she was pregnant. She complained bitterly that it was too soon; she wanted to travel and enjoy life first. As for me, I was thrilled. Thankfully, once the twins, Glenda and Mark, were born, Jenny became a fantastic mother. And for the first five and half years, she was a stay-at-home mom. But once the kids started going to kindergarten, Jenny insisted on getting a job. With a degree in English, she could only find a decent-paying job as an administrative assistant at a law firm.
When I learned where Jenny was going to be working, I was concerned that she'd be led astray. I had read numerous stories about married women working for law firms and starting affairs with one or more of the attorneys there. However, that never happened.
The attorney she worked for was Clem Flint, one of the original partners, and he was a fifty-five-year-old man with a potbelly. Also, he had a wife who he adored and five children. Mr. Flint was a devoted Christian, as were his partners, and wouldn't stand for any fooling around.
