*Author's Note: The last time I went home to the Seattle area, I visited with the parents of my best friend who was killed in Afghanistan. His dad and I talked privately, and he really opened up to me about how their son's death affected them. Much of what he told me I used as the basis of this story.
Extreme grief can sometimes lead to extremely unusual behavior. Add in an already rocky marriage and something like Dani isn't out of the question. He didn't divorce his wife or find a younger woman, but he said he came very close. In this story the main character's grief made it possible for him to put pragmatism aside and follow his heart.
(My own dad told me something equally surprising and I plan to write a story about his 'near miss', too.)
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"Alan, I did not agree to come here to talk about that. We're here for grief counseling, not marriage counseling," she said, her face distorted with the kind of pain that only comes from losing a child.
"Barbara, I'm hurting, too. I loved Aaron as much as you did. But you and I...we need help. We've barely been holding things together for ten years and this tragedy may well be the thing that tears us apart. I know you don't want to talk about our problems, but it we don't find a way to work through them—the only option will be..." He didn't bother finishing the sentence. Both of them knew how it ended. It ended in separation and divorce.
Their 20-year old son, Aaron, had been killed in a car accident just ten days ago. A senseless, needless death caused by someone who'd gotten hopelessly drunk at a bar and tried to drive home. The only small amount of good news they'd gotten was their son had died instantly in the high-speed, head-on crash.
Aaron was their pride and joy. He was one of those rare kids who'd been fun to raise and a pleasure to be around. He'd always been easy going and even as a child all they'd ever needed to do was say, "Can you not do that, please?" and Aaron would unfailingly say, "Okay," and move on to something else. No argument. No attitude. Just compliance. He was not only an obedient child, he was also very smart. And he just happened to be one of the best-looking kids in school from junior high on. And yet most importantly, he was perhaps the most-liked person either of his parents (or anyone else who'd met him) ever knew.
He was always kind, always polite, and that politeness extended even to the many girls who had crushes on him even when they knew they had no chance with him. He treated them with the utmost of respect and remained friends with them even after letting them know he wasn't interested in anything beyond friendship.
The greatest testament to all of that was when they moved into a cul-de-sac in a new neighborhood his freshman year. Four years later, after he graduated from high school with a 3.87GPA, one of their neighbors came by to congratulate him. After doing so, he talked with both parents, Alan and Barbara Avery, and told them, "When we found out a teenage boy was moving into our court, we were pretty upset. I know it's not fair to stereotype, but honestly, most boys that age are...a lot to handle. Not Aaron. We couldn't have been more wrong. He is without doubt the nicest kid we've ever met." The man smiled then said, "I still remember him shoveling all of our driveways right after that big snowstorm three years ago. No one asked for help. Aaron just went out and did it. He spent the entire day shoveling snow so people could get to work or go to the store or whatever. Anyway, I just thought I'd share that with you. You guys did such a good job raising him."
Alan thanked him but set him straight immediately. "It wasn't really us. Aaron is just a one-in-a-million kid. Did you know he's never so much as rolled his eyes at me let alone disobeyed? That's not an exaggeration. It's the gospel truth."
"Well, whatever it is, he's a fine young man and we were just flat wrong."
Alan Avery thought about that a hundred times since the state police came to their door that Friday night around 10pm. Then again, he'd thought back on pretty much every memory he'd ever had of his son and he knew his wife had been doing the same thing.
Neither of them wanted to go to counseling, but their family practice doctor insisted so forcefully they agreed to try it. While neither thought it would be of much help, the pain they were living with was so horrific that any relief, no matter how little, would be very welcome.
Aaron had nothing to do with any of this. He'd been completely innocent. He was just on his way home from the hardware store where he worked during the summer to help pay his college expenses. He certainly wasn't responsible for the fact his parents slept in separate bedrooms and had only made love twice in the last five years. Ironically, the last time had been just four days before Aaron's death and Alan remembered feeling hopeful for the first time in a very long time. Beverly had even seemed to almost enjoy it even though it had been pretty pitiful by any objective standard.
The problem had always been there, but Alan was an eternal optimist. He'd met Beverly when he was a sophomore in college and she was a freshman. He'd had a handful of girlfriends before her and had had sex with three of them. Beverly had lost her virginity to a boy her senior year in high school and after that one time, that had been it.
No warning bells went off when she'd told him that. Like many or maybe most guys, he was sure that as long as he paid a lot of attention to her, took things slow, and made her feel loved and special, that the sex would eventually take care of itself. And initially, at least, it had. Well, sort of.
No, it hadn't ever been spectacular or even really good, but it had been...nice, and it had been reasonably regular. Alan would have liked better and more frequent sex, but Beverly Harbourt was a 'babe' and although he was also a very good-looking guy, he felt fortunate that she'd chosen to give herself to him. He fell hard for her and proposed just two months later and that summer they'd married at his parents' home in Falls Church, Virginia, a little over 21 years ago. Alan was born almost exactly nine months later and that's when things really took a turn for the worse.
They'd been thrilled to have a baby even though they were very young themselves. Both sets of parents helped as much as they could as they lived with Barbara's family in Fairfax and attended George Mason University.
Between their course loads and raising a child, even one as pleasant as Aaron, Beverly found herself less and less interested in lovemaking, and Alan realized getting her to say 'yes' was like pulling teeth. What was most troubling to him was that when she finally did give in, she had an orgasm each and every time. It was only one, but she did have one without fail. Therefore, he knew 'things were working' and that it wasn't him—unless there was something she wasn't telling him, of course. Oh, he'd asked. Many, many times, in fact. She assured him over and over it wasn't him.
Once he'd even asked her if it was possible she might be either attracted to other men or possibly to women. She'd almost blown a gasket when she answered 'NO!' emphatically to both questions. That was the first time she'd said, "I just don't need sex as much as you, okay? There's nothing wrong with me or with that, for that matter. And hounding me about it only makes it worse!"
So he'd tried not to hound her. But dammit, he wanted and needed sex! He'd promised to 'cleave unto her and none else' and he'd meant it, but this was ridiculous. The fact that he was not only very good looking but kept himself in excellent shape and got hit on quite regularly didn't matter. He'd taken a vow and that was that.
But over the years, it had gotten progressively more difficult and more frustrating. Many times he'd thought about leaving, but then he'd go look in on Aaron who was sound asleep. He couldn't bear the thought of his son asking his mother the next morning, "Where's Dad?" It didn't matter that Beverly would never badmouth him in front of their son, it was Aaron he couldn't bear to hurt or disappoint. So he threw himself into his work as a civilian DoD employee who worked at the State Department and into Aaron's life—especially sports.
They played catch or one-on-one basketball or ping pong or something almost every day after work and on the weekends for years. Both he and Beverly attended virtually all of Aaron's games and rabidly cheered him on. Then they went home together and slept by alone. At some level, Alan knew he was wasting his life living with a woman who didn't need or possibly even want his love let alone his body, but for the sake of his son, he'd stayed.
