Forever

By Colin Wells

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Synopsis

Working Title: Forever

Author: Colin Wells

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen Culture Solutions
• Release date: Jan 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781638124429

Book preview

Forever

Copyright © 2022 by Steve Garrett.

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63812-442-9

Paperback: ISBN: 978-1-63812-443-6

All rights reserved. No part in this book may be produced and transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Published by Pen Culture Solutions 11/15/2022

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Chapter 1

– THE DAWKINS –

  H e should have finished this job a long time ago. Nobody waits until the middle of December to rake leaves. Two weeks ago he could have finished this project in the warmth of a sunny November afternoon. Today he was battling the gripping cold of an east wind. It ripped throug h his gloves and made his hands ache. It stung his ears and nose. Winters in Mill Creek could range from warm and sunny to wet and cool, to cold and snowy. Each year was always different. This year the cold had begun to settle in the first week of December. The leaves, soaked by the last few days’ rain, were nearly frozen to the lawn. A layer of frost covered many of those on the top.

Ignoring the raking until now had not been his best idea, but Leonard hadn’t been making the best decisions lately. He was certain no one could fault him, being engulfed in the mental coma he had endured for the past few months. His entire world had been turned upside down in such a short time. The joy that usually carried him through the holiday season was dramatically absent from him this day.

The skies overhead were dark and threatening and his outlook was just as bleak. The monotony of his raking couldn’t distract his thoughts from breaking through. He dumped the last load of leaves into the yard debris container. Glancing across the street he saw the Windsor’s Christmas lights come on, outlining their house as the darkness descended. Each year the Windsors lit up the neighborhood the day after Thanksgiving and the breadth of their efforts seemed to spur everyone on the block to get in the Christmas spirit. Not so this year. The Dawkins house remained dark. The day was growing darker, as was the season, and Leonard’s heart as well.

Storing the wheelbarrow in the shed, he hung the rake in its place marked on the wall and desired so much to march right through the back door into his kitchen and have a hot mug of something with his family. It was a dream that was currently sidelined by the nightmare he had made of his life.

Someone else would have to win the lighting contest this year. The dark neighborhood had a long way to go to meet the usual standards. The Windsor’s early display had not lit a flame anywhere yet. There was still no house with lights on for three blocks either way. The Thayer’s to the right had no lights. His house did not. Was it his house, their house, or was it Molly’s house now? No matter, it was still bathed in darkness and his usual glimmering strings were still stashed in two large boxes in Molly’s basement. Leonard had not been there to put them up and so it hadn’t gotten done.

The Leonard Dawkins family, who had won the neighborhood Christmas Lighting Contest two years previously, had been slapped back by some heavy family trauma and the same sort of color and the sparkle that once adorned their porch and driveway, had also, not so mysteriously, vanished from their marriage relationship. Leonard was not ready to fall on the sword and take full blame for all the things that had led to where they were at that point, but he knew for certain he had been an idiot for the way he allowed it to happen.

Another gust ripped at his face as he headed for his car, parked at the curb. He welcomed the pain of its bite. It served to shake him from the reverie of what he had lost. Emily’s face was prominent in that one. Her future. Her college, her choices, how would she do with no dad around to give her pointers? That one gouged deep, the thought of how different their lives were going to be once the divorce was final.

The wind carried with it a hint of burning leaves. Leonard saw the neighbor on the other side of his driveway struggling to douse his burn pile. The city code did not allow fires after dark and the sun was well below the west hills behind the house. Lanny Jackson was always late with his yard work. Late in the day, late in the season, Leonard used to think, maybe Lanny learned yard work late in life.

It wasn’t that way in the Mill Creek Leonard grew up in. His hands knew the business end of a rake before he ever laid eyes on a country school classroom. A huge row of poplar trees lining the west side of his childhood home provided all of the work Leonard never wanted. Towering fifty feet into the air, the hedge as his father would jokingly refer to it, was planted as a windbreak decades before Leonard was born. With no preschool or kindergarten available in those days, he learned to make some spending money raking yards for other neighbors who had lost the energy to complete this outdoor task. Nothing could replace the joy he had found leaping and landing in those leaves, thus reaping the harvest of what provided an ample covering every fall, amassing an enormously thick carpet of yellow, gold and brown that no flooring manufacturer could ever match.

They would rake for hours to get the mobile mound just to the territory that they had staked out for their pile. It was huge, Leonard thought, recalling that it was big enough that even his older brother, Will, who was NFL lineman material, could climb up to the first branch of the willow tree that spread out toward the horizon a few feet above the golden mound, yell Geronimo! and land unharmed in the bosom of foliage. Leonard was lost again.

His mind continually wandered to the past. He liked things better there. He was reluctant to face the present in its state of worse for wear. The whole of it was no longer tolerable and he wondered what would happen once those last essential pins, holding everything in his life in place, were finally removed. He had admitted it to himself several times already how much the thought of losing his marriage and his relationship with his daughter truly frightened him. And each time he made that coward-like statement he would counter himself with an opposing argument.

Buck up, man! The counsel for the defense would say, from his orator’s bench somewhere in the back of his brain. You have to stand up and fight, man! Nobody ever got anywhere without a fight! Self-abasement made him nauseous, when he heard it in others, and coming from his own lips, it was even worse. It wasn’t like he wanted any of this. He had one night of poor judgment, impaired by agents which had long been absent from his life at that time. He could make a case. He could show just cause.

Hell, of course he could. He had just done it three weeks previously in front of Judge Daniel Murphy, in Divorce Court; Mill Creek Municipal Courthouse, upstairs hearing room, standing there, making stuff up. Trying to answer the questions from Judge Dan, the Valedictorian of Leonard’s Senior Class. His humiliation crushed him, having to stand in front of his former classmate and beg for scraps from his own table. The thoughts pummeled him. Judge Dan was only doing his civic duty as he asked the puncturing questions for which Leonard had no justifiable answers in return. He could tell that Judge Dan hated some of the things he had to ask, but his ethics allowed him no less rigor. Emotionally Leonard was clinging to the ropes, hoping for something or someone that could pull him out of the ring and let him collapse in his corner where he could rest.

He was about to launch himself into another round of justification to himself when more smoke wafted his way. Jackson’s ill-fated attempt to burn the wet and frozen leaves was as lame-brained a task as trying to put the smoldering pile out with his shovel. Leonard watched him through his rear-view mirror from the shelter of his car. The poor guy was a nerd and Leonard felt sorry for him many times. While he watched, Jackson hopped around after nearly setting his sneakers on fire stepping in the hot ashes around his burn pile. He chuckled at the inanity of his neighbor. It surprised him how long it had been since he had actually laughed out loud. It also chafed at him about how long it had been since he had simply chatted with this neighbor just across the driveway.

Jackson was joined by his equally nerdy, but very faithful wife, Eileen and she chuckled and pointed to his smoldering soles. Nerdy or not, the Jacksons did have something that Leonard envied at that moment. What he would give to joust playfully with Molly again. She had agreed to allow him to work around the place, simply because she couldn’t afford to hire it done. He hoped it might soften the hard shell that separated them these last few weeks. Despite all his efforts, she refused to surrender. His hope was beginning to wane. The momentary mirth he had experienced dissipated, replaced by the anguish that was beginning to overtake his entire thought life.

Fumbling with his keys, Leonard finally got his car started. A slight layer of crystals had begun to form on the windshield in just the hour or so he had been working in the yard. He rested his head on the back of the seat while he waited for the defroster to take care of the buildup. With eyes closed, his mind played out panoramas of pleasant family memories, continually intruded upon by the reality of his loneliness.

He would have remained in that place had not car lights flashed in front of his face and roused him with a start. It was Emily and her mother, pulling into the driveway. The garage door opened at the beckon of the remote device in their car. Leonard saw Emily waving to him as their SUV passed in front of him and disappeared into the garage.

For a few seconds Leonard remained frozen in time. He wanted to leave, he wanted to stay, he wanted to be invisible, he wanted to cry. He wondered what his colleagues at the office would say if they could see him now, or hear his thoughts, or know the depth of his anguish and insecurity. What would they think of their four-time broker of the year if they could see him sobbing in his front seat? He was stirred in some deep fatherly place within him when he saw, from the corner of his eye, Emily bounding toward his car, the visible puffs of her breath escaping with each leap.

Hi, Daddy! she called, rounding the front of the car. Leonard opened the door and barely got to his feet in time to catch her as she flung herself at him in an embrace. He watched over her shoulder as Emily’s mother hurriedly wrestled grocery bags from the rear of the SUV. It was clear from her manner that she wished to avoid any contact with Leonard. A flick of her wrist closed the tailgate and a second motion activated the garage door. Before it was fully closed, she was standing in the kitchen, unloading her stash.

Are we still going Christmas shopping this weekend? asked Emily. She knew she was competing for his attention.

Of course, he replied, Wouldn’t miss it.

Cool! It’ll be fun to see Grandma and Grandpa again. They are still coming, right?

I talked to them last night. They are looking forward to it, although your grandpa is feeling a little tired after his surgery. I’ll pick you up at 8:00 on Saturday and we can meet their train at 9:30. We can be at the mall by 11:00. Is that enough time to shop?

It all depends, smiled Emily.

On what?

On how much money you’re gonna give me to spend!

Leonard knew she was somewhat joking, but what really stabbed him in the gut was the reality of his current financial picture. Renting his own place for the last six months, with first, last and deposit had taken a big toll on his finances. Combined with keeping their home mortgage current, household bills for Molly and Emily and furnishing his new place, the financial stability he had enjoyed for the last few years was taking a hit. Fortunately, he wasn’t entertaining all that regularly and so eating from a card table didn’t bother him all that much. He currently had no say over his and Molly’s savings, until the divorce became final. Leonard used to say, if it became final, but lately he had begun to hold little hope of any other reality. Even though, Molly was making no new noise about moving forward with the proceedings.

How’s your mom doing? He asked.

Oh, okay, she said, not very convincingly. She got called for an interview at that insurance job she has been trying for.

Really?

Yeah, she seems pretty stoked about it. They told her she was one of the final three of over forty applicants.

Wow! He tried to act as if he was truly happy for her. What he really felt was a further sinking in his stomach. The more experienced Molly became, the more independence she gained, the smaller his chances for reconciliation. If she landed that job, it might also lessen her need for said reconciliation. It was a battle of power, which neither one would admit.

Leonard knew it was going to take some time, if ever, for her to forgive him for his dalliance, but he had previously felt confident that their 20-year relationship would somehow weather this storm and their marital ship could be righted once the waves calmed a bit. All of those inclinations now slipped further away, beneath one of those waves.

The faith he had once possessed toward the strength of their relationship was taking fire, penetrating the hull and causing massive damage. He could no longer tell himself that everything was going to be alright with enough courage to convince himself. He exercised great restraint to remain sober and responsible ever since the night that his life began to unravel.

He and Emily continued with light-hearted father and daughter quipping a bit more before the early evening chill began to bite through their enthusiasm.

Hey, you need to get inside before you catch a cold. I’ll see you Saturday, said Leonard as he opened the driver’s door. They hugged one last time in the fading twilight.

I love you, daddy, said Emily.

I love you too, sweetie.

Leonard saw Molly appear at the kitchen window, though she tried to avoid being seen. He glanced away and she was gone. Emily never left the curb as her dad drove away down the darkening street, disappearing through a fine layer of smoke still trickling from Jackson’s burn pile. Leonard watched her through his rear-view, as the stiff breeze moved small streaks of her dark hair across her face. She battled to keep her eyes on him until he was out of sight. With her arms folded against the cold she kept shrinking into the distance behind him until he made the turn onto the arterial at Madison. He would work all week with his head in the sand just to get to the weekend and spend it with Emily. At fourteen, she was becoming a lady right before his eyes.

His office mates could have the body of Leonard Dawkins for forty-plus hours every week, but his mind and soul would be tethered to the house he had just driven away from. His foolish escapades of the recent past cost him his wife and daughter. Now he was wishing for all he was worth that he could spin back the hands of time. But for right now he was hopeless. The last few times they had been in the same room she had refused to even talk to him. He simply couldn’t stand to think about a future without her. Trying to imagine life without her was agonizing to him, a picture frame with a blank canvas. The pieces to life’s puzzle were all flipped around and all he could see were the brown paper backs, void of color and coherence.

The week wore on and the weather grew colder with each passing day. Lows at night were in the twenties and it barely got above freezing from Monday through Friday. Leonard plodded through his workdays at the office. The fervor with which he formerly attacked his job was gone. His immediate cohorts noticed it, but fortunately for him, as they were consumed with year-end reports, they didn’t sense the obvious disinterest that pervaded his business dealings of late.

The Christmas Season for the last twelve years had been a frenzy of hype and selling and moving and shaking for Leonard. To call his ascension at Sunrise Mortgage meteoric might be considered the understatement of the decade. A simple charm, a head for numbers, a desire to genuinely help people and an uncanny ability to figure out some of the most creative financing models the business had ever seen, and it was all done with honest and legitimate dealings. He truly was an inspiration to many.

And somehow closing a home buying deal around Christmas held some extra juice for Leonard. It was like one of those movies Molly used to queue up from NETFLIX and force him to watch with her during the Holidays. He beamed with joy after every closing when he could wrap a ribbon around a box that contained a front door key and present it to a buyer any time after Thanksgiving, or better yet, on Christmas Eve.

As mortgage brokers go, Leonard was genuinely an honest and likable guy. He worked his tail off to get people qualified that he knew probably shouldn’t be considered legitimate candidates for his company’s money, but the driving force was the commission check at the end of each month. It had been that way for all 12 years since he had founded Sunrise. As much as he did have a heart for what he did and he truly did love serving folks, he had concluded in a board meeting in his mind some time ago, that if he wasn’t paid such awesome money for what he did, he wasn’t sure he would continue on passion alone.

That was one of the major things he was contending with that past summer. Should he tell Molly about the loss of fervor he was experiencing toward the game as they referred to it with each other. The fruits of his labor had given them everything a couple would want, including a beautiful daughter to share it all with. The last time he had seen Molly truly fearful was a few years earlier when he had suggested possibly starting his own agency as lead broker.

Outwardly Molly had acquiesced, but inwardly she fought the idea with every ounce of her being. The rift began there. The lack of honesty. The masks being worn for the other. The open and truthful relationship they had pledged themselves to only fifteen years before, now seemed fraught with half-truths, hidden feelings and manipulation. God, please stop it! He had cried out more than once. Each time embarrassed that he couldn’t face his fate.

The struggle for moral territory continued to escalate. Leonard could see it happening, but felt somehow inept or unwilling to bring it under control. The arguments, which began with minor things and for no truly apparent reasons, were at first miniscule and not actually hurtful. Reasonable disagreements about household stuff or child-raising protocol. They prided themselves during Emily’s pre-teen years, for being there for their daughter like prize-winning parents. They never missed a game, a recital, a concert or a practice. The well-balanced young lady she had become was a testimony to their selfless efforts.

After all, as one of the busiest design firms in three counties, Leonard and his staff were privy to all sorts of business deals and land opportunities that many in the general public were never even aware of. Still, Molly grew colder toward the idea of reconciling and by reason of default, grew farther from the man who spawned the idea himself.

Their arguments escalated in intensity and in anger. Mean comments replaced peaceful ones, where a truce would have ensued before. The more Emily was involved in school projects and sports, the more time Molly and he had alone together in their executive style home. Amidst that beautiful backdrop were played out some very ugly marital scenes.

It was painfully obvious to Leonard that his wife had grown quite accustomed to many of the things his genius and know-how had provided for them, as head of Sunrise Mortgage. She was by no means a heartless materialist. She was known widely for her help with handicapped children’s needs. Her time, her energy and her money were gladly welcomed by the various events that she sponsored and causes that she championed.

It frightened her to think that might all go away. And beyond all reason and all of Leonard’s pleading efforts, she could not be dissuaded from the idea of its demise. She saw the idea of her and Emily going it alone as a scenario that could leave them destitute. This was her life and she wasn’t ready to part with it just yet.

The pressure boiling within each of them, tainting the atmosphere of their previous bliss, began to make their marriage a simple, robotic dance, moving when the music was queued, projecting the image of a meaningful and loving couple to all the watching world. Communication between them crumpled like an ancient railroad trestle under the weight of their words crossing anytime they attempted to connect. Oftentimes the friendly, if trite, pleasantries would devolve somehow, almost instantly into shouting matches with the final resting place of the blame as the end goal of both parties.

Leonard wondered how he could have a deeper conversation with Mr. Oslow, his mailman, than he could with his own wife. The septuagenarian postman who seemed somewhere lost in the Woodstock Summer, provided many a wonderful story upon occasion. Many of their heartfelt exchanges ended with a soliloquy by U.S. Postal Carrier Vernon Oslow, orator extraordinaire. Something like, It remains to be seen what will come of the spirit born there at Yasgar’s farm, he said one day. I don’t think that it has yet made its full impact. You wait and see.

Oslow’s naive optimism always gave Leonard a lift. Even if he didn’t necessarily believe in all the things that the old man was envisioning, he had to admit that at the very least, thinking about such possibilities helped him to overcome the negative trauma of his rapidly deteriorating marriage.

He desired to have a plan in place before Emily’s school had let out that previous June. He had known things would get more and more hectic if he continued to pour his time and life into the Sunrise office clock, while his loved ones suffered the loss of his presence at more and more crucial family events. The timing for the business seminar, that same month, had been a welcome respite for a weary warrior.

Chapter 2

  L aying on his bed that night, Leonard mused about his duties for the following day. He had planned the route. He’d made the reservations; he was trying to pretend that he had everything together and would be jovial as usual despite the broken state of his life. His parents weren’t dull-witted people. Henry and Helen Dawkins knew what was happening. They had both lovingly agreed, before coming on the trip, that they were going to do everything in their power to give their granddaughter the most wonderful Christmas that she could ever imagine, as the only offering they could make for this complex situation.

They wanted to avert Emily’s emotional cannons from firing at will by trying to make the Holiday Season seem as similar as possible to what it had been like for all of her previous fourteen years. Leonard thought it a very loving gesture, but he seemed to be lost in orbit around all of these events, kept aloof and unattached by guilt and grief.

If only he had resisted the urge. If only he had just gone back to his room like the good husband he was. It was hard to know how he ever got there. How had he allowed it to happen that way? Every day he ate the bitter herbs of his actions. They seethed through his being, creating in his mind, an image of himself that Leonard seldom liked to look at.

His marriage to Molly had weathered many a storm over the years. Dating their senior year in a time far distant past, the two of them had simply and easily grown together. Their goals and dreams were the stuff wedding brochures are made of. Modest dreams and goals, with each other and Emily in a place of first priority. Camelot revisited.

Leonard had put plenty of nights in rehearsing all the events that had gone together to create the grand fairy tale of Leonard and Molly Dawkins. The thing that probably bothered him most was the fact that it was, for so many years, truly a reality, before it began to fade. Their friends, who were marriage counselors, used to point to them as examples of people doing it right. It really was real. That pricked him like a goad. What an idiot he had been! To throw all of that away for one night of stupidity. He still couldn’t believe his idiocy.

Nights were a lonely time for him, once he was evicted from his own home, by the woman he had vowed to spend his life with fifteen years before. And that was merely the legal part of his attachment to her. She had stolen his heart years before that and tenderly returned it to him, time and time again over the course of their formerly enviable lives. Maybe that was why it seemed so hard to find her unwilling to even speak to him after he had plead his case to her in tears over the backyard barbecue that summer.

Molly, prompted by the incessant pleading of Emily, had agreed with allowing Leonard to run the grill at her birthday party that August afternoon. That was a little over a month after she had locked the deadbolt behind him as he strode away carrying his duffel bag, trudging into this vacuous cavern of uncertainty. Gathering himself after the initial crash was not an easy task.

Fortunately, he had amassed a bazillion hours of sick leave over the last decade and a half, pouring his life into the coffers of Sunrise Mortgage. He missed more than one board (or bored?) meeting calling in sick over the first month of his exile. The staff seemed to rally around him, at least not outwardly condemning him. They were, for the most part, his only allies.

That warm afternoon in August, he had been able to blame his tears on the smoke from the barbeque, as he spilled his heart onto the lawn and asked Molly to try and understand how much he truly and deeply loved her. He remembered his well-chosen words. He had rehearsed them almost the entire time that they had been separated, full of faith that harmony could be restored and the breach that now divided him from Molly and Emily, could be repaired. He was certain that the strength of their former bond would burn through the bitterness and help her to realize that he was speaking the truth and that he was sincere.

It was during that backyard birthday exchange that Leonard became painfully aware that this sort of miscommunication wasn’t something that suddenly appeared in their marriage. It was something that he remembered hearing in a song, a slow fade. It most definitely wasn’t one thing, but an ever-increasing number of things that they had allowed to come between them, sometimes unintentionally, but at other times, lethally and purposely aimed at being harmful toward one another. Harmful to their nature, harmful to their character, harmful to their relationship, their stature in the community, all of the above.

Do you foresee a time in the future when you can ever forgive me, Molly? he had asked with burgers sizzling just beneath his watery eyes. They were attempting to conduct an adult conversation concerning nothing less than the future fate of their marriage, during their child’s birthday party. It was an ill-fated mission from the start.

What do you want me to do, Leonard? Just take a magic wand and wave it over my brain and have all of the hurt and the betrayal and the anger just magically disappear? Well, it doesn’t work that way, ya know?

That’s not what I meant at all, Leonard remembered looking around to make sure their conversation was private. He then continued, saying, I just want to get over this speed bump and get our marriage back on track. Is that too much to ask?

Maybe you should have given that a little more thought a few months ago. Her remark was so cold that it negated the heat of the charcoal in front of him. Maybe you should have tended to things at home, she continued, instead of so much of your energy being spent at the office.

That was the other item on their discussion list that she refused to give up on. He had assured her over and over and over that the affair had been a one-night thing that both parties regretted and felt horrible about. She continued to harbor in her mind a sordid co-worker affair with multiple rendezvous over a long period of time. She had even recently insinuated that it might still be happening more occasionally now that he was out on his own again.

He was never going to convince her otherwise on that humid autumn afternoon over searing cow flesh. Their short-lived engagement over the grill ended with a water balloon bursting over the back of his neck. Several squeals from Emily’s teenage entourage followed by more balloons, prevented them from ever returning to that discussion again. Still, he hoped that she didn’t really believe that his infidelity was continuing. It wasn’t true, but it was still another spear to his side, the jab of guilt going deep.

They had begun arguing in earnest about a year before, just after Christmas. Money had always been plentiful and in so many ways Leonard seemed positive that it always would be, but all the housing industry was taking huge hits with an extremely volatile economy. He had used that phrase in their latest sales brochure at Sunrise Mortgage. He still had several of them laying around his folding card table that served as his dining table at present. The quote was front and center, by his design, advocating for the Sunrise Mortgage staff as the good guys of the hamlet.

Our company is first in the community for serving the mortgage needs of this fine city as we strategically navigate the dangerous waters of today’s tempestuous economy.

That tempestuous economy, whatever the reason for it, had begun to put a strain on the Hawkins personal fortunes. Not a catastrophic collapse, but enough of a slowdown to impact their usual spending habits for the Holidays. Unfortunately, Molly failed to get the memo. She continued shopping for her folks and family, for Leonard’s brood and of course for dear, sweet Emily.

Leonard considered many times that he had gratuitously spoiled his daughter, never allowing her to know the hunger of an unfulfilled want. That was one of the points of contention that began to fracture the foundations of the Dawkins castle.

Do we have to buy her everything she wants? He remembered shouting at her in the department store a couple of weeks before Christmas the year before.

Leonard! she gasped. She seemed unprepared and/or unwilling to engage in a shouting match in the anchor store to the village mall.

What? was his rhetorical, yet harsh response.

Why are you being so selfish and not wanting Emily to have these things?

What? His turn to gasp. "You think I don’t want her to have these things? Of course, I do! I just don’t want her to think that she needs every whim met. Kids learn how to be responsible when they see how much things cost and how you have to appreciate them for their value, while not becoming so attached to them that you lose the true meaning of the Season." He thought that he might scurry to the moral high ground with that statement and await her response. That response caught him completely and utterly off guard.

So, you think I don’t appreciate all of the wonderful things we have?

What are you talking about? Are you nuts? He remembers still having a smile on his face when saying that to her, but her next exchange wiped that away with a smack.

You think that everything you do is so damned smart, and I am just some sort of Stepford Wife that has no character or backbone to stand on their own?

Whoa, he had said, holding his hands up in surrender or to protect his heart from the incoming arrows. That is not what I meant at all!

Well, Mr. Sunrise Mortgage, just what did you mean? The tone of her voice, the set of her features, the coldness in her manner, were things that he had never before seen in her. They became so very evident as he silently watched her in disbelief.

Molly, calm down honey. It was all he could say.

"I’m not not calm!" Her retort was far above the volume of the shout she had shushed him over just moments before. It became increasingly clear to him over the months, as he was able to replay these past memories over in his mind like a rented movie. These memories were paid for by his naked and bleeding conscience, along with a possibly mortally wounded self-image. Despite his many sales awards and trophies still encased in the basement shrine that he called his man cave, he was losing the one thing that meant anything at all to him. Cavemen had it better.

He missed that hideout. He missed the times he and Molly would meander down there after getting Emily to sleep two floors above. The door at the top of the steps could be bolted from either side. If you wanted privacy in the basement, it was yours for simply sliding the silver bolt merely an inch to the right and dropping the lock arm into the slot.

Likewise, if, after watching a scary flick with your dad, you decided to lock the door from the kitchen side to prevent any lethal, dark, dastardly things from invading through the basement, that too was an option. Leonard actually chuckled out loud when he thought of Emily’s unimaginable fear of beasties and goblins until she suddenly became the good, super girl, superhero, defeating the wizards and demons and all, with the wave of her Princess Of Power scepter.

After the holiday buzz died out and before the encounter, he and Molly had queued up the curtain on any number of silly squabbles that began to be everyday bouts, laced with innuendo and criticisms of the smallest of things. Leonard hated to have Emily hear them fighting, but he had to admit that the decibel level of their marital discussions, as he had described them to an extremely concerned fourteen-year old girl, had indeed elevated exponentially over the dark and gray period that always seemed to befall Mill Creek in December through the first part of February. Days on end would pass with no sighting of the sun, not even remotely. The darkness of those days noticeably accented the descending state of the Dawkins union.

Fights occurred more and more frequently. All of these events began coalescing in a grand pattern for Leonard. What about Molly? Was she putting the same picture together? Could he hope for her to see things as he did? Could he somehow infuse her with a renewed hope and desire to give their marriage another shot?

Further along the timeline he began to realize how he had allowed himself to abandon the core principles that he had employed in the afterglow of their honeymoon, which they both used to say lasted for ten years after their marriage. Why did we say it that way? Leonard asked himself many times. You see, the thing about this movie rental memory thing, employed by those who have no life outside their eight-to-five rut, is that you can make the movie bend any way you want. This usually entailed making his argument look the best.

But why, after ten years, did they begin confessing that their formerly eternal honeymoon was now officially terminated? Was that where the fracture began? Leonard’s pal, Rufus, a part time electrician and another part family counselor, once told him that the most horrific devastation that two people could deploy against one another was a bloody divorce. And as much as Leonard struggled to refuse that thought entrance into his mind, he had had to deal with more and more thoughts of vengeful lawyers, gnashing at him with their teeth glinting, ripping his assets from him to take a chunk back with them to distribute in his own home to his own wife and daughter.

It infuriated him to the point that he worried for his own health at how angry he had become over some of the court dealings so far. To him the whole process was distorted and contained no logical order whatsoever. It lacked common sense in every aspect of how they dealt with flesh and blood, husband and wife, parent and child relationships. It was as if they had formed this rigid opinion about how family dynamics worked and if you found yourself at a place where your wife was filing papers against you, then you must damned well be guilty of something. And it seemed unjustly tilted in favor of the female, in every instance that Leonard had been able to research.

Added to his own findings were the rambling of many a dissolute ex-husband in the small group he had attended for two sessions that previous September. A friend had suggested that the comradery that he would find in that group might well help him restore his marriage. That was the goal of the group, but many of the members were getting on toward a lifetime membership in that fraternity. After two weeks of the same old rhetoric, Leonard decided that was not the path for him. He did learn a lot however, about how men and women react and behave toward one another during different seasons of their lives. The Lower Basin Street Divorcees’ Support Group was indeed an experience he would not soon forget, but it was also one that only took him two visits to realize wasn’t for him.

Even with all of that expert training, Molly’s frigidity toward their reunion was probably the single most hurt producing thought he could foist on himself, night after lonely night. Occasionally that tyrant of a defense lawyer inside his head would propose