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It’s a Place of Beauty

By: Mainefiddleheads



The beautiful things of life are oftentimes birthed out of great bitterness.

The morning sunlight glistened off the smooth surface of West Grand Lake with the early morning chilled air hanging still and motionless. It was the dead calm of an early October morning when most of the seasonal campers and cottage dwellers had long returned to their distant residences and towns. The only souls for miles around in this naked stretch of Maine woods and water were the hardy year round inhabitants and a few passing through from Indian Township to the east.

The oar sliced into the water almost silently pushing my canoe toward the lake shore where comfortable warmth awaited me in the cottage I now called home. The three room camp with a sleeping loft was being warmed with an old Dover woodstove with a copper kettle of hot water at the ready for steaming tea. It is a simple life and a far cry from the complexities of my former existence.

My grandfather built this camp long before I was born and when he passed away a few years ago he left it to me in his will. When I was a young boy I spent my summers here learning every crook and cranny of West Grand, its tributaries including the stretches of the "Stream" down into Big Lake. This is serious fishing and hunting country, rugged and remote yet accessible for those with a yearning for 'Down East".

As I pushed closer to the shore I could make out her figure bundled up against an unfamiliar cold, at least cold in comparison to the warm bask of her Low country in South Carolina. It was 40 degrees colder than the 65 degree warmth of her southern comfort and I knew that underneath the layers of inadequate clothing she stood there shivering trying to stay warm. She never understood my affinity for flannel. 

As the aluminum bottom grounded onto the gravel and I stepped onto the firm shore, I looked up at her with as much coldness as my worn and emotionally spent mind could gin up into a façade of displeasure. She looked good and I looked otherwise.

"Darrell, we need to talk."

I hadn't talked to her in almost a year now and the truth was I was not ready to talk to her. For that matter I didn't know that I ever wanted to talk to her again in this lifetime or the next. I had my life and I was living it as I wished and doing well. I looked up at her and nodded toward the cottage.

The smell of baked beans and coffee hung in the air when we entered and after I stoked the woodstove, two mugs of coffee were placed on my kitchen table.

"You hungry?" I asked her.

"No thanks, I grabbed a quick bite at the store out on the highway before driving in." she replied.

"That's good. I'm surprised he was open that early."

Early's General Store was open at 4:30AM during the season but after the kids went back to school and the cottages began emptying out he usually didn't open until 6AM, except for deer season in November. I looked my ex-wife over as she sat there, wondering what in hell could she ever want to talk about after all we went through.

"Theresa, why are you here?"

She fumbled with her spoon adding a bit of sugar to her black coffee and looked up into my eyes. There was a time when the two of us could have read minds with just a stare. This was a different time, a different era all together.

"The divorce, I didn't go through with it." She barely whispered her reply.

I looked at her closely and walked over to the stove and fixed a plate of beans and ham.

"What do you mean? It's already done. We both signed almost a year ago. It was a fait accompli back in May."

"Darrell, no, I never filed the papers. I had my lawyer give three sets to me and I've held onto them since." She answered while gazing out the window and turning back to me.

"I couldn't actually do it."

The beans in my mouth toyed with my tongue as I contemplated what she was saying. I swallowed hard. A year ago we were flaming bridges and tearing down foundations and scorching the earth with brazen torches. I ended up leaving with my truck and a duffle bag of belongings to places far away with a storage unit crammed with what was left of 20 years of bliss. A job as a communications director for a company in Charleston SC was walked away from and replaced with a wayfarer's thirst for freelance writing.

I looked at her with a bit of incredulity and resignation. She couldn't actually do it, she said. How in fucks sake could somebody not do what they had already done in spades through the destruction of two marriages and the alienation of her daughter's feelings toward her father? I think for the first time in years I was speechless.

I scooped the contents of my plate into the garbage and rinsed it in the sink. I still had not replied to Theresa's revelation and didn't know how to if I wanted to. I grabbed my coat and walked out of the cottage and jumped into my Dodge truck. She had not moved from the table even when I turned the ignition over. As I sat there with the motor running I tried to think back on the events that brought us here and I couldn't persuade myself to drive away.

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I met Theresa nearly 20 years ago when we were both young twentysomethings trying to make it big in Atlanta. I had just taken a job with the corporate HR team at GPI in center city and Theresa was working for a public relations firm across the street. We ran into each other, literally, during lunch and after apologizing, we ended up eating together. From there, we moved on to dating and a year later we were married. We were normal people living relatively normal lives. After a couple years, she got pregnant, even after all the precautions and we added a little girl named Kelsey to the mix. Before Kelsey started school, we moved to Theresa's hometown, Charleston SC and both of us took on good jobs and continued living the so called American dream.

Of course we had our conflicts and our disagreements. She was a southern girl and I knew that when I married her although I always harbored a subtle desire to someday return to Maine and live life the way it's supposed to be, as my grandfather used to say. That never happened and I never begrudged her for it. We both loved living in Charleston and we lived it gregariously. 

By the time Kelsey started high school, the changes started to happen. I can say that now looking back but at the time everything was still within the realm of normality. Both of us changed jobs. I stayed with my company but moved into communications. Theresa went to work for an upstart marketing company and began traveling a bit more and after a short while was promoted to an assistant VP slot working for their business development director. Now, she was on the road every other week and the changes were obvious.

She began dressing up more with increased cleavage, more revealing clothing, wearing perfume more frequently. The client meetings and dinners were with increasing frequency and late nights became the norm. I had no idea what was going on when she was on the road.

At the same time, I was being burdened with my own workloads and pressures of a company that was being reorganized and going through difficult times. I just didn't pay attention to what was going on around me. We still had our downtimes together. We still had great sex when she was around. It was just that she wasn't around much and because I was so myopic in my own work world I never noticed until it was too late.

It was too late the night I came home and found her sitting at the kitchen table with a blackened eye and bloody lip. Before I could run to her she held up her hand.

"It's not what you think or maybe it is but sit down, Darrell."

I looked at her and took a seat. She looked fucked up, drunk and bleary eyed. Not taking her eyes off me, she pushed a manila envelope in my direction.

"I'm getting a divorce."

There wasn't any discussion or argument or anything like that. It was a simple statement. The envelope contained four sets of papers, each a copy for the dissolution of marriage and spelled out her terms. To be plain speaking I was flabbergasted. She rose from the table, took her purse and walked out the door. Before I could react or stop her, she was getting into a car I had not seen before driven by a man I had. She was riding away with her boss, James Riley.

This all took place in a matter of moments. I had walked in, saw her, sat down, she made her statement and then rode off into the night with somebody new. I don't think 3 minutes had passed and the car must have pulled in right behind me, for Christ's sake. I sat down on the couch trying to take stock of what had just happened.

It is a difficult feeling to explain, almost stuck between a death in the family and being robbed. I couldn't wrap my hands around it for the longest time and what seemed worse of all was that there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it. I wandered around the house trying to assess the emotional damage and began to notice things. Some of her clothing was gone along with a lot of her personal effects. Several of my daughter's belongings were also gone. Kelsey had moved out as well. She was only 17 but old enough to make those kinds of choices.

I immediately called Kelsey on my cell and it went to voice mail. After leaving her a message to call me and trying again, I returned to the kitchen and picked up the papers and read through them. She was taking me to the cleaners or at least intended to. She wanted 70% equity in the house, 2/3 of our savings for her and Kelsey and half of my 401K and retirement along with $1,500/week alimony. I threw the papers back onto the table and poured a tumbler of rum, no Coke. I repeated that a few more times and my next thought was of how bright it was.

I was lying on the grass in my back yard peering up into the morning sun and still covered in dew. After pulling myself up and stumbling back inside the house I made my way to the shower and just stood there with the water cascading on me. I remembered enough of the previous night to know my wife had left me taking my daughter with her apparently. I called my office as soon as I located my phone and took a personal day after explaining the situation to my boss. She understood of the situation having divorced her own cheating husband a couple years earlier.

As I sat at the table I reviewed the papers again and ended up bloodying my knuckles on the door frame to the kitchen. I think I resolved right there to not take this lying down. I was going to fight it and the next thing I did was call my attorney only to find out that Theresa had already had a consultation with him so he couldn't take the case. He did point me in the right direction and I met later that afternoon with another attorney who basically laid it all out in plain English.

"You are going to end up with an equitable distribution. She makes more than you so there will be no alimony. She will get half the savings and 50% of the equity. Since she has her own 401K and pension, she will not get a claim on yours. However, if your daughter chooses to live with her mother there is nothing you can do about that. Besides, she will be 18 by the time this is all settled anyway."

So that is what I settled on and he counter offered my wife and set up a conference for all parties. Unfortunately, Theresa refused through her attorney to meet with me and shortly after I received a restraining order against me preventing me from contacting Theresa or Kelsey in any manner. 

A couple weeks later, Theresa's attorney provided an amended suit agreeing to the terms we submitted and on my attorneys advice I signed all four copies. I agreed to have Theresa come into the house with my attorney present to remove any additional belongings that were hers. I chose to make myself scarce when she did, especially since I had the restraining order against me. In six months I would be divorced with no real explanation for why other than my suspicions of her adultery.

Those suspicions were realized a couple months after I signed while I was getting ready to show the house to a prospective buyer. I answered a knock at the door and when I answered an attractive woman stood there with a package in her hands. I greeted her and inquired who she was.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Carson, my name is Melissa Riley and I wanted to have a short discussion with you concerning your wife and my husband, James Riley?"

I looked at her for a while before inviting her in. I offered her coffee and she graciously accepted. After we were seated I opened the discussion.

"Ms. Riley, before you begin, I should tell you that my wife and I are divorcing and we haven't spoken a word to each other since she told me she was filing for divorce. I also haven't spoken to or seen my daughter either and to tell you the truth I have absolutely no idea why. So if you can shed light on that predicament, I'm all ears."

I looked at her expectantly without reason.

"Mr. Carson, I am also divorcing my husband because of his adultery with your wife, Theresa Carson. I arrived home unexpected one afternoon; I believe the same day your wife informed you of your divorce. I found my husband having sex with your wife in my bed. Well, I'm sorry to admit that I lost my temper and struck her several times in anger before he could stop me."

I smiled at that remembering the black eye and bruised lip.

"Well, I turned to my husband and told him to be out of the house before I returned and I left to stay with my sister for several days in Summerville. When I returned the following week he had removed his personal belongings and left a forwarding address. I filed for divorce the next day although he has yet to agree to terms. He is trying to fight it although there is no hope he will succeed. Our children are grown now and quite frankly, this was not his first adultery and I'm sure it will not be his last."

She handed me a package and told me that it contained a DVD of her security recordings edited to show that the two of them had entered and used her home on several occasions over the course of a month, as far back as the disk memory would allow. He had confessed to her that the affair had been going on for the past year and Theresa worked for him.

"Does he know that you have these recordings?" I asked.

"Oh no and neither does your wife. I have filed under irreconcilable differences. I see no point in dragging adultery into court. The house was my parents and he has no claim on it or on the inheritance I received from them. I live on Sullivan's Island and have all my life. He leaves with whatever is his and will pay alimony to boot. I am of independent means. No, I just want it done and over with. But, I also want you to have the evidence. He told me the two of you were divorcing but he is not living with her. He broke that off in hopes of convincing me to stay with him. Slim chance of that I assure you."

I thanked her for the package and we finished our conversation and said our goodbyes. When Melissa Riley left I stood there thinking how foolish illicit lovers can be. Did my wife think there was some grand life to be had elsewhere with a man who was fucking around on his own wife? 

Apparently she did and now those dominos are falling. I found a bit of perverse pleasure in her ill will but it didn't answer any questions I still had as to why and why has my own daughter chosen such sides in this battle.

The week after Melissa Riley's visit, I received an offer on the house that met with the lawyers' approval for equity settlements and we closed on it the following month. Since it was paid for, the house provided a good equity payout for both of us although unlike the esteemed Ms. Riley of Sullivan's Island, I still had to work for a living. Theresa's share went into an escrow account along with other finances and I returned to my work world and what was left of my regular life.

One of my long held hobbies had been writing freelance for a few obscure publications, mostly to do with outdoor living and recreation. I had also edited several works on the side although neither provided any substantial and reliable income. I certainly needed my day job to say the least. All of that changed in the following March.

"Mother Nature" magazine published an online article I had written a few months earlier and contacted me about writing a regular column for their monthly issue. It wasn't a large payday but it was $500 a month for the next 12 months if I agreed to do it. The first column would make it in their April issue if I could get it to them in the next two weeks. I did just that and two weeks after it appeared I received another three inquiries, one for a monthly and two for quarterly issues. So far in total I had $850 in monthlies and $1,000 for quarterlies. That was when I made what to most was probably a foolish decision.

I had put my share of the house equity into an account and left it there. It was close to $250K. I had 20 years of savings that came close to that after Theresa took her share and the 401K and retirement could just stay put until I could draw on it. If I didn't pour the capital gain on another property, I'd have to pay taxes on it so I did just that, on land adjacent to my inherited cottage on West Grand Lake. I was able to purchase Lake Frontage on both sides of my cottage with $200K and I planned on using the remaining $50K to fix up the old cottage to my liking.

It was a lot harder to give my two week notice than I thought it would be. I had made some good friends over the years in the workplace and a number of them had been there when I needed it over the past several months. A small number were familiar with the circumstances and one of them was interested in subletting the small apartment I took when the house sold. I gave her most of the furniture I had kept from the house and a bunch of bric-a-brac that Theresa had left behind.

In return, she gave me the best fuck I had enjoyed in a long time. It wasn't a planned thing, of course. We had opened a bottle of Pinot Grigio to celebrate her taking over the lease and half way through the second bottle she peeled her britches off and pulled her blouse up over her head. My shorts were quickly to my ankles and she started me off with an amazing blowjob. For a 44 year old guy, I felt like 25 and with the whole world at my step. She did more for my esteem than any therapist could imagine.

I left for my trip north the next day after receiving an invite back for seconds from my sensual heroine. I didn't say no but I also didn't know when I would be back. I gave her a key to my storage locker and told her if there was anything in there she needed to go ahead and use it. It was paid up for two years.

My Dad's cousin lived in the area and he had been looking after the cottage when I wasn't there. Theresa and I had been going to it every year for a week since we got married so I knew it was in good shape. Nonetheless, it was good to have family look after it.

It took me three days to get there driving at a tourists pace. I stopped at a couple interesting places along the way and by the time I arrived at West Grand my truck and trailer were full. The place was in great shape with the propane tanks recently filled once mud season dried up. Somebody had dumped a couple cord of unsplit firewood on the backside and my Dad had a couple loads of gravel hauled in on the road. It was basically ready for me to move in.

It is 5 miles of driving off Rt. 1, mostly on gravel and the cottage has a diesel generator for power, wood for heat and hot water with an outhouse a short walk out back. There is a propane stove and refrigerator and gas lights that work just as well as electric. I even had satellite internet installed a couple years ago although it's not the fastest connection around. Part of my upgrade was installing enough solar power to support my outside world connections without having to run the generator.


It’s a Place of Beauty



By the time June rolled around I was completely settled in and had also picked up a couple additional accounts for publication. That gave me close to $1,500 a month for income, more than enough to meet my needs given I had no mortgage or utility payments other than filling up the propane tank twice a year and paying $50 a month for my not so ideal internet connection. It was at least a whole lot better than dial up.

What was missing was affection, of the female kind. Being married for 20 years had me accustomed to certain pleasures of the flesh and masturbation was a poor substitute for getting laid. The problem was I was living in the sticks and when I got to the main road I was still in the sticks. Yet, people still live in the sticks. In the July issue of "Alternative Ground" I wrote of my transition from the corporate office in Charleston to the wilds on the banks of West Grand Lake. She came knocking on my door on the 4th of July.

At first I didn't know what to think. She stood there in waders up to her bosom with her long golden hair pulled back on a braided pony tail running down to the crack of her ass, if there was a crack to be seen underneath that rubberized fly fishing garb she was wearing. I had seen her crossing the lake from a distance. There are a good number of fishing boats on the lake in the summertime but most put in from one of the few public boat launches since there are very few camps on the lake. My Grandfather's and a small number of other camps were built in the 1920s before the paper companies bought up most of the land. This young lady was crossing from up above me meaning she had to come in from one of the remaining camps.

She flashed a big grin at me.

"You that fellah that's writing up here from down south?" she asked in perfect Maine brogue.

"Yessah or ma'am" I said in reply.

There is a technique to conversing with a Mainah around here, an accent and manner of speaking that comes natural to those who grew up with it. If you are from away, it all sounds contrived if you try to put on the brogue. Folks 'down east' as this part of the state is known don't even consider it a brogue or accent. That's what other people "from away" have.

"Good, then I didn't waste my gas for nothin'. She replied to me.

I invited her in for coffee and since it was near 'suppah time' I offered her some beans and ham along with a slice of brown bread to which she readily agreed. The brown waders slid off her body and a petit lady about 35 years or so emerged wearing jeans and a tee shirt. She slipped on a pair of sandals she was carrying in a bag and I showed her the way to the wash basin.

Her name was Sally Clucey, pronounced with a long 'u' as in 'clue'see'. She was indeed 35 years old and lived in one of the cabins on the other side of the lake up from me, at least in the summer time. During the school year she was a teacher on the Indian reservation paid for by the federal government. Like me, she had inherited her place but was living a good bit more remote than I was. I had a paper company gravel road I traveled down to get to the lake. She had to bring in supplies by boat from the public landing.

We took a liking to each other and I started helping her bring in supplies and materials on a weekly basis. It was easier to stage some things at my place and boat them to her cabin than try to haul everything in multiple boat loads from the landing. She had a similar set up as me with gas and generator along with a satellite internet connection.

One day she came in with a radio rig and set it up for me.

"Now we can talk to each other when we feel like it. It will run off your solar during the day and the battery pack at night and it doesn't use much juice." She grinned like she had just solved an astrophysics exam.

We usually had the radios on in the later evening just to chat when there wasn't anything else going on. I tried to do my writing in the early evenings and mornings and usually around 9PM or so I'd turn it on and see if she was about. She used a ham radio a good bit and had a following of people from around the countryside.

I think it was around 10PM one evening when I heard the double click of the radio, that being our signal. She broke in.

"Hey, Smootches, I'm bored so I'm heading to your place unless you wanna come here." She announced.

I was pretty sure she had been drinking as she had never called me Smootches before.

"I think you better stay put. It sounds like you've been hitting the sauce a bit tonight, Sally Smootches." I replied to her and actually grinning to myself. She was being flirty and I enjoyed it.

"Nope ... I'll be there in about 30 minutes and THEN I'll hit the sauce."

Sally did just that. She motored up to my dock thirty minutes later carrying a rump sack and a bottle of rum. I still had the remnants of a campfire burning on the beach so we pulled up a couple lawn chairs and we sipped spiced rum next to a roaring fire.

Neither of were feeling any pain when she stood up and pulled her tee shirt over her head revealing a pair of perfect apple sized breasts. She smiled at me, tweaked her nipples and pulled her shorts down over her now naked ass before stepping out of them on the beach in front of that roaring fire. She was absolutely beautiful and even if she hadn't been, my testosterone fueled desire wouldn't have cared.

We ended up in the bed with her on top after we gave each other oral sex and she rode my rock hard prick for the next 15 minutes before I had to roll her over and make love to her face to face. I don't know what time we drifted off to sleep but we woke up and did it again. It was a cool dip in the morning waters, naked, off my dock that chilled the remaining fires.

From that point, we became occasional lovers. It wasn't all the time, usually once a week or every couple of weeks. Neither of us was looking for spousal replacements. Sally had been dumped by some shit for brains from Massachusetts who couldn't wipe his ass in the woods without directions and she knew what I was going through with Theresa or I should say went through. At this point, I really didn't give a rat's ass about my ex-wife.

While Theresa had become little more than a sore memory, I was still pretty bothered by the distance and silence imposed on me by my daughter, Kelsey. As far as I knew there was still a restraining order against me preventing me from contacting her and I sure didn't feel like standing before a judge to explain anything. Well, I reasoned that if she ever decided to explain why I was now the family pariah, she could reach out to me. I felt like crap thinking that way but I didn't really have any other options.

Living in the boondocks can be a challenge for a lot of people with its isolation, the solitude of having to make your own entertainment. I was never one to take up fly fishing when I was a youngster. Living out here fulltime afforded me the opportunity to explore the art and with one of the best landlocked salmon fisheries anywhere right at my doorstep as well as Grand Lake Stream at the outlet, there was no better place for me to learn. Between that and my growing freelance work, I was scrupulously enjoying my new renaissance. 

By the time autumn rolled around I had been able to work the income up to around $30K a year. A couple newspapers picked me up in Bangor and Portland so in general I wouldn't starve or freeze to death. My first year garden worked out pretty well with a lot of help from Sally who seemed to be made of green thumbs and with a pickup load of canning supplies purchased on a trip to Calais, both of us had put up quite a stock of goods over the summer.

Sally started staying on the reservation when the school year began at the start of September but spent every weekend on the lake. Her place was winterized but she hadn't prepared it for living year round and when the lake started to ice in, she wouldn't be getting to her place in any event. So September was really a time to get ready to close things up for her while for me it was a time to make sure I was ready to take on old man winter. By the time November got here, we would have to be complete on the preps.

For now though it was a beautiful early autumn season and with the fall foliage getting ready to peak in its brilliance of red and gold, we enjoyed the gentle days for as long as we could. It was on one of those crisp early mornings with the colors reflecting off the still water that I found my ex-wife standing on the shore as I put in my canoe.

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"I couldn't actually do it." She had said.

I sat in the truck staring out onto the surface of the water trying to imagine how ridiculous it would look to turn the wheel and run again. This time there would be no running, no turning away and surrendering what was mine to some bastard interloper. For a brief moment I thought of killing him, of making him suffer and pay for the destruction he wrought. Just as quickly my thought turned to Kelsey and then to Theresa as pent up emotions began their release.

I felt the sting of those tears fall onto my wrist and heaved everything that I had kept bottled up for these many months. It was a guttural release not unlike the emotional anger of discovering the remnants of thievery but it didn't stop me from hearing her enter the cab of my truck.

"I'm thinking you need to go back in there and figure things out. Whatcha think?" She said with uncharacteristic seriousness. 

I looked at her with her golden hair braided tight with just the slimmest uncertain smile on her face. She was right. There was unfinished business inside. I turned the ignition off and opened the door, stepping outside and leaned into the open window just nodding at her. She slid over into the driver's seat, gave me a peck on the lips and turned the ignition over.

"I'm going to go to Early's and pick up some things. I'll be back in a bit."

So she did just that and I watched her drive up the gravel road and turn toward Amazon Road that would carry her back to the civilized sticks and Early's General Store.

Theresa was still sitting at the kitchen table staring at her coffee. I picked up the pot and freshened both mugs before taking a seat again. She glanced up at me before speaking and I simply stared back.

"I'm not certain where to begin really. I've made such a complete mess of everything, not just with you but with Kelsey too and whatever I thought I had for a career. I quit my job when I set the papers aside and took a position with one of the car dealers over on Savannah Highway."

She looked up at me and then quickly cast her gaze down on the table.

"It was all so glamorous and exciting and I thought I was that proverbial cat's meow traveling all over the place. I lost my soul in all of it. I lost everything ... my husband, my job, my self-respect, now, even my daughter."

I looked at her narrowly at that point.

"What do you mean, you lost your daughter? What? Fuck you, Theresa! You stole her from me, even placing a restraining order against me, for Christ's sake. Lost your daughter? Fuck you ... fuck you right in your ass."

My hands were shaking and I could hardly hold the mug to my lips but I managed and continued.

"Just where is my daughter now? What happened to her? I don't know if she is alive or dead, you fucking cunt! You robbed me of all I had left."

Theresa sat there sobbing into her hands and quivering in her seat. As I looked at her I saw two people. There was the woman I fell in love with and knew every inch of her body and her responses and mannerisms. Then, there was there was the woman who was a complete stranger, an alien on my shore and so far out of reach of my compassion I didn't know whether to strangle or embrace her. She was obviously aching but she didn't realize the extent of her searing actions. 

"Where is Kelsey now, Theresa?"

She looked up at me looking for a sign, any sign that I recognized her as a frail human being.

"She is out in the car." She replied. "Darrell, please, she doesn't know how to come to you after what I've done. She is afraid you will reject her. It took everything I had left in this world to get her to come here with me. "

She sat there dejected and weeping. I simply rose from the table and walked outside and over to her car. Theresa was sleeping in the passenger seat with the seatback down, covered with a familiar looking quilt. My grandmother made it for her when she was a little girl and we had kept it in the cottage. She used it every time she came up here.

I opened the door and knelt down. When her eyes opened and she saw me, Kelsey sat right up and threw her arms around my neck sobbing.

"Daddy, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. Please."

I continued to hug and hold my daughter and told her how much I loved her and missed her. We stayed like that for several minutes before I looked her right in her tearful eyes.

"Kelsey, you will never do anything or could do anything that would ever diminish any of my love for you, ever. That I promise until the day I die. Do you understand me? You are everything to me!"

That brought another round of tears and more hugging until I convinced her to go on a walk with me along the shore. I told her I didn't want her to tell me anything at this point. I just wanted her to know I loved her and I wanted her back where she belonged. I helped her with her things and we took them into the cottage and up to the loft where she always slept as a child. After a while, she grabbed her sweater and said she was going to go hike the Oxbrook Stream trail.

When Kelsey left, I pointed toward the kitchen table and Theresa took a seat. I didn't sit down immediately. Instead I walked over to the cabinet where I stored an S&W .38 and a box of shells and set them on top of the cabinet. What I wanted was underneath them.

Sitting back at the table, I set the package in front of me, sipped my coffee and looked Theresa right in the eye.

"You are going to tell me what you did that put my daughter in such tears and kept her away from me all these months. I don't want to hear about your whorish fucking with James Riley. I don't want you to tell me how sorry you are for totally fucking two marriages and everybody's life. I just want you to tell me why my Daughter didn't see or talk to me for nearly a year now. Can you do that?"

She nodded while biting her lip.

"Darrell, I lied to her. I lied to her about us, why we were divorcing, why you were leaving. I mean, why I left you. You know the old adage that if you tell one lie, a dozen more will follow. Well, it's fucking true. I told her you were leaving us, divorcing me, because I couldn't bear to tell her I was a cheating slut.

You remember the black eye and busted lip? Jesus, this is awful. I'm so sorry. I'm so fucking sorry for all of this. She thought you did it and I didn't tell her otherwise. I went along with it and made you out to be the one who hit me; that you were leaving me for another woman. That's why she didn't reach out to you. She was being loyal to me."

I had to struggle to control my rage at that point. Thinking my daughter considered me a wife beater when I had never laid a finger on her mother the entire time we were married was turning my resolve upside down. My fingers were toying with the package on the table and I wanted to burst out in anger but I knew I couldn't.

"Theresa, how did you think this was going to turn out? You are a smart woman. How long did you think you could keep it up?"

"Darrell, it wasn't like that. I didn't think at all. I just didn't want to lose her and everything just fell into place all at once. James' wife found us together and she was the one who hit me. At that point I just had to react. Kelsey saw my face that afternoon and one lie led to another. I told her my boss was giving us a place to stay so I took her and some things over to one of the corporate apartments we have over in West Ashely."

"Theresa, why the restraining orders" I asked.

She winced at that.

"I knew if she talked with you she would learn the truth and with the bruises and everything, it was a simple and routine thing to do according to my attorney."

I had already figured as much when I received the order although it was still a shock to think that she would let anybody think I beat her.

"Theresa, that leaves the question of how did Kelsey figure out the truth or did you just finally tell her?"

"It was Melissa Riley. She came by the apartment one afternoon thinking I would be there but I was out grocery shopping and Kelsey talked to her. Mrs. Riley told Kelsey she wanted to apologize to me for beating me. She wasn't there when I got back but she had left her calling card. At that point it didn't matter. Kelsey was livid.

I had to sit down and tell her the truth, that I had an affair with Mrs. Riley's husband. I told her everything and I didn't leave anything out. "

"Theresa, when was this?"

"In early May. You had already left town and the girl who was living in your apartment said you moved to California. Your Dad wouldn't tell me anything and it wasn't until I talked with Early's daughter at the store on the phone one day that I learned you were living here now."

I smiled to myself when I heard her mention the bum steer to California. That hot little fuck kept telling me she would send the 'ex' on a wild goose chase if she got the chance. I would have to remember to thank her properly.

"Theresa, let me see if I have this right. You whored your fucking cunt to your boss for who knows how long and when she found you with his prick slicing in and out of your fucking twat in her bed, she beat the shit out of you. Let's not stop there. You said one thing to me 'I'm getting a divorce', you said. That was the only thing you said and then you were gone riding off to lala land with the fucking prick that was cuckolding me.

Then, then you had my daughter believing I beat the crap out of you and were running of with some imaginary other woman, tossed a restraining order on me to prevent her from learning the truth. That doesn't even include the absurd divorce settlement you tried on me. Do I have it all right there, Theresa? Did I miss anything?"

She just sat there all cried out. There weren't any tears left at that point. I opened up the package on the table and slid to her a copy of the DVD Melissa Riley gave me that afternoon several months ago. I then pulled out my copy of her Petition for Dissolution of Marriage with our notarized signatures.

"Theresa, I don't know why you couldn't file the divorce you forced upon me, forced without so much as a word of explanation between us. To tell you the truth I really don't care why. I loved you with every fiber of my being and there wasn't anything I would not have done for you. If the truth were known, I still love you and probably always will but if there is a gospel truth, this is darn near it. You will never be my wife, divorce or not. You need to file the papers. If you don't I will.

I'll tell you about the DVD as well. Mrs. Riley gave that to me. I should say I don't know what her name is now, if she kept that pricks name or not. But, what is on it is why you need to file those papers. It's a security video, edited to capture all your shining naked glory in her home, in her bed, on her couch, even on their god damn dining room table. There are thirteen episodes staring Mrs. Theresa Carson and Mr. James Riley.

I especially liked the ass fucking he gave you while you were bent over the ottoman in their living room. I never thought he'd have been able to slide into that puckered ass of yours so easily. But then, he's a rather small dicked little shit, isn't he, Theresa? You sure as hell didn't look like you were enjoying it but there you were giving him your cherry ass."




It’s a Place of Beauty



I really didn't have anything else to say. I thought I'd have volumes to say to her when I had the chance but this nastiness with the video and her revelations concerning how she accused me left me void.

"I really do love you, Theresa, but there's nothing left of the two of us now. You need to file. You burned us to the ground and I didn't even know it until it was done."

In years past her moist eyes would have pulled me without speaking to an embrace. That morning I was just dull.

"Darrell, will you hug me one more time, please?"

I stood up and we embraced, hugging each other tightly. I meant it when I said I still loved her but her destruction was so thorough and complete the foundation itself was in ruins. I kissed the top of her head.

"Darrell, I will always be so sorry for what I did to you, to us. Please forgive me someday. Kelsey wants to stay with you for a while before returning if that is OK."

I nodded my approval and she hugged me one last time and grabbed her bag and headed to her car. I stood there for a long time watching her drive away up the gravel road and I felt broken. Kelsey was still hiking and Sally hadn't returned from Early's yet so I grabbed my jacket and pushed off the gravel bank and dipped my oar into the water to take the canoe up the shoreline.

I stayed out for a couple hours and when I returned, both Sally and Kelsey were making lunch and engaged in conversation. Both looked at me when I returned and Kelsey ran to my arms. I assured her everything was fine, that she was staying here for a while, as long as she wanted, and that her mom was returning to Charleston. I didn't share with my conversation with Theresa with her. She already knew what was important, that I loved her in every way.

With Kelsey using the loft, Sally and I were a lot more subdued that evening. We didn't tear the sheets up with rambunctious loving. For the most part, we just lay there talking softly. Sally had shared with Kelsey that we were occasional lovers but that she didn't want to intrude on Kelsey's time with me. My daughter didn't skip a beat. She informed Sally that if she left on her account she would hitchhike to Bangor on her own and catch a flight home. That settled it. Sally spent the night in my bed.

Over the next several days, Kelsey joined in completing the final close up of Sally's cottage up the lake and helped me wrap up my preparations for the long winter that was coming. I had 5 cord of split firewood and a couple cord of tree length I could fall back on if I needed it. I always kept a couple cans of gas available for either the 4-wheeler or the snowmobile so I would be able to get out when I wanted. Early had already agreed to let me keep my truck out in his barn behind the store in case I wanted to go anywhere. I wasn't up to plowing several miles of winter roads once the snow started falling.

Kelsey and I travelled to Calais to have Thanksgiving with my Dad and some of the family. Sally was invited but she wanted to travel to be with her sister in Dexter. It was a good time and I was able to reconnect with folks I hadn't seen in a long time. When we returned to the cottage, Kelsey packed up some things and we headed for Bangor for her flight back home. On my return, I ran into a serious downeaster', a large winter storm.

This was a bit earlier than expected and the forecasters initially thought it would have pushed off further out in the Bay of Maine. By the time I arrived at Early's, there was already a foot of snow with another 12-14 inches expected. I offloaded the 4-wheeler and parked the truck in the barn and headed off to the cottage. My Maine winter experience was about to begin.

I ended up with 26 inches on the ground the Monday after Thanksgiving and within a week half of it had melted away and then real winter set in. Temps dropped and another blast hit us, this time freezing the ground and there was no melting. Sally joined me during Christmas break just in time for the first Christmas blizzard in years. By the time the skies cleared we had 3 feet of fresh snow on top of 2 feet already there. With no Kelsey around, the rambunctious loving returned full force. We stayed camped in for three days with plenty of good wine, a pile of good eats and the wood stove and water heater going full blast.

Eventually the fun had to stop and Sally ran the snow sled out to Early's in time for the start of classes in January. For me it was back to writing in the dead of winter and trying to build up additional freelance work. I was having some decent success with a couple magazines and then out of the blue I got a reply back from an agent I had been going back and forth with. He had a syndication offer starting with 14 different newspapers. It wasn't huge but when added to the work I already had, I now had a decent working income and a good measure of success with what I was doing. 

So I stayed busy through the winter with the occasional therapeutic bump and grind with Sally on the weekends. Kelsey was emailing me regularly with updates on her schooling and social life. She had patched things up with her mom with my urging and was living with her while going to the College of Charleston. 

Of course, nothing stays the same for long. I heard his snowmobile coming down the drive, muffled by the falling snow. When Early dusted off his boots and pulled his cap off he had a solemn look on his face.

"Darrell, it's about Sally. She's been busted up pretty bad in an accident down around Bailyville. A pulp truck hit her dead on and I know they took her to Calais. It didn't kill her but she's about beat up as a woman can get. You didn't have your radio on so I couldn't reach you but I was thinking you'd want to get over there and see how she's doing, you know."

I thanked him, bundled up and grabbed my travel bag and followed him out to his store on my snowmobile. The truck started up and the two of us headed to Calais. It was about a 30 minute ride to get there and they informed us they were getting ready to airlift her to Bangor. Apparently there were complications they weren't equipped to handle. They did let me in real briefly to see her and I nearly cried when I saw her. She was busted up bad, bruised from head to toe. I told her I'd call her sister and let her know and that I'd drive to Bangor as soon as I dropped off Early. I don't know why I said it but I did.

"I love you, little lady. I'll be there as soon as I can get there."

I had never said that before. Neither of us had. Early insisted that I go on without him, that his wife would come down and pick him up, so I headed out on the 3 hour ride to Bangor. If you've never ridden it, Rt. 9 or the Airline as it's called locally is a bitch to drive in bad weather. 

Three hours turned into six real quick. Luckily I had a couple snow plows go through before me clearing the way. When I arrived at the hospital they had already taken her into surgery so I settled down the best I could in the waiting room, asking every 10 minutes for an update.

Finally, the nurse called me over and told me Sally was in the recovery room and would be going up on post- surgical in just a few minutes. I could see her once they got her settled into the room. Shortly after that, one of the doctors approached me. Apparently, Sally had me listed as her emergency contact and they regarded that as next best thing to next of kin.

She was busted up pretty bad and they had to go in and patch up some internal stuff I knew nothing about but he informed me that the baby was fine.

It would be nice to say I was all over the place with happy joy and excitement but instead I was simply confused. What baby? Nobody ever mentioned a baby. Hell, it had been over 19 years since Theresa told me after work one day that we were going to have a baby. I never heard the words again until now. I thanked the doctor for the update and headed upstairs to wait until I could go into Sally's room.

Some people sit and try to calculate life and its options. I suppose I am no different. Did I want to be a father again at the age of 45? Hell, was I even the father of the child? I dismissed that thought rather quickly but I knew that Sally would have to at least make that acknowledgement. I ran through all the options and there were several. I could propose and marry her. We could just live together or we could continue as we were. Maybe she wouldn't want any of it. I didn't know what to think. For now though I decided to push all of that to the back of the mind and focus on Sally's health and recovery. They let me in a couple hours after she came upstairs.

"You are looking real attractive tonight, Sally?" I stated trying to break the air with humor.

She looked up at me with a mixture of amusement and pain or rather discomfort. She was doped up fairly well after her surgery and on account of her injuries.

"I don't think I'll be entering any contests soon." She smiled. "Come here, Darrell."

I got closer to her and she squeezed my hand.

"Thank you for being here. You don't know how important that is to me."

She weakly pulled me down to her and kissed me on my lips before she whispered.

"I do too, love you that is."

I smiled at her and held her hand. We discussed some of her injuries, well, as best we could in her condition. I never broached the pregnancy because it was a discussion that needed to be had after her recovery. She didn't mention the baby. After a while she started to drift off to sleep so I made myself comfortable on the couch in the room with the nursing staff providing blankets and pillows.

It was a rough night with the nurse waking her up, and me by the appearance, to take vitals and give meds. The next morning we discovered she would be in the hospital for at least the next three days, maybe longer. Her sister arrived from Dexter later in the morning and I excused myself to go find a place to clean up and maybe check into a room somewhere.

Four days later she was off to stay with her sister for a week and I headed back to West Grand. We still had not talked about the baby and that made it a bit difficult to concentrate on what I needed to get done when I got back. Eventually I found a sense of normalcy and by then Sally was hobbling about in her apartment on the reservation.

I heard Early's snowmobile long before it arrived. When the air is crisp, clear and cold, sound travels unimpeded in these woods. I can hear the din of snowmobiles on the lake miles away some days. When he came into view, he was towing a sled behind him and I watched as she waved at me. We walked his package along with her baggage into the cottage and got her settled into an easy chair.

"You sure you can handle her out here? If you need something, you just need to give me a holler on the radio and me or the missus will run right out." Early was earnest.

I assured him all was well and after feeding him and plying him with hot coffee he was on his way back to the store.

"You know I'm going to have to hold your hand to the outhouse every time, don't you? When do you have to go back to the doctor?" I asked her.

She just stuck her tongue out and told me she had to pee.

Somehow we got into a routine and I ran her into Calais when she had her appointments or to her apartment on the reservation when she felt like enjoying the modern conveniences of civilization. A couple weeks after she showed up, we had our talk.

"Darrell, I need to tell you something. I'm going to have a baby and you are going to be a daddy, again."

Well, it was more of a pronouncement than a talk and I told her I already knew and how I found out.

"Did you mean what you said to me in Calais?" She asked with just the slightest trepidation. 

"Did you mean what you said in Bangor" I asked in response. She nodded in reply and I did the same.

It's funny how sometimes you just don't have to say a lot of words to understand fully what two people are trying to convey among themselves. This was one of those times. We just held each other for a long time and she moved my hand to her belly being careful not to let me touch her healing scars from the surgery.

"She's almost three months old in the belly now." She looked up smiling. 

I knocked her up over Christmas break when we were hibernating in the cottage.

Sally took a leave of absence from the school for the rest of the school year and she healed under my care through the rest of the winter. By spring time she was showing and pretty much healed up from her injuries. She was a tough girl, insisting on staying at the cottage and being with me. I tried to get her to stay out at the apartment even offering to go with her but she knew I wanted my Maine winter experience after all these years.

I got the experience. We had 134 inches of snow that winter and the lake froze up to 18 inches thick in some spots. You can drive a snowplow on that kind of ice. I nursed a pregnant accident victim through the end of winter. I even wiped her ass in the outhouse a couple times. Not many men can claim that experience.

By the time mud season ended and I could drive my truck out, Sally had a good baby bulge and we were ready to get out to civilization for a while. I called Kelsey and let her know Sally and I were going to fly into Charleston for a visit. It would be early May and I asked her to find us a rental on the beach for a couple of weeks, Isle of Palms preferably. She did just that and we flew into town in perfect weather. I stayed lathered up on 50 sunscreen the whole time and still managed to get a bit of a burn a couple times.

"Daddy, Mom wants to see you." Kelsey told me one afternoon on the beach.

"Did she say what she wanted?" I asked knowing I shouldn't have. She just indicated it wasn't her business although there was a bit of melancholy with her response.

I agreed to meet with her that evening.

"You are looking good, Theresa." She did too.

"Thanks, Darrell. A lot of good it does me, I don't get out much." She replied and continued.

"I asked your attorney if I could give these to you instead of him and everybody agreed. I filed the papers like you wanted and this is the final decree. I know you would want them." Her eyes were moist.

"Darrell, I know you didn't want to hear it back at the cottage last fall but I need to tell you, if only for my own health. I am truly sorry for what I did to you. I don't think I fully realized the enormity of my betrayal until I came back and had to struggle to restore my relationship with Kelsey. For whatever reason I had this false expectation and hope that I could somehow put everything back together again and we would be a whole family."

Theresa had steeled herself for this confession and she continued.

"I need to confess everything I did to you, Darrell. I have been so ashamed of what I had become, what I did and why that I can hardly live with myself until I reveal what a miserable unfaithful cunt of a wife I was to you. James was just the last of them. There were others before him, ever since I went to work for the firm. There were a couple of men in the company and a few clients. The truth is I became a whore prostituting myself for career advancement. That is the simple truth as horrible as it is."

Thinking back on it I knew there had to be more than just Riley. Her demeanor and attitude had changed during those three years of working there. I beat myself up over it early on before I realized it was never my fault. If I had been paying more attention I might have been able to nip it in the bud but at the end of the day the bitch was responsible for her own whoredom, not me.

"Darrell, on that morning when I drove away from the cottage, I saw Sally at Early's. She and I talked for a good while, Darrell. She is a good woman and I know she cares deeply for you. Kelsey loves her too so if the two of you make something happen, I hope you will be the happy man I always knew."

I hated what she had done to us but I couldn't hate her. I held her for a long time. I caressed her hair, kissed her forehead and said my goodbyes. We still had Kelsey between us and our paths would always cross but today, more than at the cottage last autumn was a final goodbye and I did it with forgiveness in my heart.

"Theresa, find a man you can love again and grow old together and look forward to the grandchildren that Kelsey might bring us someday."

With that, I left my former wife with the final decree in my hand.

--------------------------------------------

They don't spank babies' bottoms anymore if they ever did. The midwife merely cleaned the air passage and the little girl screamed out a blast that brought all of us to tears. She was a healthy 7 lb. 10 ounce, blue eyed, likely golden haired duplicate of her mother. She was set on her mom's bosom until gently picked up and cleaned off before being returned swaddled in a soft pink blanket. Her name was Samantha Jade Carson.

Sally's sister was there along with Kelsey, me and the midwife. There was a doctor available if needed but that wasn't necessary. Mrs. Sally Carson held her daughter and looked up at me, being her husband, and thanked me for loving her. There was no need for thanks. I would love her regardless.

------------------------------------------------

Epilogue

Sally and I married on July 4th, the anniversary of our meeting the prior year. I almost had her wearing those green fishing waders she showed up in on that day. Kelsey flew up for the occasion and was the maid of honor. My Dad was the best man and Early gave the bride away. It was a simple affair and we honeymooned in Bar Harbor for a week before returning to the cottage.

When it was time for the baby to come I took a chunk of savings and bought a house along the St. John River. With the earnings I was getting from the freelancing and syndication along with Sally's teaching job, we could live pretty comfortable Down East. 

Eventually, Kelsey finished her schooling and moved to Portland, Maine and went to work for an Architectural firm where she met her future husband. No kids yet.

Theresa never did find another love. She has never remarried and she has a little place in the old village area of Mt Pleasant across from Charleston where she started up a local Realtors office. She suffered a bout with breast cancer but appears to have beaten it or at least it's in long stage remission. Somehow through it all we have been able to become friends and we exchange cards during the seasons and I occasionally talk with her just to see how she is doing. She has always reminded me that she has had only one real man in her life. The rest were just a bunch of xy chromosomes. 

 Does the story end here? That is hard to say. It would be nice to think that Darrell and Sally live forever happy on the banks of the St. John raising little Samantha. It's always possible that Sally finds herself seduced by some wiry Canadian prick that crosses the border to cuck some unfortunate American stiff. Maybe Theresa finds full redemption in life and finds her own new adventure in the Holy City. Whatever the case, every story of an adventure is always just one set of points in time.

MFH