Karma Served Cold

"I know that we are sharing the same bed..." she began.

"But no sex until I divorce, Diane."

"Stop that..." she said, "It's spooky how well you know me." She grinned. "And you need some pj's... because I'm not going to be able to resist you if your 'thing' keeps popping out, like last night," she said giggling.

I should have been mourning the loss of my wife for months I shouldn't be over her in a day. Gloria saved me from falling into a pit of despair. She grabbed my hand before I fell over, and so I was able to pick myself back up and continue with life as if nothing had happened - almost.

"I want you to know, that you may have lost your wife, but you haven't lost your family. Your nieces are anxious to see their uncle Mikey, you promised to see them before you left for your vacation today."

"Won't that be awkward for Beth?"

"No, she called me. She was the one that told me to remind you."

"What about Mom and Dad, err, I mean..."

"Mom and Dad? They are still your mom and dad as far as I know, and when we get married that won't change officially..."

"Married?"

"Yes," she said, matter of factly.

I tried to think about if I didn't want to be married to Gloria, but she was right. Gloria was my best friend. Even while I was married there was no one I spent more time with or talked with more than her. She knew me better than my wife ever did. We had already shared all our hopes, our dreams, even our fantasies.

She looked at me as I mulled it over in my head and looked a little worried.

"I'll have to get my ring back from Diane, it took me two months to make and was meant for the love of my life," and she brightened up once again seeing that we were on the same page. "Get in the shower. We have places to go and people to see."

She got up and started to clear the plates.

"I know you have always wanted a man's man and I'll be that in bed for sure, but I can do chores... Go, I'll take care of the clean-up."

She started out frowning in protest but ended in a smile and kissed me on the cheek and rushed her off to take her shower as I cleaned up.

*******

Summer 2010

We had almost a shotgun wedding. We both graduated from Stanford two weeks after our engagement. We planned to be married in mid-August, so we needed to come up with a wedding fast. All of the women in the family put their heads together and came up with a game plan for our big day. The only problem was that Dad was the only one not on board with it. He didn't forbid Diane from marrying me, but he thought things were going too fast and he didn't want to participate in what he saw as a disaster waiting to happen.

You see when Diane lied to me about why she didn't say yes when I first proposed to her, the reason I didn't suspect that it was a lie was because all good lies are based on truth. Her reason for saying no was to hold out for Dave, but she knew her father would see me as a gold digger and try to interfere. I think in a way, she was hoping he would somehow stop us. That's why she didn't ask for a prenup. But then I went and asked for one for her, and she was stuck.

I pulled Dad aside one day and said, "Dad, I want you to know that I get it. You were poor like me once. You built an empire of successful businesses and don't want all of your hard work to be given away to anyone but family. Believe it or not, I respect what you did and I intend to make my own mark on the world and I don't need your money to do it.

"I love Diane and I intend to be with her until death do us part..." I handed him a document. "I had a lawyer draw this up and I had Diane sign it... And yes, it's been notarized already too. I'm giving it to you so that you can have your lawyer file it, that way you'll know that it's been done. Now you can stop worry about whether things are going to work out between us and instead start supporting us and be there... If you don't this marriage is doomed anyway."

Through my whole speech he was silent. And I could see that he was fighting off tears. If he started talking then he wouldn't be able to hold in his tears. He was too old school and I understood that - boys don't cry. So, we just shook each other's hand and had a quick bro hug and he turned and walked away.

After that, he paid for everything. He was like Scrooge at Christmas; his whole attitude was repentant and he seemed excited to have me in his family.

I think he felt guilty, that he was paying for our wedding but didn't pay for Beth's. You see, Jake never signed a prenup with Beth either and was treated the same way. Beth, to her credit, never took it personally, and Dad has been nothing but supportive of them since. My signing the prenup was what he needed to get past his pride. He was out of excuses and happy because of it.

*

About a month before our wedding, I ran into one of my professors, Henry Deekin, after I finished up interviewing for a starting software development job.

"Mike!"

"Hey Henry, what's shakin'?" I asked, (we were on a first name basis).

"I was just leaving a meeting with some prospective sharks."

"Oh? You still trying to raise capital for you 'turbo-boost' algorithm?"

Dr. Deekin, developed a software algorithm that would reduce the amount of redundant data transmitted across networks. It doesn't sound groundbreaking but it actually is because it would reduce network traffic across the board. I'm not going to bore you with the details of how the software works, but imagine if network servers all across the world got 15% more efficient without having to change any of their hardware. It would have an exponential effect on network speeds. Why? Because of the bottleneck effect.

Imagine you are on the highway and it's very congested because there are so many people on the road. As a matter of fact, if one more car came on the road everyone would have to slow down slightly to accommodate it. The number of cars utilizing the roads at maximum speed before one more car on the road prevents everyone from achieving maximum speed would be called the optimal number.

Now imagine that all of the sudden the highways were filled with 15% more cars than the optimal number. The speed of the cars would have to be reduced across the board because of a daisy chain effect. But the number of cars that get put into the highway past the optimal number, exponentially effects speed. So, let's say we increase the number of cars on the road by 1% and it reduces overall speed by 1%, then adding 2% would decrease it by 4%, and 3% would decrease speed by 9% etc. (as an example not real results). So, if you can imagine if you took 15% of cars off the severely congested road, how much faster the cars would be able to go.

I saw his software at work and I believed he could be a billionaire someday if he could just get the right people to support him.

"Henry! Why don't we become partners? I can work the business end and raise the capital for you, while you work on making your software footprint smaller."

That was the pitfall about Henry's software, everyone knew it worked but it was a huge resource hog. In order for him to succeed, he would need to get his software executables to be about a tenth the size that it was at the time, since his software would be stored on router's ROM and be integrated into its BIOS.

That's just what we did. I put my doctoral program on hold and became Henry's partner. Over the next year I worked my ass off getting his company off the ground. I worked six days a week ten to 16 hours a day. The only days I took off were Sundays, major holidays, my wedding, and the week of my honeymoon.

I admit it was kind of a strain on my marriage, but when I think back Diane was very supportive of my venture. I think it had more to do with the fact that I was impressing her father, and through me she was gaining more favoritism with him.

The first month I got a business loan and hired some lawyers to formalize our partnership. After my honeymoon, I started up a marketing campaign and raised money through crowdfunding. I wasn't a business major so half of my days were spent learning how to run a business. And I ended up taking a lot of business courses online.

Henry was a brilliant theorist and mathematician but he wasn't a great programmer. So I took over the task myself. I was also brilliant in my own rite, and we often bounced ideas off of each other. I guess that's how we became such good friends. The problem was, he was paranoid about sharing his algorithm with anyone. I had to remind him that we were bound by contract and half of his proceeds would go to me anyway. So finally, toward the end of the first year he finally let me have a crack at the code.

Again, I'm not going to bore you with the details of how I made the code more efficient, but I was able to reduce the code signature down to 9% of its original size, making it small enough to be integrated into Bios software.

This didn't make us instant billionaires, we still needed to sell the software to companies and show them how to integrate our software into theirs. So, we hired a staff of IT consultant/salesmen and started shipping them off all over the world, (although mostly to China, Japan, and Korea). Our company was barely in the black and I even declined a salary so that we could hire more personnel, I didn't need the money anyway. We were making payroll and the number of contracts grew every year.

Towards the end of our first year of marriage, Diane got a CEO position in her father's main business Solar Energy and Compliance Inc (SEAC). Ted, also owned a few fast food franchises and a furniture store but his bread and butter came from SEAC. SEAC dealt with providing homes and business energy solutions and alternatives. His business, consulted with architects and builders that build everything from large skyscrapers to new homes. They not only made recommendations but provided materials and installation for solar panels, geothermal heating, and water catching devices. Anything that they couldn't do themselves they had teams of specialist ready to help.

Dad put Diane through business school that first year and once she got her MBA, he gave her the keys to the throne. He was hoping she would be able to prove herself. He started her off with a half million dollar a year salary. She accepted the position and acted calm, cool, and confident in front of her father and the officers of the company. The old CEO was retiring but agreed to stay on for one more year to groom her.

Her veneer was a sham because once she got home, she was a mess of nerves and stress. She felt like she was in over her head, and she admitted that half of her classes she passed through bribery or massive tutoring. So, with my newfound business acumen I became her advisor. Whenever, things became tough she would turn to me for advice. All of her accolades over the years were directly due to my advice. You may think that I didn't respect her, but I recognized that almost all CEOs were delegators and advice takers, so she wasn't any worse.

The major problem with the business wasn't Diane's incompetence, it was competition. There were too many other companies out there that were doing the same thing. In order to stay ahead of the competition, they needed an edge. That's where I contributed the most. You see, Diane would come home and unload her company's problems on me and I would ask her questions on the technologies they used.

She ended up sharing a lot of her companies engineering specs, and after reading over them thoroughly I came up with some improvements to a lot of their processes. I even invented many things that help her company stay ahead. One of the inventions was an improvement to solar power cells, where instead of having flat surfaces, they were texturized and acted more like lens with a series internal micro mirrors that focused indirect sunlight better. This increased their captured energy by 30%, and the process was cheap to produce.

I filed a patent for each of my inventions, and let her company use them at a family discount of $1 per year.

Diane came to me one day and asked me to quit my job. Her reasoning was, she needed me on call when she needed some good advice. She also missed our sex life. Since she was the main breadwinner and she wanted to have kids she would need me to be available to raise our kids and to manage the household.

I loved her, and her logic was sound. I talked it over with Henry, and he agreed that the business was pretty much running itself by that time and as long as I was around from time to time to make a speech, I could be a passive partner. Besides, I wasn't being paid a salary anyway.

*******

Day after Christmas 2017

When me and Gloria got to my in-laws, both Mom and Dad came out to greet us. Mom quickly embraced me crying about how happy she was I came back.

"You're always going to be my Mom, right? You promised," and she nodded her head trying to wipe away her tears.

"I just wish we could adopt you..." she said, tears in her eyes.

"I don't think that'll be necessary..." I started and Mom and Dad looked curious. "You see, I intend to marry Gloria after the divorce is final, and if I was your son... well it would make it illegal for me to marry her..." I said, grinning.

"I knew it!" Mom cried. "You two were made for each other." Dad looked surprised and conflicted.

"Uncle Mikey! Uncle Mikey!" Sara and Ashley cried.

I didn't even see them coming before they slammed into my legs, latching on. I bent down with my arms outstretched and with practiced ease they both jumped onto my hips as I hooked my arms underneath them so I could pick them both up. I always made it a practice to never talk down to them. I always either lowered myself to their eye level or I picked them up to talk to them. I think that's why they loved me so much, I was an adult that treated them like equals. Like what they said mattered, and it did matter - to me.

"Uncle Mikey, I'm scared," little Sara whispered.

"What are you scared about, Peanut? Didn't I tell you, that you never need fear anything while your Uncle Mikey was around?"

"We heard Pamp-paw say that you and Auntie Diane weren't going to be together anymore," little Ashley added.

"Well let me tell you a secret," and I pulled them closer lowering my voice.

"What is it?" they whispered conspiratorially.

"I'll ALWAYS be your uncle. And I'll ALWAYS be there for you. OK? No matter what," and they brightened and hugged me tighter. "I have a surprise for you," I said, looking at Beth as if to ask her permission and Gloria to see if she was on board, but I knew the answer before I asked it.

"What is it?" they asked almost simultaneously.

"I'm not going on vacation after all, so guess who is going to Disneyland with me tomorrow?" and if it was possible for them to jump up and down while on my hips, they tried, shaking with excitement.

"WE ARE!" they practically screamed.

"Not quite..." I said teasing them, and they looked confused, after all how could they NOT be going to Disneyland with me. "Auntie Gloria is coming with us!"

Then their excitement started back up, not only was their favorite uncle taking them to Disneyland but their favorite Auntie was going too. I set them down and they immediately went over to Gloria grabbing her hand pulling her inside the house telling her all about what they wanted to do the next day. Gloria tried to pretend to be annoyed at me, but she was smiling too hard for that to work. Beth kissed me on the cheek to answer my question and we followed everyone inside.

Before I could get too far inside, Mom pulled me to the side sitting room off of the foyer.

"Nancy came back here this morning," she said, "She is afraid to go back to her house. Can you talk to her?"

"Of course, Mom. You didn't even have to ask."

"Good, she's upstairs in the first guest room. By the way Diane and Dave left..."

Nancy and Dave where supposed to go with us to Hawaii (the big island) as per usual. I wouldn't think that Diane would go with Dave after last night but Dave was a good con man and had all night to convince her to go. So off they went, good riddance. It would be nice to not have to deal with the stress of having them around for a week.

Earlier in the day, I had my lawyer put in an emergency order to freeze all of our assets until we saw an arbitrator after the holidays. I cancelled all of our credit cards and since the hotel and plane tickets were under my name, I cancelled the reservation and all of the return plane tickets. They would still have access to Dave's money, but Dave would have to flip the bill and they would have to waste a day or two in paradise getting new reservations, plane tickets etc. I wasn't totally forgiving, I could be a vindictive ass too.

I walked over to the living room and saw Gloria engaged in an animated conversation with the girls.

"Girls!" I said and they all looked at me. "Can I borrow your auntie for a bit?"

"OK, Uncle Mikey, we'll be outside playing when you need us."

Yes, that's the kind of relationship we had. An expectation of me wanting to hang out and play with them and be a part of their lives, we were BFFs.

Gloria came up to me grabbing my hand, I saw the girls notice and they started whispering to each other. I just winked at them and they giggled.

We traveled up the stairs hand in hand, she, not questioning where we were going. I knocked on the door tentatively and the door was quickly opened where a sorrowful Nancy stood. All three of us collided together in hugs of comfort as Nancy was given time to grieve her failed marriage.

"You know, the funny thing is, I'm not sad that me and Dave split up. He's been a real asshole the last couple of years anyway. I, I just wanted to start a family... I was looking forward to being pregnant and couldn't wait to see my baby's face for the first time."

"I for one am glad you didn't have any children," I said.

"Mike!" Gloria shouted, angrily.

"No, no, don't get me wrong... I would love to see you get pregnant and start a family, you deserve that kind of happiness, Nancy... What I mean is that you really dodged a bullet, because if Dave hadn't betrayed you with his vasectomy, that 'asshole' as you put it would have been the baby's father."

"That's true, still..."

"Still?" I asked, "First of all, Nancy, besides Gloria here, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever met. And you finding a good man to have a child with... Hell if I wasn't so in love with Gloria, I'd be your baby daddy in a New York minute," I said, with a wink.

Gloria had this look on her face and I could tell she was up to something.

"Mike, can you give us a minute alone please?" Gloria said, gently guiding me out of the room.

I waited for them in the hallway and although I couldn't overhear what they were saying, from time to time I did hear giggles and raucous laughter. Finally, the door opened back up and both women were all smiles. I was in trouble and I knew it.

"Girls?" I asked, tentatively. "What's going on?"

"We need to tell you something... It might surprise you," Gloria said, mischievously. "We have a secret that we agreed to take to our graves... until now."

"Yeah?" I asked, stupidly. I'm a pretty smart guy and usually not so dense, but in my defense, they were giving me the sultriest looks and I was too mesmerized to think clearly.

"You know that I'm bi-sexual, Mike," Gloria said, and waited a second for me to catch on but I didn't. "I prefer men of course but in college I did have a full-time lesbian relationship for two years..." she said, looking at Nancy.

I was mesmerized but I didn't need that much of a carrot, "You mean YOU and Nancy?"

"Exactly," she said with a smirk.

"Were you..." I began.

"No, I don't mess with attached partners, ever. If they have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, especially if they are married. So, as soon as Nancy reconnected with Dave, we broke it off. But you can't make love to someone for two years and not develop a bond. We were already best friends but after that we were always more..."