A Duet for Three

My final act of the night was to send an email to Emma's school advising them that an emergency had arisen and I had to take Emma out of town. Traci was on file as authorized for complete access to Emma and her records, but she had never formally adopted Emma. Traci and I had discussed this and Traci did want to adopt Emma. We had decided to wait until we had a child together and then Traci would adopt Emma. 'Thank god for kicking that can down the road,' I thought. This was one less entanglement.

Over dinner, I tried explaining to Emma that Traci and I were no longer going to be married. Emma started crying and begging me to tell Traci I was sorry for leaving. How do you explain infidelity to a child? She eventually calmed down, but as a father, it was gut-wrenching to hear my daughter cry for the only mother she had ever known.

I spent a restless night before finally dropping off to sleep for a few hours. I awoke, showered, and dressed before getting Emma up and dressed. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant before checking out.

While Emma waited with the receptionist, I had my brief meeting with Lisa Larson. She was sad but ready to file the divorce petition. Paul had already told her about Traci naked in Rick Ryker's hotel room. Lisa said that she would keep me apprised and allowed me to use her computer to type and print out a letter for Al.

My next stop was to D'Amico Porsche-Jaguar, the headquarters of D'Amico Automotive Group.

"Coy, what the hell's going on? I've been calling you all morning. Traci is at my house in hysterics." Al was red-faced and angry. I could see he was in full-on Papa Bear mode this morning; protective of his little girl and ready to destroy anyone who had hurt her.

"That's something you need to discuss with her," I said. "I'm just here to give you this." I laid an envelope on Al's desk.

Al looked at the envelope as if it were a coiled snake ready to strike out at him if he reached for it.

"What is it?" Al said. He was suddenly very anxious about why I was in his office.

"Just read it, Al," I said.

Al reached for the envelope and extracted the letter. It was short. Barely a paragraph.

Effective immediately, I resign my position as Director of Fixed Operations for D'Amico Lincoln-Ford. It has been a privilege and an honor to work for the D'Amico family.

Al shook his head. No, this couldn't be happening. This was a disaster. To lose his son-in-law who also happened to be his best employee? The man who was the future of D'Amico Automotive. Tears sprang to Al's eyes. "Coy...son...whatever it is, we can fix this. We can get through it. We're family!"

"Not anymore, Al. I love you and Jean. Hell, I still love Traci. But in time we'll all feel differently about that. We're going to leave Chicago. I'm not sure where we're going, but we're done with Illinois." I turned to walk away. "I'm going to miss your family," I said as I exited Al's office.

@@@@@

"Traci!" Al D'Amico bellowed as he walked through the front door of their condo. Traci's car was in the driveway, so he knew she was there.

"Traci Elena Connery, get your ass here right now!" Al bellowed.

Jean came running into the living room. She had never seen Al so agitated. "What's going on, Al? Why are you screaming?"

"Where's your daughter?" Al shouted.

"I'm here, Daddy," she said as she slowly entered. His daughter looked like hell. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying all day and her hair was a disaster. At any other time, Al would have felt sorry for her.

"Tell me what happened between you and Coy," Al demanded.

Traci sobbed. "Coy saw something that he took the wrong way and got upset with me. He said he was going to divorce me!"

"What did he see?" Al growled, ominously.

"It was nothing, Daddy! He misconstrued everything!"

"Where did this happen? And you better not lie to me."

"It was at the Marriott in Milwaukee," Traci mumbled.

"In your room?" Al asked.

Traci shook her head no. She had never been able to lie to her father and could not start now.

"In whose room?" Al asked.

"Rick's," Traci said in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Did you sleep with him?"

"No Daddy. I promise, I never slept with him."

"What were you wearing when Coy saw you?" Al asked.

"Panties," Traci said softly.

"Your husband found you in another man's hotel room and you were naked except for a pair of panties. Is that the gist of it?"

Traci nodded her head as tears ran down her cheeks.

"Oh, baby," Jean said. "How could you do that to your husband?"

Jean looked her husband in the eye. "It sounds like Coy stopped it just in time. How can we fix this?"

"We can't," Al said, flatly.

"Of course, we can. I know that they love each other. They can get through this. We'll help them."

"Coy came to see me this morning and resigned." Al handed Jean Coy's resignation letter. She paled as she read it.

"Poor Coy," she said. She had grown to love Coy like a son and Emma was an absolute delight. She loved the little girl. The thought of never seeing Coy or Emma again caused Jean to sit down and begin to sob like her daughter.

"It's worse than you think," Al said.

Jean and Traci looked up at Al. How could this possibly be worse?

"Out of the eight DAG dealerships, six of them basically break even and one of them loses money every month. Coy's service department accounts for a huge part of DAG's revenue and has been keeping DAG afloat since the used car market has been so tough the last couple of years. Coy turned that service department into the highest-rated, most profitable service department of any make's dealership in the Midwest." Al closed his eyes and shook his head.

"I was going to promote Coy to vice-president of fixed operations for all of DAG. I thought he could fix operations at all our dealerships. Now? I just hope we can hang on." Misery was written all over Al's face as his wife and daughter cried in each other's arms.

@@@@@

27 Months Later

"Are you and Emma spending Thanksgiving with your folks?" Ken Saunders asked. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and we were in the parking lot chatting before heading home for the day.

I had been working at Bullard Motors for a bit over two years now. After leaving Chicago, Emma and I drove to Texas to stay with my parents. Four years ago, they had moved to Franklin Farms, an over 55 gated golf-course community east of Dallas, Texas.

The pandemic had changed so many things for so many people. My dad had worked for the same company for thirty years and when Covid hit, his entire company switched to remote working. It was a new experience for him, and he quickly adapted. Dad has always been tech savvy and so was able to easily navigate the tools and systems needed for remote work. When given the option of staying remote or going into the office each day, he elected to remain a remote worker. This allowed them to pick up stakes and move to wherever they wanted. They chose Franklin Farms.

Dad was an avid golfer and mom had taken up pickleball and joined the Women's Club and was busy with volunteer activities. There was a restaurant and bar at the golf club and monthly concerts and dances at the clubhouse, so they were staying busy and active.

Emma and I had visited them previously, but at that time they were new and still feeling their way around. After living at Franklin for a few years, they were settled in and I had never seen them so busy or happy. They were devastated, though, to hear about Traci. I had explained everything on our first night with them.

"That girl loved you to death. What could have driven her to cheat?" My mother asked. There was a very slight accusation buried in there which I chose to ignore.

"I guess she didn't love me as much as you think she did," I replied. "I could no more cheat on her than I could give up Emma. She didn't feel the same attachment to me, I guess."

"And this all started when she joined that band? She wasn't cheating on you before then?"

"I don't think she ever cheated before then, but who knows?"

It had not taken Traci long to track us down. I had blocked her on my cell and would only communicate with her through my attorney.

She had flown into the DFW airport, rented a car, and then showed up at my parent's front door. I was out with Emma when Traci appeared. My mother had invited her in for coffee.

"Traci, I am so disappointed in you," my mother said. "Never in a million years would I have thought that you would have an affair and cheat on Coy."

"Mrs. Connery, I am disappointed in myself too. Disappointed and ashamed. I don't even know how it happened; how I allowed myself to be swept up in that." She shook her head in puzzlement. "I can't explain any of it. I'm just grateful Coy arrived in time to stop things."

"Traci, until you understand how it happened, you can never be sure it won't happen again. Have you thought about seeing someone? A therapist?"

Traci had nodded. "I start therapy next week." Traci had taken a deep breath before asking the next question. "Do you know how long he plans to stay down here? I'm hoping he will go to marriage counseling with me to work on our marriage. I'll do anything to stay married to him!"

My mother could see the sincerity in Traci's face and hated to burst her bubble. "Dear, they're not going back to Chicago. Coy has found a job and signed a twelve-month lease on an apartment. You need to start planning for your life without them in it."

Traci had broken down crying and had taken a flight back to O'Hare that same day.

Ken's question brought me out of my reverie. "Yes, we are going to have Thanksgiving with them. They've had their previous Thanksgiving meal at the clubhouse every year since moving to Texas. This will be Mom's first attempt at a Southern-style Thanksgiving. She's even making cornbread for the stuffing. I mean dressing, right? Isn't that what you call it down here?"

"If isn't shoved up a turkey's ass for cooking, then it's dressing," Ken laughed.

Ken and I had been lucky to find each other. Bullard Motors was in Bullard, Texas, in East Texas just a few miles outside of Tyler. Tyler had grown by leaps and bounds over the years; from a population of 75,000 in 1990, to its current population of 110,000. The surrounding communities had grown at an even faster pace. One of those communities, Bullard was one of the fastest-growing towns in Texas and Texas was one of the fastest-growing states in the US.

Ken had owned Bullard Motors for thirty years and had not been able to keep pace with the growth of the area. He had put very little money into the dealership as evidenced by the Ford-Lincoln-Mercury sign still above the building. (Mercury had not existed since 2010.)

I had found the ad for a service manager's position at Indeed.com and, rather than applying online I had driven to Bullard to scope out the dealership and perhaps meet with the general manager if he was in.

The dealership was clean and tidy, as was the service department (from what I could see). Nothing else impressed me. I stopped into the service drive to see how long the wait was for an oil change. I was shocked when the adviser told me two days.

The owner and general manager, Ken Saunders, was in and did have time to meet with me but he was curious why I did not apply through Indeed.

"Frankly, I was afraid you would not believe my resume," I said, before handing him a hard copy of said resume.

As he read the resume, I could follow his surprise and skepticism as his eyebrows steadily rose.

"Yeah, I do find this a little hard to believe," he had said.

"Go into FordStar and search my name," I had replied.

Ken had logged into the Ford Dealer portal and done exactly that. He gave a low whistle a few times as he read about some of my accolades and awards.

"Why the hell would you want to work here? Are you in witness protection are something?"

I laughed at that. "No, nothing as exciting as that. I caught my wife cheating on me. Since my folks now live outside of Dallas, I decided to move down here. I packed up my daughter Emma and here I am."

"Your wife let you take your daughter? Or did you kidnap her?" Ken had a very concerned look on his face. 'Good for him,' I thought.

"Neither. She's not Emma's mother. She loved Emma, but she has no say in it."

We had commiserated about cheating wives and Ken had told me about his own experience with a cheating first wife. He was very happy now, although he had driven a hard road to get here.

"What would you change in the service department?" He asked as he gave me a tour.

"Just about everything," I had replied. "I can turn your operations here around. I can make your service department into the type of profit center you only dreamed about."

"Buuut..." he had drawn the word out slowly.

"Yeah, there's always a but, isn't there? The but in this case is that it will not be cheap. You'll have to get out your checkbook. You'll get me for way less than I would ordinarily be willing to accept. But we'll have a contract for meeting benchmarks which we'll determine together. And when I hit those benchmarks, and I will, you are going to pay me. A lot."

The next week I started my new job as the service manager of what would be Bullard Ford-Lincoln as soon as the new sign arrived.

That was more than two years ago. I asked Ken if he and Lily were having the grandkids over for Thanksgiving.

"Kayla and Rob will be in tonight with their bunch and Ken Junior and Lisa are already here with the baby." One of the changes that had occurred over the last couple of years is that with the increased profitability of his dealership, Ken had been able to afford a larger house. He could now house his entire family for the holidays with room to spare. Yet another reason that in Ken's eyes I could do no wrong.

Ken shook my hand and told me once again that among the many things he was thankful for, was me coming into his life. There were tears in his eyes as he pumped my hand before turning it into a man hug.

We both turned to look at the lot next door. A month ago, graders and dozers had shown up to begin the work of leveling out the hilly terrain on the empty lot. We had no idea what was planned. The county had issued a limited permit to "DCA Enterprises" but there was no indication of the specific use. For now, they were authorized to grade and level the land, but no other building could be undertaken without a full building permit being issued. At that time, a specific use permit would be issued, and any licensing would have to be addressed by the property owner. That probably would not happen until after the new year.

"Have you heard anything?" I asked.

Ken shook his head. "Nothing. That's what's so crazy. Usually, you hear something from someone. That lets me know it probably won't be a Hooters or a strip club."

I laughed at that. A Hooters next door to a dealership would be a selling point when it came time to recruit auto techs.

Thanksgiving had gone well for the Connery's. My mother's first try at cornbread dressing tasted great even if it was a tiny bit dry. The turkey was moist and delicious, and everything was going great until the doorbell rang that night. Emma had been put to bed and it was just us three adults chatting while watching It's a Wonderful Life on TV.

My father had answered the door and then returned with visitors in tow.

Al and Jean D'Amico.

"Hi everyone. I'm sorry to interrupt your Thanksgiving, but I was hoping to talk with Coy for a minute."

I was in a bit of shock at the sudden appearance of my ex-in-laws. My divorce from Traci had been final for over a year and a half. Traci had not fought or contested anything. She had quickly signed everything that my attorney had sent to her attorney. She had not requested any type of alimony or spousal maintenance. I had signed a quitclaim for the condo, it had been a gift from Al and Jean, so it was only right that Traci should keep it.

I was not required and chose not to appear in person at the divorce hearing. Lisa Larson informed me that both Traci and her parents were in attendance. Traci had wept throughout the proceedings and had been helped out the door by her father after the hearing was over.

I had not heard a peep from anyone in the D'Amico family in almost two years. Hell, for all I knew, Traci was now Traci Ryker with one or more little Rykers crawling around the condo.

I escorted Al to my father's den and poured us each a glass of bourbon.

"You're looking good, Coy," Al began.

I just nodded my head at Al's attempt at conversation. After so long with no contact, things were bound to be awkward between us.

"We're in Texas on business and I took a chance that you and Emma would be at your parents for the holiday." Al looked away for a minute and it looked like he had tears in his eyes. "We miss you, son. We miss the both of you."

I nodded my head. "We miss you too. I could not have asked for better in-laws than you and Jean. Not a day goes by that I don't wish..." My voice trailed off in sadness at the thought of what could have been but would never be.

"I know," Al said. "Jean and I talk about you every day."

"Even if I could," I said, "I wouldn't want to move back to Chicago. And as much as I loved being your ops director, I couldn't do that again. There are too many memories."

"I know. Besides, there's nothing to go back to. I've sold all the dealerships."

I looked at Al with what I'm sure was a shocked expression. The dealerships had been as much his babies as Traci had been. His father had started D'Amico Automotive more than sixty years ago.

"Why? How?" I managed to stutter out.

"Six of them were breaking even and one of them was losing money. The only reason that I had hung on to them all was for market share. Your service department was critical to keeping everything afloat. I knew when you left that D'Amico Automotive's days were numbered. We held on for a couple of years and that allowed me to sell each dealership. DLF was the last to go."

"Jesus, now I feel horrible," I said. I had expected Al to hire my replacement and it would be business as usual.

"No!" Al barked. "This is not on you! You had to do what was best for you and Emma. No one blames you for that. Not me. Not Jean. And definitely not Traci."

At the mention of my ex-wife's name, I looked up at Al.

"How is Traci? I'm guessing she and Rick Ryker got married." It was a statement that came out as a question.

Al barked out a short laugh. "The last time she saw that jackass was in Milwaukee when you caught her about to make the worst mistake of her life. No, she didn't marry him. Or anyone else. Hell, as far as I know, she hasn't even dated anyone. And I would probably know since she lives at home."

"She didn't stay in the condo?"

"Sold it. She took half the money and then put the other half into a 529 college savings plan."

"That's smart. By the time she has kids, it will have grown large enough to completely pay for their college."

"You're right. And the first one that will benefit from it is only ten years away from starting college."

It took me a moment to puzzle it out. "Emma?"

"That's her plan." Al drained his glass and started to leave the room; I was right behind him.

"That's not a good idea," I said. "She needs to let go of the past."

"Oh, believe me, she has." Al paused to say goodnight to my parents as Jean pulled on her light jacket.

"Sixty-degree weather at Thanksgiving is going to take some getting used to," Jean laughed.

I knew I looked puzzled at her comment. "What do you mean by 'get used to'?" I asked.

Al chuckled. "The business that I'm in Texas for? That's the business that I'm starting. We're here to look at houses."