Alaska Adventure Pt. 03

Rodger was sitting in his small two-bedroom trailer that he had been renting, ever since he had returned from Alaska. It took a lot of maintenance to keep it going, but it is what it is, he thought. "Shelter."

He had been divorced for almost a year now, yet he hadn't had a date or even entertained any other woman in all that time. The last time he had sex was with his wife the day after he began to live his dream, which became his nightmare.

Another tear dripped down from his cheek, yet he ignored it. He had ignored them all for a very long time, because he didn't like the idea of sitting around and wallowing in self-pity. But this didn't mean he was over it -- he never came to terms with what had happened.

He blamed himself and karma. He had selfishly saved all his change behind his wife's back for the trip. In his mind, he could see that as being too selfish. Karma reared its ugly head and struck him down. All that saving, and now he had nothing.

Another day of nothing to do, Rodger thought, as he rose from the sofa thinking he should eat something. What stopped him from fixing himself something to eat wasn't due to a lack of appetite. It was because he didn't want to clean up after himself. It just didn't seem like it would be worth the trouble. Nothing he did for himself seemed worth the trouble, that was the problem.

In the divorce, the home was sold. They split the check fifty, fifty. But Rodger still hadn't cashed his. It was hidden in a safe that was placed under his bed, neatly cut into the floor of the trailer house.

Rodger pulled a beer out of the refrigerator and popped the top as he heard a car pull up to his mobile home. He sat in one of the only two chairs that were in the trailer, anticipating the knock.

He knew who it was before they knocked. His kids, both, Jesse and Lora. Jesse was twenty-one years old now, while Lora was a year younger, at twenty. Both were great kids and were presently working their way through college.

Rodger called out "it's open!" before they made it to the door. He knew that the thin walls would allow the kids to hear him easily.

The door swung open, and both the kids called out "hey dad", very demurely as the state of their father left a lot to be desired.

Rodger sat back in his chair. He had aged probably ten years in the last eighteen months alone. His hair that was at one time dishwater blond was now bright silver. His shaggy beard the same, with no signs of the red his beard used to be full of.

Rodger had sad eyes now. Devoid of any hope or even wanting. It was like he was waiting to die. The trailer smelled of alcohol and dry rot -- reflecting the suffocating paracosm he now lived in.

Though Rodger had somehow held his job, he didn't look like he had anything to speak of. The trailer only had one chair and a small sofa in the front room. The dining room table consisted of a small round table and one chair with the arm broken off.

Inside the cabinets, his children knew that they would only find ramen noodles, and maybe a loaf of old bread. The last time they were there, they threw away the bread as it was full of mold.

Seeing her father so beaten had torn Lorie's heart out of her chest. She had never quite felt such visceral pain. She didn't want to sit in the sofa across from him, so, she sat on her father's lap instead. She gave him a quick peck and held him lovingly for what seemed a long time for Rodger.

She had shed many tears over the last year, holding her defeated father in her arms like she was his parent. She loved him like all little girls love their fathers, and even though she was grown up now and going to college, their relationship had only grown. Before the trip to Alaska, people had often commented on how wonderful it was to see them together. Their relationship could make many a father and daughter jealous.

She finally jumped up and pulled her dad to his feet. Rodger then shook Jesse's hand and gave him a nice fatherly hug.

In the course of all this, Rodger hadn't smiled once. Only if you knew him well enough and were watching him closely enough, could you see the emotions he let slip when he embraced his daughter.

They got comfortable in the room before Rodger spoke. "The rules still apply!" he demanded.

"No Dad, they don't!!" Lorie rose to employ her will over her strong father's.

Rodger didn't know what to do. Lorie had never defied him. She had always honored him in every way, even when he was wrong and knew it. She would never stand up to him like she had just did unless she felt she had good reason.

"Lorie!"

"Dad, sit your ass down and shut the fuck up. You look like shit. You're miserable and so is mom. Now shut up and get the cotton out your ears and stuff it in your mouth. If you can't do that, Jesse will!"

There were two facts at work; first, Jesse could easily do it. He stood at 6'2" and weighed 250 lbs -- and was on the football squad in college. Rodger had lost twenty-five pounds and looked sickly, more than anything else.

Jesse laughed though. Then he said. "I won't hurt you dad. I never will. But we aint been talking about this for too long now. We is going to talk and we is going to do it NOW."

"Son, please. What happened in Alaska is really not something you wish to hear. You need to stay out of it. Neither one of us will stop loving you" he said as if he were talking to a two-year-old.

"We know already what happened. Mom had an affair and got pregnant. The only thing is..."

Rodger jumped to his feet and shouted out "GOT PREGNANT?"

"Yeah, dad. Maybe you aught to talk to her once in a while. Then you will find things out like the fact that you have another daughter."

Rodger was ready to scream. But he held his temper back. Then he wondered which one of the five men had knocked her up. He knew they all went bare back and not a single one used condoms. He wasn't afraid of STD's but by God, pregnancy wasn't even on his radar.

"Well, I am sure she will find out which one of them got her pregnant and will sue him for child support. He certainly deserves it."

"Which one?" jumped Lorie. "What the fuck, Dad no, don't you dare say that about mom."

After a few moments, Rodger thought about what to say.

"I told you both. You do not want to know what happened in Alaska."

Then he rose and went to a drawer opened it and pulled out a ziplock bag. He walked to the chair that he had been sitting in and sat back down. He then pulled out several locks of his hair from his head and put it into the bag. Handing it to his daughter, he said, "here you go Lori, now you can find out for yourself."

Both the kids changed the topic and started to encourage Rodger to go out for dinner.

It took a lot of pestering before he finally relented. He took the first shower he had in days and put on his cleanest shirt and pants to go out in.

Chapter two:

Starting:

Rodger sat in a soft chair at the seafood restaurant that Jesse and Lori brought him to. He had noticed but didn't say anything about the two extra seats. Emptiness filled his mind as he sat and tried to engage in conversations between his kids. Somehow, nothing important seem to be spoken.

Jesse ordered for him, starting with some alligator balls. Deep fried alligator meat with a spicy breading. He dipped them into some ranch dressing before he ate them.

Having some food in his stomach for the first time in days seemed to cheer his mood up a bit. Lori was quick to take advantage of the mood change, and tried to approach the topic that was sticking in her craw for a year now.

"I bet you miss your work shop with all your tools." Lori started.

"Yeah, but I haven't started too many projects in the last year. So far, I've sort of been enjoying just laying around and taking it easy."

Jesse scoffed, "my father laying around taking it slow. Give me a break." Jesse laughed. "And saying you're enjoying it, dad really?"

"My father wouldn't ever be happy unless he was rebuilding, fixing, renovating or even just building something." Lori continued. "So why don't you start by fixing the gutters on your mobile home?"

"They don't use gutters on a mobile home, Lorie. Not without special ordering them. They use a drip edge." Rodger answered completely unaware that the kids were opening him up just as they had planned.

"I need to replace the T111 to some hardy sheets. They don't rot as badly down here in the south like T111 and other sorts of siding. It is good stuff and I have already picked up all the sheets I need along with the trim boards. Just need to get the nerve up to go..."

He wanted to say go home and get his compressor and nail gun, but the house was sold. Rodger didn't so much as go into the home to pick up all his clothes. He pretty much stayed out of the way of everything in the house, leaving Jesse and a moving crew to load everything in a truck and tote it off to a storage shed, where it had stayed untouched for almost a year.

Rodger would never admit it, not even to himself, that he was frightened to go into the storage shed because he may find something that would remind him of his past life.

As he thought about what was in the shed, he felt someone pull out one of the empty chairs on the table. He turned his head to see his sister Karen sitting down next to him. He smiled lovingly as he reached for his hug that she always seemed to have for him.

They all started to speak pleasantly to one another when the waitress approached and took their drinks order.

Rodger went straight for the hard stuff. No one said a word as Rodger ordered a whisky and coke, while everyone else ordered sweet tea knowing that he was still in a lot of pain.

All three of them saw how seeing his sister seemed to brighten his mood a bit too, but nothing brightened his mood up more than when the waitress set two dozen oysters on the half shell right in front of him. All for him!

He wasted no time but kept up with the polite conversation. He noted that both Jesse and Lori began to start getting nervous, but every time he went to ask about it, Karen would interrupt him and change the topic.

He had just finished the last oyster in the second dozen, when the person sat down in the seat across from Karen.

Rodger looked up at his ex-wife that just sat down. He didn't know what to do. He felt like just getting up and walking out the restaurant. But then the feeling of pure defeat overwhelmed him.

"It's been over a year dad. It is time for you two to start communicating."

"This was a bad idea, Lori." Rodger spoke back. "Your mom doesn't want me anymore. She is happy now."

~~~

Amanda lowered her head and blushed. She wanted to reach over and jump into Rodger's lap then try to comfort him like she had done for all the years before. But then she remembered, that when he needed comforted the most, she wasn't there for him. Moreover, she was with other men. She knew that was the downfall of their marriage more than anything else. In fact, downfall was an understatement. She had put her loving husband in unspeakable and unimaginable pain. It was a betrayal that knew no bounds.

Life didn't suddenly get wonderful after she was served with the divorce petition. She had packed all her clothes and things then moved in with Kathy for a while. The affair that they had started the first day, had lost all its magic. Kathy would have other men come by the apartment, but Amanda soon learned that they were off limits. Kathy became very jealous of her believing that Amanda was trying to take her men away, so she knew she would have to move out.

Amanda didn't have a lot of places to go at that point. She moved in to an apartment that she really couldn't afford, and spent the last of her ill-gotten gains to move in, but soon, the next month's rent came due and she couldn't find a good job.

That is when she tried her newest profession.

She advertised on the web and found a lot of needy men out there. She also found a lot of competition. Most of the women who worked in or around New Orleans, were in their mid-twenties. Amanda was in her forties. Most where under 110 lbs, While Amanda was over 160 lbs.

When she finally found a client, she showed up to the hotel room he was in, and when she walked in she just knew he was a cop. She managed to get away fast enough telling him that she had the wrong room, but she never tried it again.

Soon, she lost her apartment, moved into a junk heap of a trailer and got a job waiting tables. This was at the time she found out that she was pregnant.

She gotten the check from the sail of the home soon after she found out. She had no insurance with her job, and needed to use the funds to pay for the OBGYN, vitamins, hospital and so on.

So now Amanda was broken, broke, with a newborn, and forced to work so that she could eat. Fortunately, the WIC program took care of the baby's formula. But she could only afford cloth diapers and only one package of them.

She knew what a great father Rodger had always been and wondered if he could continue to be for her new daughter.

All the things she had planned to say in the car just left her. "Hi Rodger," was all she seemed to be able to get out.

Rodger nodded acknowledging her but said nothing. The two fleeting thoughts that flashed through his brain was, how he couldn't protect her and how she stopped talking to him altogether, betraying him further.

The year was good for him though. Almost all of the anger had passed, as well as most of the pain. Now he was just a lonely old man that didn't seem to be worth much anymore.

"Where's Regina?" Lori asked.

Amanda spoke up yet still looking at Rodger. "I left her with a sitter." Didn't think this would be a good time for her."

"You're probably right mom, but I was still hoping to see her." Lorie smiled softly, with just a hint of disappointment.

Rodger kept quiet but felt he should say something to put everyone at ease.

"I heard you had another little girl."

The kind way Rodger had said it made Amanda's eyes mist up as she choked out.

"Uh, yea... her name is Regina."

She wanted to say that it was the closest thing she could come up with to Rodger's name, but she left out that little gem.

The waitress was back and picked up that oyster pans and then started to place all the entrees. Rodger smiled again as the waitress placed another two dozen charbroiled oysters in front of him.

"I'm going to have Jesse order for me more often." Rodger announced, trying to soften the mood and give thanks to his son for knowing him so well.

The rest of the meal was pleasant. Rodger kept sneaking glances at Amanda. He would give her a shy smile each time she caught him, which was quite often as Amanda couldn't do anything but stare at Rodger --ignoring the other people at the table, and even ignoring her meal.

About half way through the meal, Amanda reached over with her fork and stole one of Rodger's oysters. She had put it in her mouth and begun to chew. She smiled inwardly as she noted Rodger looking at her with a look that she so desperately missed. It was a smile of 'I caught you and I will make you pay.' She had always loved. She missed the looks he had always given her. She desperately missed them. It brought back hard yet very pleasant memories of the life they had shared before there trip to Alaska.

She felt a tear start to roll down her cheeks. She thought about wiping it away trying to hide her emotions from her man, but she decided to let it go as well as any others that may come.

The tears worked on Rodger, as his heart started to open back up to the woman that had won it so many years ago. He could feel himself begin to forgive her misconduct. Moreover, he wanted to take her in his arms and beg her for forgiveness.

The ploy the kids had come up with to get their parents talking again was working as Rodger felt his heart start to grow again.

One of Rodger's biggest downfalls is how he sticks his foot in his mouth, and at always the wrong time.

"Do you know who the father is yet?"

Everyone felt the gut punch that Rodger placed right square in the most painful place he could have. The inhalation of breaths from the entire table could be heard through-out the entire restaurant.

Amanda knew she deserved it, every syllable of it and more. She took the punch with grace. Then she looked back up and into Rodger's eyes. She thought about throwing her own counter strike, but she didn't want to cause him any more harm than she already had. He was still the only man she had ever loved. She lowered her voice in as much of a soft kind tone as she could manage:

"If you want, we can go outside, and you can pound me some more... I won't fight back."

Rodger felt her pain. After all, he knew her intimately for over twenty years. So, in a voice that matched hers he said, "no, I shouldn't have asked."

Tension evaporated threw-out the table. And the conversations began to start again.

Amanda wanted so much to talk like she once did with him, but the thing she missed the most was how she would sit either on his lap or up against him wile he embraced her. Sometimes they would talk, sometimes they would just watch television, and sometimes they would listen to music, or just watch the kids grow up.

Rodger was very hands on with the children and took a lot of time with them no matter how bad his day was. Amanda wondered if they had ever seen their father angry, or sad before they returned from Alaska. She took another opportunity to reach across the table to spear another of Rodger's oysters. She didn't do it because she was hungry or even wanted one, she did it to get his attention. She wanted to let him know that she forgave him for the verbal punch in the gut.

~~~

No one wanted dessert, they were all full of the fine meal. The waitress brought the check, Jesse grabbed it before anyone else could and pulled his wallet out.

The entire family walked out together; Amanda right next to Rodger hoping he would reach for her hand as he had for all of the twenty plus years, they were together. She could see it flinch, and believed that was because he caught himself from reaching out to her. But then his hand opened and fell back behind him a few inches.

This was the sign that Amanda knew all too well. She knew he was looking for her hand. Amanda's throat closed and more tears started to drip from her eyes as she took it, latching onto it like it was the only thing in the world that could keep her from floating away.

As the rest of the family went off to their perspective vehicles, Rodger led Amanda to her car and then he opened her door for her.

Amanda stood between the door and the seat, turned to look at her ex-husband. With a small smile she said "it was great to see you again Rodger." It was all she could come up with, knowing there was so much more to speak of, but didn't know where to start. Then she realized that they had started. Her heart beat and extra thump, as she realized, after all this time, the healing had finally begun. She didn't know if she could repair her marriage or not. But right then she had a small glimmer of hope that something could come of the meal she had just shared with her family.

She didn't slide into the car, instead she continued to gaze at her ex-husband. She truly didn't know what to say. She could feel her heart begin to mend as they looked at each other with a wanting and passion in each of there eyes.

Rodger didn't know why he reached out for Amanda's cheek and gently stroked it with his thumb.

"I miss you Roj." She spoke softly, reveling in the feel of his touch, trying to convey how sorry she was.

"Yea, me too." Roger shared but looked down to the gravel parking lot. "It is good to see you. Sure, was a surprise when you showed up."

"Yea, thank you..." she softly answered. "...by the way, Regina looks just like..." she stopped. Thinking that it would be far too much for him to take, if she told him that Regina looked just like Rodger, it may push him away, and more than anything else in the world she didn't want that to happen.