Cameron: How To Save Your Family

Britt gasped and dropped her wine glass on the floor. Some got on her clothes, but she didn't move. "How long have you and he been in a relationship?"

Again, no answer. Her mouth was open but no words were coming out. I continued, "I think that I have good idea, more than two years."

I let that settle in and then I asked, "Are you leaving us?"

Still nothing, I kept going. "This is the 21^st century and I don't own you, I can't tell you what to do, so I suppose you can do whatever you want. If you don't want to be with me, all you have to do is tell me. I can take a hint."

I took a drink.

"I looked the other way for far too long in the hope that you would end things with him, but I know that you've been spending even more time with him while I was away. Did you bring him here, to this house?"

She squeaked out a "no."

"Thank you for having the decency not to have him around my kids."

We sat in silence for what seemed like a long time but was maybe half a minute. I handed her the big envelope that I had. "Here's the paperwork that I need to give you. It spells things out pretty clearly. You can now go and spend as much time with him as you want, it doesn't matter now."

Finally, she recovered the ability to speak. "Cam, I don't want a divorce. I want my family. I love you all very much. I don't want to lose you."

I shot back, "You have funny fucking way of showing your love for us!"

I waited but she said nothing. "I waited for almost two god-damned years for you to either end it with him or tell me the truth that you wanted him. So, which is it? I'm not sure that you even know."

I slid the envelope closer to her and told her that she needed to go see a lawyer tomorrow. I stood up, finished the rest of the wine in my glass and walked out of the room. As I was leaving, I added, "You can sleep in the spare room until we get some things settled."

**********

Britt

Well. I'm screwed. In the figurative sense, not the literal. I was so sure that I had hidden Dean from Cam so well that my two worlds would never intersect. Now they've collided. Now what the fuck do I do. Why in the name of God did I ever start up with Dean. That was a big mistake. How do I make this right?

I could hear Cam taking things, my things, to the spare bedroom. He made several trips and I knew right then that my world had imploded and I was the one that pulled the trigger.

I slowly opened the envelope. Petition for Dissolution of Marriage. That was the name at the top of the document. A business card was paper-clipped to the top right-hand corner. Obviously, his lawyer. Cam wasn't putting up with my bullshit.

The feeling of helplessness washed over me. I was busted. I was so stupid. I thought 'why in the fuck did I do that?' I know why, he's charming and attentive, and good in bed, and I was lonely for attention from someone other than little kids. Cam was working sixty-hour weeks and my schedule was all over the place. We never had time for each other and when we did, intimacy was all too brief and then it was back to business, back to the reality of three kids, two jobs and bills to pay.

Dean was handsome with a killer smile and he connected with me in a completely different way than my family did. At first, I planned to stop after a couple of months. I knew it was very wrong. He had a girlfriend that he was semi-serious with. They suddenly stopped seeing each other. He didn't elaborate much on the breakup but he wanted to spend more time with me. I liked the attention and didn't do anything to end it; like I should have.

Oh Fuck! I just figured it out. It must have been his girlfriend that went to Cam and told him. Oh My God. Cam must have been devastated. Now all the changes that he made in his life make sense. He had to save himself. Everything that he had done in the last year was leading up to tonight. I didn't do a thing to head this off. In fact, I made it worse.

As I skimmed the documents that he gave me, the one thing that jumped out at me was that Cam wanted custody of the children. The petition stated that he had been, for the last four years, the main care-giver, doing most of the parenting. He was willing to give me liberal visitation, if that's what I wanted. I was going to lose my children. I can't let that happen. I was going to lose my husband. I didn't want that to happen.

My stomach decided that I needed to move, quickly. I ran for the powder room by the front door and threw up. As I kneeled over the toilet, I realized that along with the contents of my stomach, my life was going down that toilet.

**********

Cam

I called my mother and father to let them know that I was going to divorce Britt. They were shocked. Of course, they wanted to know why. When I told them that she had been seeing another man for a while now, they didn't want to believe it. They both offered any help that they could. I didn't reveal my ultimate plan.

Leeann had worked to get Britt's lawyer into the talks and see if there was any discussion about the terms that I was offering. Naturally, the sticking point was the kids.

In New York, the law doesn't give-a-shit about adultery as a cause for divorce. You can divorce just because you want to; no other reason needed. Where the rubber meets the road is in the backroom negotiations and the divvying up of our lives and possessions. I did not care about any of the 'things' we had, including the house. I was more than willing to split all that down the middle. She takes half and I take half. Where the kids came into the mix, well, that was different. I wasn't going to budge on that. The kids stayed with me. And that was final. Laura is now almost 12, Diane is 10 and Davey is seven, going on seventeen. He's handful.

I sat down with the kids and told them a sanitized version of the truth. I wanted to preserve Britt's dignity in all of this. Besides, I wanted them to still respect their mother. She deserved that.

The kids actually understood. Laura was very aware of divorce amongst her friends and classmates. She knew what that meant. She told me, in front of her sister and brother, that she wanted to live with me. Diane and Davey, looked at Laura and then me and told me that they wanted to live with me too.

I was proud of my kids and never more so than with that vote of confidence from them.

The next few weeks were...tense..to say the least. Britt and I occupied separate bedrooms and while we were polite around each other, that was the limit of any interaction.

A couple of time Britt came to the bedroom door and asked if she could come in. I let her. Once, she started to get undressed and I stopped her. "Have you been with your boyfriend?" When she didn't answer, I told her to get out.

It was about a week later, I told Britt that I had talked to the kids and that we needed to talk as a family. She didn't want to but I wanted to push it because I wanted her to face some of the truth of the shit-show that she had created. If it was going to get dirty, then the dirt belonged on her.

The next night, I made supper and we all sat at the table.

"Okay, I have a few things to say that everyone needs to hear."

They all stopped eating and looked at me.

"I think it's time that Mom looked for a place to live. Our divorce date will be very soon and I think that this is the next thing that needs to get accomplished by then."

Britt was looking at the table and the kids were looking at her.

Laura spoke first. "Mom, why did you stop loving us?"

That cut like a dagger to Britt's heart.

"Honey, I've never stopped loving you. I love you all very much."

"But you don't love Dad?"

"Yes, I do love him."

My daughter knew how to get right to the main issue, just like an innocent child can. "But then, why are you with some other man?"

Britt was mute. "I...I..I..."

The kids looked at me. "Kids I think that we should eat up and then we can get ready to go to Davey's little league practice."

Britt almost ran from the room. The impact of her decisions was finally coming home to her. Her actions had consequences. Her own little children had just given her a hard lesson in consequences. I still had a few more things that I needed to accomplish at the end of this marriage.

**********

So, the final days of my marriage were at hand. All the details had been worked out. I was planning on selling the house within a few months of the end of the marriage and I was going to move me and my kids to Melbourne.

Britt had initially objected but after she realized that the kids wanted to be with me, she withdrew her objections. Leeann had gotten a notarized letter from Britt's lawyer, agreeing to the move. The immigration folks wanted that as proof that I wasn't abducting my own kids and running off.

I was still working for the firm by day and for Tommy at night and on the weekends when I had some spare time; who needs sleep, it's way over-rated. I was slowly selling off all the furniture from the house that neither I nor Britt wanted. I gave the kids two big plastic bins each. One was for things that they wanted to take to Melbourne (besides their luggage) and the second was for keep-sakes that they wanted to hang on to and store at their grandparents' house. Eventually they would want those things and my mother and father had quickly agreed to hang on to them.

Britt had moved out of the house into an apartment. The kids had helped her load her things into the van that she rented. I figured that her boyfriend would help her, but he was nowhere to be seen. I offered up any of the furniture in the house that she wanted. Pots, pans, beds, sofa, it was all available for her to take. I didn't want any of it. Outside of the two bins for the kids, everything else would eventually be sold off or given away. I noticed that she took our wedding photo album. I wasn't sure what to do with that, so her taking it solved that problem.

I wasn't wearing my wedding ring anymore. In fact, I gave it back to Britt when she was leaving our former home. Now that the divorce was almost final, there wasn't a need for it. A couple of the women at the firm commented to me about it and later I noticed that I was clearly under observation by a number of the ladies. My divorce was no secret.

I hadn't asked Britt to give me back the engagement and wedding ring that I gave her. If she wanted to give them to me, I suppose I would have taken them, but what was I going to do with them. In fact, Leeann had mentioned that the court views wedding and engagement rings as gifts and thus the recipient gets to decide what to do with them. So, it was Britt's issue to decide.

The weeks went by and the preparations for our move to Melbourne continued on. I worked to keep life for the kids as normal as possible. Britt took the kids with her a few times but never overnight. She rented a one-bedroom apartment, since soon there wouldn't be any kids around to stay at her place. It was all really weird for me and even Laura told me that her mother seemed so different.

It was incredibly unreal getting rid of all our family possessions. This was all the myriad of big things and the countless little things that we had accumulated over the time that we had been together. I had offered up anything that Britt might have wanted, to her. I asked family and friends if there was anything that they wanted and offered to just give it to them. Next, I held a 'house sale' and invited people to come in and purchase anything that they might want. I tried to get what I thought was a reasonable price for things that we had paid good money for, but most people were looking for bargains. Many knew that this was a 'divorce sale' so tried to low-ball for any of the remaining big-ticket things. I hung on to the kids' beds to the last since they needed a place to sleep. Finally, when everything of value was gone, I invited a charity in to take what they wanted. The last of it went in a dumpster. That's when you know that a big part of your life is over; when you're tossing your possessions in a dumpster. That was a hard day. The kids even helped me do some of it. They were sad to see some of it go. Some of our family offered to hang on to some things, but really, we needed to cut that cord and move on.

I didn't ask Britt about her life since she moved out. She had kept a big part of her life secret and apart from me for over two years, so I decided that whatever she did now was none of my business. If she wanted to share anything with me, she could have done that.

In the time that Britt had after her affair with Dean Billings was revealed, she had never once said to me that she was sorry. Never once was wanting to talk about our marriage and what was lacking in it to cause her to seek out another man. My anger with her had dissipated over a long period of time and so I gave up on the faint-hope that she might want to find a way to save her family. If she didn't want her family enough to even try that little bit then there was no point in anything I might do. Our marriage was over.

I never told her, but I had the kids DNA tested. I was pretty sure that they were mine but when you find out that your wife is lying to you for a long time, you begin to doubt other things. I was very happy to see the results.

On the day when the divorce was final, Leeann called and told me that she had the court-issued decree in her office and I could drop by and get it or she would have it couriered to me. I was going past her building anyway, so I dropped in and got it.

She congratulated me and we had a drink in her office to mark the occasion. I thanked her for her work on my behalf and wrote her the final cheque for her services. She wasn't cheap, but she was good. I told her that I was amazed that she was able to persuade Britt to agree that the kids could move with me to Australia. She confided that it took a bit of arm-twisting and a warning, of sorts, that this whole business could get very embarrassing for Britt were the details to become known to her family, friends and employers. To save face, it would be best to agree to the move for the kids. There was nothing stopping Britt from visiting her children in Australia.

It was done.

**********

The flight to Melbourne was an adventure for the kids. They were real troopers and even though the trip was painfully long they didn't complain once. Davey spent a good amount of time with his face glued to the window watching the clouds, the ground and the ocean. Tommy met us at the airport with a large van to haul us and our ton of luggage to our temporary home.

Tommy had a real estate agent find a suitable rental house near a good school. It was only a few minutes from his place and near services, grocery store, doctors and dentists, that we needed. The place had minimal furnishings but would be fine for now. I told the kids that they would have a few days off before the start of school so we could rest up and look around the area and get to know where we were living.

Being a single father. That was a challenge. It was one thing to do it in Albany with my family around but it was another to do it in another country. I didn't have a support system, other than Tommy, around me in case there was an emergency. That worried me. Maybe too much. I was extra careful with everything I did. I realized that I was acting a bit paranoid. Laura was stepping up more and more and supervising her sister and little brother. She was twelve, going on thirty-two, and was my able little helper. She was even trying to do some to the food prep and certainly cracking the whip with her sister and brother to do clean up around the house. She was growing up fast.

The kids got started at their new school and after my meeting with their teachers, I was more confident that we would do fine in our new country. The kids were amazed at how different, yet similar, things were here in Australia. It was only a few days until Davey was liberally using his new newfound terminology. It was 'crikey' this and 'crikey' that and it was funny as hell to hear him try out his Aussie accent. 'Dad, let's crank up the 'barbie' this weekend.' I just about pee'd myself laughing.

Work was ramping up at the same time. The construction business was taking off and we actually had more work than we could handle. That meant we had to expand. We had some customers that we couldn't afford to disappoint with the size of the jobs that they wanted us to do, so if we didn't want to see them go elsewhere to get the work done, we needed to hire extra crew, get two more trucks and trailers and buy more equipment.

One of the contracts was for the construction of thirty back decks on houses in a new subdivision. This was a high-end community and the decks were all large and multi-level. As well, they had to be made out of composite boards that were part plastic materials and would never fade or rot. That stuff is not cheap and that meant that the crews had to be very precise in measurements and cutting. Wastage would be out of our bottom line. We put two of our most experienced decking crews on the job and back-filled them for the less difficult work.

We hired a full-time tile guy to do interior work and we hired a few other specialists. We bought a forklift and a tractor with a bucket on one end and a digger on the other, along with the trailer to haul it around to job-sites.

We discovered that it was cheaper for us to make our own moldings for around doors and windows and crown moldings for ceilings. That stuff was in short supply since one of the factories that made it had burned down. I found the equipment that we needed to make it, in New Zealand and had it shipped over. It took a few days to set it up and do some trial and error with it, but one of our finish carpenters got the hang of it fairly fast and they were turning out all the moldings that we needed, at far less cost than buying it. That meant we were able to get jobs wrapped up faster and cheaper.

One of the other things that came out of the mold shop was the huge bags of sawdust it created. So, we bought a machine that compresses sawdust into rectangular blocks. The sawdust is mixed with a bit of paraffin wax and compressed into its shape. The resulting product is that you can burn these blocks in your wood stove or fireplace instead of using a wood log. It makes use of the sawdust, instead of it going to the landfill, and makes us some extra money. We struck a deal to sell them at home improvement stores in the region and they caught on pretty fast. Later, we found out that if we used a bigger hydraulic press, we could skip the paraffin wax and turn out better logs that would burn for hours. We made even more money on that.

**********

It was just about a year that we had been in Australia. The company was doing well and we were making good money now. We had over thirty employees. Tommy and I figured that we could start buying out his father and mothers share of the company and then work on the part of the investment bankers. His mother and father were wanting to travel more and they wanted to buy a vacation place in Italy; so, this worked out good for all of us.

I took some of the money that I had after the divorce and used that to buy a part of his parents share. Now I had 20% of the company. Tommy had 55% and our silent investors had the remaining 25%. Tommy was still in the driver's seat in terms of final decisions for the company, but he and I were pretty much singing off the same sheet of music.

We made a point of rewarding the people that worked for us as our company profits went up. There were profit sharing plans in place for everyone. That meant at the year-end, the cheques that were written were a nice bonus for everyone. Profits this first year were slim, but it was a great start. We just had to keep it going.