Family Isn't Blood - Fred's Life Ch. 01

Cathy started to use our visits together to talk about what she had done, and why. After she became pregnant, she slowly started to realize what kind of life she was going to be giving her child. It was not going to be a good one. She was coming to the realization that having a lover on the side, like her mother had, would warp her child like she was warped. She was beginning to realize that her own upbringing was flawed. It was going to damage her child, and no one was going to damage her child.

But stopping her affair? That would have taken real courage, courage that she was getting to but did not yet have. Knowing this now, I was understanding her apparent 'instant' honesty, confessions and remorse. She was on her way to being an adult and being responsible for what she did, but just was not there yet when her shower blew up in her face and her world came crashing down.

There were few questions that I asked Cathy directly, but this one I did. It was a question that I would never ask Rita. Rita was written off and out of my life. But as Cathy 'learned' her behavior from Rita, I asked. "What were you getting from Cory that you could not get from Mike?" Isn't this the heart of being unfaithful?

She asked for permission to really think about this, and not answer it that day, but later in the week. She said that she knew some things, but felt that there were a couple more underneath that she needed to look at.

It was over two weeks later when she asked if she could talk about it. "The simple answer was that having an affair...NO, that wrong. It was cheating on my husband. Having sex, fucking someone else, all of it was that it was just wrong and exciting. Very exciting. Mom would have a big smile on her face after she saw Paul. I wanted that big smile too."

"But I am realizing that I was also killing my love life with Mike. I would not let him do anything but plain vanilla sex, nothing exciting, different or kinky. I put compartments in my life and he was in one, and wild sex was in the other. Problem was that the wild sex never varied. Cory had a script that he followed. It never really was different. We would do A then B then C. But because it was wrong and illicit, it was great. Getting away with things is exciting but I realize now, that except for that, it really was a bit boring."

"Then there is acting and being treated like a slut. I know that I was not acting like a slut, I was a slut, not a wife or now, a mother."

She looked at me with tears in her eyes. "I caused my own damage, my own downfall. I deserve what I sowed. All for a little excitement." She started to cry again and I let her grieve her recognition of what she had done, and the loss in her life.

Without her saying anything more, I knew that I just got my answer from Rita for the same question. I do not know what Mike is feeling and where he is at right now about all of this, but I think that we are very much alike. I do not know if he will ever talk with Cathy in a heart-to-heart discussion, now, later or ever. But this I know. Cathy has grown and taken responsibility for her actions. Rita has not. I wish Rita well, and to be as far away from Cathy and me as possible. I don't feel that way about Cathy and Mike. Either way, that's not my call. They are their own people making their own decisions.

"Cathy, you never learned that marriage is hard work. It takes two to keep the excitement in it. Unfortunately you probably acted just like your mother, that is where you learned it from. You could learn from your father. No matter, my marriage was bad with your mother, it was not good. I did have a life before marrying her. A longer term relationship in which we kept the excitement going. Would you like to hear about it?"

Cathy was an adult now, emotionally getting there for sure. But I don't think that Cathy ever really saw me as young and with someone else than her mother. She stopped crying and had a questioning look on her face while she slowly nodded yes to me.

"Her name was Zophia. We were in high school together and started college together at Circle. I'm dating myself again. You know it as U of I at Chicago, UIC. Back then, it was new, and so was I. Well, Zophia and I met in our senior year in highschool at Lane Tech. We just clicked. Your father was a bit of a geek at that time, and she was a smart cookie, she got into biology. Last I heard about 20 some years ago she was married and in research somewhere. Neither of us had much money, but we did move in together and lived as cheaply as we could.

We lived together for about 3 years when she received an offer on the west coast that she should not pass on. I really loved that woman, but I knew that I should not stop her dreams. I was needed to help take care of your grandparents then. Larry and I kept them as independent as possible till cancer took each of them. That is where I needed to be." I saw a tear roll out of Cathy's eye while I dabbed my own. She knew the story of her grandparents slowly wasting away, and how Larry and I took care of them. There was no money for outside help. There was barely enough money to keep everyone going. I dropped out of the University to drive a truck to be close to home. It was better when Larry came back from Nam. Then I had someone I could rely on besides me alone.

"Well, let me get back to Zophia. Those were happy carefree times. Working 32 hours a week at odd jobs while taking a full load at college. Yep, pretty happy and carefree all right." Cathy smiled at my joke. "Worked midnights at a hospital as an orderly for some of that time Getting a 20 minute dead-to-the-world naps completely revitalizes you for another 4-5 hours. Well, you can see that we did not have much spare time, but we made time for each other."

"Making love when exhausted was pretty common. So when ever we were somewhat rested and had a couple of minutes, either of us would sneak up on the other. I remember one time she was washing dishes and I nailed her from behind. She never got to turn around, I just bent her over and got her as horny as hell in two minutes. I remember those times like it was yesterday." I was smiling and chuckling at the remembrance. Cathy never heard anything at all like this from me before. She looked a bit bewildered, bordering on shocked.

I went on. "She had a couple of ways that she would make things interesting. One morning, waking up, I could not move my arms and legs. Where she found the old clothes line, I'll never know. She teased the hell out of me for what seamed like forever. And then she finally relented and mounted me. I did not last long, but she had masturbated several times for me to see before that. I did get her back for that one. I used a bandana as a blindfold on her. Well, we both loved it."

"Cathy, we had freedom with each other. We got to try new things. Not that everything worked out. There are some fantasies that don't work for everyone. Having another join us in our bed was fun, but we never repeated it. Turned out it was something that took away from us, not added to." At this, Cathy had a look of shock on her face. She was seeing me in a different light. Not sure that this was the best thing to share, but just felt that I had to go with the flow.

"You see, it is about your partner, your relationship, both of your fantasies and making something from that. You get to create your own excitement with each other. It is based on love and trust to make a marriage work, in and out of the bedroom."

She looked at me and asked a question, one of the few she would directly ask about my marriage to her mother. "Did Mom do to you what I did to Mike?" I just nodded yes. "Dad, I am so sorry, I am just so very sorry." And she hung her head down and sobbed. I hugged her. "But we both have a future to get to. You will be OK. I am becoming OK. You have possibilities ahead of you. You know now that you are on the right path. You have a little one to care for and never disappoint. It will work out for both of you." I then hugged my daughter, my daughter that was becoming an adult before my very eyes.

A few weeks later Larry called me over to tell me about he did with Paul, and he wanted to have Mike there too. To be honest, I was not thrilled about it, but I also was wondering how Mike was doing. I found out that he was still the Mike that I knew, the good Mike that I knew. Still living with his heart on his sleeve, but not bitter or angry, just still hurt and healing. Healing like we all were in one way or another.

I just wanted my divorce to be over and told Larry to offer her to let her keep her $50,000 in her 401K. All just to get rid of her. I wanted it over quick. That brother of mine is a real keeper. I was broke and living from hand to mouth. If Larry had not stopped taking rent from me after the shower, I don't know what I would have done. There was nothing left to sell, except for my soul. And I did that once before to keep the marriage alive. I blew it then on the roll of the dice, but those dice had been loaded, loaded against me.

When we all met, Larry first told me about the windfall he got from Paul for me. I have never had that much money in my entire life, and it made the divorce so much easier. It also ensured that I would not die in poverty. He got the money from Paul two weeks before, right after he got Rita to agree to sign the divorce papers. Did not tell me a damn thing about it. I got to hear it first hand, along with Mike.

It was good to see and talk with Mike again. The loss of a marriage in the family can cause everyone to lose that side of the family with it. I was always proud of him. Now I learned that he was not mean and vindictive to Cathy and the little one. Getting her student loans paid off was something I could no longer do. Something that was straining Cathy's budget. I was really worried about those financial issues, but Larry worked his magic. Mike was supportive of it. It was good to see that he was trying to heal too. Betrayal is never easy on anyone.

The night that Cathy was assaulted in her own apartment broke me out of thinking that everything was going to get better. I could have lost my daughter and granddaughter that day. I was already in bed when I got the call from Cathy. She was crying and talking about being assaulted, but I could not understand her. Then a woman's voice came on the line. She said that she was Cathy's neighbor. Cathy and little Freddie were safe, but someone had been in her apartment and ran away when she and her husband made a loud racket. She asked that I please come over quickly. The police were already called. This was just the start of it.

It took a few minutes of talking with Cathy and the neighbors to figure out what happened. The Police beat cops came on by, took the statements and left. That is when I grabbed her and little Freddie to go to my home. I knew that the immediate danger was over, but there was no way any of us could live under that cloud.

Larry was away on a well deserved vacation with Angelka. The only other person left that I thought would do any good was Mike. I knew he would come. Cathy said no, but I came immediately back with one word, Franciszka. She immediately folded. Those 15 minutes that we waited for Mike to arrive were difficult for Cathy. She had not met him face-to-face since she signed the papers. She had kept her distance and would go out of her way to stay away from him. I knew show she felt, but I also knew who Mike was. I hoped that I was not going to be wrong. I went with my gut.

After he arrived I asked that he hear us both out before he made any decisions. If he was going to refuse her, I was going to ask that he not refuse me. When Cathy was telling him about being attacked, she broke into a full fledge apology for her actions in their marriage. I knew that she needed to say it. She had been holding it up inside for so long and she needed to take this chance now. She may never get another one. The look of shock on his face followed by the refocus on the immediate problem happened in seconds, but I saw what she said in his face. It was not anger or revulsion. It was thoughtfulness and caring and astonishment.

That was when I knew that Mike would not abandon us to our fears. He got help, he watched over us that night and the next couple of nights. He stayed around us then, and maybe even a little bit longer than just this incident. He settled us down and came up with a plan for protection. Got us armed for the just in case, then went to work on solving the problem with the jerk.

It was over when that guy got arrested for dealing crystal meth. It was the selfies they found in the jerk's apartment of him with infants that froze my blood. I do not wish ill on very many people, but this guy was a big exception to that rule.

Cathy told me later that night that she and Mike were going to talk on Sunday, alone. Could something good happen from this near disaster?

Something happened in those couple of days, Mike was back being my son-in-law, taking care of my daughter. But now they started to talk with one another. At first, it was the business of survival. I knew that Mike did not wish ill of Cathy, but he went so far out of his way to be sure that she and the little one was safe. And they talked. When Mike first arrived he was still at the point of trying to understand what happened, Cathy blurts out how wrong she was to Mike and me. I'm worried about getting killed and the most important thing she has to say is that her daughter is most important - and she was so very wrong. And they talked. Did I say something about them talking? Calmly? Those three days kept me on edge, with a pistol at my side and half an eye open all the time. Then it was over. But they decided to sit down and talk.

She called me on Sunday night, waking me up, saying that she and Mike were going to try to make a go of it again. That they had much more to talk about. I had a hard time getting back to sleep that night. It turned out that the next three weeks were the rough ones. I'm really proud of them both. They put everything on the table, even things that they could not solve in a long time or ever could. I was there to support Cathy in this, but I felt that all I did was to listen, and to help her listen to her heart and her head.

There were things that went on in these three weeks that I never told her, or Mike for that matter. I figured that they both knew that I met with his Aunt and Uncle. There are few secrets in families. Don't think it is any other way.

We all have kept up our contacts with one another. We were still an extended family. I wanted to be sure that they were aware that Cathy was different, good different. They knew. They has seen her grow, starting with the shower thank you note. I filled in a couple of other details that no one else would have known. We were all on the same page. The kids were going to have to work this out, but we were going to be the support staff. The kids won a second chance with each other and they made a grand number of great decisions. It was time for the 'parents' to take a step back, and see how it would all turn out.

Life begins anew.