John and Diane

We're packing up from here in a few days and heading further east in Canada. I think that we might like to see Nova Scotia. It should take us about a week to get there. We only travel about four or five hours with the trailer behind us and then we stay at a campground for a couple of days and then we'll move on. I want to take the kids to Cape Breton Highland National Park. I've seen lots of good things about it on the internet and so I made us a reservation and we'll check it out.

**********

Diane

Oh my god! What do I do? I haven't heard anything from John or the kids for the last three weeks. I'm going crazy trying to find out where they are. My family and his family all think that John and the kids leaving was all planned and that I stayed back because I couldn't get time off work. They initially figured that John, and the kids would only be away for a few day, a week at most and then back to home. When they learned that they were still away, well, they started to ask questions that are getting more difficult to avoid and answer.

**********

John

It's time to call Diane and let her know that everyone is fine. I told Andrea to call using my phone. We called at the exact time that Diane normally would have been with her boyfriend, Tom. If she were with them, I wanted to interrupt things if we could. Let her know in one more way that she had been exposed.

Andrea called. The phone rang twice and there was an answer. "John, is that you?"

"Hi Mum, it's me Andrea."

"Oh my god, sweetie, are you and your sisters and brother okay? Where are you?"

"We're great Mum. We're having a great time. Keith got a skinned knee yesterday while we were climbing the mountain here in the park. Brittany got stung by a bee and Dad carried Laura on his back when she twisted her ankle a few days ago."

There was heavy breathing on the end of the phone. "Mum, are you still there?"

"Yes, yes, I'm here. Is Dad there?"

"He's here but he's getting supper ready on the grill. Do you want to talk to Keith or Laura or Brittany?"

"Yes, please put them on."

All three of the kids took turns talking to their mother. They all had stories to tell her of the adventures that we had been on since we left home. Eventually, Brittany came to me and passed me the phone.

I took a deep breath and started. "So, Diane, are you good?"

"Why did you take the kids away from me?"

"I told you that you had a decision to make. It was choose us or choose him. Looks like you chose him."

"Please come home, please bring my children back to me." She was crying into the phone now.

"Does it sound like they want to come home? If we come home, are you planning to still carry on with Tom just like everything was normal, for you anyway?"

"John, I love you and my kids so much. Please don't do this to me."

"Diane, I loved you so much that I would have gladly sacrificed my own life for you. But now, I don't think you care enough for me, or your children, to even give up your lover. Your Tom. If you won't even do that for us, what do you think we should do for you? Figure that out."

There was quiet on the end of the phone.

"I'll call again, and we can revisit your thoughts on what it is to be a family. Until then I want you to think about our life. My life. Just how you deceived me for so long. What you can do to make this right, if anything. I'll call in a couple of weeks." I clicked off the phone without waiting for Diane to answer and I turned the phone off.

We had supper and a bonfire roasted marshmallows over the fire. The kids finally were tired and went to bed. All I could hear were the sounds of kids snoring from their bunk beds. I sat in the dark by the campfire embers and had a beer and thought about what I do every night. Was I doing the right thing.

I had my lawyer back at home ready to file divorce papers and get a judge to grant me sole custody of the kids. I had enough evidence of Diane and Tom's affair to convince any rational judge that I was the best one for the kids to be with. If Diane wanted to challenge me and introduce DNA tests to show that I wasn't their biological father, my lawyer planned to counter that with Diane's long term deception and that she was an unfit mother for four children. It would all get very nasty, very fast and be very public. I wanted to avoid that. I wanted Diane to realize that she was better off with her family and that she had to give up Tom, once and for all. Was I kidding myself to think that she would do that. I didn't know. I went to bed, again, not knowing how this was all going to play out.

**********

Diane

I went to an investigative agency and asked them to try to find my husband and children. I managed to find out the license plate number of the truck and gave them all the information that I could. A few days later they came back and said that they had gone to Canada but other than that, they did not know where in Canada they were. Canada is a big country and it's a long way from one part of the country to another. Neither John nor the kids had said where they were so it was back to square-one and all I could do was wait for them to call or come home.

It was now just over five weeks since they left home and I'm getting frantic. I want to hold my children and I want to talk to my husband. John made his point last time when he called, and I've done nothing but think about what he said. Tom and I haven't had sex since they left home. Was I wrong to be with him for so long? Was I wrong to deceive John for so long? I was easy to do; John is a very trusting person. He showed his love for me and the kids every day. He worked so hard, all the time. Why didn't I give their father the same respect that I gave Tom?

Why didn't I do that?

**********

Diane

The phone is ringing. It's John. "Hello! John, kids, are you there?"

"Hi Mum. It's me Keith."

"Sweetie, how are you?"

"I'm great Mum. We're camping next to the Atlantic Ocean. How cool is that?"

"Very cool, Sweetie. Is everyone okay?"

"We're all good. Brittany wants to talk to you, hold on..."

Thank God, I got to talk to all the kids. They all sounded so excited to be on an adventure with their father.

Their father...John...their father...he is their only father.

I have fucked up so badly. It's taken me this past six weeks for the point to drill through my thick skull. I owe their father, John, so much. So much more than I have given him. I owe him my deepest apologies. I owe him my deepest gratitude. I owe him for being the wonderful father and husband that he's been. I owe him fidelity and loyalty. I owe him much more than I've ever given him.

How do I make it up to him?

"What exciting things have you been doing Britt?"

"Mum, you won't believe what we've been doing. Mum, are you going to come and be with us? We all miss you a lot."

"I would love to come and be with you. Can I talk to Dad, please."

"Diane, how are you? Have you had enough time to make a decision?"

"John, please, please, please, I'm begging you, let me be part of the family again."

"There isn't enough room in this family for you, me and Tom. Have you made your decision?"

"John, please let me come and be part of our family, wherever that is."

"I need to hear the words from your mouth Diane. That's the only way."

"Is it me or is it Tom. It cannot be both of us. You had both of us for a long time. I just never knew that you had another husband in our marriage. If I had known at the beginning, I would have gladly left you to him and found my own family; made my own children. But you took that away from me. You made the decision to have Tom be the man that made your babies. I was the place-holder. The guy to do all the work. I wasn't the guy to have his bloodline carried on with his children. If I couldn't have made kids, who knows, it might have been different. But I have a very healthy sperm count and I'm very capable of making babies with you. But you decided that Tom was the one to make your babies and I was the one to care for them. So, I want to hear your decision."

This is so hard. I can see the faces of my children. I can see them laugh. I can see them playing. I see them with John, having fun.

**********

John

I know that Diane is turning inside-out on the end of the phone. She wants both worlds and I'm forcing her to make a choice. To me this is really simple. Me or him. There aren't any options for her to have us both.

There is silence on the end of the phone. No answer to my simple question.

I waited another minute. Now the waiting for me was done.

"I have my answer." I turned off the phone. I had to sit down.

**********

Part two of my plan was to give Diane a chance to see what her life would be like without her children or me in the picture. I knew that the last few weeks had been hard on her, and I knew that eventually we would have to sort out a permanent solution. I also knew from talking to my lawyer that eventually Diane would try to get some kind of court order compelling me to come home with the kids. I talked to my lawyer, Ken, about that and we decided to let it play out for as long as possible but just short of some law enforcement agency coming to arrest me.

I called Ken and we talked at length about Diane's options. So far, she hadn't done a thing other than sit at home and wait for us to come back. My investigator had been keeping tabs on her and reporting to Ken on what she was doing.

Ken emailed me weekly reports and updates from the investigator. The PI always included any information about Tom and how often Diane and he were still having sex in his apartment. Things on that front had pretty much cooled down, but I knew that as soon as I came back with the kids, she would start all over again thinking that she had won the argument; that I had given in. That wasn't gonna happen.

**********

Diane

School is starting soon, and I don't even know where my children and John are. This is really bad. I went to see a lawyer this week and she looked at me like I had two heads when I explained my 'situation' to her. She wanted to know what it was, specifically, that I wanted her to do. When I told her that I wanted my kids to come home, she reminded me that I didn't know where they were, and that John had legally taken them camping. There wasn't much I could do until it was clear that they were not here for the start of the school year. I had to wait for September to roll around. It was killing me.

**********

John

The summer was starting to cool off and I knew that the kids were wanting to get back home and get ready for school. They had hundreds of stories of their travels this summer to share with their friends. It was unfair to them to drag this out any further. We sat around the campfire and made plans for the trip home. We were still in Canada and enjoying the places that we had been to. It would take about a week to get home.

**********

While we were driving through New England, I had a chance to review all of the things that I wanted to tell Diane, when I got home. I was sure that she would be plenty pissed at me for taking the kids away for the summer, but that would be under the category of too-fucking-bad. I wanted her to have a time to reflect on what she and Tom had done to destroy me and our family. This was just a little bit of payback. Not enough, to my mind.

We pulled in the driveway of the house in the early afternoon and the kids all scrambled out of the truck, grabbed their things and into the house to check out their rooms. Diane's car wasn't there, and I suppose that that was a good thing. For now.

I got the trailer unhooked and put the slides out and got it cleaned out a bit and then went to the shower to get myself cleaned up. After doing that I went to the kitchen and saw that there wasn't a lot of food in the refrigerator so I sent the kids out to the trailer to get as much as they could carry from the refrigerator and bring it into the house. I made some food for them.

While we were eating, I could hear a car in the driveway and Diane shouting for the kids. They all jumped up and ran out to greet her. She actually was on her knees in the driveway hugging all four of her children. Tears were running down her face and she was sobbing as she hugged them.

The kids pulled her up and they started walking into the house. I heard her ask, "Where is your dad?"

Andrea answered her, "He's in the kitchen, we made some supper."

I could see her head come up looking for me. I stayed inside.

The gaggle moved inside and into the kitchen. I had gone upstairs and started to get ready.

You want to know what I'm getting ready for, don't you. Fair question.

I'm getting ready for the next part of my plan.

**********

Diane

I can't believe it. The kids are home. My god, I've missed them so much it hurt. Where is John?

I sat in the kitchen with the kids listening to them talk non-stop. Keith showed me a scar that he got hiking in the hills of Cape Breton Highlands, wherever that is.

Then I heard john behind me. He was on his way to the garage with a large suitcase. I followed him and shut the door between the house and the kitchen so that I could talk to John without the kids hearing me.

"What are you doing, John?"

He looked at me with an expression that said I was an idiot. "Really? No, I guess you don't know. I'm packing to leave." He went to his car and opened the back hatch and put the suitcase inside.

"I'll be back in a couple of days to get some more things but this will do for now."

"What...what...where are you going?"

"Look, I brought the kids home. They need to get ready for school in a couple of days, I need to get on with my life and you need to get on with your life with Tom. We all have things to do."

He turned and went back into the house and said some things to the kids. They all hugged him and then he came back out with his old leather briefcase and got in his car.

"You can't leave! You're my husband and the kids need you!"

John looked at me, "Maybe Tom can help out."

He put the car in reverse, backed out of the garage and drove off.

I tried to call him, but his cell phone went at once to voice mail, just like it had all summer.

**********

John

I told no one why I was leaving and where I was going. I drove to a hotel in the city and checked in. I booked a room for two weeks; I figured that that would give me enough time to sort out a more permanent place to live and get some of the business of my divorce sorted out.

I also had to go back to work. Damn. I have to quit that job. I actually liked it.

After unpacking and setting up my laptop I went out to a store and bought a few beers, the IPA that I like. I went back to my room and put my feet up, had a drink and thought about all the things that the kids and I had done over the summer.

I wasn't sure what to do with the truck and trailer, but for now I'd leave them at the house and arrange longer-term storage later in the week.

The next morning, I appeared at my office, figuring that they would have replaced me by now. I got lots of 'hellos' and 'welcome backs' and then it was almost like I hadn't left for over two months. My boss came by and looked at me with an envious look on his face, almost like he wished it was him that just took two months off from this place. Oh well.

I mentioned to him that I was thinking about making a big change while I was travelling over the summer. Naturally he wanted some details, and I approached the idea of me working for the company as an independent sub-contractor looking after project work.

We were going to talk next week about some of the specifics of that, but the ice had been broken on the idea and I figured that I could always just quit and leave and start over someplace else if I wanted to.

All summer, the money that I used to travel with had come from my secret accounts. I didn't use any of the money from our normal family accounts or credit card so that Diane couldn't track our movements. How did I get to be so...covert?

**********

My meeting with Ken went well. The paperwork is pretty well ready to go. I knew that no court in the state would award me custody of the kids considering that I wasn't the biological father of them. I also knew that I would be paying for them for some time, and that was fully expected, and so I reconciled myself to the idea that I wouldn't be seeing the kids much from now on. I'm not forty yet and I figured that there was still time for me to have a family of my own.

I told him to serve the paperwork to Diane at home. There was no need to publicly shame her. So that's what happened.

**********

Diane

John has been gone for almost a week and the kids are asking me several times a day when Dad is coming home. I'm making up all kinds of excuses, but I know that Andrea is seeing that as a bunch of malarky. And then my world took a new turn for the worse.

The doorbell rang. I went to the front door and there was a lady dressed very nicely, with a large envelope in her left hand and her cell phone in the other. "Mrs. Diane Strickland?"

"Yes, I am."

She took a step forward and handed me the envelope, "You've been served." She took a step back, took my photo and then turned and walked quickly to her car.

Fuck!

The large envelope was sealed and addressed to me. I took it inside and put it on the kitchen counter and didn't look at it again until after the kids were all in bed. When they were all in bed, I got a glass of wine and then I sat at the dining room table and opened it.

It was pretty straight forward. John wanted to divorce based on irreconcilable differences. He was going to start an education account for each of the children to ensure that their university education was fully paid for. He was turning over the house to me and would pay the remaining balance of the mortgage. All of the furniture and contents of the house would remain with me. The truck and trailer would be his and not part of any divorce settlement. I would receive a monthly amount to maintain the kids and the house. I would have to keep working, that was part of the deal.

The really hard part was, he wanted to have his name removed from the children's birth certificates and Tom's name added to them. As well, he was not asking for any visitation time with the kids. That by itself spoke volumes to the hurt that I had caused the best man that I ever knew. Tom was my lover, yes, but John was my husband. He was the better man. He was the man that solved problems. He was the man that provided for us and fixed things and wiped runny noses and...and, everything else.

I was on my own here now. I'd fucked things up so good that now I was staring at being a single mother of four children and no father. Tom wasn't going to be the father that they needed. He wasn't going to leave his wife and child to be with us. That wasn't going to happen. No, I was well and truly screwed. I had screwed myself. I was the only person to blame here. All for what. The feeling of Tom claiming me for a few hours a week. To feed my foolish fantasies.

Tom was gonna look after Tom's interests first and foremost. If I threatened his secure life in any way, I knew that he would do the same thing as his father did: deny, deny, deny and try and buy his way out of trouble with his wife. I had to get out of his bed and out of his life.

The package that I was looking at had instructions about what to do with it. It recommended that I have it reviewed by legal counsel and then the two lawyers could finalize it or begin any negotiations to make changes.

The next morning, I went to work, after dropping the kids at school and began looking for a new job. Then I called my lawyer and made arrangements to drop the papers at her office. She called me back the next day and said that this was a very good divorce offer and that if I wanted to add anything else that we should do it quickly while John might be receptive to giving it to me. I asked for a meeting with John. I wanted to meet with him one-on-one and talk to him and beg his forgiveness and ask him to please come home. If not for me, then for the kids.