Love Notes from Summer Camp

© 2023 by the author using the pen name UpperNorthLeft.

This story was submitted as part of the Summer Lovin' Story Contest 2023.

Thanks to Duleigh (https://forum.literotica.com/members/duleigh.453941/) and the Literotica administrators for creating and organizing this event.

All sexual activity is between adults 18 years of age or older.

* * *

It was still spring, but summer already sucked. The thought of spending the summer anywhere or with anyone that reminded me of my cheating ex-wife was depressing the crap out of me.

Summer had always been the high point of my year. It was the payoff for living through a Seattle winter (and sometimes fall and spring) filled with clouds and rain. After that, denizens of the Emerald City could usually count on 3 to 4 glorious months of long, endless, beautiful sunny days that never got too hot or too cold.

Normally, my family and I would enjoy our summer together, visiting relatives, hiking, camping, swimming and taking road trips through as many national parks as possible. This year the approaching summer filled me with a sense of dread. After six months on an emotional roller coaster, my divorce was finalized in March. The legal end to my 11 year marriage left me exhausted and depressed, albeit with a sense of relief and closure that I had not had for a quite a while.

This was my week with my twin 10-year-old daughters. When I picked them up on Friday in the school drive-through, they had been chattering away with their friends about their upcoming summer vacation. When they got in the car, Lily and Milly immediately asked, "Dad, where are we going this summer? Where are we going to do?"

I sighed. "I'm not sure yet, girls. Your mom and I worked out that you'll be with her for 4 weeks, then 4 weeks with me, another 2 weeks with her, and then back with me for the final 2 weeks of summer. I haven't made any specific plans yet for our time together."

"But Daa-aad! When are you going to know? All of our friends are asking and we don't know what to tell them."

"I'm still working on it. However, you guys have two more weeks of school to go. I'll let you know for sure before school's out. By the way, what does your mom have planned for your time with her?"

"Oh, Dad! It's going to be soooo cool! She and her boyfriend are taking us to New York for 2 weeks! Then we'll be back here for 2 weeks. Then we get our 4 weeks with you. And after that, we're going to Hawai'i for 2 weeks!"

Fucking great! New York and Hawai'i had both been on our family bucket list back before Sarah and the relatively well-off asshole she was fucking had blown our family apart. Hopefully the girls would enjoy whatever meager summer events I could afford.

The girls were so wired at the thought of their upcoming trips that I had to read them their bedtime book for an extra 30 minutes before they would go to sleep. During the rest of the week, we visited the Woodland Park Zoo and the Seattle Aquarium. However, they continued to burble about all of the great things they would do on their trips with their mom. When time came to hand over the girls to my ex on Sunday evening, I was sad to see them go, but pretty damned tired of hearing about New York and Hawai'i.

The usual plan was to make the handover at Sarah's parents' home in Ballard. Usually I timed my pickups and drop offs so that I wouldn't have to see Sarah any more than necessary. We hadn't actually seen each other in person for the past few months, and typically communicated only via short, unemotional text messages. I was therefore a bit surprised to find Sarah waiting for me when I rolled up with the girls. The girls jumped out of the car, hugged their mom, and then went running inside the house to see their grandparents.

"Nice to see you, Ron. Somehow I never seem to run into you here at Mom and Dad's. How have you been?"

"Fine. Here are the girls' bags."

"Come on, is that all you have to say? After 13 years together, can't we stay friends? At least for the girls' sake? We're going to be running into each other for years to come at family events."

"Sarah, you and the asshole you are screwing blew our family apart. Other than that really shitty bit of parental role-modeling, you've been a good mother to the girls. For that reason alone, I'm willing to be civil to you when our paths cross. However, I can barely stand to be around you without feeling nauseated. Therefore, why the hell do you think I would ever want to be friends with you again?"

She signed. "I'm sorry it worked out this way. I truly didn't want to hurt you so badly. Jason and I are sorry about the impact of the divorce on the twins. He adores them and wants to help them adjust to things by giving them a wonderful summer. Did the girls tell you what we've got planned?"

I gritted my teeth. "Yes, they told me. Congratulations to you and Asshole for taking them to the top two fun destinations left on our family bucket list. It was really fucking considerate of you to do that since I obviously couldn't afford to do that after the divorce."

Sarah winced. "Oh Ron! I'm so sorry. We were mostly thinking of the girls and trying to make this first summer less difficult for them. We never considered how that might feel to you."

"I'll bet you didn't. You're wasting no time making Buttfuck look like Fun Step-Dad, and me look like Lame Dad with whatever cheap-ass plans I come up with. Thanks, Sarah, you've just made a truly crappy day even crappier!"

Sarah's stricken look gave me a moment of mild pleasure before I went back to my car and drove back home.

As I glumly drove home, my mood was not improved by the chime of my iPhone. Without looking at the screen, I toggled the answer button on my Apple Watch, and hissed a terse, "Yes?"

"Whoa, who pissed in your cornflakes? Ron, it's Mark."

"Sorry, Mark. Just dropped off the kids with the in-laws and ran into Sarah. I'm not in a great mood right now."

"Sorry to hear that. Say, have you eaten dinner yet?"

"Nope. I don't have a lot of enthusiasm for cooking anything at the moment."

"Well, why not come over and eat with us? Lisa and our girls would love to see you. I also had some ideas for the summer I'd like to run by you."

"Oh, all right. It would be nice to spend some time with people who aren't actively pissing me off. I'll be there in 10 minutes."

* * *

I drove past the Fremont neighborhood where I live, and headed toward my brother Mark's house in Wallingford. Mark and his family had been a great source of love and support during Sarah's affair and the ensuing divorce. When I first tumbled to Sarah's betrayal eight months ago, my first call had been to Mark.

RON — 8 MONTHS AGO

"Mark? I need to talk."

"Sure, Ron. What's wrong?"

"It's Sarah. She has been screwing around on me."

"What!? Are you sure?"

I sighed. "Yeah, there is absolutely no doubt."


"Where is Sarah right now?"

"I got pretty pissed at her after I confronted her today, and told her she needed to leave the house for a few days. She's probably over at Fuckface's house."

"Fuckface? Who's that?"

"His name is Jason, but I'm trying pretty hard to never say that name again."

"Get your ass over here. Since Sarah is gone, bring the twins — they can have a sleepover with our girls. this weekend. We'll have a few pizzas for everyone to eat. Once we get them all to bed, we can talk."

I picked up the girls at school and brought them home. "Girls, pack an overnight bag. You're going to have a sleepover with Jenny and Stacy over at Uncle Mark and Aunt Lisa's house."

Milly asked, "Where's Mom?"

I wasn't ready to share the whole sorry mess with them. After mentally flipping through several versions of the truth, I stammered, "Umm... She's off visiting a friend for a few days. Now, let's get your gear and go see Jenny and Stacy!"

The twins and their cousins demolished the lioness's share of the pizza, and then headed off to Jenny and Stacy's room to play. Later that evening, after the four girls were all asleep, the grownups stayed up late, talking.

Liza said, "I find it so hard to believe that Sarah would cheat on you with another man. Are you absolutely sure?"

"Yes, I'm absolutely sure. Sarah may be a cheater, but she's not much of a liar. When I confronted her with my suspicions, she immediately folded and confessed everything."

Mark said, "Why did you suspect her in the first place?"

"I suppose it was obvious in retrospect. However, I was pretty much clueless until a week ago.

"How long has this been going on?" said Lisa.

"About six months."

"I never knew that Sarah was a good enough actress to pull that off for so long."

"Don't give her too much credit. It's not hard to fool someone who trusts you completely. And I did. When she told me she had to work late one night a week, I believed her. When she told me she was too tired for sex, I believed her and gave her rain check after rain check."

Mark asked, "What finally tipped you off?"

"It was poor text message hygiene on her and the asshole's part. Sarah came home at 10 pm last week and went right to bed. I stayed up to read for awhile downstairs. Not long after she went to bed, I heard her iPad ping. I didn't pay much attention until it pinged again. I peeked at her iPad screen, and just about shit when I saw the message there on her splash screen. It was from someone named Jason, and said, 'So great tonight. Can't wait to be with you again.'"

"That's not very specific." said Lisa. "Couldn't it mean something else? Something innocuous?"

"It is a bit vague, but at the time, it worried the crap out of me. Enough that I took her iPad into the bedroom to ask her about it. However, she was sound asleep. I shook her shoulder, but she just rolled over and starting snoring softly. It's pretty hard to wake her up when she is really tired."

"Then, it occurred to me that Sarah has one of the older iPads, with fingerprint recognition. It didn't wake her when I put her index finger over the sensor, and her iPad unlocked immediately. I took it back into the living room and began to go through the rest of her text messages. I didn't have to read very far before my heart started breaking. There were pages and pages of them sexting back and forth."

"So, I grabbed some screenshots and then emailed them all to me. I then compared the dates of the messages with her 'work' schedule for the past few weeks. There was a pretty strong correlation. As best as I can tell from the messages, they have been texting for about a year, but only started screwing each other about six months ago."

Mark and Lisa were aghast. Mark asked, "Any idea why this all started?"

"Nope. There's not a lot of nuance in their text messages. I asked her why when I confronted her, but she was too upset to say much that made any sense. About all I could get out of her was confirmation that she had been banging him, and for how long. After that I called you."

Mark and Lisa listened to me, hugged me, and cried with me for another hour, and then sent me to sleep in their guest bedroom, all cried out and slightly drunk.

The next morning, after the girls were fed, Lisa went through her list of babysitters. She quickly found a UW student who was willing to take the four girls to the latest Pixar movie for a few hours. This left us three grownups alone at home, where we began to make a few battle plans.

Lisa went first: "Ron, what do you want to do about this? Is this something that you guys can work out somehow?"

"I feel totally devastated by what she has done. At the moment, I don't see any way I can ever trust her again. If I can't trust her, I don't see how we can ever reconcile and get back together. I guess I need to find a lawyer and start planning a divorce."

Mark said, "I feel stupid saying this, but could there be some mitigating circumstances to her affair? Would it make any difference if she give you a better idea of why she did it?"

"I am definitely curious as to why Sarah would blow up an 11 year marriage. However, the damage she has done is way too severe. Also, this affair has been going on for six fucking months. This is not a mistake — it's enemy action. I can't imaging any credible mitigating factor that would ever make me trust her or want her back. Therefore, it really doesn't make much difference why she did it."

Mark went off to make some calls. He returned few minutes later and said, "I just talked with Sally White. We've been folk dancing together for years, and she specializes in family law. Here's her contact information."

* * *

I called Sally's office and was able to meet with her later that week. After listening to my story, she said, "Ron, I am appalled, as well as quite pissed off on your behalf. Having said that, I'd strongly recommend listening to your wife's side of the story before proceeding too far along the path to divorce. Then, unless there are some unbelievably power exculpatory reasons for what she did, I will be happy to help you get though a divorce as fairly as possible."

"Since you and your wife don't have any pre-nuptial agreements in effect, your options are a bit limited. What your wife did to you is pretty crappy, but not illegal. Washington State is a no-fault divorce state, so there is no need to provide proof of adultery. All you have to do is to file stating irreconcilable differences. The courts have a standard process for dividing assets and deciding custody of children. My job will be to be sure that you get a fair ruling. I would love to be able to rain hellfire down on your wife and the asshole she took up with. However, there is no a lot of legal retribution that we can exact on them. It's likely that your wife will get at least 50% of the marital assets and at least joint custody of your two daughters. I realize that that may not seem fair at all to you, since you are the injured party in this mess."

"Thanks. I was afraid that that might be the case. If you can get a 50:50 split of assets and joint custody as quickly as possible, that will just have to do."

Sally had the divorce papers ready by the following week, and Sarah was served at work.

The wheels of the law then proceeded to turn considerably more slowly. Negotiations went back and forth for a few months, but things eventually worked out much as Sally had predicted. Sarah made slightly less money than me, and the court awarded her a small amount of monthly support along with 50% of the assets. We received joint custody of the girls and were able to agree on a roughly equal schedule for the girls to live with each of us. Sarah moved in with Smegma Face, and allowed me to stay in the house with our daughters until they both graduated from high school. The house would then be sold and the proceeds split evenly. The whole process took about six months, and by March, I was a single man again.

* * *

RON — PRESENT

When I arrived at Mark and Lisa's house, I was welcomed with big hugs from each of them and a kiss from Lisa. Their daughters Jenny (12) and Stacy (13) were excited to see me, and jumped up into my arms in an enthusiastic three-way hug. The girls then led me over to the couch, and proceeded to tell me what seemed like every detail of their lives from the past few weeks. In the face of this relentless sunshine enema of love, my gloom lifted considerably for awhile.

Dinner was great, and the girls demanded that I read to them from The Hobbit before going to sleep. Both girls are demon readers and have long since read the book themselves. However, they tell me that I have the definitive Gollum voice, and they love hearing me read it to them. The simple act of reading to young mammals that loved me brought me a measure of solace that I truly needed. After two drowsy bedtime hugs and lights out, I headed back downstairs to the living room.

I sat down across from Lisa and Mark. "Thank you so much for having me over tonight. I was feeling pretty crappy earlier. Spending the evening with you and your daughters has helped me feel a bit less hopeless."

"Anytime, buddy!" said Mark, and handed me a nicely chilled can of his current favorite local dark ale: Irish Death. "Have a seat and let us float some ideas we have for a family summer vacation."

"I'd be grateful for some suggestions. Sarah and Fuckhead blind-sided me today by telling the twins they are taking them to New York and to Hawaii during the summer. The divorce has had me too upset to do much planning for this summer. I've been wracking my brain trying to thing of something I can afford that won't remind me of prior vacations with Sarah and the kids. I'm also terrified that anything I come up with will make me look like the lamest dad on the planet, compared to Dickface and Sarah."

Lisa sighed. "I don't know if our idea can compete with Broadway or Honolulu, but here it is: we'd like for you and the girls to spend two weeks with us at a family camp on a lake in Idaho. We've been going to that camp with our kids since they were in utero, and we've had a blast every time."

"Hmmm... is that the music camp you guys were always on my ass about?"

"Yes, there is some music and dancing there, but there's also swimming, hiking, canoeing, crafts, singing and volleyball. There will be a lot of other kids there of similar ages, and quite a few very nice grownups that we've been hanging out with for years."

Mark added, "Also, there's a stellar golf course on the shores of Lake Coeur D'Alene, with a floating green on its own little island out in the lake. On the way to the camp. You and I could play a round of golf there while Lisa takes the kids up to the Silverwood Theme Park north of town."

"That actually sounds pretty great, especially since I don't have any other ideas at the moment. The twins have been breathing down my neck about my summer plans for them. I have one more week with them before school is out. If I don't let them know by then, I might be wearing the Lame Dad hashtag for the rest of my life."

Lisa laughed. "We're not going to let that happen. Leave it to me and Mark to set things up. We've known the camp directors for years, and we'll sign you and the girls up to stay with us in the same cabin."

"Great! That's two weeks planned out. Now I just need to figure out cool things to do for the other 4 weeks I have with them."

Mark rubbed his chin. "Well, how would they feel about a week in a climbing gym and another week at a Whirlyball camp? Those are two of the activities our girls are signed up for this summer."

"Well, the twins do love to climb. We've done some weekend bouldering on the climbing structure over by Husky Stadium, but never a whole week. I bet they will like that. But, what the hell is Whirlyball?"

Lisa laughed. "Whirlyball is one of the best kept secrets in the Pacific Northwest. How have you lived here all your life and never played it? Mark, tell him about the Whirlyball center up in Edmonds."

Mark grinned and said, "OK, Whirlyball is played on a court about the size of a basketball court, but with a metal floor. There are basketball goals on either end, but instead of a net, there is a hole in the backboard. The goal is to send a plastic ball through the hole in the backboard with a short lacrosse racket — while driving bumper cars!!"

"You're shitting me!"

"Nope, it's a real game. And, they actually have leagues that play there. Our kids have been to several birthday parties there. It's a hoot."

"Wow, that's amazing. I'll sign them up for that too! Now, I just need to think of something for them to do for the last two weeks of the summer. However, I've got plenty of time to find something else cool for them to do. You guys are awesome!"