Pops?

Pops?

This is a short story about two grandchildren having a discussion with their grandfather.

I will confess that at one point in this story I stole many ideas that have been suggested on these pages and I had fun doing it.

There is no sex in this story.

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"Pops? Do you have a minute?"

"For you two, sure. I'll even give you two. What's on your mind?"

"Pops, we want you to tell us about dad."

"Well, your dad was born in the middle of the night. Your grandmother said his head was unnaturally big and..."

The two kids were laughing and groaning at the same time. "No, not that part!"

Bert, who the kids called Pops, had no idea what they wanted to know, but he knew full well it wasn't that.

Karen and Jimmy looked at each other, and then Jimmy said, "We want to know about dad's first wife."

A momentary sadness came over Bert, taking him back to those days of anger and heartache, but it soon passed, and he wondered just how much they should be told. Obviously, they knew a little, but his son wasn't one to dwell on the pain of the past. Both Karen and Jimmy were in college now and had become young adults in their own right. Bert thought, "Maybe it's time. There are lessons here for young people to learn before they are old enough to do something truly stupid with their own lives." Besides, Bert was proud of his son and the way he'd handled that awful mess.

"Have you talked with your dad about this?"

"Pops, you know dad. He just said it didn't work out and that she wasn't happy. There must be more to it than that."

Bert took a deep breath. Yes, to say the least, there was more to it than that.

While Bert was wrestling with the question of what to say, his son walked into the room. Bert was a straight-up guy and asked his son, "Jack, your kids want to hear the story about you and Patsy."

Karen and Jimmy looked a little embarrassed. They realized it might be difficult for their father and began to regret their request.

Jack thought for a moment and said, "Sure. They're old enough. Tell 'em the whole story." Jack gave a sad smile and shook his head, then turned and walked out of the room.

Bert saw the sadness in his son's eyes but knew that the pain had long since passed leaving behind little more than disappointment and unanswered questions. He thought for a moment, drew a deep breath, and began. "Okay. What was it, twenty-five, no twenty-four years ago. You father was married to a woman named Patricia. Everyone called her Patsy." Bert was shaking his head. "They were high school sweethearts who married too young. You know your dad - he can get along with anyone and he always sees the good in a person. He gave Patsy the benefit of the doubt long after she no longer deserved it.

"You see, Patsy seemed to think that marriage was supposed to be like one long party. She didn't mind going to work although I think her job was the basis for her social life. After work she wanted to go out. She was spending her money on clothes and whatever else she wanted while your father was paying the rent and utilities."

"And dad put up with that?" Even at her young age, Karen had a very different view of marriage.

Jimmy had a look of disgust on his face. "I'll never have a wife like that!"

Karen looked at her brother, but before she could say anything Bert continued with the story.

"Patsy started joining her coworkers for a drink after work. Before long it became a regular occurrence. She was coming home late, and the marriage was going downhill fast. Your father tried talking with her and I think she made promises at first. Pretty soon, though, those promises turned into arguments and arguments became snide comments." Bert was shaking his head. "She just wasn't ready for marriage."

"Did dad talk with you about it?" Karen was trying to understand what her father had gone through while Jimmy was visibly angry.

"Not a lot at the time, but we knew something was wrong. Your dad was never able to hide his feelings very well. Truth be told, I've always liked that about your dad."

Karen was smiling.

"Girl, what are you smiling about?"

Karen tried to wipe the smile from her face but failed. "I was just thinking about Christmas. I've always been able to ask dad questions about what he got me, and he never tells me, but I can always see it in his face when I guess right. I always know what I'm getting before Christmas arrives."

Bert had to chuckle. He'd seen his granddaughter play that game with her father since she was young. She would needle him and tease him the way only a daughter can tease her father until she got her answer.

Once the laughter had passed, Bert settled down to continue telling the story of Jack's first marriage. "It all came to a head one Wednesday night. Patsy got home uncommonly early, and your dad walked into the house with the sounds and smells of dinner cooking. He said it made him think that maybe they had turned a corner.

"Anyway, she was all lovey-dovey over dinner. Then later that night she sat down next to him on the couch and played the loving wife. When your father was off guard and thinking all was right in the kingdom, she dropped the bomb. She was going away for the weekend and would be leaving straight from work Friday night."

"I bet he liked that." Bert had Jimmy's full attention.

"Not really. Your dad smelled a rat. When he wanted more information, she told him in a matter-of-fact way that she was going off with some guy she worked with. She said she just needed a break, and it didn't mean anything. She actually said, 'It's just for fun.' I think I'll always remember those words even though I didn't actually hear her say them."

"Just like that?" Karen was staring wide-eyed in disbelief.

Jimmy was equally appalled, but he was more focused on his father's response. "What did dad do?"

"You know your dad. He tried to talk with her, tried to stay calm, but he said she just took that as some kind of reluctant agreement. He says he told her if she went, he'd divorce her, but she was so confident in herself that she didn't believe him. I always thought that she considered herself too good to be held accountable for her actions like your father couldn't live without her. The truth is that your father thinks, and I think, that she never really respected him and mistook his dedication to her for some kind of weakness. I also think she was a very shallow young woman who mistook the mutual admiration society of her friends for real importance."

"Sounds like the cool girls in high school." Karen had her share of problems with girls like that. She's always been one of the better students and learned the hard way that the cheerleaders were jealous despite their popularity. They could be brutal at times with savage tongues and bad attitudes.

"Did she go?" Jimmy was much like his father and had a hard time imagining people like Patsy. Sadly, his sister had no such difficulty.

Bert gave his grandkids a long, careful look and decided they were old enough to hear it. "She spent Wednesday and Thursday night trying to convince your dad that she loved him."

Karen understood, but Jimmy looked confused. Karen could read her brother and said, "She fucked him into oblivion, doofus!"

"Oh." Jimmy grinned at the thought.

"Well, she tried." Bert knew the truth. "Your dad shut her down every time. Your dad doesn't always have a lot to say, but he's always thinking. He said he figured if she was going off with some guy for the weekend and bold enough to announce it, then she was already having sex with him. She was trying to seduce him thinking she could soften him up, while he was thinking that he needed to get tested for STDs. Besides, he said the marriage was broken as soon as she announced she was going away." Bert began to chuckle at his next thought. "You know the old expression, 'I wouldn't piss on her if she were on fire'? Well, I think that pretty much sums up your father's feelings at that time."

Both the kids were smiling at the thought. They'd never met Patsy, but already they were hating her for what she did to their dad.

"Did she still go through with it knowing how dad felt?"

"Oh yeah, she went through with it. Friday night your father came home to an empty house and waited, but she never came home. Saturday morning he called us and told us the news. Your grandmother called your Uncle Joey on our way to your dad's apartment, and an hour later the living room was full of relatives and friends. Your dad has always had great friends. Men and women both, I've always liked them. They aren't the partying type, although they do like to have fun, but when you need help, they are always there."

"Wasn't dad embarrassed about what happened?" Jimmy was thinking like every young man, and Bert knew that this was a lesson that he needed to learn.

"Your dad figured this was a reflection on Patsy. She broke her vows, not him. She didn't tell him she wanted a divorce. She didn't announce to the world that she was unhappy. She just left thinking your father was weak and would accept the humiliation quietly and then welcome her back when she returned. He didn't.

"While he remained calm on the outside, I could tell your dad was seething on the inside. He told us all what she did and what she'd been doing. There was a lot of anger in the room that day, and there was a lot of hurt, too. People respond in unexpected ways when faced with that kind of anger and hurt. I've thought back on that day many times and I still can't tell you how much of what was said was said in anger and how much of it was said in humor, but I can tell you that no one was laughing."

"Humor, Pops?" Jimmy couldn't imagine finding any humor in that situation.

"Yeah. Everyone had a different idea about how to handle it and most of the ideas would have gotten us all in jail." Bert chuckled at the memory of that day.

The kids were looking confused. How could Pops laugh at a time like this?

"Suggestions included tar and feathers which are not very practical in this day and age, shaving her head which was my personal favorite, painting her blue, finding them and putting pictures on the internet, telling his wife, telling their boss, telling her mother, telling everyone at church, burning her clothes, selling her jewelry, cutting their break lines, using a baseball bat to break some bones, and the ever-popular divorce."

"I can't see dad hitting a woman with a baseball bat." Jimmy was shaking his head.

Karen turned to her brother. "Him, you idiot, hitting him!"

"Oh. No, I still can't see dad doing that either."

"You're right" said Bert as he nodded in agreement. "Your dad has never been that kind of man. Fortunately, your Uncle Joey is." Bert laughed again at the memory. "You never heard this from me and don't tell anyone ever, but do you remember back when I was hiking the Appalachian Trail one and two weeks at a time? I did that for fifteen years. Well, I took your father with me that year so he could get away and decompress. We met a lot of people, and I made a point of exchanging contact information with all of them. Plus, we carried our cell phones and had small photovoltaic panels that we hung on the outside of our packs to keep our phones charged. We pinged cell towers and I made a point of having your father make nightly calls to friends and relatives just to tell them we were okay. He never knew and your Uncle Joey never got caught."

Jimmy was staring wide-eyed and looked like he was enjoying the story way too much.

"And don't you ever be so stupid that you try something like that." It's doubtful that Pops' warning was taken seriously, but he hoped so. It was perhaps the most foolish thing he'd ever been a party to.

"Anyway, I thought the men were going to be the worst about it, but the women were truly frightening. They were the ones that wanted to shave her head and paint her blue! Your Aunt Betsy actually wanted to drag her to a tattoo parlor and have a scarlet letter 'A' tattooed on her chest. To be honest, I think most of it was just talk, but I learned a lot that day about the righteous anger of good women. They did keep the men from destroying her clothes and selling her jewelry because they felt it would come back on your father in the divorce, but with your father's permission they shredded all the wedding photographs including the big one that they had in the living room, and they burned her wedding dress on the grill. Those women really didn't like her!"

"What did dad think of those ideas?" Pops thought that Karen was hoping for more.

"You know your dad. He has too much pride to stoop to that level. However, I could tell the whole shave her head idea really appealed to him." Bert couldn't help laughing at the memory of it. "I think that was the first sign that he was going to be okay."

"Was that it, Pops?" Jimmy was young and hoping for more. At is age, revenge was a simple act taken before there was time to consider the consequences.

"Basically. Once everyone had given your dad their support, he went about erasing her from his life. We boxed up his books and what few tools he had back then, and your father took the computer and the TV. The wives and girlfriends packed up all his clothes and labeled every box. They were terrific that way. The men carried out the pieces of furniture your dad liked. Some of it went into storage and some of it went with your father, and he was gone before nightfall. Now that I think about it, they were turning back the clock and restoring his life to what it was before he met her. Patsy came home to a half-empty apartment. Your dad's wedding ring was nailed to a table with a fileting knife, and there was a letter that left no doubt what she could do with it."

Karen and Jimmy were quiet for a time as they tried to absorb and make sense of it all.

Finally, Jimmy asked the question that was troubling them both. "Why do you think she did it, Pops?"

This was a question that Bert understood all too well. He had often said quiet prayers of thanks that he had married a good woman, a woman whose maturity had carried her past such problems. "This may be the most important lesson of all for the two of you to learn, so listen carefully. When you first fall in love your partner is exciting, and every day is a new discovery. As your love deepens, you begin to appreciate the whole human being and you find a depth in your love that you never knew before. In time, as your love matures, you find yourself building a life with a real human being. They are still the person you fell in love with, but reality begins to take the place of fantasy. You understand one another better and you learn to negotiate your disagreements while you work together for the things you want. For some that is very satisfying, but for others it is an effort. It's like reality intrudes into the fantasy they've built. Then those things that you think are somehow so cute in your lover, begin to annoy you."

"Like what, Pops?" Jimmy was an incurable romantic and he was finding some of this difficult to believe.

"Like your snoring, jackass!" Karen was more pragmatic about things.

"I don't snore!"

"Like hell you don't!"

"How would you know?"

"I can hear you through the walls."

Jimmy was torn between embarrassment and pride. He secretly liked the idea of annoying his sister even as he slept.

Bert was amused by his grandchildren, but he wanted to complete the lesson. "If you choose well, then that is the beginning of the best and fullest love. If you choose poorly, your partner may begin to miss the excitement of the new relationship, the discovery of the unknown, and the validation that comes from someone new."

"You're saying that Patsy was a shallow bitch." Karen didn't mince words.

"Yeah. That about sums it up. Your father always thought that Patsy just needed time to settle down, but your grandmother saw her differently. She always knew it was going to end badly, but neither of us had any idea how blatant and cruel Patsy could be. When Patsy went away that weekend with her lover and the family gathered around your dad, it was your grandmother who quelled some of the more destructive suggestions. Your dad decided to leave, and your grandmother kept everybody organized."

Bert remembered back to that day and the awful pain his son endured. Then he smiled as he remembered how the family had acted as one with his wife organizing the chaos. He thought about how to describe that day. Was it like a hoard of locust stripping a field bare, or more like Sherman marching to Atlanta? No matter. "We had your father's life packed up and moved with time left over for dinner. Whatever possessions he wanted that he didn't have an immediate use for went into a storage facility while what he needed stayed with him. That night back at our place the men grilled the steaks, and the women made the salads and baked the potatoes. Then we all sat down for a family dinner. Your father once told me that he got up that morning feeling like his life was over and he went to bed that night knowing that his life would go on."

The lesson wasn't lost on Karen or Jimmy and the two sat in quiet contemplation for a time.

"What happened when she got home?"

"Oh, the usual, the predictable. Over the next week Patsy went through a series of unsuccessful attempts to get her way. She was angry and tried to order your father to come home. I always told your father that he let her have her way too much. When that didn't work, she tried to bribe him, but what she was offering he no longer wanted."

That made Karen smile.

"When she threatened divorce, I finally heard your father laugh for the first time since the whole mess started. He'd already been to a lawyer and with the two of them still young and it being a 50/50 state, he was prepared to start over. Eventually, she was repentant, but your father wasn't interested. That may be the biggest lesson of all that you two need to learn. Marriage is about forgiveness. It's about not holding on to minor grievances and understanding that your partner is only human. However, there are some things you can't come back from and not all pain is erasable. The woman your father once viewed as his soulmate he now viewed as corrupted and untrustworthy. He wanted no part of her. Once she realized that, she fought him for their possessions and money, but that's the beauty of a 50/50 divorce. There was no basis for getting more than her due, and in the end it all turned out as he knew it would."

Bert thought for a moment. "Your father is a pragmatist, and like most men his needs are simple. You may not see that because he has built this life that you enjoy, but he built it for you and your mother. Left to his own, he could live in a tent with a campfire if he had a library card."

The kids smiled at the thought of their father being a wild man who lived in the woods and spent his days reading books.

"Don't forget his tools!"

Bert chuckled at that. "Yes, he would need a second tent for his tools."

It was about this time that their father returned to the room. "What about my tools?"

Jimmy felt a need to cover up some of their discussion. "We think you have just about every tool you could ever need."

Karen smiled at that and thought, "Good cover."

"I've been thinking about getting a draw knife and building a horse. I may need a scorp knife, too. I want to make some Windsor chairs without using power tools."

Jimmy smiled while Karen rolled her eyes, and Bert just looked on like the proud father and grandfather that he was.

"So, did Pops tell you all about Patsy?"

"Yeah" they said in unison. There was a slight sadness in their voices. It was sadness for their father and the pain he had endured.