Special Dee

I had been pleased that the terms of my divorce from that ... <sigh> ... from Donna had gone through before the terms of my part of the business agreement with Diz and his cousins had been finalized. That meant that any profits I made from my new business venture were excluded from the divorce settlement; and were out of Donna's reach.

****

After Dee-Dee's birthday wrapped up, we had dropped off one of Dee-Dee's friends at her house. Now we were driving home with Dee-Dee sitting in the back seat. Dylan was up front with me, bobbing his head and sometimes whispering lyrics as he listened to music via his Smartphone and his earbuds.

"Dad," Dylan asked as he touched his phone screen to halt the music as he spoke. "What does it mean when Elvis Pressley says, 'No such zone'?"

It took me a few seconds to switch gears from thoughts of Dee-Dee's birthday party, Donna's short visit and her somewhat violent outburst, and the aftermath involving taking Dee-Dee's friend home. Now it dawned on me just what Dylan meant.

"Oh, you mean from that old song, 'Return to Sender'?" I asked. He nodded and I continued.

"Your Grandpa Taylor" -- my dad -- "had to tell me about that when I asked him years ago. He said that when he was a teenager back when Elvis was still alive and young and in his musical prime, the U.S. Postal Service had not introduced Zip Codes yet. Since most towns in America only had one post office, there was no need. But, in the big cities, like Chicago and New York and Los Angeles, there were more than one post office and the cities were divided up into delivery zones corresponding to those post office building locations."

I glanced over at him and saw him look out the windshield and nod his understanding. Then he asked me, "What does it mean when Elvis says he dropped a letter in the mailbox and sent it 'Special Dee'?"

I replied, "These days, when you send a letter or package with special handling instructions, the U.S. Postal Service classifies it as Certified, Return Receipt Requested, Priority Mail, or Express Mail, or something like that. In the days before these came about, any special handling instructions or rush delivery requests came under the heading of 'Special Delivery,' or -- as some folks called it, and as you hear Elvis sing it in that old song -- 'Special Dee.'"

Dylan nodded again and resumed listening to his music. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that Dee-Dee was drifting off to sleep after all the excitement of the anticipation of the night before and the exhausting activities involved in the preparation and enjoyment of her birthday party. I could relate. I'd had to go through all of that with her, as well as all the bullshit I'd had to endure with Donna's appearance today.

I shook away my irritation at Donna and looked lovingly at Dee-Dee and thought, 'My little girl -- yes, MY little girl -- is growing up; just like her brother.'

Then, my thoughts returned to Dylan's question about the Elvis song he had heard on the 'Oldies' channel of his Smartphone's streaming music app. I suddenly laughed out loud, causing Dee-Dee to open her eyes in back and look inquiringly at me in the rearview mirror. Turning my attention back to the road ahead, I continued to chuckle as I thought about that line from the song again.

'Yeah,' I thought as I remembered the most important message I had ever sent to my now ex-wife.

'I sent it Special Dee...'

****

The wedding had come suddenly and without a lot of welcome. It was just two weeks after Donna and I had graduated from high school and a couple of months after we had turned eighteen -- her in April and me in May.

Donna was pregnant and everyone considered me to be the culprit. Even though I had tried to argue with my dad and hers that she had been seeing at least four other guys while she and I were dating, my dad had asked me if I had actually had sex with Donna. When I ducked my head, looking down to avoid his disapproving gaze, and nodded, he invoked an old time -- undocumented and unofficial, but still observed in some hill communities -- country legal maxim on me.

'If the originator of a bad check cannot be found, then responsibility lies with the last endorsee.'

A week later, I had to kiss the bride. That was not too difficult, as I had lusted after Donna for over a year, and actually liked her, despite her apparent preference for playing the field across our senior class.

And, to add to that, Donna Swinford really was a beauty. In fact, she had been the most beautiful girl in our high school class ever since she had been a sophomore and her womanly figure had begun to blossom.

And she knew it, too.

Donna had used the power of her looks in many ways during her time in high school. She was considered to be the queen bee around the school. She conquered boys and destroyed other girls with her looks, comments, and attitude; and word had it that she had even seduced a male teacher or two in order to get passing grades -- but that last bit had not been confirmed; and, to this day, she had never confirmed it to anyone, as far as I knew. The other things were common knowledge, though.

After we were legally married, Donna's dad had offered to let us use the small apartment over his garage for a place to live while we attempted parenthood, work, and the difficult pursuit of higher education. After our baby boy was born, Donna's mom, while not particularly pleased with our lot in life, was nonetheless more than happy to take care of Dylan for us during the day while Donna worked at her day job and I attended the community college and worked part time in the evening several nights a week.

****

We might not have had the best of starts as a married couple, but Donna and I grew as a family and began to enjoy our lives together, and we even began to experience the feelings of true love, as far as I could tell. We struggled financially at first. But, Donna and I had reasonably good jobs along the way. With the increase in pay that I got once I graduated from the community college with a degree in business and was hired by a local company, we began to breathe a bit easier.

Our sex life together was amazing in our first year together. I had never had as steady a supply of pussy as I now had as a husband. And Donna, who had enjoyed sex before we got married, was over the top in her enjoyment of our sex life; at least I thought so at the time.

It did not take even a whole two years before our sexual activities began to drop off ever so subtly. We still got together to mess up the sheets quite a bit, but I was already beginning to notice the drop-off in the frequency of sex. And this just happened to coincide with Donna's increase in out-of-home activities -- going out with friends at work; assisting a friend of hers with Mary Kay cosmetics parties (and getting a small cut of the hosting fee), and a mothers' walking group.

Only with the last of those three activities was Donna able to include Dylan, as she could push him in the jogging stroller we had found at a thrift store along with the other young mothers and their babies in the group. The other two activities involved my staying at home with my infant, and later toddler, son; or asking Donna's mother to help out whenever I was working or studying.

Anyway, our sexual activity had slackened to perhaps its lowest ebb since before our wedding day, when Donna approached me one night with a concerned look. Dylan, now just past his second birthday, was playing with a stuffed dog at my feet while I studied, when Donna finally spoke up from her seat across the table from me.

"Honey, I'm sorry," she said softly, with a sad expression on her face.

I had to pull my thoughts away from the business finance problem I was doing as homework for one of my classes, so it took me a few seconds to respond to her.

"Sweetie, what are you sorry for?" I asked finally.

"Glenn, I'm pregnant again ... and..." I looked up in surprise; with a true feeling of joy at the news. Donna's expression showed, however, that the situation did not offer a very pleasant prospect for her.

"Honey, that's wonderful news!" I said as I rose and came around the table to give her a hug. She did not stand immediately; instead, making me take hold of her upper arms and pull her up for a hug and kiss. Her enthusiasm may have been off when we began the kiss, but she eventually returned the flicks of my tongue with those of her own.

I made sure that I got it across to her that I was overjoyed at the prospect of being a father again. After all, Dylan had proven to be an adorable child and had not yet experienced the 'Terrible Twos' that we heard about from friends all the time.

In just under nine months from that night when Deanne made her debut in our family. I tell you, that little girl captured my heart right from the moment the doctor had severed the physical connection from her mother, wiped her off, wrapped her, and given her to me to carry to the scales. I was now officially a member of the Mushy Pushover Club, as the father of a daughter; and I did not even know it at the time.

The next day, I commented to Donna, while Deanne was learning to suckle, that the baby must take after her side of the family, as her ear lobes were not at all like those in the Taylor family. Donna had heaved a gasp suddenly and begun crying immediately as I said that.

"Honey," I asked, stunned, "what's wrong?"

Donna got herself under control and looked at me strangely for a moment. Then she smiled sheepishly through tears and said, "Glenn, Honey, I am just so worn out from the delivery; and my mind and body are so whacked out from the drugs and from all my hormones trying to get back to normal, I guess. I am sorry for all the emotion."

She continued to look at me strangely for a moment. I could not put my finger on it at the time (of course, today, I know exactly what that emotional fuss was all about). Back then, though, something felt just a touch out of whack with what she was telling me, but I chose to buy in to her story out of love for her and our two children and my own excitement.

"Donna, I know this has all been hard. You just rest up now, and get ready to come home tomorrow. Momma Swinford has the nursery stuff all set up and is looking forward to having all of us home, especially little Deanne here." I smiled at her with all the love I could at that moment.

Donna looked back at me and responded with a smile and a raised eyebrow, one of her nonverbal signals for inviting a kiss. I complied and we both giggled at Deanne's little burp from between us.

Donna had had her tubes tied after Deanne's birth, stating that two children were enough for her. We had spoken about it and, while I was not one to want to shut off all avenues of extending our family farther, I finally agreed with her.

****

It was eleven years later, almost to the exact date, that I found out that we had been living a lie for a very long time.

****

Once I had finished my degree and gotten a good job, as I mentioned earlier, we had begun to feel a lessening of the financial burdens that we had endured up to that point. We still had quite a few debts, but they were now manageable.

Banks like to refer to debt in categories of 'Good Debt' and 'Bad Debt.' We were soon at the point where the balance between 'Good Debt' and 'Bad Debt' was such that, in conjunction with recent changes to banking laws, we now qualified for a low-interest home loan. We also lucked into finding a small but comfortable home that was affordable due to the bank's desire to get some income out of a property that had been foreclosed on when it was abandoned during a divorce case.

Everyone was happy; the bank, since they were now making money off the property; Donna and me, since we now had our own place; and Momma and Papa Swinford, since they finally had us out of their garage apartment -- well, Momma Swinford was not quite as happy, since she did not get to see Dylan and Dee-Dee quite as often.

When Dee-Dee began kindergarten, Donna lobbied me successfully -- but after some hesitancy on my part -- to allow her to go back to work during the daytime hours when the kids were in school. She assured me that she would not let our family time or special time with the children or me, drop off or suffer. For the most part, she kept that promise.

At about the time when Dylan was just about to enter Middle School there in the section of Vancouver where we lived, Grandpa Taylor had had to endure the grief of the passing of Grandma Taylor. A short while later, he called my dad and me to meet with him at his place.

"Tom," he told my dad, "I know that you and Ruth love your place and do not want to move. For that reason, I want you to consider letting me deed this house over to Glenn here as a skip-generation bequest. It's in good shape, and it's paid for."

I expected my dad to raise an objection over being slighted by his own dad in this, but he seemed to be okay with it. After all, he and Mom, while not anywhere close to being rich, were reasonably comfortable financially.

I was still surprised and asked, "Grandpa, don't you want to stay here among the memories of Grandma and you together?"

"Son," Grandma Taylor said with a sad smile, "that's exactly why I need to move out of here. Those memories are so sweet that they make me sad that she's not here to talk with me about them. No; I want you to have this house for your young family and I am going to take the old RV out of the community storage lot and travel to see some of the places here in the Northwest that I have never gotten to see, before I'm too old to do so."

Thus, Donna and I, along with our two children, became the inhabitants of my Grandpa Taylor's house in Woodland, just north of Vancouver. When the new deed was registered, Grandpa Taylor insisted that it be in my name only. I did not understand at the time, but I am glad now that he did -- it made the house somewhat 'divorce-proof.' If he had not done it that way, it would have made it terribly difficult for me to fight for and win the custody battle that came about in conjunction with our divorce.

****

Just about this time last year, Diz had been renting a room from us for about eight months when I noticed a change in his attitude. He had taken a few weeks to loosen up after first coming to stay with us and he had been easy to engage in conversation by Donna and me after that. He had even shown remarkable patience with the almost constant stream of questions coming from then-thirteen-year-old Dylan (Dee-Dee had accepted Diz' presence, but still seemed a bit reticent about conversing with him).

I noticed the change in Diz' demeanor, but decided that he must be trying to sort out some technical problem with the UAVs with which we were experimenting. Yeah, I said, 'We.'

The company for which I regularly worked in Vancouver coordinated rather large-scale catering operations in support of several airlines operating out of Portland International Airport in Oregon. PDX was just across the Columbia River from Vancouver, Washington; only about 13 miles via Washington Highway 14 and I-205.

Every day, our suppliers, chefs, packagers, and transporters prepared, packaged, and delivered individual airline meals to PDX configured for the cabin crews on the large aircraft to slap the main courses and cooked vegetables into the onboard galley heaters and pass through the aircraft handing out in-flight meals. We prided ourselves at providing quality prepared meals at a very competitive price. The coordinator for fixed base operations at PDX agreed with that appraisal, as he kept renewing our contract each year. Because of that, we were a very profitable enterprise.

Some of the profits being distributed came in the form of periodic bonuses, as opposed to wages and salary. As a department manager, I had become the recipient of some bonuses that were surprising in their generosity.

As I mentioned before, I had realized early on in our marriage that Donna and I had very different ideas about managing finances. In order that my bonus money did not turn into a financial river flowing noticeably away from my household, I had taken some protective steps. I'd found an advisory team of two brothers, one certified in financial matters and the other a lawyer. They helped me set up an investment portfolio, giving me the tax and legal advice that came with their services.

When Diz' cousins made their pitch via email, followed by Skype video conference, I was finally convinced that investing in their enterprise could be very financially rewarding; and I was willing to take the risk. What I was NOT willing to do was share any of the financial rewards with Donna, since I had found out about her secret life about this time. My investment team came into play in that effort by helping me keep this investment venture quiet from Donna, and helped me to manage the timing of it until after the divorce settlement had been finalized.

Why keep it quiet from my wife instead of including it in our family financial picture, you ask? Well, because I had finally convinced Diz to tell me what was bothering him.

"Glenn," Diz said hesitantly."You know that I have been testing the camera support beneath the first UAV in tracking as well as station-keeping?" When I nodded, still confused about his discomfort, he continued. "Well, the stabilizing feature of the software is now to the point where I can stay with a moving object.

"Also," Diz continued, "the GPS positioning feature and longer-endurance engine on the UAV now allow me to hold it over a fixed position on the ground for as long as four hours. The video recording feature on the tablet controller allows for video records even longer than that, but the loiter time of the vehicle is the determinant in that."

I knew that wildlife management types highly desired these features so that they could monitor such things as bison, caribou, and elk herds. And the new, quieter Wankel engines we had installed did not produce enough noise to spook the observed subjects in the process -- while concurrently pleasing the Environmental-Noise Nazis.

Diz then began to go into technical features that I had no real clue about, looking away from me as he rambled. I sighed and reached out to touch his shoulder, causing him to look me in the face again.

"Diz; stay on topic here. What has got you so disturbed?" I asked. "You know that I would like to be able to help in any way that I can."

I was still sure that it was all about some difficult technical hurdle he had encountered. While I could not help very much with the technical aspects of our project, I was well prepared to continue to hold up my end of things in our partnership. Not only did I provide capital, I offered Diz a place to live, a place to build and test the gear (my garage), and -- most importantly to focused engineers who were subject to mood swings -- encouragement.

"Glenn; I..." he paused and thought for a second as he looked at me. Then he reached for his tablet controller. "I will simply show you." His eyes began to dart as he said this and he followed up with a strange comment, falling back into some of his earlier Indian speech habits. "But please not to blame the messenger."

Diz held up the tablet controller after cuing the video he had stored. At first I had difficulty discerning just what I was viewing. The motion was initially blurry and jumpy.

"Here is where the video stabilization took over," he explained, enlarging the video frame on the tablet screen as the moving imagery on screen began to flow smoothly. I watched the ground beneath the UAV in the video move across the approximately 9-inch screen. I noted the change from grass and trees to asphalt and concrete. He had evidently been piloting the UAV out of the areas restricted to fields and woods and into more built-up areas.