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Linda and Michael, Twenty Years On
This is a follow on for a Linda and Micael bit I submitted last week. I think this story stands on its own, but feel free to check out the original.
For those who may have read some of my other scribblings, you might know I have a weakness for happy endings. I appreciate that some of those who follow this genre don't care for that, so be forewarned, this might not end the way you like. Sorry, I can't help myself.
I had just dropped my retirement papers off with HR and was sitting in my office looking back on my life. I had started with all the triumphs in my career, which were many, but before long, I was focused on my regrets, not so much in my career, but in my life. And it reminded me of that old bit, "no one at the end of their death bed regrets not spending more time at the office." I felt at that moment that I was proof of that. My career dominated my life, always planning for tomorrow, and now tomorrow was here, and I was mostly unhappy and alone.
Oh, I still had my two daughters, and I loved them both very much and they still doted over me, but they both had their own families now, and while I greatly enjoyed my grandchildren, they were visitors, they weren't really a part of me the way I remember my family was so many years ago.
It was twenty years ago now that my wife, Linda and I divorced. She got tired of waiting for me to come home from work and she found someone else to spend time with. I blamed her for her betrayal, but I know my slavish attention to work meant I owned some of the blame for our failed marriage.
Her fling was just a temporary thing, and it collapsed almost as soon as it began. But the damage was done. And since our divorce, neither of us were able to settle down with anyone else.
We rarely see each other now. For a while, while the kids were still at home, we'd see each other at pickups and returns once every other week or so, but it was only fleeting glimpses, or a passing request. After the kids left for college, I hardly saw my ex, Linda, at all. I was only able to keep up with Linda through my daughter, Susie,
Poor Linda did have a rough time of it. She had been a stay at home Mom and with the child support, alimony and her share of the marital property she was able to put off going back to work for years, but when she did go back to work she found she had few skills and was too long in the tooth to interest many employers into training her, so she bounced from entry level position to entry level position. Soon drink became her constant companion.
Through all this she would ask for my help to get her through one money emergency after another, and I was always helped, but these transactions went through Susan. The two of us rarely ever talked directly. Eventually the problem with drink became too severe, and Susan got her into rehab and as she had no insurance, I footed the bill.
She has been mostly sober for ten years now (there were a few slips early on, but the road has been fairly steady recently) and the requests for help less frequent, but she is still working low paid jobs. Currently she is a manager of a gas station/convenience store.
My other daughter, Debbie, is still very close to me, but she is not close with her mother. In high school, Debbie confided in a friend that her parents divorced because her mother had cheated on me, and soon that bit of information made it through the whole school. Debbie became convinced that everyone thought her mother was a slut (or worse) and after that she blamed her mother for everything that went wrong in her life, and their relationship suffered because of it.
Debbie's situation with her mom was just one more thing I regretted. Linda had been a great mother, and she and our daughters had been very tight. Seeing Debbie lose that hurt me.
These things weighed on my mind in the months before my retirement. But then I convinced myself to do something about it. Whatever action I decided I might fail, as I had convinced myself I had failed in my private life, but it was better to try and fail again than not try at all, so the weekend following my retirement I scheduled my own private, family only retirement party. Not the ostentatious one the company had planned, just a little thing for the shadow of what remained of my family.
Both my daughters were there, with their husbands and my three grandkids. But I also invited my ex. My kids and I got along really well with each other. But the ex? This would be the first time since my youngest married that we would all be in the same place at the same time. Indeed, it would be the first time since Susie's wedding six years ago that Linda and I would be in the same room together.
I had a bigger retirement party last night with my work family. It was a banquet room affair, the CEO of the company, my team, even some of my clients, and all the hangers-on that wanted face time with the CEO. To my chagrin, he focused on me. He even took me aside and told me that if I changed my mind, he'd have me back in a heartbeat. I wasn't surprised, my numbers were always the best in the company among the many project managers. But no, I said to myself, the company had already taken the best part of me, they weren't going to get any more.
Linda arrived last. She had to come straight from work; she had to stay late because an employee was late for her shift. I greeted her at the door and took a look at the woman I hadn't seen in years. Objectively, her hair was completely grey now. She had a few extra pounds added to her. Even her skin seemed a bit greyer. But my mind had no problem superimposing my recollection of the young, beautiful woman I had married. I gave her a swift kiss on the cheek and said, "Linda, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming. You look great."
She responded with a quiet, "Thank you, Michael. Congratulations on your retirement."
Now I was with the only truly important people in my life. The grandkids went to the extra bedroom that I reserved for them, watching TV. Grandma immediately retreated into the room with them and spent most of her time with them. She loved her grands.
After some drinks and convivial talks between my daughters, their husbands and me, I finally pulled out the cake. I poured the champagne into the little flute glasses, dragged grandma away from the kids, and announced that we adults would have a bit of cake and then turn it over to the children to devour whatever was left. The cake said only, "Congratulations Me!"
I was doing my party my way for a change, as the starting part of my effort to change the direction of my life.
After we finished the cake and turned its carcass over to the grands, I brought out the champagne, with one flute discretely filled with sparkling grape juice for the ex. Her bout with alcoholism was something I took seriously. As I handed her the flute, I quietly whispered "grape juice."
Then I proposed the first toast. "To my family, the single object of all my affection, the single reason for hard work, and from this day forward, you guys need to know, I am spending your inheritance!"
All laughed, except the ex. She smiled, which was as much as anyone could get from her these days... except for the grandkids.
I then charged my glass again and went through each member of my family, starting with my sons-in-laws, thanking them for their loyalty to my daughters and their contributions to the family, (namely my grandchildren) and praised their hard work. Then my daughters, whose beauty, intelligence and good taste I took credit for, and begrudgingly acknowledged the assistance of my ex and then thanked them for their steadfast love and support in good times and in bad. Debbie, the oldest, looked at my ex when I said bad and nodded deliberately. I saw that Linda had quietly looked down at Debbie's nod. The chill between those two hadn't warmed a single degree since Debbie's school days.
Then I charged my glass for a third time. Everyone else was still sipping from the same pour. They each had to worry about the drive home.
Then I turned to Linda. She quietly mouthed, "please don't," fearing what I could say. I gave her a warm smile and said in a whisper, "it's okay."
"Finally, to my wife. It's been 20 years since we had our kerfuffle, and while it was a doozy, with 20 years one gains perspective. Darling had the fates been a little kinder to us, you would be standing her with me right now. But 20 years have taught me something that anger blinded me too before. Once we left each other, neither of us found anything like what we had before. Each of us wandered in the desert like two lost souls. It seems to me that we made a good decision when we married. We were meant for each other and no one else. We may have, ah, pushed the boundary of a good marriage more than we should have, but all we discovered was that one fundamental truth. For us, there would only be one mate for life.
"Linda, it has taken me too long to reach this point, but I can see now with perfect clarity. The biggest mistake in my life was spending more energy on work than on our marriage. You concluded that I had abandoned you, Sweetheart, and I can no longer argue that you weren't right. So, to my only love, I have forgiven you for all of the injuries I suffered from our marriage. Maybe someday you might forgive me mine."
With that she put her hand to her mouth and quietly started to cry. I walked over to, pulled her up, and hugged her. She reached around and held me so tight that I knew she never wanted to let me go. She held me for a full ten minutes, causing Susie, to giggle and call out, "get a room!"
Debbie's reaction was exactly the opposite. She stood up, went into the guest room and grabbed her son, and with her husband in hand, started to storm out of my condo.
That broke up our hug. I stopped her at the door. "Debbie, please, just one more thing. I promise, no more soap opera crap, please give me one more minute to finish the party. Sixty seconds, I promise."
Debbie, with a stern look on her face, slowly went to sit down, and the grandkids all gathered round.
I then passed out four envelopes to my daughters and their husbands, asking them to open it. The envelopes contained brochures for a sea cruise.
"Four months from now, there is a cruise ship leaving Ft. Lauderdale for two weeks in the Eastern Caribbean, I want my daughters, my sons-in-laws and my grandchildren all on board. My retirement gift to myself. You guys square it with your jobs, let me know within the week, and we will make it happened."
My daughters broke into large smiles. The kids crowded around looking at the brochures. The party atmosphere returned, and the moment of Debbie's angst passed, as had the tender moment Linda and I had shared.
As my daughters excitedly discussed amongst and between their families this new adventure, Linda quietly stood and approached me, and I stood to meet her.
"Michael," she said in just above a whisper, "you can't imagine how much what you said means to me. Thank you. There is nothing to forgive you for, your ambition was part of who I married."
I responded, "I have been blinded by the darkness surrounding what happened so long ago, I hope we can try to get beyond that. Maybe not completely, but more than we have."
"I hope so, too."
Linda then added, "I think it's time for me to go, you all have so much more to talk about."
"Linda, please hang back a little longer, there is one more thing I want to discuss with you, a good thing, I hope." Then in a whisper to keep from being overheard, "the grandkids are approaching their bedtime, I expect all will be leaving in a moment."
With that, Linda returned to her seat, and as predicted, the daughters saw the time and pushed their families out the door to get their youngsters in bed before they turned into monsters.
When the last of them gave hugs and left, I turned to Linda and asked, "I would like you to come on this cruise, too. I'll pay for you and a guest, male or female. We have some serious navigating to do to make this work with Debbie, but it is very important to me."
"I'd love to, but there is no way I could get two weeks off from my job. And even if they did allow it, I'd get no pay, and I'm paycheck to paycheck."
"Well, if it's only a missing paycheck or two, I can make up the difference. But if you want to consider changing jobs, I have some ideas we can explore. Right now, I'm just asking if you would like to come. I have an agenda for this trip, but it is simple; I just want my old family to be a little bit more like it should have been, with you something more than a random stranger. I want us to be able to talk to each other."
"Well, that question is easy, yes, I would very much like to be on a talking basis with all the members of our 'old' family. But I don't think Debbie is ready for that, and I have job issues."
"Well, give me a couple of days to solve Debbie and the job issues, and if I can pull that off, you are on-board, right."
With a smile I hadn't seen since we broke up, Linda said, "Yes. If you can do the impossible, then yes."
The bit with the job was easy. I asked Susie if she would be willing to use her Mom as a Nanny and contribute what she is paying now for preschool to her mother. I would make up the difference between the preschool equivalent and what she was earning now. Susie jumped at the idea.
Debbie was different. I met her in a coffee shop and told her of my plan. She was at first strongly against it. I told her it was a big ship, and she'd only have to be in the presence of her mother at the evening meal when we would all be seated together. There were so many things to do, she probably wouldn't run into her at all except for the meal together.
Still a hard no.
I discussed all the amenities on the ship, the dozen or so restaurants and eateries open all hours and put in a compromise. How about you attend just 7 nights with the whole family and on other seven you can eat wherever you wish.
A softer no.
Then I laid it all down for her. "Debbie, I very much want you and your family to be there. But I'm not going to force it on you. Your mom is going. It is that important to me. Maybe someday in the future I might be able to spring for you guys to go on a different cruise if you can't make this one."
Her response was as expected, "Okay, dad, if it means that much to you."
Linda asked about what happens when Susie's kids start regular school, I will still need to support myself. I told her that she was entitled to a small payout from my 401K retirement account, and by the time Susie's kids go to school, you'll be entitled to Social Security, and I have also asked my attorney about a trust to pay you the difference between what you are earning now and what you will get in retirement. Say yes now and I will immediately fund that trust. And Linda, there are no strings to this, except going on the cruise.
She gave in, smiled, and it seemed to me that her eyes moistened a bit, perhaps because of the time, effort and expense I was putting in to make her a part of this.
Linda put in her two weeks' notice to her company. Three days later they fired her, not an unexpected result for that company. We worked it so she would start taking care of Susie's kids a few days later.
A few weeks after Linda started nanny duty with Susie's kid, I called her and asked if I could take her out to eat the following Saturday.
"As in a date?" she asked.
"Well, sure, if that's what you want."
She agreed, although with some hesitation. I asked if there was something wrong.
"I... I don't have anything appropriate to wear for a date" she answered slowly.
"Oh, no worries, we'll just go somewhere simple. Mostly I just want to talk."
After hanging up, I called Susie, asked if she could do me a favor, told her to take her mom shopping for something nice to wear, that I'd pay for it, but not to let her mom know that I was paying for it.
When Susie heard that we were going out, she said, "well, I'm glad to see you finally figured it out, dad. You stubborn old fool."
The night out was nice. Susie had done well dressing her mom up in something flattering. She even got her mom's hair styled and insisted that was on her.
At the restaurant, we had a good conversation over the meal, mostly about the grandchildren, and recollections of our own two girls when they were growing up. I expressed my regret at not being there as often as I should because of work. As I drove her home to her small apartment, she invited me in for coffee, and I started to decline, but she just said, "please, it would mean a lot to me if we could just have a last chat for the night. I have so enjoyed this evening, and maybe we can stretch it out a little longer."
I relented.
She put the coffee on sat me down on her coach, and kneeling before me, started to unbuckle my belt.
"Linda, you don't have to do this, tonight was about old friends, not 'sex with the ex.'"
Linda then responded quickly, "no, Michael, I need to do this. I don't know if there will ever be another date, and I owe you this."
I was about to tell her she didn't owe me anything, but she had a desperately pleading look in her eyes. Also, there was growing desire within me, and my mind was seeing the beautiful young woman I was so in love with all those years ago. I released my concerns in a sigh and relaxed. Linda slowly removed my pants, took hold of my growing cock, and placed it in her mouth and proceeded to give me a very energetic blow job. Recalling our former practice, I warned her of my approach to the point of no return, but for the first time she continued her vigorous oral fucking, my mind let go of how we use to do it and I watched the wildly sexy scene as I exploded in my mouth to a delighted smile on her face. She continued with this oral delight until the last of my juice had been consumed, and I fell back in a state of relaxed satiation. She then laid her head on my lap to rest as my hard cock followed our lead and also relaxed.
After a few minutes she looked up at me, and said, "I have owed you that for such a long time. I am so sorry I forced our courses in different directions."
"None of that" I said. "Now get naked, you sit on the couch and allow me to serve you your coffee."
She did that, I returned with our coffees, I put my arm around her as she allowed her head to rest in the hollow of my shoulder. After a few minutes, and after a whispered conversation about how great that had been, we sat up, drank our coffee, resumed our conversation about the kids until the coffee was done, and then, without preface, I got on my knees in front of her and returned the favor, tasting her for the first time in two decades. The intervening years disappeared. The old rhythm returned without a missed beat.
After her first pleasing vocal orgasm, I got up, positioned her with her ass facing me, and inserted my cock, now restored to its full stiffness, into her now very wet pussy and gave her a pounding that resulted in a series of quick orgasm, each stronger than the last and which ended with a passionate scream of pure delicious delight. Perhaps not the most romantic position, but certainly the position best suited for the passion we both had for the moment.
We collapsed on the coach and in a few minutes fell asleep entwined in each other's arms and with happy tears drying on our cheeks.
Epilogue
The cruise worked. During the first evening meal, Debbie ignored her mother completely, and Linda focused only on the grandchildren. But by the second night, she smiled, albeit a small smile, as grandma teased her grandchildren at the dinner table, and the grandchildren giggled at her teasing. Debbie attended each family dinner on the cruise, and while the conversations were very short and about nothing significant, Debbie did finally talk to her mom.
That Linda and I had resumed our physical relationship was never disclosed to the kids, but time and our behavior soon made that obvious. Susie was of course happy, and Debbie without acknowledging it, slowly warmed to her mother.
We would rarely speak of "that episode" that broke us apart all those years ago. It was as if it had fallen into a time warp.
We were only given ten years. Linda passed before her 70th birthday of liver cancer, a consequence of her alcoholism from our dark years. But I think she died fulfilled, with a loving family surrounding her.
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