Chapter 1

They say that roughly fifty-percent of all marriages fail. Well, I've only been married once but my percentage is a hundred. Hardly anything not heard a million times before, she had an affair with her boss and he was leaving his wife and she was going with him. You've heard it before, I'm sure.

Well, I suppose there are some good sides to what happened, first, we didn't have children. We'd talked about it, now married about five years, I was thirty, she was twenty-eight, we thought it was about time we did.

Then she quit talking about it. No, I never put it together, I just didn't.

Second, we didn't have a house. It was another thing we'd talked quite a bit about doing, even putting money aside for a down payment, going to some home builder shows, scoping out neighborhoods.

Then she quit talking about us buying or building a house. I might mention the low interest rates and she'd just change the subject. No, I never connected the dots.

We were living in a small apartment building, it was four units that had a central corridor and stairs but was fairly new and clean.

One unit was empty, another had tenants that we never saw or heard, the third was rented a few months ago by a nice lady named Karen who was mid-forties that my wife and I had spoken to several times as we might meet her in our comings and goings.

We did know her well enough to know now that she was an operating room lead nurse separated from her husband of fifteen years and was waiting on the final disposition of their assets to finally settle in some place permanent.

About three weeks after my wife moved out, on a Friday just after noon, I ran into Karen as she was bringing her groceries up to her apartment. I volunteered to help and we soon had everything upstairs. She asked me to stay for a cold drink and when she brought them out, she asked, "Um, I've been a little hesitant to ask but, well, I haven't seen Chloe lately. Is she all right?"

"I guess, don't know for sure. We've split, it appears, she got a better offer from her boss."

"Oh, my. Well, I didn't think I'd seen her recently. Sorry to hear that, Ray. I rather know how it feels."

We talked a while longer about what it's like to go through it all and she was really nice to talk with, very friendly and understanding.

I might stop and tell you that my neighbor was in her mid-forties, certainly attractive and well put-together, a honey-blonde about medium height with a nice figure.

So, we talked a bit more and she asked if I'd come back later for supper and I thought that was nice, especially being a typical male who can barely boil water or do little else in the kitchen. I told her I'd bring the wine and left her to put away her shopping.

At six-thirty, I rapped lightly on her door and she swung it open, smiling, welcoming me in so graciously. She was beginning to become a very nice neighbor, I thought as I handed two bottles of Barolo to her.

"I'll be happy to open one if you want," I said and she immediately handed one right back to me as we walked into her kitchen.

"Mmm, what's on the menu, Karen?" I asked as I took the cork puller from her.

"Manicotti," she said, "and made from scratch, I don't cook from a box or something frozen. You get the real thing when you come here," she said smiling broadly.

She stood there as I opened the wine, nicer looking than earlier, she had obviously gotten herself ready for our evening together. Karen was, maybe, fifteen years older than me, about mid-forties, but she had on a bright, flowered sundress that was showing the tops of her breasts, I was guessing that she had on a low-cut bra of some kind, the view was nice, very nice.

I poured us some wine, a generous amount and we clinked glasses and took some.

"Oh, this is nice, very nice, Ray. You're a good man to have to dinner," she said setting her glass down on the island countertop. She pulled out a drawer and got a pair of oven mitts out and went to the side of the oven, dropped open the door and reached in to bring out the lovely, steaming, bubbly casserole.