Chapter 98: A Strangely Good Day

Monday, May 20, 1985

After the first half-hour spent exploring Nebraska Furniture Mart, we had to agree with Warren Buffett (something we did a lot). We’d been pricing decent living room furniture for a while. Warren was right: purchasing furniture here would save us more than the cost of the trip.

The one caveat to that was Houston’s Gallery Furniture, which was at least competitive with Nebraska Furniture Mart. Still, I was pretty sure these prices were better (especially with our small discount for attending the meeting), and Gallery Furniture of 1985 wasn’t entirely the business I remembered fondly. We’d done well by them in the past, and would continue to do so, but the furniture here seemed higher quality (and almost certainly was).

If anything, that was a concern. What were ‘starving students’ doing buying quality living room furniture? Why weren’t we just going to a thrift store and buying functional, if ugly, mismatched couches and chairs?

With that in mind, we grudgingly decided to delay any purchases for at least a year, save for two new end tables we could fit in the land yacht and that we really needed.

The odds of us returning here and purchasing furniture sooner or later were very high. For now, window shopping was a lot of fun.

Ang and I spotted a few things Mom and Dad would greatly appreciate. I had the advantage of knowing what would change for them over the years (for instance, the pieces of furniture they would most likely receive from Grandmother), while Angie had a lot of insight into what Mom liked.

It would be down the road a bit, but I could see a few gifts heading their way one day.

Beyond that excursion, we spent much of the day driving around Omaha. It seemed like a pretty nice place, at least right now in the heart of spring. Like many cities, parts of the downtown looked pretty run down, and there were a number of large vacant buildings, but that would likely change over the ensuing decades.

As of now, Berkshire Hathaway was a medium-sized fish in a medium-sized pond here. That would change with the years. They would never be the only game in town, but they would be the largest before too long.

Things took a turn when we stopped at the Omaha location of See’s Candy, another part of the Berkshire empire. We got a discount there, too, and who doesn’t like candy? I’d always liked them in my previous life, and they’d been a favorite of my ex-wife.

All of which partly explains why I found myself sitting outside the store, crying my eyes out, with Jas and Ang both hugging me while Paige added her arms as best as she could.

I hadn’t had time to explain what hit me. I just teared up, then stumbled out the door and sat down on the curb. Crying in the store would have felt a dozen times worse. At least I was merely a curiosity for passers-by here, not a curiosity for the store staff.

After I’d somewhat calmed down, Jas said, “What is it, Steve? What happened?”

Just from her tone of voice, I could tell she’d correctly identified it as something that had happened in another time and place, not something that was wrong now.

“It’s...” I said.

I sniffled, and Angie produced a tissue. Blowing my nose helped considerably.

“Let’s move over there a bit,” I said, nodding away from the storefront.

Once we were a bit more private (not that private, but no one else was close), I said, “I ... I’d forgotten. My ex-wife ... she ... she loved See’s Toffee-ettes. They were pretty much her favorite candy. Some other things came close, but...”

I realized I was rambling. I shook my head, and said, “Anyway. She loved them, and ... it ... it just hit me. The last thing I ever purchased for her as ... you know, just a pure gift, not something I gave her as part of the divorce or whatever ... was a box of Toffee-ettes. There was a store in Austin, and...”

I paused, then shrugged and said, “I just happened to be near it. It wasn’t a big plan or anything. I was there, and she liked them, so I stopped in and got her a box. She was pretty happy at the time, and she ... she liked to eat them slowly, one or two a day. I ... I found the box months later, while cleaning out stuff she’d left behind.”

“That sucks,” Angie said, sighing. “I mean...”

She sighed again.

“I’m not sure what I mean,” she said. “I think it’s just the whole thing sucking.”

“It’s ... I’m sorry,” Jas said. “We can go...”

I shook my head.

“It’s probably fine now,” I said. “Or it will be soon. With these things, it’s not the thing, it’s the surprise. If I’d remembered that box of candy before I stepped into the store, I don’t think it would have mattered. I’m unquestionably better off with her leaving me, and even first-life me left to himself would have been better off. If anything bothers me, it’s wondering how many more little ... land mines ... are out there.”

“Probably plenty,” Angie said, sighing. “There’s a reason I haven’t suggested a trip to Gatesville. I mean, besides it probably being a boring little town where the only interesting thing is a crappy prison. Land mines are out there. I am never setting foot in the apartment building I woke up in, nor am I ever setting foot in the building I lived in during UH. Too many bad memories for the latter, and the former ... yeah, that’s different, but it sucks, too. I don’t really feel like I’m ready to drive by the house Frank and I ... and Sharon ... lived in. You’ve hit a lot more of your bad memories head-on, big brother.”

I shrugged a bit.

“This isn’t even that bad of a memory. It’s not like I bought her the candy and she threw it in my face or screamed at me or even said something snide. She took it just like I meant it: a nice little gesture, devoid of any meaning more than just a little ‘I love you.’ It’s not like I can even say, ‘Well, clearly I didn’t love her enough!’ or ‘What an ingrate she was! I got her a whole box of chocolate and she still left me!’”

The girls all giggled, perhaps despite themselves, at that.

“It was just a little thing. No deep meaning. Nothing there to make her go, ‘Wait, I can’t leave Steve. He gave me chocolate a few weeks ago!’ I’m not even sure it being the last thing really mattered. Probably just seeing her favorite chocolate would have done it.”

“It still does suck, though,” Jas said.

“And it doesn’t,” I said. “I love you. You’re not my ‘rebound’ or anything. You’re you, and you’re amazing, and I probably wouldn’t know you unless she’d left me. Even if I did ... well, the Steve you’d have would be fucked up. I had to separate. If I’d died in a car wreck while we were still married — even if we’d just had a blow-out fight, even if she’d just threatened to leave — I’d have moved heaven and earth to ‘make things right.’’ Find her, ‘fix’ her, build our old life back better.”

Jas nodded.

“You would, too,” she said. “That’s who you are. That’s ... part of why we’re here. When you commit, you mean it. I need that. Anyone doing what we’re doing needs that. It makes sense. You had to...”

“He had to hit bottom before he could recover,” Angie said. “Not the way people usually use that phrase, but he did. I did, too. As much as I carried my torch for Carrie, I’d hit the point of thinking she was maybe ‘gone.’ Most people wouldn’t say I’d ‘hit bottom,’ or they’d say I’d done it years before, but ... everything I’d worked for felt a bit hollow. No girlfriend, no plan, parents who I was really scared would reject me ... it wasn’t my lowest of lows, but I had nothing to try to ‘get back.’”

Paige hugged her tightly.

“Pretty much ... what Jas said. You stay committed. You tried to ‘save’ Max. And you would’ve gone after Carrie if you could, at least at first...”

“Maybe,” Angie said. “I was ... I hid it fairly well ... I think, anyway...”

I nodded, smiling softly.

“But I was pretty pissed at her! No call, no letter, no nothing. We were a team! Well, I thought we were a team. Now, maybe something shitty happened. I heard nothing. She could have been dead. Or in the hospital. Or in another prison. If she’d fucked up and gotten arrested ... Well, prisoners can’t send mail to other prisoners. Anyway, I was pissed but also...”

She shook her head.

“Past it, anyway. I might feel obliged to do well by her if I happen to run into her, but any Carrie I run into won’t know me. Same with Steve and his ex-wife — the one here won’t know him. In both cases, that’s if they exist — they could be like Darla Winton. Or ... maybe they’ll know us, but they won’t know us, if somehow they’re like Laura.”

“I’m ... pretty much better,” I said. “Maybe we should go ahead and shop. I’ll be fine, and I do want to get something.”

“If you think it’s okay,” Jas said.

“It really is, honey,” I said, hugging her. “One of those things. I’m sorry about it.”

“Don’t be sorry!” she said, hugging me right back. “I love you — all of you. Warts and all! Every time this happens, I feel like I know you just a little better, and that’s special. Maybe it would be different if I was competing with her, but I’m not.”

“Not in the least,” I said. “Not ever.”

We headed back in. If the staff had noticed anything weird, no one made us feel that way. We each purchased a box where we picked out each type of chocolate. Paige proposed one rule, one we all loved: we took two of each: one for us, and one for our partner.

We also picked out boxes for our mothers. One each would do, but Angie got input into Jean’s, I had input into Camille’s, and Jas and Paige both picked some for Mom’s. We would present them together when we got home.

Yes, I purchased a box of Toffee-ettes, too. I liked them, and I was pretty sure they wouldn’t make me cry. If they did, I’d learn something, and that was worth the price.

Turns out, I still liked them, and so did Jas. Angie and Paige, too!

Angie insisted that, since we were in Omaha, we had to have steak. I think her reasoning had to do with Omaha Steaks, but it certainly sounded good to the rest of us. After getting a recommendation from the hotel’s concierge, we headed to Gorat’s Steakhouse, which had been described as an Omaha landmark.

It seemed to fit the bill. It had obviously been here for decades, and had the look of a place which would probably still be here in decades to come. Portions were generous and quality was good.

As nearly always, we let Jas pick the wine. She didn’t ‘steer’ us wrong (yes, Angie made that exact pun, which made Jas growl good-naturedly), and the Merlot she chose was quite good, even by my standards. Merlot was hardly as common in 1985 as it had been later in my life, so the surprise was their offering one, I supposed.

We were all very much looking forward to the meeting tomorrow. Even if we did nothing other than sit and listen, that would be more than enough.

I did a fair bit of soul-searching on the way back to the hotel. The incident at See’s certainly pointed out that I wasn’t ‘free’ of my ex-wife. It was unreasonable, perhaps, to think I would be, now or ever. I imagined Grandmother wasn’t completely ‘free’ of Dad’s father, who had died almost four decades ago.

The divorced people I’d known were seldom completely ambivalent about their exes, either. There was often leftover vitriol, angst, or sadness — sometimes all three at once.

Sure, my case was ‘unique,’ but that meant nothing. In my past, from my perspective, I’d been married for around twenty-five years. That was a significant part of my life. Realistically, it would always be a significant part of my life. Angie had ‘only’ spent seven years in prison, and no one expected her to set it aside anytime soon.

That said: I was free of her as a significant motivating factor in my life. I would never go back. I had no plans whatsoever to seek her out or meet her. The universe had proven to be capricious and might well maneuver us into the same place. If it did, I’d do my best to treat her like anyone else, except I’d try to minimize the chance of becoming part of each other’s lives. Out of sight, (mostly) out of mind.

The question was: did Jasmine believe that? Or did these ‘breakdowns’ signal my carrying a torch — perhaps one I was unaware of? I was pretty sure she did, but — as with everything — communication, communication, communication.

There was another, related, issue, one I’d brought upon myself. Back after the divorce, I’d (perhaps foolishly, perhaps not) made a vow to myself that I wouldn’t use her name anymore unless I had to. Anger? Spite? Hatred, even? Those might have been it, but what I was striving for was ‘indifference.’

In retrospect, had I never met up with that truck in Atlantic City, it probably would have been a terrible decision. But, having made it, I stuck to it, and once I was here ... well, it had started to seem like a good decision when I would never have any reason to use it.

Still, it had been dumb. Rationally, I’d have used her name with my kids, most likely, or with the few friends I had left who’d been friends with both of us.

I had to think about that last one for a while, and ... it stung. It had been years since I’d thought about that, really. About how many friends I’d lost when we broke up. How many had taken her side, without even checking to see what my side was.

And ... okay. That wasn’t fair to them, not at all. It wasn’t fair because I hadn’t had a side. I’d kept from bad-mouthing her. Even as things went down in flames, I’d made excuses for her to the end.

All of that was water under the bridge, though. Heck, it was water under a bridge that didn’t even exist, at least not in this universe! The only person in this universe who knew any of that was me, or at least that’s how it appeared right now.

It was time to share some more of this with Jas. Under the circumstances, I thought it would be wise to share it with Angie and Paige, too. Angie would need to hear all of it, and Paige might as well.