Chapter 47: It Comes Down to Trust

May 17, 1989, Chicago, Illinois

"Do any of you have anything you want to say about last week's talk?" Doctor Green asked.

"We talked about it a bit, and all three of us agree that your analysis was pretty much correct," Kara said.

"We even think you're right about Elyse's position," Jessica added.

"I'm curious about Steve's revelation that Elyse asked him to marry her on at least two occasions. Did you both know about that?"

"It's public knowledge," Kara said. "They've spoken openly about it. And I think the first time, she just kind of made an offhand comment, and they talked about it. The second time, she actually asked him."

"That's right," I said. "But that second one was after Kara was back in the picture, Bethany and I were moving forward, and I was trying to sort things out with Jennifer. I DID think about it, but in the end, there was one major drawback, which I already told you about."

"The lack of rules?"

"Yes."

"But now she appears to be the one who helps define the rules, at least that's the picture that you're all giving me."

I nodded, "I think that's true. She and Jennifer both feel very comfortable in simply calling me on the carpet when it's needed. Being mothers to my children but not 'official' wives gives them a level of freedom that Kara and Jessica might not feel they have. My being upset with Jennifer or Elyse doesn't impact them the same way as my being upset with Jessica or Kara."

"Quite true," Doctor Green said. "That's a major source of conflict in any relationship. Making and enforcing rules has to be done jointly. Your situation is more difficult, because there are three points of view which have to be taken into account, and three sets of needs. It's difficult enough with two people. In a sense, you've made Elyse, and to a lesser extent Jennifer, referees. That can be good, but there's the risk of bias. If Elyse is the mother to Steve's children, she may want to keep him happy at the expense of you two.

"It's not necessarily bad to have a referee to use from time to time, but you three need to come up with strategies for conflict resolution and problem solving that don't require outside input. That's part of my job as a relationship counselor. It's not my job to solve the problems, but to facilitate you three solving them amongst yourselves. Elyse or Jennifer can do the same thing, but only as facilitators, if you want to keep all the relationships healthy.

"One more important question, and that's the issue of just how long the two of you will put up with Elyse being, for all practical purposes, the Senior Wife. And if that's something that's going to be long term, is SHE going to be satisfied with only having Steve in her bed on rare occasions? Is she going to want to assert her role and have more control over who he's with and when he's with them? And if you aren't going to accept that long term, who is going to be the Senior Wife?"

"It would be Jessica," Kara said. "She's his legal wife."

"I thought the three of you didn't put any stock in that."

"We don't," Kara said. "But we made an agreement before we married Steve."

"Again, because you three have a great tolerance for direct comments, I think any agreements you had before February 18th are null and void. Well, except your marriage. You have to start with a blank slate and figure things out."

"But we can't start with a blank slate," I said. "There's our marriage, our kids, everything we've gone through together."

"I meant with regard to any agreements on how your marriage is going to work," Doctor Green said with a smile. "Your marriage and kids are a given, but even with the kids, you'll need to agree how to raise them. For example, can Kara reprimand one of Jessica's kids or vice versa? And what about Elyse's? And Jesse? Steve can discipline any of his kids, but the women are potentially different. And that's another typical source of conflict that's going to be worse in your situation than in a normal marriage. This is more like a blended family, and those always have challenges."

"That means Veronica gets to play the role of 'Alice' and be the true glue that holds things together?" Kara giggled.

"I don't think The Brady Bunch is representative of most blended families," Doctor Green chuckled.

"Neither is mine!" I asserted.

"Very true. You've seen how we've already identified several sources of conflict? There are others, too. Money is often a big one, though in your situation it might be both less and more of an issue. Steve and Jessica are likely to have enough money independently to simply do whatever it is they want to do. Kara, with her career choice, could be comfortable, but not wealthy. Have you discussed that?"

"Yes," I said. "Basically, at this point, I pay all the expenses for all three of us. Jessica is paying off her student loans, though I've helped with that, and I paid some of her tuition. Kara has money she inherited that's funding her education. Once Kara starts working, her money will be hers, and I'll continue to pay the expenses for all of us, at least until Jessica has her loans paid off. It'll be years before she makes the kind of money you're talking about."

"So there have been no conflicts about money?"

"None," I said. "We all have everything we need and probably everything we really want as well. Kara will need a new car when she graduates, because her dad's car is eleven years old now. But otherwise? We're investing and saving for seven college educations, plus retirement."

"And you're OK with all of that, Kara?" he asked.

"Yes. As you said, I'll have enough money to be comfortable, especially given I won't have a mortgage or anything like that to pay, and no student loans. I don't think money will be an issue in our marriage."

"I don't either," Jessica said. "If you think about it, Jennifer and Josie have two professional salaries and pay rent to Steve, plus they take care of anything Jesse needs. Elyse, now that she's working, takes care of Matthew's needs, though because he lives with us, her contribution to the mortgage is the most important. Really, this won't be a problem."

"Then you are lucky. Even wealthy families often have conflicts about money. What about religion?"

"We're all exploring our spirituality," I said. "The only actual conflict is really between Jesse and his moms because he seems to like going to church and you can imagine the conflict with their situation. I think we spoke about it."

"Yes, we did." he said.

We spent the rest of the time talking about strategies for conflict resolution, and at the end, he asked us to think more about the structure of our relationship so that we could discuss it the next week.

May 18, 1989, Chicago, Illinois

"Steve Adams, this is Doctor Ethan Driesson," Doctor Bauer said. "Ethan, this is Steve Adams."

"Pleased to meet you," I replied, shaking the offered hand.

We sat down at a table in the faculty dining room and ordered our lunches.

"Charlie tells me that you were instrumental in developing the Software Engineering course and that you lectured last semester."

"All true. One of my business partners, Dave Kallas, was heavily involved as well. We both worked for Scott at Nuvatec before that."

"Ethan will be a full professor in the Fall, and he'll be taking on the Software Development class, along with CS200 and helping update our courses to account for the rapid changes that we're seeing in the industry. He comes from UC Berkeley, and he'll be the new Assistant Chairman of the Math department, with responsibility for the Computer Science program."

"Sounds like you have your work cut out for you," I said.

"It's a good challenge. Charlie tells me that you hire most of your staff from IIT, though every once in a while someone from the University of Chicago sneaks in!"

"We hired two this year, both of whom I had in class last semester. Our internship next school year will be filled by an IIT student, and so will the one the year after."

"You know that already?" he asked.

I nodded, "I have two IIT students who work for me part time right now — Natalya Zhukov, who goes by 'Tasha', and Penny O'Neil. Tasha will be a Senior in the Fall, and Penny will be a Junior."

"Penny is a full scholarship student who Steve convinced to come to IIT rather than go to UofC," Doctor Bauer said. "In the past, he's done a bit of tutoring, though his schedule doesn't really allow that right now. He does make time for ROTC students who need help, though."

"I'm hoping you can make some time to talk to me about the Software Development class, and that you'll agree to speak to the class each semester."

"I should have the time to do both of those things. It'll be a bit tricky to get time over the Summer given I'm helping run a karate dojo while the guy who is the actual master is in Japan training. But that ends in September. I'll still be at the dojo, of course, but I won't be nearly as busy."

"I think we can work around your schedule given we have the entire Summer."

We had a good chat during lunch, talking about NIKA, IIT, and Doctor Driesson's background.

May 21, 1989, Chicago, Illinois

When I arrived home from the seminar at IIT, I fixed my lunch and joined Elyse, Kara, and Jessica in the great room to watch CNN. Four nights earlier, a million Chinese had marched in Beijing, demanding more democracy. In response, the previous night, the Chinese government had declared martial law in Beijing. I was shocked at the rapid escalation of protests in China, and wondering if we were seeing the end of totalitarian Communism in the world.

Interspersed amongst reports about China were reports about troops that President Bush had sent to Panama in response to unrest after the Noriega regime annulled election results which had gone against it. The ostensible reason for sending the nearly 2,000 troops was to protect American citizens, which sounded very much like what had been said about Grenada.

"It seems like it's a bad year to be a dictator," Elyse observed.

"Which is a good thing," I said. "But the instability can cause real problems as well. If the Eastern Bloc crumbles at the same time China collapses, it's going to create utter chaos in the world. I don't see how the US, Europe, and Japan can avoid getting sucked into a morass that could take decades to extricate ourselves from. The only hope is that things don't get completely out of control and turn into civil wars, or worse."

"Changing the subject, what are we doing for Birgit's and Matthew's birthdays?" Elyse asked.

"You're asking me? You're the party planner!" I chuckled. "And speaking of which, is everything set for the company party?"

"It is. I'm going to have it catered, and it'll be semi-formal. We'll set up the sunroom as a large dining room and the caterers will serve us in there. I didn't think hamburgers and brats would work."

"It's up to you," I said.

"Also, your sister is planning an end-of-the-semester party on the 10th. She talked to me about it and I told her that there weren't any conflicts. I think she's planning about thirty kids."

"As long as there are no OD's, I'm fine with that."

"I did remind her about the rules, but remember, nobody knew about Chrissy's habit."

"True," I agreed.

"When does your friend from New York arrive?" Elyse asked.

"On the 4th. Her High School graduation is on the 3rd. She's flying."

"How long is she staying?"

"The plan is for eight to ten days, and then she's going to New York. I told her she could stay as long as she liked, but I think she's pretty psyched to move to New York City to be with her friends there."

"The girls are moving out on the 3rd, right?" Kara asked. "Is Katy moving upstairs?"

"That's the plan, unless any of you object."

"No objections, Tiger," Jessica said. "Hey, is there a race today?"

"No. It was last night. The All-Star race. It doesn't count for points, and I was enjoying our time talking in the Indian room. I didn't want to stop talking, so I didn't say anything."

"I never did get an answer about the kids' birthdays," Elyse reminded me.

"We don't work on Birgit's birthday, because it's Memorial Day, and then Friday is Matthew's birthday. And Kristin's is the Saturday before. I invited the Jaegers, Evans, and Schumachers for a Memorial Day cookout. Katy invited Lauren, and she'll be here as well. We could just do a big birthday party that day for the three kids. They'd love it."

"That sounds like a good plan," Kara said.

Elyse and Jessica both agreed, and we set about making plans for the party.

May 22, 1989, Chicago, Illinois

"I'd like everyone to meet Mikela Kovaç and Pradeep Bhattacharyya," Julia said at the beginning of the staff meeting.

"They're our newest team members. Mikela will be working on Tasha's team on the medical software. Pradeep will be on Charlie's consulting team. We've also hired Shauna Dawson as our QA Engineer. She'll be starting on June 5th. Richard Nagle, a new on-site support tech, will start that same day. Both of them will be at the party on the 3rd, so you'll be able to meet them that day.

"Now, as I'm sure everyone except our two newest people knows, Elyse is due in about three weeks. She's going to take twelve weeks of leave and while she's out, Kimmy will be filling in for her. Anything that would normally go to Elyse should go to Kimmy. She'll bring anything that needs senior level attention to me or, if necessary, Elyse."

The rest of the meeting was routine and when we finished, Alonzo asked everyone on his team to come to the conference room for a status update on the legal software. We were a week away from finalizing the beta release, and there was still quite a bit of work to be done. Part of the problem was that I was missing so many hours because of karate, and we didn't have Penny, who normally would have been making bug fixes on the DOS version of the software.

"We have a lot to do," Alonzo concluded, "but I think we can finish in time to get the release through QA and to Ford, Jackson, and Finch in Los Angeles by June 5th. Then we have a hard push to finish everything for an official September release. Most of that work will be on the DOS version. Once that's done, we'll begin working on the changes to the database that Greg designed, as well as a port to Microsoft SQL. It's going to be a busy Summer!"

We reviewed all the work left to do, and Alonzo handed out assignments and we all went back to our desks to work. Just after 10:00am, Chris Gibson called. Given the circumstances, I really didn't have a choice except to send her to Charlie. Chris wasn't happy, but I explained I was up to my eyeballs in a software release and promised that I'd find time to have lunch with her in the not too distant future.

May 24, 1989, Chicago, Illinois

"I do NOT believe that. Not for one second," I said as Tom Brokaw gave way to a commercial after a story about the USS Iowa turret explosion.

"Why?" Elyse asked.

"Do you REALLY believe that Clayton Hartwig intentionally caused the explosion because he broke up with his male lover? Seriously?"

"Didn't NIS do the investigation?" Kara asked.

"So the news is saying, but I just don't buy it. They haven't finished the investigation and I'm going to wait until they do and not listen to stupid speculation. Honestly, a gay lover's spat? Think about that."

"It does sound pretty incredible," Kara agreed.