Edited by Barney R. Messed with by me.

She couldn’t seem to say anything to me without an insulting dig or a flash of anger. The problem did not go away, it only got worse.

I am Carl Grimmaldi; I was 31 when my disgust reached a breaking point. I had been dating Margetta (Marge), for 4 years. She had a child from a previous liaison. Jack was a very good 6-year-old and I loved him as if I was the sperm donor.

My father always told us, boys, “Anyone can be a father, all it takes is a stiff dick, but it takes work to be a dad. You need to decide which you are going to be.” I hoped that I had become that dad. My brothers did become dads.

I was not exactly a saint before Marge, but I was careful and prepared. If the lady said she was on the pill or had an IUD or diaphragm, I still used a condom. I wasn’t a stud and had only had sex with four women before I married Marge, but I was not inexperienced either

Marge was obviously not a virgin either, but that did not bother me in the least. Her son was a joy to be around. He was always happy.

I had served four years in the Army, three of those with a hospital unit in Germany as a Medical Equipment Repair Technician. I discovered the ‘joy of sex’ with a sweet 19-year-old Fraulein named Frieda. I was 19 at the time also. She and I were stuck like glue for several months until I got to her apartment early one Saturday morning and overheard her on the phone telling some guy named Mark that she was going to marry me to get to the U.S. and then she would send for him. When she turned around at the sound of the door hinge squeaking I just shook my head no and left.

It’s funny, I ran into her in the U.S. years later, about 8 months after I was discharged, and she had one kid in a stroller, and was about seven months pregnant. The guy she was with was definitely not European; he was an African American I had served with by the name of Roger Neely. He had been an LPN (91C)* at the hospital. Roger was an all-around great guy. Obviously, Mark was not in the picture, at least not yet.

After Freida, I still had a couple of years to serve, but I came home for one of my thirty-day leaves and rediscovered Shelly, my high school steady. We hooked up for that month, we both knew it was going nowhere, but it was a healthy, sweaty, fun, month anyway.

When I returned to Germany, I discovered, or maybe was discovered by the twins, Else and Edda Morgenstern. They wore my skinny ass out for over a year. We all knew it would not lead to anything, but it was a lot of sweaty fun. Before I shipped back to the U.S., they had a double wedding with a couple of distant cousins and emigrated to Israel.

I met Marge a few months after I was discharged. I was coming home from a job interview in New York. I ended up sitting next to her on the flight to Grand Rapids when I changed planes in Detroit. We talked for the hour the plane sat on the runway, and the 30-minute flight. She gave me her phone number and I agreed to take her to dinner the following Friday.

We talked about a lot of things, and she was holding my hand as we got off the plane. We got our bags, and I offered to give her a ride home as I had my car in short term parking. She was being met by her mother and son. Her mother saw us holding hands and got a big scowl on her face. When we were introduced, it turns out she went to the same church and was friends with my mother. The scowl disappeared. Jack just buried his head in his mother’s chest and peeked at me occasionally.

I walked with them to their car and helped load the luggage. Then I went to my folk’s house. I was intrigued, but wary, as I did not know Margetta’s whole story.

After getting all of the family gossip from my mother. I called Marge the next evening and we talked for a few minutes. I asked if I could meet her somewhere for coffee. She said she would like that. She added that she was living with her mother and ‘Gramma’ loved looking after Jack.

Over coffee, we told each other our life stories. I explained that I had graduated early, and had finished a technical college associate degree before I joined the Army. Then I got a Teaching Certificate and Bachelor’s degree while serving.

She explained that she was working in an office as a file clerk, and going to night school to get a business degree, Jack was the result of a one night stand with some guy she met when she was with some of her friends. She never even got his name, and when she found out she was pregnant she knew she could not abort him.

We went from coffee to dating, and there were only a few problems and occurrences in our relationship. Some were good, some were bad, and one started out bad and turned out good. The good was I got a job as an adjunct electronics instructor with the Board of Education. It paid OK and allowed me to do some inventing on the side. Of course, as I was low man in seniority, I got the evening and Saturday classes.

A major problem was that Marge did not handle stress well, and occasionally took it out on me with angry outbursts. After her first unfair outburst, I left her with cab fare every time she raised her voice and got an apology every time. I was surprised that I never saw her lose her temper with Jack. She disciplined him, but never in a mean or brutal way. Me, most of the time when she went off, I was asshole or son-of-a-bitch.

The real bad problem was her mother and Jack were slightly injured in a car crash. I then became a good guy when I helped with them until her mother was fully healed. Marge stopped, for a while, all of her raging at me and started to handle the stress better.

We dated for almost 18 months when I asked her to marry me. She said she wasn’t ready, but wanted to continue dating. We did.

A couple of my ideas turned into inventions and were patented and sold to a major medical equipment manufacturer. I got major money.

I put most of that money into a trust and used the trust to buy a farm just outside of town. Marge did not know of the money, just that I had gotten the patents. I kept it that way, (remembering Frieda).

After a total of almost three years of dating, Marge said she was ready to get married. We picked out a ring and set a date. Then a very bad problem occurred. The sperm donor came looking for Jack and by requirement Marge.

Jerry Colburn, the sperm donor, was someone I could easily dislike. He was an arrogant asshole, and condescending as hell. We had a little chat, and I found out it wasn’t a one night stand, but lasted six months and he left because she went off on him once too often. He had left town and did not know Marge was pregnant. He said once we were married, and for a small fee, he would sign his rights away and allow me to adopt Jack. I informed him that I was licensed to carry a handgun. He left so fast he left skid marks.

The lie about the one night stand made me very angry, and I asked for my ring back. I got it, but not without a lot of crying and moaning.

About six weeks after that breakup, I ran into Marge in the supermarket. It was a supermarket close to my house and a long way from her mother’s.

She asked if I would join her for coffee. I did and she apologized for the lie. She explained that she thought that if I did not know Jack’s father was around, then I wouldn’t worry about him showing up again.

I accepted her apology, and we put that behind us. She then asked if we could start over. I said no, but I was willing to try to start again. Just no more lies.

“Ok, I don’t know why I told you that story. As I look at it now, a one-night stand makes me sound like a slut. Jerry and I were planning on a summer wedding, but I destroyed those plans because I couldn’t hold my temper.” She said.

We did essentially start all over. After another six months, I gave her the ring back. We decided on a spring wedding. Then I threw a hiccup into the plans. I had a prenuptial agreement drawn up. I wanted to protect myself and my assets from a divorce. I had already experienced her rages. Well, she had a meltdown over the prenup. She accused me of not planning for the rest of our life together. She called it a cop-out.

I had enough. “Sign the prenup, or give me the ring and get out of my life. I love you, and your son, but I will not be your whipping boy for your anger issues.” I said and handed her a pen.

She took the ring off, broke the pen, and tore up the papers. Then she threw the ring and papers at me.

I picked up the ring and walked out.

Well, she had a change of heart, but this time I told her that I had not. It seems that daddy chewed her ass out when she told him why the wedding was off. She called a few times, and when I saw the number, I let it go to voice mail.

I got a job offer for a permanent teaching position at a charter school in the next county over. I had been looking outside of my current school district, as I was not happy with the big city politics that the school district was in. The politicians in the city couldn’t leave the school system budgets alone, and I was still in a crappy class schedule. I took the new job.

It turned out the commute was 15 minutes less than from my house to the city.

Finally, after about a month, I listened to one of the voice mails. The first one was from the day before, and it was Jack. How a six-year-old got the nerve to call and found my number I never found out. The call broke my heart, he said he missed me.