The phone rang. Aerosmith’s “Cryin” faded to the background. It was my brother Butch. I hit the button on my dash that connected the call.

“They just left,” he told me, “The bitches hardly said a word...”

“Just stick to the plan brother, we got this,” I replied.

“Why would she do this man?” he asked me, “I mean, I thought we had a good thing going.”

“Who knows? All I know is that I am going to focus on Blake and you are going to focus on Sara and the rest of them can go to hell,” I replied.

“Yeah, my baby is going to be devastated when she finds out we are divorcing,” Jeff said.

“Kids are resilient, Sara will bounce back,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.

“Are you going to tell Blake what they are doing?” He asked.

“Yup, the kid is 12 years old now, if nothing else this is a good lesson for him about consequences,” I replied, “How about you? Are you going to tell Sara?”

“Yeah, I feel the same way you do. I am not going to shield Becky from Sara’s wrath either. Sara can choose to have a relationship with the cheating cunt or not. I’m not going to run Becky down but I will be damned if I sit here and tell my daughter that she needs to be friends with her mother.” he answered.

“That’s your choice man, I don’t know how I am going to handle that with Blake. I guess we’ll play it by ear. Did you ever think that we would be getting divorced at age 34?” I asked.

“Hell man, I never thought we would be married,” he chuckled, “I mean we landed the Cooper twins, the hottest girls at Mount Clemens high.”

“Yeah the Thompson twins and the Cooper twins, we had a good run didn’t we?” I asked nostalgically.

“We sure did. Are you thinking of giving her a second chance? Let’s face it Becky probably led Tessa into the whole affair,” he said.

“Nope, if she had stopped it at the finger bang in the club last week I might have tried counseling or something. But to plan a full fledged affair over the course of a three day conference is too much,” I replied.

“Same here, when I found out that Becky gave that guy a blowjob I thought maybe she was drunk or something, but then when they hit us with this conference...” he trailed off.

“Did you talk to Schmitty about your 401k?” I asked after a moment of silence.

“Yup, she keeps hers and I keep mine. What did he say about you?” he asked.

“It’s a little more complicated, I hope she lets me keep the business and I won’t go after her retirement. Right now the business is showing a loss but if that contract comes through for the school I will be much better off. We’ll see. Since she bought that Lexus in her name only, she will get to keep that along with the payments and I will get to keep Old Blue. I’ll probably be walking away from all the work I put into the house, but if she is going to have custody of Blake I don’t want him to have to move on top of us getting divorced. It’s looking like I will probably keep the business and all it’s debt and she will have the house and her car along with the 401k. No spousal support but I will be paying about 200 a week in child support,” I told him.

“Yikes, that 800 a month is gonna be rough for you in the winter. I will have to probably pay about 300 a month in alimony, since I should be able to get joint custody of Sara, there should be low child support. Look on the bright side, you get to keep your old blue pick-up, I know you love that truck otherwise you would have traded it in years ago,” he said.

“Damn, bro, this truck is the most loyal thing I got for me,” I chuckled.

“Sorry man,” he said.

“Are we gonna do anything about the assholes they are going with?” he asked.

“I don’t mind beating the shit out of them but I don’t wanna make my problems worse,” I responded.

“Yeah, it just sucks that they’re going to get away with everything. Are you prepared to have someone else live in your house with your kid?” he asked

“Not really but what’s the alternative?” I replied. “Let them fuck around on us and stay in an unhappy marriage? I just can’t do that.”

“Me either,” he responded.

“Where are you headed? I hear that diesel rumbling in the background” he asked.

“Up to the cabin, Dad asked me to open it up for the summer. Since there is a chance I will be living there soon I figured I better give it a good once over,” I replied.

“Are you going to be able to run your business from there? It is out in the sticks. You know you can always crash at my place, as soon as I line one up,” he said.

“Thanks Butch. I might end up taking you up on that come wintertime. For the summer though I should be good and Blake is still young enough to like it here so I will use this summer to get my feet under me and see where I am at. Besides,” I continued, chuckling “if I am too far away I can just crash on the job site for a night in ole Blue here.”

“You and that damn truck, I will be worried about you when that thing up and leaves ya,” he laughed. “Until then you always got something to keep ya company.”

“Yup, When old Blue here dies I just might eat a bullet.” I told him.

“Don’t even joke like that man. That is not funny.” My brother said seriously.

“Sorry man, You know how dark my humor can get.” I apologized.

“Dude that is not even approaching funny. Tell me you left your Ruger at home,” he scolded me.

“Yeah bro, all I got is my hunting knife. Don’t worry it was just a sick joke,” I said.

“Fuck you bro, I am grabbing Sara and we are coming up there, don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your neice to see,.” he said.

“Butchie, relax man, it was just a bad joke. I swear I am good.” I replied.

“Butch, brother, stop it was a bad joke don’t drive two hours to get here because I said something inappropriate,” I told him.

“Nope, you don’t get to be alone right now. See you in a couple hours,” I heard. Then the phone went dead.

The radio came back on and now it was “Highway Song” by Blackfoot on my Pandora radio. It went through a few more late seventies, early eighties rock tunes before my phone finally lost signal. I turned off the Bluetooth as I turned onto the dirt track leading to our family cabin. Butch was right, it was back here a ways. The Michigan spring had made the ruts and dips in the two-track even worse than they were before. My old F350 had no problem with them but I was going to have to pull out the small backhoe my dad had in the garage and grade it tomorrow.