Chapter 3: The Bathroom Encounter

Every one of David’s neighbors knew they could count on him to help any one of them with almost anything. While he was at the school most weekday afternoons, on most Saturdays, if he wasn’t fishing or hunting, he could be found in his barn workshop, maintaining one of his several vehicles, or working on one of his or somebody else’s motorcycle, outboard motor, or lawnmower.

And if the person needing their lawnmower fixed was a kid who mowed lawns to make extra spending money, well, let’s just say that David always seemed to be able to teach the young person to fix it themselves, and it never seemed to cost any of them anything. He liked encouraging a good work ethic amongst the kids.

Being in such a small community, there was no city pool for the kids to go swimming in, so once the weather got warm enough in mid-March, Saturdays frequently saw an assortment of kids over at David’s house together with their parents, or older siblings enjoying David’s ½ Olympic-sized pool. While only 4 lanes wide, it was still the full 50-meter length, with a large hot-tub built into the side of the pool close to the house. It was also where the school swim team came for practice twice a day during the school swim season

David’s hard and fast rule was that no one went swimming unless there was someone with current Red Cross, YMCA, or USLA Lifeguarding and First Aid certification on watch. He’d even put in a Lifeguard chair by the deep end of the pool, and arranged once a year for an instructor to come from the university to provide training and certification in Red Cross Lifeguarding/First Aid.

David’s next-door neighbors were Julianne Dixon and her three daughters: Ruth, 13; Jennifer, 12; and Leah, 9. They lived in a 2-story home just 70 yards from David’s house, and the girls spent as much or more time at David’s as they did at home, to the point of making themselves at home in his kitchen and playroom. He had built the playroom for his own girls and was glad to see the neighborhood kids putting it to use.

David had gotten to know Julianne and her husband when they were building their house at the same time as he was building his own 11 years ago. Julianne had divorced her husband shortly after they had moved in because she had discovered during the construction phase that he was embezzling from her father’s business and gambling and had lost all the money for construction of the house. This was not the first time he had lost everything for them. Her father had loaned her the money to pay off the construction loan and now held the mortgage for her.

Julianne was about 5’4”, now 33 years old, and weighed only about 100 lbs., with titian red hair, green eyes, pale skin, and freckles literally everywhere. No one would ever suspect her of having borne three children as her tummy was a taut as a teenagers.

The oldest daughter, thirteen-year-old Ruth had developed a crush on David over the last couple of years, to the point that David had eventually felt it necessary to make sure that Julianne was aware of it, so that she could help Ruth deal with the inevitable disappointment. David became aware of the crush when Ruth began spending more and more time in the pool and in his house, clinging to his arm continually, and finding opportunities to sit on his lap, or on his knee, or just asking for piggy-back rides like a much younger girl.