“Davis.”

“Yes Sergeant?”

“Report to the orderly room.”

I finished what I was doing and headed for the headquarters’ building wondering why I had been summoned. When I walked in First Sergeant Thomas told me to go straight into the Captain’s office. I walked into the office, stopped six feet from the captain’s desk, saluted and said:

“Corporal Davis reporting as ordered sir.”

He returned the salute and said “Stand easy Davis.” I went to ‘at ease’ and waited. He was reading something and then he said:

“According to your enlistment paperwork you are single. Is that correct?”

All of a sudden I knew why I was called into the office. I knew that he knew so I said “No sir.”

“Why did you lie when you enlisted?”

I was running away from a bad situation and didn’t want to be found sir.”

“What were you running away from?”

“A cheating wife sir.”

“Well it appears that she has found you and she is asking for the allotments that she and your son are entitled to.”

“It is not my son sir. That is the reason I was running sir. I’m sterile sir; there is no way that the kid can be mine.”

“Care to tell me about it?

“Marline and I had been trying for a couple of years to have a child, but nothing happened. I decided to get myself checked out to see if maybe there was something wrong with me. It turned out that I was sterile. Doctor said it was probably because of childhood diseases I’d had. Mumps, chickenpox, measles or a combination of them.

“When I got home that night and before I could give Marline the news she told me she had some great news for me. She had just come home from the doctor’s and he had confirmed that she was pregnant. I walked away the next day and enlisted. I never thought she could find me. I didn’t even let my parents know I’d enlisted. Mom looked on Marline as the daughter she’d never had and I knew if I let her know where I was she would tell Marline. I just told her I was staying with friends in Florida.

“When mom asked me why I had walked away from Marline I told her to ask Marline. A couple of weeks later when I called her again she told me Marline said she had no idea why I let. Then she told me I should be ashamed of myself for leaving a pregnant wife to face things alone and I laughed and said the pregnancy was why I’d left. To be honest about it sir, I never thought she would even try to find me.”

“I don’t know what to tell you son, but maybe the people over at JAG can help you. You need to go see them anyway to do the paperwork on your wife’s request for allotments.”

Turns out there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Marline was my wife and was entitled and as far as the child was concerned it was mine until I could prove otherwise.

Once Marline knew where I was I started getting letters from her which I tossed in the trash without even opening them. After the fifth one I finally decided to respond. I didn’t read the fifth one other than to take the return address off of it before I tossed it. I sent her a very short message that said:

“Leave me the fuck alone! I don’t want anything to do with your cheating ass.”

Days later I received another letter from her and out of curiosity I opened it and read it. She was pissed. How dare I call her a cheat and a lot more along the same vein. I sent her another short note.

“How dare I call you a cheat? You got yourself pregnant didn’t you?”

I received several more letters from her, but they all went into the trash unopened.

If Marline hadn’t found me I would have reenlisted at the end of my hitch, but she had found me and it galled me that she was getting money from my pay every month for her and her kid. It was a shame because Army life suited me. I took my discharge and headed for Colorado.

I’d made good friends with Clayton Moore while at Fort Hood and had promised to look him up if I ever came to Colorado. I decided to stop and see him on my way to California. Why California? Because it was as far away as I could get from Ypsilanti, Michigan and Marline and still be in the contiguous United States of America.

When I crossed into Colorado from Nebraska I called the number Clay had given me and he gave me directions to his place. When I got there he asked if I’d eaten yet and when I said no he took me to a Village Inn close to his place and over dinner we caught up on things that had happened since the last time we had seen each other. Then he asked me what my pans were now that I was out of the Army and I told him I was on my way to California to find a job and get on with my life.

He already knew the story behind my joining the Army so when he asked why California I told him. He said Aurora was thirteen hundred miles from Michigan and that was plenty enough distance from Marline. He told me he could get me on where he worked and I ended up letting him talk me into staying. Clay did get me on where he worked and I started the next phase of my life.

Clay let me bunk with him until I could find an apartment of my own. He had a girlfriend and Jessica seemed to feel it was her duty to see to it that I had a girlfriend and she was constantly setting me up with her friends. I had a good time with most of them, but didn’t feel any spark with any of them. One of then, Ann Marie, did talk me into a friend with benefits arrangement. By that time I had my own apartment and Ann Marie spent two or three nights a week there with me.

I’d bought a Tracfone at the Post Exchange when I was in basic training and I made it a habit to call home at least once a month to let my parents know I was doing okay. I never told them where I was, just that I was all right. I always received a ration of shit from my mom for abandoning my wife and child. I just told her that I had a good reason for doing it. Finally I told her I’d make her a deal. I would continue to call her at least once a month if she would stop mentioning Marline or anything about her. Otherwise I wouldn’t call at all.

One month later I called home and as soon as mom mentioned Marline’s name I hung up on her. I still felt that I needed to let my parents know I was all right so I called my dad at his work number. I should have known better. He didn’t even get half way through his “I know I raised you better” speech before I hung up on him. Why didn’t I just tell my parents the truth? Because I knew that they had accepted Marline’s son as their grandson and it was the only grandson they were ever going to have and I didn’t want to take that away from them.

I waited four months before I called home again and Marline was never mentioned.

Ann Marie and I had been together almost eight months when she told me she was pregnant and that we needed to get married before she started to show. I told her I was sorry, but two things would keep us from getting married and she asked what the two things were and what we had to do to get them out of the way. I told her the first was that I was still married to the wife I’d walked out on and the second is that if she was really pregnant it couldn’t be mine because I was sterile.

She told me I was lying and trying to duck out on my responsibilities. I went into the bedroom where I kept all my papers, got the doctors report, went back to the living room and showed her the report. I’d kept it knowing that I would drop it on Marline someday. Ann Marie said that it had to be wrong. Just had to be. Maybe my test got mixed up with someone else’s.

I told her it would be east enough to check. The next day we both went to the clinic and I was tested again and I told them to mail a copy of the test to Ann Marie. Two days later she called me and asked me when I would be home so she could come by and pick up the things of hers she’d left there. I reminded her that she had a key and could let herself in and I didn’t need to be there. She told me she wanted me to be there so I told her I would be home by six that evening.

I was there when she arrived and she wanted to talk. She apologized for going off on me when I told her why I couldn’t marry her. She told me she was certain that I was the father of her baby. She had only had sex with someone else once since we started our relationship. I told her now at least she knew for sure who the father was and she told me she didn’t because she never knew who the other man was. She had been at a bachelorette party for her best friend Sarah and someone must have slipped a date rape drug into one of her drink. She woke up on a motel bed alone. She could tell she’d been screwed, but had no idea of who had done it.

Then she broke down and started crying. I might have been an asshole, but I wasn’t totally insensitive and I took her in my arms and let her cry into my shoulder. We sat there on the couch with me holding her as she said it was going to kill her parents when they found out she was an unwed mother. They might even be so disappointed that they would disinherit her. I’d never known that she came from money. That her dad was worth millions.