Prologue

I remember how much I loved my wife. She was the apple of my eye; everything I ever wanted. She was a French teacher at the high school. Her name was Emily McNair, nee Loudermilk. She stood a svelte 5’4”, weighed maybe 110 lbs., and had brown hair and brown eyes.

We’d been married four years. No kids, not yet, still in an apartment but we’d been looking. We attended the same high school in Waynesboro. She was two years year older, belonged to the F.F.A., 4H, and the National Honor Society. She was a talented dancer, sang in the school choir, was a varsity cheerleader, and loved to hunt. She graduated and went to Penn State, majored in foreign languages, education, and Global-International Studies. She was very smart!

No, she’s not dead.

Me, Daniel McNair; I got through high school, joined the U.S.A.R. while getting a job driving a truck for a local garage. I’d worked my way through high school loading and driving trucks on several local farms. That’s where I got into truck driving. Driving the big hay trucks, just like eighteen wheelers I guess, meant knowing how to back trailers into tight spaces, something I was very good at.

After I graduated, I drove tow trucks for the guy at the garage for a while; then I used my U.S.A.R. bonus money, some money from mom and dad, and my savings to buy a dump truck of my own. I used that to haul furniture and trash, then I borrowed some more money and bought a second truck.

Right now, I’ve got a small unattached office behind an old garage. My younger sister handles all my calls and keeps my accounts.

Like I said, I loved my wife, but I was afraid I was going to lose her, and I didn’t think there was much I could do about it.

Why did I feel that way? I guess to understand that we have to go to the backstory.

So, here’s the backstory. You can listen to it or not, that’s your call.

In high school Emily was what I’d call every guy’s idea of the perfect wet dream. When God put her together, he used all the best parts; she was beautiful, talented, personable, and considerate. The teachers loved her, her class-mates loved her, parents loved her, and I loved her.

My problem was the age difference; she was two years older. When I first laid eyes on her I was in the ninth grade and she was a junior. About that time my teachers realized I’d need help if I was to succeed; this was basically in the area of Language Arts. I loved math, but couldn’t read for shit. Emily didn’t need any additional service-learning credits, but she was the type who didn’t care; if she saw someone in need she stepped up, and I definitely needed someone to step up.

Emily was good. She showed up with two “book things”; one was called “The Faerie Queen” by some guy named Spencer and another one called “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”, by someone named Coleridge. I’d never heard of either of them. Emily said the best way to get good at Language Arts was to study something hard. She said I should choose, one or the other. I looked at the two books and decided I didn’t want to read about some fairy, so I picked the one about the sailor.

Emily had the patience of Job. The problem was me and her soft velvety blouses, those swishy tits and mini-skirts, her long luscious thighs, her big brown eyes with those incredibly long lashes, and her sweet “come make love to me” voice. After three sessions she gave up and got another person to fill in.

Emily was sweet about it, and I understood. So out went Taylor Swift and in came this skinny little flat chested stick with frizzy red hair. I thought whoa, did life throw me a curve ball! It didn’t matter after that; I worked on my reading and writing if only to get “Little Orphan Annie” off my tail and out of my parent’s house. Meanwhile Emily went back to being, by then, not just everything, but the only thing I ever wanted.

We saw each other from time to time. Of course, she was always on some guy’s arm. Now, I was no slouch. By my sophomore year I’d made varsity soccer, and she was a varsity cheerleader. Too bad, the cheerleaders worked the football games, not soccer.

I tried. I always said hi when I saw her in the hall, and she always smiled, but it was really no use. Of course, I dated other girls, and a couple really pulled on my heartstrings, but it was like every time I started to feel like getting serious Emily got back in my line of vision.

She graduated and went off to Penn State, leaving me to languish through two more years of school. I got to my senior year, checked out Penn State’s entrance requirements, took the S.A.T.s. which I bombed, thought about the military until someone mentioned Iraq, and then, at last, decided I’d find something else. My dad said I should join the U.S.A.R. He said I’d be serving my country, but I’d be in the branch that was hardly ever used, plus there was a small bonus for joining. Plus more, my mom and dad said, since I wasn’t going to college they’d set aside some money if I ever actually found anything I liked.

I thought about it, and decided to work for a guy who needed someone to drive his tow truck. Trucks had always come easy for me; when I worked on the various farms over the summer, I found I was just about the only kid who could handle the large hay trucks. For some reason I found backing up those big boys with their long trailers was a piece of cake.

So, I went to work for a garage guy. Pretty soon I got bored working my ass off day and night for almost no money. I figured if I had my own truck, I could set my own hours and rates. I bought my own tow truck. It worked for a while, but again, there wasn’t any money in it so I decided to buy something bigger, and that’s what I did. I got my parents to kick in and I bought a fairly decent “used” seventeen-footer. I worked out a deal with the guy who owned the garage; he had a small dilapidated building behind his business. I put my tow truck at his disposal, got to use his old building, and he’d keep everything running.

It seemed like things were looking up. I had myself, a couple other young guys, and my little sister, Priscilla, doing my accounts and keeping up with scheduling. It might not have worked, but the whole area was growing rapidly, new houses were cropping up everywhere.

I suppose that brings us to the “almost” here and now. Yeah, there’s more.

I’d been working my ass off. I was tired all the time, but I was making decent money. I was even thinking about buying another truck! I had my own small, very small, apartment I shared with Priscilla. (No, don’t go off on that.) We ate in the apartment sometimes, but mostly we went home and ate with mom and dad. Sometimes, if I was out someplace, I’d stop at a restaurant.

I remember I’d stopped in at a small local restaurant one evening to get something to eat. I really liked this restaurant; they specialized in breakfast food, and I loved eggs. I was eating some sausage, buttermilk pancakes, and three fried eggs over easy when I happened to look over and saw her. There she was – Emily, and she looked about as despondent as anyone I’d ever seen. All my old thoughts and imaginings resurfaced. I abandoned my food, got up, and went over.

She was staring into a half empty coffee cup. My first thought was somebody must have died, and I shouldn’t invade her privacy. Then I thought, ‘This might be my only chance. I’d be her knight in shining armor. I’d console her. I’d hold her hand. I’d be the man she needed. She’d fall madly in love with me. We’d get married. We’d have ten kids and live happily ever after.’

That’s when I started to really fantasize.

I dreamed how people all over the area would see me and say things like, “Look there goes Danny McNair. You remember him, that’s the wonderful man who cheered up poor Emily Loudermilk. He saved her from a lifetime of grief, and together they made half the kids who played on our high school’s baseball team. You recall the same team that won the state championship three years in a row.”

Then somebody else would say, “Oh yeah, I remember him. Isn’t he the father of the kid who went to M.I.T. and discovered that new toothpaste that everybody uses now because it instantaneously stops all tooth decay forever!”

Somebody would then add, “Sure, you remember how his youngest child graduated from Harvard and went to the Middle East where she negotiated the treaty that ended all the fighting over there for all time, and she did it without wearing a veil! Yeah, even the Taliban loved her.”

About then someone would say, “Yeah, he’s about the most wonderful man who ever lived in Pennsylvania.”

Last someone would say, “Even better than Ben Franklin?”

Another guy would say, “No contest. Daniel McNair is the best man ever! Better even than Ben Franklin.”

Emily was seated in a booth. I sat down across from her, and said, “Emily? Emily Loudermilk?”

She looked up. I could tell she didn’t recognize me so I added, “Dan, Daniel McNair. High school. You were two years ahead of me.”

She seemed to vaguely remember something. She was polite, “Oh, yes.” Then the lights went on, “Sure, I tried to tutor you.” Her face lit up, just a little, “You were so, not into Coleridge.” She was comfortable. She released a little laugh, then a tiny knowing smile, “Yes, I remember. I got somebody else to help you.”

I chuckled, “Yeah, skinny city,” then I added, “I was so in love with you.”

She smiled.

I asked, “So how’ve you been, and why are you sitting here all alone?”

She didn’t bristle or tense up, but I detected a smidgeon of change when she replied, “I was here for ... a kind of goodbye.”

I was clueless when I asked, “Nobody died or anything?”

She looked down into her coffee cup, “No, nothing like that. More like a ‘Bon Voyage’.”

Me, the big dummy said, “Saying goodbye to someone.” Before she answered I commented, “You haven’t eaten anything. Can I get you something?” I saw her readiness to say no so I added, “My stuff’s cold now.” I pointed to my old seat across the room and added, “I could use something. Let me buy. What’ll you have?”

She looked at where I’d been sitting. She looked profoundly disconsolate. She said so softly I almost didn’t hear her, “Maybe a salad.”

I exclaimed, “All right!” I got the waitress’s attention, she came over, and we both got a salad. I never liked salads much, but if she liked em I did too. We each got another cup of coffee and fresh glasses of water. I could tell she was unhappy so I tried to steer the conversation in directions I thought she’d like. I asked her about what she did, and she told me about Penn State and teaching French. I made sure she saw how impressed I was. She asked me what I’d been doing and I told her about my trucking business. Then we talked about some things from high school, but I could tell something was troubling her about that so I got her into what else she’d done. It seemed she’d been to French Canada and France. She talked endlessly about how beautiful Paris was and how much she loved the south of France and the Riviera. I listened to every word. I had little to offer or add, but I was sure to ask her a lot of questions, and that kept her going.

We sat for a lot longer than I thought. Finally, she said she had to go. I walked her to her car, a Lexus. Before she got in, I wangled her telephone number and a promise she’d go out with me if I called.

I was on my way!!!!

We started dating. At first, she was “cool” about it, not cool as in neat, no, cool as in cautious and controlled, but I slowly got her out of whatever her funk was in. I never asked her what her difficulty was; I didn’t want to go there. I did slowly, almost step by step maneuver her toward me and what it might be like if she were to spend more time with me.

It took a while, but finally I sprung it on her. I got down on one knee one night in front of her apartment, got out a ring, only a quarter carat, and asked her to marry me. She said no that first time, but after three more tries she finally succumbed.

I was so happy. I got my dream girl! I’d found that pot of gold! I’d won the lottery!

She was Catholic. I was a Methodist so me changing was a “no brainer”. I even went to classes.

Marrying Emily was the happiest day of my life. We looked around and found a small apartment and rented it. She kept teaching, and I kept loading and hauling trucks. I managed to raise enough money, and with more help from my parents, I bought still another truck. My parents and Priscilla loved my wife, and, though her parents were skeptical at first, I thought I brought them around.

Sometimes, when I was out on a job I used to laugh. I’d been so smart I managed to talk myself right into Emily’s heart. King of the world; I was King of the world! For four years I was in Valhalla. By our fourth year we’d started talking about buying a house. We even started looking. She wanted to have children, and go back to France, and get more education. I was all for it. Anything she wanted I wanted.

Then things, or something, began to change. Emily seemed to change. I wasn’t aware at first, but then I noticed, she started staying later at school. Then there were late night professional meetings. At home she seemed distant. We’d be talking and it was like she’d drift off, like she stopped listening. I didn’t suspect anything. In fact, I thought something might be wrong. She’d been on the “pill”, and I supposed there might be some side effects. I’d heard they could cause problems if they were taken too long.

Then it happened. I was a truck driver. My job took me all over western Pennsylvania. It was hard work, but with three, soon to be four trucks and with good reliable drivers and workers I was doing quite well. Sometimes I’d drive from place to place just keeping up with the trucks and the leads that came in that Priscilla passed along.

Emily said she’d been given two professional days to attend a seminar in Harrisburg. I was good with that. Anything that furthered her career made me happy.

Emily was in Harrisburg, and I was in Bedford, just off of I76, about a hundred miles west or an hour and a half drive from Harrisburg. I was there because we’d secured a large job. An old widower had finally cashed in, and his children wanted to empty the farmhouse before thieves got to it. I was driving along with two big trucks. I was in my pick-up, because the children were antsy about a few things like the silverware and some very old vases and two Eighteenth Century spinning wheels. I was to bring that stuff back in my truck.

On the way I stopped off at a Turkey Hill to get a coffee. Across the street, behind a pizzeria was a small parking lot. I didn’t think about it at first, but one of the cars parked back there looked awfully familiar. I got my coffee and a gas refill and drove across the street. I was totally befuddled. What was my wife’s Lexus doing just outside Bedford? I even got out of my truck to walk around it to make sure.

I wasn’t stupid. I opened my cell phone and activated the application on hers that would ascertain where my wife might be. She should be in Harrisburg. Maybe her car had been stolen? My phone told me otherwise. My wife was just a few miles away!

What was I supposed to do? First, I took my truck and followed the GPS tracker to the end. I reached a small bungalow on a side street on the outskirts of Napier, another small town just beyond Bedford. Wherever she was and whoever she was with it wasn’t where she said she was going to be.

I pulled in front of the house. There was no garage, only a car in the driveway, a late model Toyota. I got out and walked up to the car, looked in, saw no clear identifying information except a baseball hat with the letters ATF. I went back to my truck, obtained a pencil and scrap of paper and wrote down the license plate. It was a Pennsylvania tag; I didn’t know if that meant anything or if it would help me. I thought about going up to the front door and knocking, but decided against it.

I felt sick. My stomach was rolled up and turned into a tight knot. Whatever it was, no matter; I knew my wife was in there, and possibly with a man. Oh, I wanted to do a lot of things. I wanted to get out a tire iron and bash that car’s windshield. I thought about breaking down the door and bashing in my wife’s head and anyone else in there. That’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t. I got back in my truck and drove to the farmhouse to get the materials I was there for. I might be some kind of marital loser, a cuckold, but I still had a business to run.

I got the stuff. Talked with Sam, the guy who was responsible for loading the farmhouse furniture, and then I started back toward Waynesboro. On the way I periodically checked on my wife’s location. After two checks I stopped; it was only tearing me apart.

I dropped off the materials I’d loaded, collected payment for the entire load, and went back to the office to see Priscilla. It was late in the day, she’d already gone home, but she left me a note saying she’d see me the next morning so I went home too.

Back home I checked on my wife again. She still hadn’t left so I called Priscilla and told her I’d be taking the next day off. I took a shower and went to bed. Did I sleep? No, but I didn’t whine, or cry, or get angry. I’d done all that already. Besides, I’d known something had been wrong. I got up around 4:00 a.m. and checked the calendar. I wanted to figure out roughly when the wheels had started to go off the cart. Looking at the calendar, the dates and times of appointments Emily posted, like the things that had and not happened over the past weeks. It enabled me to narrow it down to about six weeks back.

One thing annoyed me, the God damned ATF hat. Who did I know, or rather we know who had anything to do with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? I couldn’t think of anybody. Later that morning I started making a few calls. I called Priscilla and asked her, but she didn’t know anybody. I called Sam, the guy who worked for me. I called my father and mother. I called several other people I knew; no one had an answer. As a last resort I called Emily’s parents. They told me something I never knew. Emily’s old boyfriend from high school and college was a person named Gary Larson; he’d gone to college and from there had joined the ATF.

I got out my old high school yearbooks. I remembered I’d almost decided to never buy them, but I had. Incredibly, I found his picture in my Freshman Yearbook. He’d graduated a year ahead of Emily. Was that who she was seeing? Had that been her old high school, and perhaps college boyfriend?

It dawned on me; like a rock falling from the sky, I realized what must have happened. Her old boyfriend had come home, and they’d hooked up again. I was stuck! I wanted to grab my fishing gear and get lost, but I couldn’t do that, I had a business to run.

Around 11:00 a.m. I went back to my office. Priscilla was there. I told her what I’d found out. She was, at first in disbelief, but once I laid it out she grew sympathetic. She asked me what I planned to do. I told her I planned on confronting Emily when she got home that evening. I told my sister I was afraid this might be the end of my marriage. She thought I was being hasty. Priscilla loved Emily; she believed there might be some other explanation. I told her I hoped there was.

I went back home to our apartment again and checked Emily’s cell phone GPS. She was on I76. I figured if she took the most reasonable route, she’d be home in a few hours. Though it was Friday I knew I’d be going in to work the next morning.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Would she lie? Would she offer some plausible explanation? Would she come completely clean? Would she bail out on our marriage? I just didn’t know. I did know a few things though; for one, I was determined not to get emotional. I’d already crashed, I’d already broken down in sobs and tears the previous day. Second, I was for certain not going to get angry, or become weak and beg. If she wasn’t happy, if she wanted out, then I’d give her what she wanted. Third, though I wasn’t very familiar with Pennsylvania divorce law, the money we’d put in my business aside, Emily actually made almost as much as I did. Worse, or better I didn’t know, our health care was through Emily’s public-school program, and that could make a difference. Then last, other than my business and Emily’s pension fund there wasn’t anything to divide or to fight over. Sure, we had furniture, but if it came to divorce, I knew I wouldn’t want any of it.