Epilogue

Steve Curtis sat on the back deck and watched the sun fall toward the western horizon. He was well satisfied with his life. He had eighteen month's seniority in his new job and his voice was beginning to be heard in the boardroom downtown. His marriage was back on track and life was pretty darned good, everything considered.

The fall was well advanced; the forecasters said there would be frost in the hill country over the weekend. It was cool right now, but not terribly so. He could hear Barbara humming happily in the kitchen behind him. She'd decided a glass of hot chocolate would be just the thing to end the day with.

They'd been two years and more getting here. It hadn't been easy. Steve had fought it tooth and nail for a long time. If his firm hadn't effectively forced him to go with Barbara to counseling, they wouldn't have made it.

Steve chuckled at the memory. At the last Fourth of July picnic, he and Barbara had come upon Barbara's grandmother sitting at a table with the CEO and CFO of the firm where Steve worked and their wives. Astonished, Steve had said he hadn't even known Lydia was acquainted with them. The group had laughed. Lydia told him she'd known these two men and their wives since they were all toddlers sharing the same toys in a sandbox.

Steve had suddenly understood how and why the firm's policy on married senior personnel had been abruptly changed when he and Barbara had been on the outs. He'd looked accusingly at Lydia. She hadn't tried to deny it. Laughing, she'd invited him to sue her. He vowed to pay her back; she said she hoped he'd never have to. All he could do was demand she stand up for a long embrace.

Hell, the counseling had been what kept Barbara and him in each other's world for a long time. He saw it as a good thing now. He'd thought the opposite at the time.

They'd worked their way through most of the impacts on Steve resulting from Barbara's straying in the weekly counseling sessions. Mr. Houston had taught them techniques to make sure the communication between them wouldn't falter again, and then mediated between them as they resolved problems that had existed before the adultery and were still there.

They'd resolved the issue about a lack of physical intimacy pretty much by themselves. Barbara had rediscovered an enthusiastic sexuality within herself to match Steve's and they soon found themselves with an active and exciting sex life.

Other problems were more difficult. They'd had to deal with Barbara's professed insecurity in dealing with a very confident husband who always seemed to know where he was going in his life, how he was going to get there, and what he was going to do when he did get there. But dealing with the consequences of her own adultery forced Barbara to do considerable growing up and that growth helped her own confidence level enormously. In the end, the insecurity had been a largely self-resolving issue.