Chapter 1

You've all heard the song "I Think I'll Go Somewhere and Cry Myself to Sleep" sung by Charlie Louvin. No? Well listen to it sometime. It's a great song to hear when there is a sadness in your life. A few bottles of beer will bring you down into the mood. That's the blue mood I'm talking about. I have had a lot of sadness in my life, most of it brought on by myself--I just didn't know it at the time.

There was a builder in the nineteen fifties by the name of Heartwell who bought some land and constructed several houses just outside the central area in the town of Brattleboro, a place with a little over ten thousand inhabitants. The houses were pretty much all the same and eventually the street was named Heartwell Avenue.

The houses changed hands over time of course, and one was purchased by a family, Richard and Lulu Hart. They had one daughter named Cindy, who was eight years old.

A couple of months later the house two doors down was vacated due to the death of an elderly lady and it was bought by a family named Wells. Tom and Mary Wells had a son, Tom Jr., age nine.

The two families became friends and Mary and Lulu concentrated on making warm and welcome homes for their families. They compared parenting duties and household cleaning chores, doing the cooking and everything about running the home the best way possible.

Richard Hart was an insurance salesman, selling both accident and homeowners policies. Tom Sr. was employed at one of the banks in town as a teller and had been for many years. Richard, to all appearances, was more of a go-getter, but he liked to gamble on tips in the stock market. Tom Wells just kept plugging away at making his family comfortable and increasing his assets the good old way by saving. He was pretty astute at it too, as his monthly statements gave testimony.

Cindy and Tom Jr. were friends and did all the things that neighborhood kids were bound to do. Their mothers baby-sat for each other as the need warranted, so Cindy and Tom were often together. As they grew older they experienced a bunch of firsts.

There was the first "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours" and the first kiss and the first grope and finally on the night of her Senior Prom, their loss of virginity to each other. Cindy was the instigator in all of these firsts with Tom following her lead. Tom was a little more shy and serious about life, but enjoyed these forays into the progression of his sexual knowledge immensely.

Tom was home from UVM for her prom, and from then on there was no turning back. When he went back to school after the summer vacation he was a confirmed cock's-man. Tom Sr., who had secured him a job in the bank for the summer, warned him that some day all this would catch up with him. Youth seems to be insulated from many of life's problems and Tom Sr. demanded of Tom that he marry any girl if he got her in trouble. Not to worry, Tom was wise in the ways of protection.

At about the time of Cindy's graduation, her father had been buying like crazy on margin in the market. "The only way to get rich," he was often heard to brag. And he did have some excellent years. Good enough so that he had moved from the Heartwell subdivision and purchased a new house up above the Country Club in a new section called Hillwinds. The market always has its ups and downs and it just happened that when it came time for Cindy to further her education, the funds were not there for her.

Not only that, Richard was about to become homeless, the mortgage payments on his recently acquired house were relentless in coming due before the 10th of each month. Mary and Lulu, ever friends, eventually talked Tom Sr. into taking over the payments of the Richard Hart dwelling. Richard and Lulu moved back to the Heartwell subdivision and into Tom Sr.'s smaller house.

It was an even swap and a good deal, especially for the Wells' family, as Tom Sr. received all of the equity that Richard had in the larger home. This was mostly because Richard was such a poor risk no one would lend him money and it was a good deal for him too, because there was some built-in equity in the smaller Wells' house. This equity could be tapped to finance another go at the market. Tom Sr. shook his head at what Richard planned. It seemed that his friend never learned.

Cindy, subdued because of the loss of status including losing the exclusive Hillwinds address, approached Tom Sr. to help her secure a job in his bank. Cindy was almost as close to him as she was to her own father, and he gladly made sure that she was soon employed in a junior position with him as her boss.

Tom Jr., wise in the ways of banking from his first full-time summer job, convinced his father to co-sign for the down payment on a fixer-upper near the university in Burlington. He remodeled it into a bunkhouse where he rented rooms to fellow students during the school year. In the summer he let students stay rent free if they would continue the rehab work needed.

By the time Tom graduated, he was able to sell the house and declare that his college education only cost 25% of what it would have. Tom was into banking all the way. It had to be in his blood. On his first interview he took a model of what he had done while going to school with him--buying and rehabbing his own quarters to defray his school costs. The bank where his father and Cindy worked was impressed and made him an offer. However, Tom Jr. ended up across town in a different bank.

Cindy, denied school access because of her father's lack of funds, took several job-related courses at the local community college and was able to advance along up the ladder in the bank as openings occurred. Her lifestyle showed her pretty much living for the moment, though, and she was a great party animal, especially on weekends.

The University of Vermont (UVM) was well-known as a party school and Tom kept up his end by adding to its reputation. However, he was never wild and had the responsibility of ownership so he never went overboard. Tom had his pick of students, numerous and varied, to keep his bed warm throughout the school year.

Cindy, working steady and with classes twice a week, reserved Sunday afternoon for reviewing her courses and studying. Friday and Saturday nights filled her need to party and she often ended up in someone's bed on those occasions. Did she ever think about the boy next door she grew up with? Probably about as much as he thought of her, which was not often and never in the context of a lifelong mate.

Tom Jr.'s first job was to be a trainee for the chief Mortgage Loan Officer who would be retiring the first of the year. Young looking and barely twenty-three, some of the older department heads doubted anyone so young could handle the job without losing the bank's money on some poor loans. Instead, Tom sniffed out a scam that a construction company was trying to pull and had their application turned down. Picked up by another bank, it became obvious how smart Tom was when the loan at the other bank went into default.

In another instance, an approval was made on the strength of his previous track record to let Tom go ahead and approve a loan for a start-up company. It proved to be one of the wisest loans made that year.

Tom and Cindy were dating others, but often ran into each other somewhere almost every weekend. It was like meeting your brother or sister and waving "Hi." One night Cindy stopped by Tom's table at a club and said, "You know we ought to get together and date. After all we kind of have dibs on each other since prom night. How about picking me up next Friday and we'll go out?"

"Sure, it'll be fun. I'd like to hear what's going on in your life. Dad tells me about how good you are at your job. He really likes you."

"Well I like him too. He has made my job a lot easier by mentoring me so I didn't make too many mistakes when I first started. God, I've been doing the same thing for four years now. Hard to believe. So I'll see you Friday night?"

"I'll pick you up about seven and we'll get something to eat."

Cindy looked like a million bucks when she came out of her parents' house on Heartwell Avenue. For a minute the thought crossed my mind that here Cindy and I were at the age of twenty-three or four and were both still living with our folks.

Cindy slid into the car and reached over and gave me a peck on the cheek. I had heard that the food and service were excellent at The New England House so we were soon seated in the lounge with a drink in front of us, waiting for a table to become available.

Cindy was nervous, in fact more nervous and jumpy than I had ever seen her. Once I thought I even saw tears in her eyes. However she tried to be animated and interested in what my job entailed. She left most of the conversation in my hands and only asked a question when our talking thinned out. It was almost an hour before we were ushered to our seats, and I had the feeling that I had just been interviewed or evaluated--or both.

When we finished the bottle of wine, completed our dinner and came out to the car, I asked, "What would you like to do now? I have nothing planned so it is your call."

"Can we go up to the Kiwanis shelter at the Living Memorial Park and continue talking? I have something I want to ask you."

After we parked, we got out and Cindy led me to the little chapel just beyond the picnic shelter. Turning and facing me she took both of my hands in hers and said, "Tom, we've known each other since we were kids. You even took my cherry. We have always got along very well." She paused, "Would you marry me?"

Thinking this must be a joke, I gave her a flip answer. "But Cindy, this is so sudden?" I made a question out of my statement, because there must be a reason behind what she had just asked me.

"I am serious! Come sit on the bench with me and I will tell you why I asked."

I eventually got the whole story concerning the marriage proposal. "Tom, I like sex. I like a lot of sex and I think I am pretty good at giving and receiving. Lord knows I have had a lot of practice. I always knew there was a risk of getting pregnant. I can't be on birth control pills because I can't tolerate them. I am the one to always roll the condom on my date, drunk or sober. About a month ago this guy and I hooked up. I protected myself the same as always. In the morning the guy was gone, leaving me a note and a broken rubber. The note just said 'oops.'

"I rushed home and took what measures I could to clean up and out. I checked the calendar and figured I was safe, being what day it was in my cycle."

Cindy sat there with tears running down her face. "I didn't know I was pregnant when I asked you for a date. I confirmed it this morning. What am I going to do?

"I don't really mean you have to marry me and I guess I was looking for an easy solution to my problem. It just came out."

"There is abortion you know. Have you thought about that? What about the man that made the baby? Why are you talking to me and not him?"

"Oh I can't have an abortion. What if this little thing growing in me is like my cousin's kids? They are adorable and I just love them. I couldn't destroy them and I can't destroy this fetus. The man that got me pregnant isn't father material in any way, shape or form. I'd be in court looking for support until the baby was eighteen and with little chance of collecting."

"So what do you want from me? I can't believe you really thought I would marry you." I stared at her. "So tell me what were you thinking? And another thing, what's in it for me if I should? This is all supposition, of course."

Cindy took a deep breath. "It was a shock to me when that test kit indicated I was pregnant, so I took today off from work just to think about what I was going to do.

"I still have to think about abortion. There is no good solution to my problem unless I just go ahead and be a single mother and that is going to hurt a lot of people. My folks, and your father who has put a lot of trust in me at work, and most of all the little one who doesn't need to be born under the stigma of never having its father.

"I suppose I am selfish and scrambling to find a way to pass my mistake on to someone else. Then late this afternoon I remembered hearing your father say that if you ever got a girl knocked up that he would insist that you marry her. That made me think maybe I could trap you by having sex with you tonight."

I couldn't believe Cindy would do this to me or even consider it. I waited for her to continue.

"You've been my friend ever since we were kids and I couldn't be that dishonest so I just decided to ask you to marry me. I thought of the night you took my cherry and how we dodged the bullet in not using any protection. If I had become pregnant we would have been married six years now. And I thought how nice it would be married to you."

She knew I was going to argue against her. How could I help but shoot her down? "Cindy, people marry for love and I plan on doing that. I just haven't found anyone yet. Sure I love you as a sister or as a friend, but as a wife--I don't think so. Uh-huh, I can't do it. What happens if I see someone tomorrow that is the love I have been searching for? Here I am trapped in a loveless marriage because I was too weak to resist your arguments."

"Tom, I've thought of that and we could work out the details."

God, she had an answer for everything. "Like how?"

"Well I haven't got it all straight yet in my mind, but after or even before the wedding vows I thought that maybe just you and I could have a marriage contract that would spell out all the details. People do it for financial reasons before marriage. Couldn't we make a contract to do the same with the baby as the prime consideration?"

"I still don't know what is in this for me."

"Two years is all that I ask you to stay with me. After that you can go your own way. I know that child support can be a problem, but I will promise you that I will never sue you for anything. If you are directed to pay in the divorce settlement, just don't do it, and I won't take you into court."

"What happens Cindy, if you want out and I want you to stay with me? Maybe I will fall in love with you or more importantly the child. Will I have any rights? How am I going to feel if you are stepping out on me? I would want a sworn promise that for a period of time you would be true and faithful as any wife should. During that time you could never bring any humiliation down on me."

"Oh Tom, you mean you might consider marrying me? Oh, God in heaven, thank you!"

"Whoa Cindy, we have a lot of details and 'what ifs' to work out. Let's not get too far ahead with this. I've got an awful sinking feeling that one of us is going to get hurt if we go through with this. Why don't I take you home and you work on what you think is fair and I'll do the same. I'll call you in the morning, okay?"