Okay, before we got started here, I want to thank everyone who wrote last week to congratulate me about my upcoming wedding. For those of you who were wondering, yes it's true and I think it's right this time. Now this one is a very long story. it's a character study so those of you who hate long stories might want to pass on this one. On the other hand I have been listening to you and I will be alternating shorter stories that will probably be four pages or less, starting with a short one next week. As usual I'd like to thank Mikothebaby for her editing wizardry. Without her you'd bee reading gibberish right now. Here we go!

Somehow ... I got it anyway. That was the thought going through my mind on a bright sunny morning as I drove down the broadest avenue in my small town. The sun had come out that morning after two straight days of rain. This one broad avenue looked more like a part of a major city than the center line and spine of our one horse town. The doctor's offices, the dentist's offices, the police station, the courthouse and the Starbucks franchise were all located on the same street. Believe it or not, there was an actual traffic light and a crosswalk there too.

My midnight blue Mustang GT thundered down the road precluded by the sound of almost five hundred horsepower channeled through a Pype bomb exhaust system. My Whipple twin screw supercharger's whine added a touch of high frequency harmony to the Pype bomb's grunt. The overall sound was not unlike the roar the devil makes when he calls the demons back to hell. It's also my second favorite sound on the third rock from the sun. We'll talk about my favorite later.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed an older woman standing far too close to the curb. I noticed her far too late to do anything about it. Too late for even my massive 6 piston Brembo brakes to squeeze the fourteen inch rotors hard enough to stop us. I noticed her far too late also, for me to swerve into the next lane.

So some old lady got a bath as I splashed a puddle of dirty rain water all over her. Good morning lady, I thought as 'Blue' and I thundered by her. If the laws of Karma mean anything, she probably had it coming.

Am I an asshole for not stopping to offer an apology? Probably, but it's too good a morning for drama.

Besides, like I said when I started this story ... Somehow ... I got it anyway. It took a long time for me to realize it. Maybe because it's different from what I expected it to be like, but I got my happy ending.

I thunder down the city's street with the windows rolled all the way down and the stereo rousing late sleepers. I turn my eyes from the road for a Pico-second to check the passenger in the baby seat attached to my Mustang's tiny rear seat. My now two year old daughter is smiling and giggling. I give her a thumbs-up sign and she responds by holding her tiny perfect thumb up as well. Sticking her tiny thumb up causes her to giggle again. For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, the sound of my daughter laughing is my favorite sound. Of course, her mommy makes some noises at certain times that rank up there pretty high too.

This really isn't the way I imagined I'd be spending my middle years. By now I should have been slowly traveling the world with my wife, living out my remaining years in ease and luxury. Instead, I'm raising a child with my young wife. I thought I'd done this already but it looks like I've been given a chance to do it all over again. Just like in the video games, I got a do over. But unlike the video games, I didn't fuck up. I had to start all over again because someone else fucked up. Sometimes, fate or Karma, decide that we get a second chance for what we're all working for. All of us are really only searching for the same thing. We all want a good life with a happy ending. I'm no different. This isn't a time travel story. This is what really happened to me.

My name is Lawrence Clark. I'm fifty years old and about as average as average can be. I have brown hair that is starting to go gray on the sides. I'm just short of six feet tall and I weigh one hundred and seventy pounds.

Four years ago, when I was forty six years old, I was very close to what I thought was going to be my happy ending.

I'd been married to my high school sweetheart for more than twenty years. We got married right out of college and started raising our family. I'm an engineer and a good one. I've worked for Harris International Machine Company also known as HIMCo for most of my career.

Over the years, I've wisely saved and invested my money and with a few bonuses and stock options thrown in, I was looking forward to taking a very early retirement by age fifty. Those last four years would be a transitional period where I'd work less and depend on the younger guys in my department to do all of, or most of the heavy lifting. It would be a great time for my wife and me to start planning our golden years and for our grown children to start becoming independent adults. We'd always be there for them, but they needed to begin making important decisions on their own. We could always transfer money into their accounts from anywhere in the world but mom and dad might be in Europe instead of the next room.

I knew that with both of our kids in college and already involved in secure relationships with partners that we treated more like additional children of our own than just our children's partners my life was great. I was still madly in love with Amanda. She was still the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I'd been working my ass off all of my life and I was in the home stretch of making all of my dreams come true. I was so close I could smell my 'Happy Ending.' In fact, I didn't see any possible way for my dreams not to come true. It wasn't like I was wishing to rule the world or to be president or anything like that. All I wanted was to travel a bit and spend my last thirty years or so of life, living and loving the woman I married.

Amanda

My head was killing me as I woke up. It was finally Wednesday, thank God. Wednesday was the only day that the dentist in our town handled people with no health insurance. I'd had a bad tooth for nearly a week and I was so tired of nearly over dosing on over the counter pain relief. The pills did dull the edge of the pain and make it more manageable, but they also made me sick to my stomach so I couldn't really eat.

Then there was the problem that all of the liquor I tended to consume made the pills less effective. But I needed the liquor. In the same way that the pain pills dulled the constant physical pain of my rotting teeth, the liquor dulled the constant mental and emotional pain of my stupidity.

I rolled out of bed and looked around my small shitty apartment. My mind was fuzzy as it was most the time now. There was a time not too long ago that I was one of the sharpest people I knew. I had to be. My husband was an engineer. He sucked knowledge and facts into that giant brain of his like water into a sponge and constantly spat them back out. He also expected me to remember them and I loved him so much that I did. I was a substitute teacher, so I needed to be sharp for my students as well. Those were the best days of my life.

I was slightly confused as I looked around. I was sure that there'd been a man here with me last night. As I leaned forwards in an attempt to stand up, the soreness in my vagina and oh no, my ass, remind me that there had been a man here with me. But he was gone now.

Oh well, I thought. It's actually better that he is gone. It means there won't be any awkward scenes while we try to figure out how to tell each other that last night didn't really mean anything to either one of us. It was just two lonely people reaching out to each other to fight off being alone for a few hours.

Surprisingly, I don't even remember the sex. Since both my ass and my pussy are sore, the bastard had a good time, but I don't know whether or not I did. I do remember that he was big though. I remember him asking me about math too, maybe it wasn't math but he was asking me about numbers.

I grab the bottle of pain pills off of the table and suck a couple down to stop the drums in my head. I'm glad that today is Wednesday. I don't think I can take the pain of this rotten tooth for much longer. I've also heard of cases where people have died from untreated rotten teeth.

I start counting the throbbing in my head and jaw. By the time I get to a hundred the pills have begun to work their magic and the pain is receding. Somehow, with less pain to focus on I can see and think a bit more clearly too. I seem to remember that the man from last night was named James. He doesn't live in my town. He was just here from one of the other small towns in the region looking for a good time.

I remember now that he was divorcing his wife. I remember because that was one of the things I liked about him. I figured that maybe he understood my pain. He'd been caught cheating on his wife and she'd thrown him out. He was trying to learn how to make a go of living on his own too. We had that in common. The difference, of course, was that I hadn't cheated on my husband. And someday I'd get him back. This is not the way I was supposed to be living my life. My husband, Rence, was not supposed to be running around on me with some barely thirty something bitch. We were supposed to be spending our years traveling together and doing interesting things.

He was the one having the affair, so why did I feel so shitty. Then he went and got the stupid bitch pregnant. I'd been hoping until that time that it would run its course but once there was a baby involved...

I still didn't understand why I had to suffer. The only reason I could understand was because I loved my husband. I love the bastard enough to forgive him for the way he treats me because I know that it won't last for long. We will be together in the end. I'm sure of it. Any day now he'll be knocking on my door begging me to come and live in that beautiful house with him ... Any day now.

So for now, I'll subsist in this shitty apartment while I wait for him to come to his senses and realize that we're supposed to be together. I really think that most men go through some kind of mid-life crisis like women go through menopause.

Some guys go out and buy some flashy car and chase younger women, others decide to run a marathon or see the world. Obviously, Rence went with the first scenario. I'm certain that it will end soon and things will be back to normal. My kids seem to think that I'm delusional. But I'm certain their father will come back to me.

Just as I'm certain that there was a television on the empty stand in my living room last night. I look around the room to see if it fell off of the stand and notice that my TV is gone. The microwave in my kitchenette has also disappeared. Fuck!

I look over by my bed and breathe a sigh of relief as I notice that my purse is still there. I breathe another sigh of relief as I notice that my wallet is also still there. I look through the wallet and find my driver's license and other ID. My credit card is still there ... My Bank card is missing.

As the pain pills kick in fully, the numbers make sense. That bastard had actually asked me about my pin number. I look through my purse for my cell phone. I can call the bank to cancel the card and try to use that online banking app to check my balance.

I can't do either though, because my phone is gone. Since I don't have a land line phone, I got rid of it to save on expenses; I can't even call the police to report the robbery.

Shit, I let my head drop and start crying. God damn that Rence. If he hadn't deserted me for that child, none of this shit would be happening. The two of us should be exploring Europe together by now. There should be a special place in hell for men who desert a woman just because she gets a few lines or wrinkles. As much as I love him, Rence is fucking crazy. Why the hell does he worship older cars, but leaves a perfectly good woman, who loves him unconditionally for a girl who is barely older than our children?

I get up and take a shower. I know that I stink. James left a lot of sweat and sperm all over me and in me. I dress in my best jeans and my only clean shirt. I don't bother trying to do anything to my hair because I have no one to impress. I'm barely awake and my day is already shitty.

The one thing that strikes me as strange is my image in the mirror. I don't look like myself any more at all. I know that emotional pain and stress can make a person look older but this is ridiculous. I guess the alcohol and the rough nights have also taken their toll on me. I really need to start eating better and taking better care of myself. I look at least ten years older and I've only been divorced for four years. I look nothing like I did in that picture of our family that's sitting on my mantle. I look more like my mom did when she was sixty.

Now I have to go to the police station and try to file a report. I also have to go to the bank to try to find out whether or not James was able to get into my account and steal my money. Maybe I should go to the bank first so I can add that to the report. But I have to do both before I can go to the dentist. I really need to be at the Dentist's office as soon as they open so I don't have to wait all day there. They don't take appointments for Wednesdays. It's a first come, first served situation unless you're an emergency case.

I grab my apartment key and the building's front door key. I don't have a car anymore. After the second DUI, I lost my license. I step out of the apartment and lock the door. I take the elevator because I'm afraid of the stairs. I am nearly fifty and I'm not in the best health any more. If I fall down the steps it might be days before anyone finds me, especially since I no longer have a phone to even call anyone.

On the other hand, some of those younger boys in this building are pretty bad. I might get raped if caught in those stairwells anyway. It happened to a woman last year and she was a big fat girl. I'm not as pretty as I used to be or in as good a shape, but I still think that I'd be a better target for a rape than that three hundred pound cow.

As I get outside I notice that the sun is out and it looks like a beautiful day. After two solid days of heavy rain, the sun looks and feels wonderful on my skin. In a short skirt and a tight top I used to turn quite a few heads on a nice day like this. Now, in my faded ratty jeans and worn out tennis shoes people step to the side to avoid me.

But today except for the pain in my mouth, I feel good for a change. Maybe, just maybe, my luck is about to turn around. I step up to the edge of the street and notice a dark car moving towards me at a fast rate. I stay on the curb and look up at the sun as I enjoy its rays.

Before I can move, the car thunders past me, splashing a ridiculous amount of dirty water all over my face and clothes

The water drenches me from head to toe and worse yet, some of it enters my eyes, my nose and my mouth. I spit out dirty water and who knows what else. This was the last straw. This was the straw that broke the fucking camel's back. I scream loudly in rage and frustration.

Unfortunately, the driver of the midnight blue car doesn't hear me or seem to care. I walk down the street as quickly as I can in the direction the car was going in. It can't be going too far. The guy obviously came here for a reason. I can see the car pulling into the parking lot in the next block and I go after it.

I don't walk as well as I used to so it took me a few minutes to walk the block. Even as I got within range, I could see him bending over and reaching into the back of his car. He helped a tiny little girl out of the car and they went into the doctor's office.

He was a good looking man but I could barely make him out from the distance. I was still dripping wet as I marched angrily towards the building. I could see him sitting down and talking to the child through the window. As I got closer to the window, I stopped walking suddenly as realization dawned on me.

I stood there with water dripping from my hair, my face and my ruined clothes. I didn't know what to do. I stood there frozen in the moment as my life flashed before my eyes.

Lawrence

As I said before, I was supposed to be entering a four year period of working less and turning over responsibilities to my subordinates. The idea was to gradually phase myself into retirement. I had already picked my successor. I was sure that he'd have a lot of problems to deal with but I knew that he was the one.

Darrell Williams was twenty seven years old. He was a graduate of Michigan State University in Engineering. He'd been with us for just under two years and he was brilliant. He outshone most of my staffers and was probably the nicest, most soft spoken young man I'd ever met. The problem was that there were too many others on my staff who'd been here far longer and, of course, the fact that Darrell is black.

I remember the first time he sat in on meeting with us. We'd been hired to design a manufacturing plant's CNC machining area. We were supposed to decide how many machines they could efficiently place inside the part of the building that they'd allocated for the shop. While I was going over the preliminary needs and several of my guys were still making jokes about what they were going to do with their bonuses, I noticed that Darrell was taking notes and drawing on a pad. He had a calculator out and was browsing through one of the brochures we'd gotten from HAAS.

"I want you guys to design the shop and figure out how long it's going to take us to set this up." I said.

"How many machines do they want?" asked Sam Bradford who'd worked for the company since before I did. Sam was an older guy who really thought that based on seniority he'd be taking over for me.

"They think they'd like ten or twelve, according to the bid," said George Fullerton another long timer.

"Should be a snap," said Sam, confidently.

I looked up and noticed that Darrell had his hand up. Darrell was younger than most of the guys there. He was also much bigger. He was also sitting pretty much alone either because he didn't know anyone yet or because he was shy.

"Eight," he said softly.

"Yeah, I'll bet he ate," snickered Sam. "The guy is huge."

"Darrell, we're pretty informal around here," I said. "You don't have to raise your hand. If you have something to say, just say it."

"I looked at the amount of surface area we have for the shop," he said. "I also looked at the specs for the machines and the OSHA regulations for that type of business. The largest number of machines we'll be able to fit into that space is eight."

"Bullshit," said George. "Your math is wrong and the customer wants ten or twelve. If you look at the specs you claim to have read each one of those machines only takes up..."

"George," I said. "He's right and YOUR math is wrong. Darrell, explain it to him."

"If you do the math, ten machines actually would fit into the space with the required four foot space between them. The problem is that if you're running the machines, you're also going to need a chip conveyor which increases the amount of square footage for each machine. If all of the machines are equipped with chip conveyors, we'll only be able to fit eight machines in that area and still meet the safety regulations. I sketched out a sample floor plan, if you'd like to see it."

It was so quiet in the room that you could hear a pin drop. Then George kicked his chair out from behind him and stomped out of the room.

Over the next few weeks things got both better and worse around the department. My guys had a lot of experience, but Darrell's education was not only more complete, it was more recent. I'd done the best I could to keep up with all of the latest trends but I found him showing me new concepts and new techniques for some of the things we'd done for decades.

Darrell and I became friendly and often had lunch together. He was a really nice guy and he was also someone I could talk to. Like me, he was the kind of guy who took pride in doing everything he did to the best of his abilities. There were too many people in our company and in my department who tried to get by doing the bare minimum. I had very little respect for people like that. I figured that Darrell would make my remaining few years before I retired a lot easier because he was the kind of person that I could give a project to and just watch him run with it. I wouldn't have to constantly look over his shoulder to make sure things were done correctly.

Over several months, my first impressions turned out to be true. I did find myself giving Darrell more and more of the important projects and giving lesser assignments to the guys who'd actually been there longer.

I also noticed that most of the staff had gotten used to Darrell and he fit in well. There were, unfortunately, a few of the older members of the staff that still had issues. Those issues were more and more of a sticking point when it became obvious that Darrell was probably the front runner to replace me despite his lack of seniority. Some of the more small minded members of the staff used everything they could think of to point out why he shouldn't be.

I heard the term age discrimination thrown around. I heard about the fairness of promoting based solely on seniority. Of course, no one mentioned the racial thing, but they also never mentioned the fact that he worked tirelessly and he put forth a great deal of effort towards making every project he did the best it could be when others were simply phoning the jobs in.

At home, things were progressing even better, or so I thought. My daughter, Paige, was about to graduate from college and would be getting married next year in the spring. My son, Bruce, had gone into the air force and was stationed in Japan. According to all of his most recent emails, he too had fallen in love and might be getting hitched if he and his fiancé could leap all of the hurdles for service men who wanted to marry foreign nationals.

My wife, Amanda, had been looking forward to our retirement as eagerly as I had. In fact, she was all set to retire the day that I did, even though she'd only have enough time in on her job for a partial pension.

"Our careers are just that Honey," she always said. "They're OUR careers. We've both been working for the same thing, so we quit at the same time and we travel together and live out our lives together. I know that we probably won't die on the same day, but if you die first; I won't live for much longer."

God, I was such a sucker. When she said things like that, I had no doubt of her love for me. We both thought the exact same thing. Our version of a happy ending in life was for us to be two old people sitting on the porch together watching the sun set both figuratively and literally on our lives together. We wanted to watch our grand kids and tell them about all of the places we'd gone and the things we'd done. Money didn't really matter to us; we just wanted to share the good times in life. That was our version of a happy ending.

So, the day that we had the talk was a shock to me. I'd just come in from a run and Amanda's friend Marge was leaving. I wasn't sure how I felt about Marge. She was okay looking in that slightly chunky suburban wife sort of way. But I just had no feelings one way or the other about her. Some of the things that she said from time to time made me feel weird.

I'd noticed that Amanda was walking around and just hadn't been acting like herself lately and usually it started after a visit from Marge.

"Rence, can we talk?" asked Amanda. She was wringing her hands so I knew that she was nervous about something.

"When was there a time when we couldn't?" I asked.

"Well, this is really different, Honey," she said. "It's about something that you may not like."

I didn't say anything, I just nodded.

"Well," she began. "Right now is a very exciting time in our lives. Everything we've been planning since our twenties is coming true. Our kids are grown and we did a great job with them. We're financially secure and we don't have a lot of debts like some couples. We're blessed. We're about to give ourselves a gift that most people will never have the chance to receive. We're going to spend a few years exploring the world and traveling to places that we've only dreamed of. We'll have time to really see and do anything we have interests in. It's going to be great."

I looked at her strangely. "Isn't that what we wanted?" I asked. "I don't get it. It's what we've talked about for more than twenty years. Have you changed your mind?"

"Of course not, Honey," she said. "That's exactly what I want. I'm looking forward to it. It probably means more to me than it does to you. I just need to be ready for it so I can fully appreciate it."

Again I just looked at her. "So what you're saying is that you want to work for a few years more than we've planned?" I asked.

"No Rence," she snapped. "You're not listening to me. Shit, this is hard. I'd quit working today if I could. You like your job. You love what you do. I just go to work to give me something to do while you aren't home. I get lonely here in the house when you're not around."

"So you want to quit working now so you can be ready?" I asked.

"God damn it Rence, will you listen to me? Don't say a word, just listen!" she snapped. I didn't say a word. I didn't even nod. I just looked at her. She licked her lips and looked at me.

"Rence, I'm forty five years old. You and I have been married since I was twenty. When we first got together, I was almost untouched. Well ... actually except for some kissing and fondling I hadn't done anything sexual with anyone. So anyway, before we go about exploring the world and all of that stuff, I'd like to spend some time exploring myself. There are things about me that I don't really know or understand. So I've just been wondering what it would be like to have sex with someone other than you."

She stopped and looked at me. My face remained neutral. She was wondering whether or not I'd heard her but in actuality, like most engineers, I'd gone into work mode. What engineers basically do is solve problems. We use math and physics and any other required sciences to manipulate the factors in a problem and find a solution. As I sat there and looked at Amanda, trying to get her words straight, my mind was weighing all the factors."

"Marge's husband gave her a few get out of jail free cards," she said. "They give either one of the partners two or three times to just go out and do something. It's a way to try out some things that they may have been wondering about without endangering their marriage. I guess it's more about trust and faith than anything else. He's secure enough in their relationship that he trusts her to try out something so she doesn't go to her grave wondering. He has enough faith in her love for him to know that she's not going to go off and fall in love with some other guy. It has nothing to do with love. It's only sex."

"It wouldn't have anything to do with the way we feel about each other, it would just be exploration," she said. It was so quiet in the house then that you could hear a pin drop. She looked at me nervously. I just stared at her. My mind was working a mile a minute. I knew what was going on. I figured that her stupid friend had put this idea in her head. And I knew that this was serious for us. If I told her she couldn't do it, she'd resent me. I'd be the one who stopped her from having her fun. Or I'd be the asshole who didn't have as much faith in her as her friend's husband did. She'd probably go ahead and do it behind my back.

The one big thought going through my mine then was, "So much for my happy ending."

I knew that no matter how this ended up, Amanda and I would never be the same again. Our marriage was pretty much over. It was just a question of how it would end. I had no intention of spending the rest of my life with anyone who couldn't be faithful to me. The way I saw it, the only thing I could do was use this as a test.

"Rence, you haven't said a word," she said.

"You told me not to," I said.

"Well, what do you think?" she asked. I looked straight at her. I looked at the woman I'd loved for more than twenty fucking years. I knew every line in her face. I knew every stretch mark and pocket of cellulite on her body. I'd dreamed for so long of nothing but spending the rest of my life with this woman. We'd been there for each other through thick and thin. Through times of hardship and sorrow, we'd supported each other and shared our dreams. We'd raised our kids together and put up a united front to make sure that they turned out right and strong and independent. I guess I'd come to believe all the shit that we said about the two of us being one. I had to wrap my head around the possibility that we wouldn't be that way any longer. This was a crossroads for us, our family and our marriage. I realized it even if she didn't.

"Do it," I said.

"What?" she said.