Chapter 12: A Breakthrough

The summer came and went. I was busy on my trips ... mostly tours of four to six days. Six days or forty-five hours was the maximum I was allowed to drive before I had to be relieved. I worked as a relief driver a couple of times, but most of my trips started and ended here in Louisville.

We took the kids to see both sets of grandparents on my vacation. I was really surprised when Christie agreed to come along. I didn't expect that, but I was grateful she did. She was always good company and she helped with the children, so it worked out really well. I hadn't been back to St. Cloud for some years and I was surprised at all the changes that had taken place since I'd left for the big city of Minneapolis, and now Louisville. Minnesota is a pretty state, especially in the summertime, and I missed the seasons that were less evident in Kentucky. When I thought about it though, I didn't miss the winters.

I had traded in the Outback for a two-year-old Dodge Durango with seating for six comfortably and seven in a pinch. I only needed five spaces, so it was plenty big enough. The V-6 wasn't a gas guzzler and it looked like the vehicle had been kept in good shape. Just to be sure, I asked Seth Miller, our head of maintenance, to give it a once over and he pronounced it to be in good shape. No more trying to squeeze five of us into the Subaru on a long trip.

Christie had begun to enhance her computer skills to add some other services to her billing business. She had taken distance learning courses at the University of Louisville. She saw a need for someone who could help small businesses with their computer programs, keeping them updated and functioning efficiently. She had done something like this at her old job and was canvassing some of her billing customers to see what their needs might be.

"I'm encouraged, Doug. I think I can help some of these people and make a little more income while I'm at it. It's worth a try, anyway."

"I agree. I'm pretty hopeless on computers, but Bill and Debbie are really good and I get the feeling Sandy won't be far behind them in a few years. They are making me feel obsolete," I moaned.

"Don't let it bother you, Doug. You are really good at a lot of other things. Kids naturally gravitate to the latest and greatest gizmos. I only learned because it was part of my job. Otherwise I'd be as far behind as you think you are."

I laughed. "So, what are the other things that I'm really good at ... besides being a bus driver?"

She blushed and stammered. "Well, uh, you are a great father. Those three children are proof of that."

"Thanks ... that's nice to hear, even though Diane should take most of the credit," I said, meaning it.

"You run a mean barbeque," she giggled.

"Okay ... I can accept that." I wasn't about to let her off the hook.

"Uhhm ... you always look ... neat. Even when you aren't in uniform, you look ... neat ... handsome. Women notice things like that."

"Well, now I'm flattered. Thank you," I smiled. "Anything else?" I probed.

"Uhhm ... well ... it's too personal."

"What's too personal?"

"No ... I don't want to go there," she said, looking away from me.

"Come on, Christie. Don't tease me like that."

She looked at me long and hard. "Diane told me you are, and I quote, 'Dynamite in bed, '" she finally managed.

Now it was my turn to blush and look away.

"I guess I asked for that, didn't I?"

"Sorry, Doug. I didn't mean to embarrass you. I should have just kept my big mouth shut."

"It's okay, Christie. It's not like it's a slam on me or anything. I guess if I was the bragging type, I'd be letting all my pals know she thought that."

She nodded with a wrinkled smile. "I was always envious of Diane. I mean, even before I met you, she was such a 'together' woman. Then, when you came here and the two of you got back together, I could see what she had that I didn't have. I kept comparing you to Paul and he came out on the short end every time."

"The short end?" I repeated with a raised eyebrow.

"You know what I mean," she giggled, now a bit flustered.

The conversations had meandered into the personal and I was having a bit of harmless fun with Christie, or so I thought.

When I looked over at her, I could see tears forming and I wondered if I had pushed her too far. I reached out for her hand and took it in mine, holding it gently. I got a light squeeze in return.

"I'm sorry if I upset you," I said quietly.

She shook her head. "No ... you didn't. Just ... I don't know where my life is going any more. I'm thirty-one and single again. I wanted children and a family and the only chance I've got is slipping away. I can't tell you how important it's been to be here, Doug. But ... they are your children, not mine. I love them, but someday I wanted to have one of my own. I know it's not too late, but I don't even have a boyfriend, much less a possible husband candidate."

"Christie, you are a very attractive woman in the prime of your life. You have got to get out and socialize if you want to find a future husband. You can't do it in that basement suite and you can't do it looking after the children every day. You have to have some private time to yourself. You should make contact with your old girlfriends and get out of here for a while. It will do you the world of good," I preached.

She looked at me with a tearful smile and nodded. She wasn't arguing my point. But who was I to talk. Diane had been gone six months and I hadn't even thought about going out on a date. I was still grieving for her, but each day that passed made it easier to deal with her loss. I don't think I'd ever forget her, but I knew now that it would get easier to think about someone else. But like Christie, I hadn't even made an attempt.

She must have taken my suggestion to heart because the middle of the next week she let me know she was going out to dinner with some of her former workmates. It was a Wednesday evening and I told her to have a good time as she stepped out of the door and got into a car I didn't recognize. Good. She wasn't driving and she could let loose a bit and have some fun.

I heard her come in just after eleven and quietly head down to her suite. I'd gone to bed an hour earlier, but for some reason I didn't immediately fall asleep as would normally have been the case. Stupid! I was acting like it was Debbie out on a date with an unknown boyfriend and not a grown woman with her female friends. I dropped off to sleep immediately afterward.

That week set a pattern. When I was home during the week, Christie would arrange to meet with some of her friends in the evening, sometimes for dinner and sometimes for drinks and dancing, she said. She asked permission to hire Juliet when I was on the road so that she could go out one night and I got a little irritated with her.

"Of course you can," I said immediately when she asked. "Except, I will pay Juliet, not you."

We argued about that, but I put my foot down and she reluctantly agreed. I knew she wouldn't take advantage of the situation or me, so it was a small gift that I could give her to help her get back into the dating mainstream.

The once-a-week pattern continued through October and November until one night I heard a car drive up and both doors close. Christie didn't come in the front door, so I assumed she came in the private basement entrance. That was something different, but I really didn't dwell on it and I was soon asleep.

The next morning, I walked into the kitchen and found the door to her suite was closed and, I suspected, locked. It took me a moment to put two and two together and realize she had a visitor last night. I can't explain just how that made me feel. I was glad she might have developed a relationship with some guy, but the inference was that she might have been intimate with him. That upset me for some reason. Was I being over-protective? Again, the parallel with Debbie came to mind and I dismissed it. It wasn't the same at all.

Debbie was dating now. I wanted her to hold off until her sixteenth birthday for some reason. I'm not sure just what that date was supposed to symbolize, but I wasn't going to say no as long as I got a look and a hello from any boy she was with. Debbie was good about it, considering most of her school friends were already dating and she was aware some of them had been sexually active as well.

"I'm going to have a conversation with her," Christie told me one morning. "She's growing up fast and there's plenty of peer pressure at her age to be one of the gang. I won't tell her she can't, Doug, but I will tell her what she should or shouldn't do. I know you don't want to clamp a lid on her social life, but she needs to know what the boundaries are and that's up to you. I'll simply be the voice of a woman instead of a dad."

"Thank you, Christie. I've been dreading this moment. I don't know how I would have handled it, but I'd probably make a mess of it. Even at my age, women are still a mystery to me."

She laughed. "I've heard that line before. I know Debbie well enough that I can do it and not be too hard on her. I do have a suggestion though, and you might not like it at all."

"Go ahead," I said, wondering what this was about.

"I suggest she see her doctor with a note from you asking that she be put on birth control."

"Oh," I said, feeling the air go out of me. "I wasn't expecting that."

I must have sat there for some time trying to grasp what Christie was suggesting.

"Do you think she'll want to ... I mean ... will that mean ... oh damn? Is it going to tell her that it's okay? Sex, I mean?"

Christie was shaking her head, but not smiling. "No, Doug. That's what my talk with her will be about. I don't know about you, but at her age, I was pretty ... adventuresome. I mean, I lost my virginity even before my sixteenth birthday. I didn't intend to and I had promised myself I wouldn't, but I did. I had the best of intentions, but when raging hormones meet raging hormones, anything can happen. I just want her to be protected."