Chapter 1

Let me tell you how my wife and I met. This story starts 20 years ago but the memory of that day is as fresh today as it was then.

My name is Brian and at the time of this story I was in my early-thirties. I was divorced – my ex and I met and married much too young only later to discover that we really had little in common other than sex so we divorced amicably. I worked from home doing contract work editing technical documents. I'd organized my day so that I would work for several hours in the morning, take a break for a couple of hours and then, in the later part of the afternoon work some more. I lived alone – with the exception that is of my miniature schnauzer named Maxie.

About a year ago, I'd purchased a nice home in a residential neighbourhood, mostly so that I could get a dog for a pet and soon after moving in to the new home, brought Maxie home. The house was on a fairly large lot with no one behind it, just a natural area, and the backyard was fenced all around so I could let Maxie out unattended without worrying about her.

Recently I'd noticed that I was starting to get a bit of a 'middle-aged spread' and decided I needed to start doing some exercise. When I was in high school, I'd been a member of the cross-country running team and had found running quite enjoyable. This seemed like as good an exercise as any so after acquiring some good running gear, I started my new regime. As I mentioned, my house backed up onto an area called a 'green-belt' – an area left mostly natural between two housing areas. Over time the local government had done some improvements in the area including making some packed gravel trails. These were ideal for what I wanted to do so I started using them for my exercise and I soon found a nice route that gave me a good workout.

While I could have simply gone out the back of my yard to get into the green space, much of the area close to my house was fairly dense bush and not easy to push through. In order to properly get to the start of the trail, I needed to go down to the end of my street where there was a lane leading to one of the trails. As I was going back and forth from house to the start of the trail, I often saw a young girl sitting on the steps of one of the houses and it had become habit to wave to her as I went by. After a while, she started to wave back. I'd heard that some of my neighbors wondered about me as I had very few guests and never any parties. I figured that by waving I was at least letting one person in my neighborhood know I was friendly.

One day in early May I didn't see my young neighbor as I started my run but on my return I saw her sitting on the steps, head down in her lap and she appeared to be crying. I paused and wondered if I should stop and say anything. Finally I decided that as a nice neighbor, it would be okay to ask if I could help.

"Hello, there," I said as I approached. "I saw you crying and wondered if there was anything I could do to help you."

She looked up at me, eyes red from crying. "Oh, hi <hic> I'm sorry <hic> I..." and the crying started again.

Hesitantly, I went and sat down beside her. "Why are you so sad? Can I help in any way?" I asked.

She stopped crying and looked at me. "Can you make my mom and dad get back together..." and the tears started again.

I sat and waited for her tears to subside. "Well, that's really not something that I can do I'm afraid." I paused for a bit then continued. "Do you want to talk about it? That might help. I can be a shoulder to cry on if you need one."

The young girl took the last statement to be real, not just metaphorically, and turned and buried her face into my shoulder. I tentatively put my arm around her and held her while she continued to cry. Finally she stopped crying. "Thanks Mr ... Oh I don't even know your name." she said.

"Brian Moore, but just call me Brian," I said. "What's your name?"

She tried to clean the results of her crying off her face then replied "Jordan. Jordan Harrison".

"Well Jordan, I can understand why you're upset. I'm pretty sure I can't get your folks back together but if you want to talk, I can listen."

Jordan looked up at me and smiled a tiny bit. "It's been pretty awful here for a while," she said as she started to tell me about things. "Mom and Dad have been yelling at one another and ... and..." She looked down and started to cry.

I saw she had some tissues on the steps behind her and got one for her. She cleaned her face up again and looked at me. "How come if people are in love, suddenly they're not in love anymore?"

I paused for a second before answering. "Jordan, I was married once but I've been divorced for a few years now. My ex-wife and I met at college and got married shortly after we graduated. We were really too young and, other than sex, there really wasn't much that we shared. Eventually we saw that things weren't working out for us and sat down and decided how to divide the stuff we'd acquired while we were married and quietly got divorced. In our case there was no yelling and screaming – in fact we're still friends. She lives in LA but comes out here two or three times a year and we get together and have a meal and sometimes go dancing. She's remarried and her new husband knows about us and has met me. In fact the last time she came out, they both came and they stayed at my house."

Chapter 2 »