Saturday 5th May 2018
What the hell were Charlotte and Jill doing sitting in Callan’s car at one a.m. in the morning? And what the hell were they talking about?
As I stood staring through the misted windows of Callan’s car, it was Charlotte who spotted me first as our front door opens out onto the passenger’s side and so Jill hadn’t seen my approach. Before she’d spotted me, Charlotte had been in a heated discussion about something with my wife. But the moment she spotted me, Charlotte’s gaze left Jill’s face and looked directly at me, causing Jill to turn and suddenly see me.
Jill looked frightened and scared, as if she wasn’t looking forward to seeing me and talking to me. When I’d first seen Jill in the car, I’d enjoyed a moment of pure euphoria. Thinking I’d lost my wife, suddenly seeing her there sitting back at home gave me feelings I can’t begin to describe. But seeing that frightened and nervous look on her face brought me crashing back to earth, and after such a wonderful high I now found myself like some stunned animal, unsure and not knowing what to do next.
I was just standing there like a lemon looking at Jill’s nervous face when Charlotte suddenly jumped out of the car and headed towards me, her face calmer than Jill’s but still with a mask of anxiety.
She took me by the elbow and gently turned me away from the car, leading me back to the house. I was too shocked to resist, meekly following her guidance as she led me back into the lounge and sat me down, pouring each of us a stiff drink.
The drinks poured, Charlotte sat right next to me on the sofa so that I could feel the warmth of her leg against mine. Her closeness allowing me to see every pore and tiny blemish in her otherwise perfectly made-up face. For what seemed an eternity she looked into my face, nervously rotating her glass as she tried to choose her first words. Her expression changing slightly as she settled on her opening words and gently touched my face.
“Dave, you know how much Jill loves you, right?”
My mouth drier than I could ever remember, my throat strangled like someone suffering an allergic attack, all I could do was dumbly nod my head, winning a small smile of relaxation from Charlotte.
“Good, because I want you to remember that,” she added.
Where the hell was this headed? Why did I need to remember this? What was I about to be hit with that needed the counterweight of remembering how much Jill loved me? I felt like my head was about to explode under the conflicting pressures of wanting to know and at the same time afraid of finally hearing what I feared.
“Dave, I want you to remember that Jill’s just like all us women. However much guys like you and Callan put us on a pedestal, we’re just flesh and blood. We’re not perfect, and we’re certainly not angels. Can you remember that for me, Dave?”
Why was she speaking in such riddles? What the hell was she talking about? Pedestals, angels, flesh and blood. Why couldn’t she stop beating about the bush and put me out of my misery?
Finally, my body allowed me to speak and I managed to whisper a barely audible question. “Charlotte, please just tell me what you’re trying to say. I don’t know how much more of this I can stand. Just put me out of my misery and say whatever you’ve got to say.”
Hearing my words, Charlotte’s expression suddenly changed from one of anxiety to one of pity. Not a good sign, surely. But before I could contemplate why she pitied me, she grasped my hand and continued with what she had to tell me.
“Dave, Jill loves you more than you’ll ever know. But she’s only a flesh and blood woman. And just like you and me, sometimes she’s weak and makes mistakes. Does things she later regrets. If you love her like I know you do, I hope you’ll forgive her for what happened earlier tonight. For what she did and said earlier tonight.”
Still holding my hand, Charlotte paused at this point. Waiting to see my reaction. Waiting to hear my response.
I really didn’t know what it was I was being asked to forgive her for. But a sixth sense told me to stay quiet, rather than confess my ignorance. Or at least to play dumb so I could find out more. All those hours of boring HR training about coaching and asking open questions finally paid dividends, as I hid my lack of understanding behind one simple question.
“Okay, Charlotte. But I want to hear it in your words, in Jill’s words.”
Charlotte grimaced, her eyes suddenly filled with hesitation and reluctance before a steeliness seemed to enter her soul as she prepared to talk to me about the thing she was so desperately avoiding tackling head-on.
“Okay, Dave. I guess I get it. Even after watching that damned video, I guess you deserve to hear things from Jill herself.”
Charlotte got up, her hand momentarily still on my shoulder. “Wait there, Dave, honey. While I go and get Jill. She can tell you in her own words.”
As she headed to the door, under her breath I could hear her cursing. “Damned fool, why did Chris forget the video was on all that time. Frickin’ idiot. And to think they let him run factories.”
As Charlotte’s words sank in, it suddenly dawned on me that Jill, Chris and Charlotte all thought that I’d heard and seen probably a lot more than I’d actually done. I’d only seen and listened to about an hour or so of the video, whereas Jill had been away from our home and with Chris since the morning, only returning after midnight. Who knows what had been said or done in that time? But it obviously included things that Charlotte and Jill were extremely nervous about me knowing. And how I might feel and react.
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Jill looked incredibly sheepish as she entered our lounge. Not surprisingly entering by herself, her best friend correctly feeling this was a moment only to be shared between husband and wife.
Jill’s eyes were cast downwards towards the floor, unable and unwilling to make eye contact with me. Her shoulders hunched as physical evidence of how she felt, so different from the woman I’d seen on the video just minutes earlier.
Seeing the woman I loved looking so downtrodden and emotionally bedraggled, I was emotionally pulled in so many different directions. Red anger burning bright just below the surface, for all the things Jill had put me through these last few hours. But also empathy and pity at seeing just how spent and helpless the woman who I loved beyond measure now looked.
Seeing the person I’d shared my very life and heart with these last twenty years looking so bereft and in need of a friend, I temporarily put my anger and temper on hold. There would be time for that later, so instead, I opened my arms wide in a gesture Jill couldn’t fail to understand.
The flood gates opened. Before she’d reached the safety and harbor of my enveloping arms, she was a sobbing mess. Voice wailing, tears streaming, trying to make sounds but none of her words understandable. All I could do was pull her closer, hold her tighter, feeling the rise and fall of her sobbing ribs and the wetness of her tears on my cheek. I held her so tight and close, never wanting to let her go ever again. Remembering the similar feeling from when I’d held one of our three tight when they were younger, some event trivial to an adult but world-ending to a child, needing the reassurance of parental envelopment.
Jill’s sobs and tears went on and on, with a mean and still angry part of me happy that she was feeling so shit terrible. Payback’s an ugly word, but that’s pretty much how I felt. Sharing Jill’s pain and hating that she was hurting, yet at the same time glad she was feeling just a little of the hell she’d put me through tonight.
Finally, the torrent of tears slowed to a trickle. Gradually the frequent spasms of a sobbing chest slowed to a more manageable pace. And finally Jill turned her face towards mine and was able to utter a few words that I could actually understand.
“I’m so, so sorry, honey. Can you ever forgive me? All those things I said. All those things Chris and I talked about. I never meant for you to hear any of them. I never meant any of them. I just got carried away with the moment. A weak and stupid woman. Thinking the grass is greener. Forgetting what a wonderful and loving man I had waiting for me at home. Forgetting that nothing Chris could offer me would ever replace what you and I have. Please, please find it in your heart to forgive me.”
All through this desperate little speech of hers, Jill’s eyes had been locked laser-like onto mine. Her eyes filled with emotion and using every ounce of energy and every memory of twenty years together to beg and implore me to forgive her.
However much I was angry and hurting, I knew I wasn’t about to throw away the love and the woman who was the bedrock of my life. I knew I’d find the time and the place to deal with the anger and hurt, but this wasn’t the moment. Instead, I looked into those beautiful hazel eyes and without speaking gave Jill the answer she desperately needed.
For long moments I just looked deep into her soul, feeling her pain and regret, letting her know I was hurt and angry but that I forgave her and that we’d get passed this thing.
Reading and feeling my response, slowly I could feel the tension and stress ebbing out of Jill’s body, and I gave her the softest of kisses on her soft red lips. A kiss of real love and partnership, rather than a sexual kiss, winning the tiniest of smiles from this frightened and distraught woman.
“Jill, you put me through hell. When you didn’t come home, and then when I heard you and Chris talking on that video, I thought I’d lost you. I thought you were leaving me for him. Can you even begin to imagine how that made me feel? It felt like you’d ripped my heart and were stomping all over it. That’s what you did to me, Jill,” my last sentence ending with an explosion of pain and anger at what Jill had put me through.
Hearing my heartfelt words and seeing my haunted, pained look Jill started biting her bottom lip, her face pained at she just started to understand a tiny fraction of the pain she’d caused me. Just about able to hold her tears back, she mumbled another abject apology. “I’m so, so sorry, darling. I’ve been so stupid. I don’t deserve you, honey. I’d understand if you never wanted to see me or speak to me ever again.” Her face full of guilt and pain at what she’d cost me these last few hours.
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Despite the early hour and the sapping effects of what we’d been through, Jill and stayed up for another hour or two. Chewing over everything and trying to take the first tiny steps towards putting things right. Before eventually tiredness got the better of us and we gave in to the lack of energy.
We woke just before noon and after a hearty and much needed restorative breakfast, we continued where we’d left off the night before.
Having got my wife back and with my hellish ordeal a few hours further in the past, the edge had been taken off my temper. I was still hurt and angry, but my temper was under control. I was under control. Determined to control and guide things to repair the damage and build for the future. Rather than to just vent and shout so I felt better in the here and now.
Jill looked better than last night, but she still looked and sounded nervous as she told me that she wanted to tell me everything that had happened the night before. I don’t know why, but I felt honor-bound to tell her that the video had ended after about an hour.
“Jill, before you carry on, I want to be totally honest with you about something. I get the impression that you think I saw and heard everything that happened between you and Chris last night. And before you carry on, you have to know something. I only saw about the first hour of you and Chris together. When the two of you were together in bed. And then later, when he was telling you how you and I had had a great twenty years together, but that he could offer you a better next twenty years with him …”
I didn’t mean for it to sound catty and mean. I was just trying to describe as helpfully as I could where the video ended. But the instant the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them, seeing the pained look on Jill’s face and the way she winced at the memory of the night before and how she’d hurt and betrayed me.
For several moments the wind had been knocked out of her sails and she couldn’t speak, what she’d been about to say temporarily forgotten. But still looking hurt and confused, she eventually gathered herself and spoke.
“Dave, honey. I’m not going to say sorry again. I am sorry, but I’ve said it enough,” she told me, looking at me for my reaction. “But what I am going to tell you is everything that happened last night. Even after you stopped watching the video. Because if we’re to get past this thing and move forward, there can’t be any secrets between us. For better or for worse, you have to know everything. Everything that happened, as well as how bad and stupid I feel about it all.”
It was my turn to wince and grimace. A big part of me wondering whether or not I had the strength to hear what Jill might tell me, and whether these things were maybe best left unsaid. But deep down I knew that the beautiful woman sitting opposite me was right. And deep down I also knew that however painful it might be for me to hear what she was about to confess, I’d almost certainly forgive her. Forgiveness borne of a deep and foundational love I felt for her, rooted in my inability to imagine a life without the woman who sat opposite me. The woman I thought I’d lost, but who by some miracle was still sitting with me in our family home.
“Okay,” was just about the only thing I could summon the strength to say. As I buckled up for the ride. Wondering what Jill was so nervous about telling me. What could be worse than what had I already seen and heard the night before?
I was about to find out, because after a long pause as she screwed up her courage, Jill just came out with it. Blurting out what she and Charlotte and had been so worried about me finding out.
She looked me in the eye, desperation etched on every muscle of her face as she said it. “I told him I’d go with him. I told him I’d leave you, leave our home to go with him to California.”
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The next few seconds were amongst the worst of my life. Had I been suckered in? Had I just accepted Jill back into my heart and our home, only to find it had been a farewell night we’d spent together, and in the morning she’d be off to California with her handsome boss? Had I totally misread the situation? Or maybe she and Charlotte had intentionally misled me to give my wife some farewell closure?
Jill obviously saw my look of terrified panic and moved as quickly as she could to make things better.
“I’m so sorry, honey. I was being stupid. I was caught up in the moment, pulled in by Chris’s seductive words and what he said we could have. And what he said about you and Gemma. And how Gemma needs you, and that it’s all for the best.”
Jill’s words didn’t bring me much comfort, and finally, with a rising tide of panic I just about managed to squeeze some words out of my mouth. “Jill, what are you saying? Are you leaving me? Is that what you’re saying? You’re leaving me to be with Chris?”
The next look I saw on Jill’s face told me everything I needed to know. Her face was a perfect picture of horror. Horror that somehow she had led me to believe this. To believe that she was leaving me for Chris. Moving to the other side of the country to be with the exciting new man in her life.
“No! No, honey! That’s not what I’m saying. It breaks my heart to have to confess that yes, I did say that. That I was stupid and selfish and said a terrible thing. But what I’m telling you is that I came to my senses and realized I’d be making a terrible mistake. Throwing away the wonderful love and life we’ve built together. Throwing away the love of the only man who really loves me in the way that I want to be loved. The man who’s my other half, my soul mate and life partner.”
Jill’s words had run out of her as one single, urgent torrent, desperate to put right the misunderstanding I’d reached, but even she had to finally pause to take a breath, looking deep into my eyes to see whether she’d managed to repair the damage. To reassure me that she wasn’t leaving me for Chris.
It was a measure of what a torrid last twenty-four hours I’d had that my brain bypassed the stiletto blade of Jill’s confession, focusing only on her reassuring words that she wasn’t leaving me for Chris. That she’d realized the error of her ways and that she only wanted to be here with me, not with him on the other side of the country.
I’d been through so much that hearing her words that she was here to stay caused a huge outpouring of emotional energy, like air escaping from a punctured balloon, as I sensed that my suffering was finally coming to an end. Maybe not coming to an end, but at least entering a more manageable phase. Where, reassured that Jill would be by my side and had resisted the blandishments of Chris, I could cope with the aftermath and the conversations Jill and I had to have.
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As you can imagine, Jill and I did indeed have many conversations about Chris and her and what had happened during that day. The conversations were difficult and hard for both of us. It’s no exaggeration to say that over the next few days and weeks Jill and I experienced several watershed moments, as our conversations roamed far and wide.
Now that I was safe in the knowledge that Jill hadn’t decided to leave me, there were several big questions that I needed answers to if I was to retain my sanity. Of course, number one was why Jill had even for a moment agreed to leave me and move away to live with Chris. When I pressed her on this I reminded her of all the things she’d said back in England. Of how she’d told both Chris and me several times that she’d never leave me for him.
At first, Jill struggled to answer this question. Because she was embarrassed to tell me why and also worried that her explanation would hurt me even more than I’d already been hurt. But I pushed and when Jill realized that I wouldn’t give up until she answered and answered honestly, she forced herself to say out loud the truth.
Saying this out loud being difficult and painful for her to say nearly as much as it was for me to hear it. As she confessed that the idea of the excitement and adrenaline rush of waking up every morning next to Chris and building a new life with him was incredibly enticing and exciting. Especially when placed next to the alternative, of never seeing Chris again. Of never feeling his lips on hers again, or feeling his hard muscular body between her thighs and accepting his thick, probing manhood into the very depths of her body.
Hearing these words was incredibly hard for me, and I reacted with more than a little temper. Just for a moment, Jill’s own temper flared, before she caught it and brought it back under control. Counting to five before she held my hand and calmly spoke. “Dave, honey. I love you, baby. And I chose you. And your too smart to ignore the truth in what I’m saying. And to realize that while I’m the one saying sorry here and feeling like shit, you and me both share some of the blame.”
I was about to flare up again and vent, but deep down I knew exactly what Jill was driving at, and I contented myself with pulling a face but saying nothing in response as she continued.
“Dave, honey, remember I chose you. Chris is the one who’s on his own right now, while you and me are here in our home after I realized how stupid I was being. And the reason I was so stupid and imagined another life for even just a few moments shouldn’t come as any surprise to you, baby. I’ve never hidden from you how much I loved Chris, and how much in love I was with him. And you even said that this and the danger excited you in some strange way. And I’m not excusing my actions, darling, I’m just asking you to not be so surprised. This was a game we both agreed to play and wanted to play. And it was a game that we both knew could be dangerous.”
Jill looked at me, the strong and smart woman I loved returned, gently but firmly letting me know that however badly she felt about this thing she was at the point she was going to stop apologizing until I owned up and took part of the blame.
Returning her look, staring into those intelligent and loving hazel eyes, I knew what she was saying was true and that I need to hold my hand up. Hold it up at least a little. I smiled a wan half-smile, trying to convey how I felt and that I got it. Only one word would come out. “I guess.”
One of the other big things that was gnawing away at my brain and my self-confidence was the way that when Chris was trying to persuade Jill of the exciting future they could have together, he kept mentioning how Jill had felt when she and Callan had been dating. Rather than the more logical reference to how Jill had felt when she and I were first dating. Like me an engineer, Chris was too logical a guy to have just pulled this out of thin air. Especially when he was using every trick in the book and every smart he had to try and persuade Jill to leave me for a life with him in California.
When I put this to Jill, her immediate guilty look told me there was something she wasn’t telling me. Something she was embarrassed to let me know.
I left the question hanging there for some time. Refusing to help Jill out or backpedal. Just staring at her as she looked down at the ground.
When she finally did look up and meet my eyes, there was a steely determination hidden behind a soft, sympathetic mask. With a slight firmness and hardness to her voice when she finally spoke.
“Dave, darling. You’re the man that I married. The man who is the father of my children. The man I want to grow old with. You need to remember that when I answer your question. The question that you insist on me answering.”
Then she paused before continuing. “Honey, love comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s not always flashing stars and big neon lights. Sometimes it’s a slower, more gradual, more fulfilling thing.”
Intuitively I knew where this was heading. From what Jill had just said to soften me up and from the words that Chris had said to her about her and Callan. But even if I knew what Jill was about to say, it didn’t make it any easier to hear the actual words. From the woman I’d loved and shared my life with these last twenty plus years.
“Honey, you’re the rock of my life. My Northern Star, the Alpha and Omega in my life. That’s why I’m here, not in California with Chris. But if I’m totally honest, I have to admit that our love has always been a slow-burn thing for me. Not the kind of swooning, schoolgirl crush kind of thing that I felt for Callan when I met him and dated him.”
Deep down what Jill was telling me wasn’t a surprise. I’d always known that if life was some kind of dating reality TV-show, I’d be lucky to make the cast and certainly lucky to make it past week two. Whereas people like Jill, Callan and Chris had ‘finalist’ written all over them from the get-go.
But still, hearing your own wife say these things our loud hurt. But even as Jill held my gaze and lovingly looked at me to try and soften the blow, there was a strange masochistic pleasure bubbling away deep somewhere inside my very soul. Deep within a place I didn’t want to shine a light on or even acknowledge it’s existence.
Jill seemed to sense the change in my mood, the acceptance and lessening of my anger and pain. Squeezing my hand, and reminding me with words that had become her go-to mantra during many of these discussions.
“But remember, honey. You’re the one I’m here with. And I intend to stay right here by your side, enjoying our grandchild together and carrying on with the wonderful life we have.”
As Jill said this, for some strange reason my brain wondered whether this was the moment when I should finally unburden myself of a secret I’d been keeping from her since the very first weeks we’d been dating. In some ways, it seemed the perfect time. Jill was getting everything out in the open, and I had the moral high ground in a way that would never be more perfect for me. More perfect for me to confess what I’d done all those years ago, and since then never found the courage to confess to Jill.
Just for a moment, I started, but I bottled it. Telling myself that it was well over twenty years ago, and anyway it was only a little thing. Something I could maybe pretend was just a failure of memory. Convincing myself that we had enough to deal with without adding any more issues to our relationship and marital in-tray. So I pushed it back into the back of my mind. Hoping it would gather dust there for another twenty years or so.
Throughout the rest of May and into early June there were many other conversations like the ones about Callan and why Jill had even for a fleeting moment agreed to up-sticks and leave me for a life in California with Chris.
But gradually, as the days and weeks passed our life and marriage seemed to slowly mend and settle back into some kind of normalcy and equilibrium. Rather than me talk you through the rest of May, it only seems fair that I let Jill have a chance to share some part of her side of the story of our lives back in May 2018.
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Thanks, Dave, honey. And thanks for doing your best to not make me out to be a total bitch. Making me out to be some latter-day wicked witch of the East. For at least trying your best to include my side of things. Because while I feel guilty and terrible about how I behaved on that Friday with Chris, what I shared about how I felt about Chris is right. Even as Dave sent me off for that last ‘farewell’ day with Chris, both he and I knew how deep my feelings for Chris ran. How much I loved him and how deeply in love with him I was. I think it’s fair to say that both of us were fools that night. I’m happy to hold up my hand and take the bigger part of the blame, but my loving husband Dave can’t escape the blame entirely.
Dave has already described pretty fully how I felt both on the day I was with Chris and also in the days afterward as Dave and I tried to put things back together. I can’t really offer any excuses or justification, save to say that women in love have been doing crazy, irrational things since we climbed out of the primordial soup. And let’s not pretend that the other half of the human species isn’t exactly renowned for behaving rationally when it comes to matters of the heart and the fairer sex. What’s the phrase? Just following my dick? Never a truer word ….
What Dave didn’t share was how I came to change my mind on that fateful day and night I spent at Chris’s. And it scares me to admit it, but it was someone else’s doing that caused me to change my mind. It was a call from my best friend Charlotte, who knew where I’d gone and why. Having nearly thrown away her own marriage, and knowing full well just how much in love with Chris I was, maybe it wasn’t totally surprising that she called me on Friday night to see how things were going.
The moment I heard her voice, it somehow pricked the bubble of make-believe that Chris had managed to weave with his persuasive words. Somehow he’d painted a picture of our exciting new life together and even persuaded me that it was for the best in terms of Dave and Gemma. That they’d both thank me for my decision.
But simply hearing Charlotte’s voice, where I’d only heard Chris and my voice all day, slowly started raising the curtain on the little fantasy world Chris and I had built that day. Shining the light into the imaginary world we’d built, making me realize it was all a pipedream. An exciting, enticing and wonderful pipedream. Better than the painful prospect of never seeing Chris again, but nonetheless a pipedream. Something that would crush the hearts and worlds of everyone I loved and held dear. And in the process crush my own heart.
The realization had started to dawn on me within moments of taking Charlotte’s call. And when she asked me the supposedly simple and harmless question of what time I was going home, the deathly lack of response from me must have set her alarms bells jangling.
What followed was a long and difficult conversation, which I took in the privacy of the bathroom, as Charlotte mixed stern big sister with loving maternal figure. By turns consoling and trying to understand me, by turns simply telling me not to be so damned stupid.
It was exactly what I needed to hear from my best friend and within minutes she was saying that she was coming over there to collect me and bring me home, and that she wouldn’t take no for answer.
In truth, although I knew I had a terrible scene with Chris to now look forward to, I was glad that someone else was seemingly taking the decision for me. Maybe that’s not right, but knowing that Charlotte was on her way and would be there to help me made a huge difference.
Of course, Chris didn’t give up without a fight. Trying his best to persuade me that both Charlotte and I were wrong. That I owed it to myself to go with the man who I was in love with, who could offer me a more exciting and happier future. By this time he wasn’t just speaking to me, he was also talking to my temporary big sister. He was smart enough not to get aggressive or overbearing, but his impassioned pleas didn’t work. Of course, I was still tempted, my heart filled with a sadness and emptiness that I’d not be with or see Chris again. But this sadness was more than offset by a determination and realization that I didn’t want to destroy Dave and my family. Breaking all of their hearts and shattering my own into the bargain.
So that’s the story of how Dave came to find me sitting in Callan’s car in our front drive. As Charlotte’s own car was in the shop and as she and Callan were back together she was temporarily using his car.
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Dave found me sitting like that in Callan’s car on the first Saturday in May last year. And like Dave said, it took many conversations over many days and weeks before he and I felt that things were finally moving back to a safer and happier place.
Of course, I’m not going to lie and pretend I didn’t miss Chris. All parts of my relationship with him – emotional and sexual. But the near-death experience I’d had with my marriage acted as some kind of inoculation or pain-killer, numbing the worst of my sadness and sense of missing Chris.
Dave and I had learned the lesson that we needed to be totally open with each other and so I was open with him about how I was missing Chris. And knowing this we redoubled our efforts to do more things together. Both inside and outside of the bedroom. And this did help a lot, with both of us admitting that as we’d nearly lost each other, there was a new urgency and sense of pleasure and love we felt in each other’s company. A little like appreciating someone who’s just come back from the dead.
And so Dave and I looked forward to enjoying a quieter summer, the quiet after the storm, determined to live a quieter life as we mentally prepared for our switch from being parents to being parents and grandparents.
(Thanks to cbears52 for kindly and carefully editing.)
