Divorced in Danville

by E. M. Sadler

  Arriving late on Friday night, we quickly set the kids up in the spare room of the lean-to and Mandy in our bedroom in the hopes that they would fall asleep quickly and Dale and I could maybe have a go in the bathroom. Unfortunately, Mandy's four-year molars decided to present themselves two years early, so she kept us up. All. Night. Long.

  Thankfully, Dale had the patience of Job and took turns with me rocking her so that we could both get a few hours of sleep in between. When he first offered, I was worried that he would end up losing his cool 30 minutes into Mandy's crying like Geoff always used to, but instead, when my mom radar woke me 30 minutes after Mandy's latest cryfest, I found Dale singing Ride Like the Wind by Christopher Cross to an already dozing Mandy.

  The next time I awoke wasn't until 6:00 am, when I found Mandy sleeping peacefully in her pack n play and Dale snuggled up beside me. He must have been up with her for hours. Dale’s willingness to help me with my screaming toddler had left me so touched, that I had to take a moment to myself in the bathroom to get my emotions under control.

  Usually, I tried not to dwell on the many issues Geoff and I had in our marriage, but childcare was always one of the things that he saw as solely my job. In the first four years of us being parents, he only helped with nighttime issues maybe 20 times total. Not even after both girls went weeks without sleeping from colic and acid reflux, would he feel compelled to help me more than once or twice without consequence.

  His excuse had always been, "Well honey you know how I am if I don't get at least eight hours of sleep." To rub salt in my already festering wounds, Geoff would even take naps on the weekend, while denying my pleas for my own naps. I would be in tears groveling for a moment to regain my sanity, and he would tell me how selfish I was trying to take away his weekends.

  Weekends, after all, were his time to decompress and when he should be allowed to enjoy time to himself.

  It didn't matter that I had only had four hours of sleep total in two nights, it didn't matter that I was crying for hours from sleep deprivation. Geoff wouldn't help, and it had crushed me and ultimately been another reason for our marriage's destruction.

  Five minutes into my meltdown, Dale knocked on the door to make sure I was okay.

  "Hey Baby, can I come in for a second?" Quickly wiping the washcloth over my face to play off my blotchiness as being freshly washed, I open the door to a very concerned Dale Wilson.

  "What's wrong? Does Mandy need me?" I asked beginning to panic.

  Instead, Dale walked into the bathroom and closed the door. "The kids are fine. I heard you crying in here and had to make sure you were okay," he said before cupping my face in his hands.

  This small sweet action proved to be my undoing, and fresh tears began to pour down my face. Once I had calmed myself, Dale asked with extreme tenderness, "Did I do something wrong?"

  "No! God, no!" How do I tell him this without sounding crazy? "It's just... you helped me with Mandy." Seeing the obvious confusion still on his face, I explained, "Geoff rarely helped me with the girls at night unless it was an extreme circumstance. And when he did, he would usually find a way to make me pay for it. One time he even stopped talking to me or helping with the kids for three days straight because Mandy cried while I was out grocery shopping."

  Feeling spent and abnormally emotional over the night's events, I was surprised that instead of being annoyed, Dale did something that no other man had done for me before. He held me while I cried.

  A few minutes later when we started hearing the kids waking up across the hall, he leaned away to look me in the eye and said, "You are one of the strongest women I know Kelly Jenkins, and Geoff was a fool." Then he kissed me tenderly and whispered, "I'll entertain the kids and feed them, why don't you go back and try to get a couple of hours sleep before we head up to the big house."

  And then Dale Wilson let me sleep for FOUR extra hours.

  Chapter 44 – Dale

  When I found Kelly weeping in the bathroom, I was utterly freaked out. I thought for sure I had done something to upset her, but instead, she told me about her douchebag ex and another way he had manipulated her emotionally. At that moment, I didn't just want to be Kelly's champion; I wanted to make sure she never felt insecure for the rest of our lives.

  Kelly Jenkins wasn't the type of woman to need a man to save her, but even super moms deserved a reprieve from their exhausting schedules. Thus, instead of ranting about Geoff 's douchiness, (which would have been wholly warranted) I gave her a break.

  That's also why I convinced the kids to help me make her a special breakfast so that when we woke her at 10:00 am, she would feel valued. The kids may have made a giant mess in the process, but the look of pure joy radiating from Kelly when she woke to her breakfast caused my heart to jump.

  "Thank you so much guys!" she said to four beaming faces. "You did this for me?"

  "Mommy we made eggs, and toast, and bacon, and pancakes!! Do you like it?" Mazie asked.

  "I do like it. I bet it all tastes delicious."

  "Watch out for the jelly Ms. Kelly. Daddy says it's pumpkin Jelly, but I've never heard of it so it may be yucky," added an enthusiastic Katie.

  "Katie, it is a real thing. I heard Ms. Shawn telling Mazie's grandma that she was going to make some," John retorted in his best smarty-pants voice.

  "All right guys, let's give Ms. Kelly a few minutes to eat her food while we clean up the kitchen," I said to a room full of groaning kids. "The first person to get to the kitchen can throw a pie at my face at the festival tonight." Overwhelmingly excited at the prospect all three of the 5-year-olds raced for the kitchen leaving Kelly with a now dozing Mandy lying beside her.

  "Thank you for this Dale!" Kelly said affectionately while stroking Mandy's hair.

  "Pshaw, it's all part of my master plan to woo you," I said, before giving her a swift kiss on the nose. "Now eat your food, and I'll let you be the first to throw the pie."

  When Terry Sadler asked me to be a part of the throw a pie booth, I was so excited that I'm pretty sure Terry sniffed my coke last night to check for alcohol. But since I was one of the festival's biggest fans, I was all about being a part of the magic that the event brought to the community.

  Each year since 2001 when Terry and Shawn first opened their brewery, they've held their annual Halloween Festival. I think the festival initially became successful because the community was mourning the loss of loved ones during the events of September 11th, and they needed an escape.

  The festival wasn't about haunted houses, even though the haunted hayride was always great fun for the little kids. Instead, it was a tribute to a simpler time when the harvest season was the heart of our rural communities, and people just wanted to enjoy fellowshipping with others.

  And now, I was officially part of the action.

  It turned out that all three kids made it to the kitchen in a tie. So, I ended up buying Kelly and each of the 5-year-olds their own whipped cream pie to throw at my face that night. Because of Kelly's hyper photographic tendencies, the kids would also have plenty of pictures to commemorate the day that they got to throw a pie at my face.

  Sunday morning, we all skipped church to help with the clean up around the farm. The men and I were tasked with taking down the booths and hauling all of the hay bales back to the main barn for winter usage.

  While we were busy in the fields, Kelly took the kids up to the main house to play under the watchful eye of Candace, who she paid to come up for the day while she helped sort through all of the remaining pumpkins.

  Where many pumpkin farms were stuck with the remaining pumpkins for compost every year after Halloween, the Sadlers tried to salvage as many as possible for their various products (i.e., candles, beer, jams, etc.).

  It was quite fascinating how little they wasted.

  Around 4:00 pm we had made a significant enough dent in the festival cleanup that Terry had us call it a day. "Dale, why don't you go clean up and we'll meet up at the house for one of Shawn's
dinners at 5:00 pm?"

  Thankful for the hour to rest and shower, I was happily surprised to find that Kelly had been given the same reprieve. Remembering that Candace had the kids up at the main house, it only took me two seconds before I shed my clothes and surprised a very naked Kelly in the shower.

  "AHHHHH!!!! OH MY GOD DALE WILSON!! You scared the shit out of me!" Kelly yelled while smacking me on the butt with a wet hand.

  "Owe!" I yelled while laughing hysterically at how shaken she was. Unable to resist her, I jumped into the shower and wrapped her in my arms till her body began to relax, and I knew that I had been forgiven.

  "You're a turd!" she said, with a huff.

  "That's okay. You still love me," I said with my cockiest grin.

  "That I do, Dale." Then with sudden seriousness, she locked eyes with me, and my libido went wild.

  The lust that radiated from her had me immediately at attention and us ravishing each other in a very ungraceful and slippery way. But neither of us cared. Today was the first time we'd been truly alone in almost two weeks, and we weren't going to waste it.

  Unfortunately, we were in a tiny bathtub, and unlike the movies, there was no way we were going to be able to get it on in a 3x5 without injuring ourselves. Thus, once things began to escalate, we decided to wash up as quickly as possible and dry the hell off. Laughing at our slapstick attempts to get to the bedroom, we finally found ourselves standing next to the master bed kissing.

  With only 35 minutes till dinner, Kelly and I didn't even bother with foreplay.

  Slamming our faces with the need to consume, within two movements I had her lying under me on the bed. Then I grabbed ahold of her thighs and thrusted into her center with a voracious need to claim what was mine.

  With our bodies held together like unbreakable magnets, we continued thrusting our pelvises together so forcibly that you could hear our bodies thrumming throughout the lean-to. Suddenly, Kelly's walls tensed around me, and her body sucked me in towards her center. With my tip touching her innermost walls, Kelly started convulsing around my cock, and when the tremors exploded, we came together in a series of massive shock waves till we were both completely sated.

  Coming down from our sexual frenzy, I suddenly felt emboldened and decided, To hell with waiting.

  Which was why at that moment, I caressed Kelly's face and asked, "Kelly?"

  "Hmmm?" she replied dreamily.

  "Will you marry me?"

  Chapter 45 – Kelly

  I don't think I heard him correctly. Did he ask me to marry him?

  I must still be in la la land from the world's best orgasm.

  "I'm sorry, what did you ask?"

  "Will you marry me?"

  I didn't even need to think about it. "Yes!"

  "Yes?" he said seeming shocked.

  "Yes! Nothing has felt this right before, so I'm saying, yes." It's true, I have over thought every event and thing in my life and NEVER have I felt that something was as perfect as what we had. "Now Mr. Wilson, I can feel that you are getting ready to retake me, but we do need to get to the main house in the next 15 minutes, and I still need to sneak Mandy's birthday present in without her knowing," I said, before kissing my fiancé thoroughly.

  Hmmm... I liked the sound of that.

  Mandy's birthday was on the coming Thursday, so we were having a quick birthday party for her at the house before heading back home.

  Letting me go reluctantly, we both had the biggest smiles on our faces while we dressed and made quick work of stripping the sheets and packing up the one overnight bag that we had set aside for last-minute clothing changes.

  Before driving his van up the short path to the house, Dale said, "I say we tell them at Thanksgiving so that we don't take away from Mandy's birthday party tonight. After all, having a birthday party fall on your family's biggest day has to stink for a little girl. That, and your mom is in London with Jim, and I think she should be there."

  Completely overcome by his extreme thoughtfulness, I replied, "And this, Dale Wilson, is why you are the love of my life."

  The rest of the evening went perfectly. After a quick family dinner, we surprised little Mandy with her presents and had the kids loaded in the van by 7:30 pm for the hour-long drive home.

  "Overall, I think this weekend was a success," Dale said with a giant smile on his face.

  While I laugh in agreement, I added, "We did pretty well as a group, didn't we?"

  Reaching over to grab my hand, Dale said, "We aren't just a group Kelly, we're a family."

  As beautiful as our October had been, the four weeks leading up to Thanksgiving became a virtual nightmare. Due to work issues, Geoff kept messing with the weekend schedule, and eventually, I had no other choice but to spend Thanksgiving with him instead of my family and Dale if I wanted to continue with Mandy's weaning. (Which was still a work in progress.) Not to mention that I was in the last six weeks of my company's busy season.

  The only positive thing to come from my relocation for Thanksgiving was that I was able to meet with several of my company's Cecil County clients while I was in town at Geoff 's.

  However, by the time the Friday after Thanksgiving arrived, I was in desperate need of a break from Geoff 's constant negativity. As a reprieve, Dale and I had made arrangements to sneak away from our families and meet at the Hilton for a day of sexual gratification.

  Maggie's parents had taken the twins for the weekend, and Geoff was going to take the kids to the zoo, so it was going to be the perfect plan.

  Let me clarify. It WAS going to be the perfect plan.

  Unfortunately, Geoff decided to take a nap right when I was scheduled to leave, which meant that there was no one to watch the girls.

  When I tried to wake him, advising him that I had plans, he said, "You won't leave. I'm napping, and it would be irresponsible for you to leave the girls unattended."

  ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

  I had two choices, send the girls up and let them wake him up, but leave them with a father in a horrible mood that probably wouldn't take them to the zoo. Or give him a nap.

  So, Geoff napped until almost noon.

  As soon as he came down the stairs and the girls attacked him, I told him that I was leaving before he could try to weasel a smoke break out of me.

  He was going to have to figure this out on his own after Mandy weaned anyway.

  Finally, around 12:45 pm, I made it to the Hilton.

  When I walked into our room, I found Dale pacing and irritated. Suddenly my stomach was tied into a million knots, and I readied myself for the emotional punishment I would probably receive for wasting Dale's time.

  Chapter 46 – Dale

  When Kelly didn't show at 10:00 am I began to worry. The roads had been slick when I arrived at 9:00 am, and I knew that Kelly had less of a drive. But when I received her call at 10:30 am explaining that Geoff had usurped her time off for a nap, I became furious.

  I knew that Kelly tried to keep their relationship ripple free for the girls, but after eight years of treating her like crap, he still felt it was his right to dictate her life with his passive aggressive ways.

  Not wanting to upset Kelly or stress her out, I replied with a, "Ok. Keep me updated. Love you. Bye."

  When I wanted to say, "Tell that narcissistic jerk-off to act like an adult and wake his ass up!"

  To blow off steam, I changed into some sweats that I had in the back of my van and decided to hit the hotel's gym so that I could run off my anger towards Geoff. After an hour run, I had finally cooled off enough to go back up to the hotel room and wait for Kelly's return.

  A quick shower and shave later, I was happy to see a text from Kelly.

  Kelly -

  On way. Love you!

  But in the 30 minutes following her text, I had enough time to stew, which only brought back my original ire towards Geoff Jenkins. Pacing the room so that I could be calm and collected for Kelly's arrival I didn't even realize when she had entered the
room.

  Startled by the sound of her car keys being dropped onto the dresser, my jolt of excitement was cut short by the site of my Kelly with a face that said she was bracing for something.

  "What's wrong?" I asked worried that something had happened on her drive over.

  While twisting her hands as she stared down at the carpet Kelly blurted out, "I'm so sorry Dale! I promise there was nothing I could have done. He said that I would be an irresponsible mother if I left the girls before he was rested and I'll do whatever I can to make this up to you. I love you, Dale. Please don't be mad at me."

  Taking a much-needed breath and staring at me hopefully, Kelly looked utterly ripped apart.

  "Kelly, honey! Why are you apologizing to me?" I asked in my calmest voice.

  "Because you're mad at me," Kelly said incredulously. "You seemed so angry when I came in the room."

  Focusing on delivering my words without alarming her, I said, "There is nothing that you have done wrong. I am angry at how Geoff treated you. Kelly, you are my fiancé whom I love, and I'm trying desperately not to go into hero mode and attempt a takeover of the situation."

  "So, I'm not in trouble?" she asked, looking everywhere in the room but me.

  WHAT THE FUCK?

  "Help me understand something. Why are you acting like I'm about to hit you?" Because that was exactly how she was acting. "Have I ever made you feel like you should fear me?"

  "No, of course not! I know you love me," she said, with a little of her confidence coming back.

  "Then why are you so scared right now?"

  Watching her, I could tell she was trying to rationalize her reaction, but I still couldn't help feeling like there was something else that had caused this extreme of a response.

  Geoff!

  "Kelly, has Geoff ever hit you?" Because, if he had ever laid a hand on her, I would not be able to stop myself from punching him in the kidney.