Modern Day Marriage

"How many times did you cheat on him Betty?" asked her father. Everyone around the table looked at her.

"I can't remember," said Betty.

"Try really hard," said her mother. "Give us a fucking number, Betty. You did go to college. It shouldn't be that God damned hard."

"Was it more than 5, Mom?" asked Steven. Betty nodded silently.

"More than 10?" asked Debbie in shock. Betty nodded again.

Kevin took that opportunity to cough. But instead of simply coughing normally, he coughed out, "Whore, whore."

"Was it more than...?" her father began.

"Please stop asking," said Travis. He stood up and everyone around the table could see the tears running down his cheeks. Betty moved to go to him but he held up a hand, warning her to stay away from him.

"Mom and Dad," began Travis. "I'm sorry, I've always called you that because since I've met you, you've been like a second set of parents for me. Thank you for inviting me into your home again. I'm sorry for the way that things turned out and for ruining your holiday."

Everyone could tell that Travis was barely holding himself together. "Steven, I haven't had a chance to discuss your new look with you yet. But son, we need to have a talk."

Steve looked at his father and nodded.

Kevin picked that moment to start laughing. "God damn it. You guys pick the worst women," said Kevin. "Travis married a whore and Steve got stuck with a fake dead girl with no ass and no tits."

Betty's dad took that opportunity to level his pistol at Kevin. "I'm a loser here too, asshole," he said. "I'm losing the wrong son in law. The one I want to see stay in the family is probably going to divorce my daughter. The one I'd want to see divorce my other daughter probably won't. If you keep talking, I may just put us both out of our misery by drilling you another asshole in your forehead."

Kevin looked around and started piling food onto his plate. "It may as well not go to waste," he said.

Anastasia stared laughing at Kevin then.

Travis turned to Melissa and held out his hand. "Time for us to go home Mel," he said.

Over the next week, Betty called Travis repeatedly but to no avail. Travis never answered the phone and finally blocked her calls. They met at her lawyer's office to work out a division of their assets and Betty tried everything she could to stall or put off the proceedings. She insisted on going through counseling. She missed meetings. She made outrageous demands. She wanted a 90/10 split of all of their assets in her favor. She wanted 98 percent of Travis' income for alimony. She knew that no court would ever give it to her, but refusing to back off on it delayed the divorce even further.

Travis and Melissa were happy. Travis saw getting free from Betty as a goal. He kept working towards it and knew that he'd eventually get it. Betty could only delay the divorce. She couldn't prevent it.

Melissa on the other hand was ecstatic. All she'd ever wanted was Travis and now she had him. Her only worry was keeping him happy.

They were at work one morning just after the beginning of the New Year when the police arrived at their office.

They needed Travis to go with them. They didn't say why. Melissa insisted on going with them also. They took Travis to the morgue. They'd told him in an outside office that Betty had been murdered. She'd been strangled in a cheap motel room on New Year's Eve. They suspected that she'd met her killer online. There'd been another rash of women killed by men they'd met on Craigslist.

A few days later, the family gathered to pay their final respects to Betty. Travis despite the way their marriage ended couldn't stop himself from tearing up constantly. Melissa was always by his side, helping him to keep it together.

As the family got together to watch the cremation, no one said a word until Anastasia broke the silence. "What a waste," she said.

"Yeah," agreed Kevin, "She'd still be alive if she could have kept her legs together."

"No," snapped Anastasia. "I meant that if you guys had called me sooner, I could have saved her. I could have turned her. I mean she'd be a vampire like me, but she'd still be with us."

Everyone there, including the mortician presiding over the ceremony looked at Anastasia as if she was crazy.

"Hey Anna," snapped Kevin. "It's barely afternoon and the sun is shining outside. I thought that you vamps couldn't handle the sun."

"I'm not a full vampire yet," snapped Anastasia.

"But you are fully crazy," said Kevin.

Over the months following Betty's death, there were a number of changes in her family. Travis quickly realized that there was no point in mourning Betty forever. He moved on with his life. He moved back into his house and moved Melissa in with him. They were married less than six months later.

The very next Thanksgiving, they all got together again. This time the dinner was at Travis and Melissa's house. Betty and Debbie's parents had to travel a long way to get there. They'd sold their house and bought an RV and had been traveling across the country, enjoying their lives.

Debbie showed up alone and looking good. Melissa had been giving her makeup and styling tips and the two women had become friends. Debbie had divorced Kevin shortly after Betty's death when she caught him cheating on her. Steven was there with his new girlfriend, a really beautiful and very conservative black girl. He wore a long sleeved shirt with a turtleneck sweater. He'd been undergoing laser treatments to remove his tattoos.

Kevin showed up as well. Kevin and his nephew glared at each other the whole time. Travis had to have a talk with them early on to make sure there was no fighting between them. Kevin and his nephew hated each other now. Over the past year there'd been a lot of fights between them. Most of the fights centered on the fact that Kevin had married Anastasia, who still thought she was a vampire.

The end