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"Dad, listen to me. I'm sorry to be so direct, but..."

Uh, oh, here it comes.

"I'm sorry to be so short with you. But, you guys are my parents. I love you both, and I'm forever grateful for the wonderful childhood you gave me. I couldn't have asked for a better mom and dad." Her voice was breaking but she continued on. "Your relationship is between the two of you. I will not be involved in any way, shape, or form. The three of us are adults, and I'm sure we will find a way to manage going forward."

She hesitated for a moment. "I plan on spending time with both of you. I expect you guys to act appropriately during future family milestones, of which I am sure there will be many. But, the first time one of you bad mouths the other in my presence, or tries to get me to dish on the other, it will be a long time before you see me again. Are we clear on this?"

"Very clear Torrey. I love you more than life itself. I'm proud of you."

"Huh, I'll be darned, that's exactly what Mom said to me an hour ago when I gave her the same speech." She laughed.

Even though that conversation took place over eighteen months ago, recalling it still brought tears to Craig's eyes. It was a proud parent's prerogative. His nostalgic thoughts were interrupted.

"Hey, pervert, small world, how you doing?"

Craig looked up, and there she was, dressed almost exactly as when he first saw her, and she was holding a drink in her hand, smiling at him. He just gawked at her. She looked even better than the first time he met her.

"Ahem, earth to Craig. Hello, it's getting embarrassing standing here like this."

He snapped back to his senses and jumped to his feet. "I'm sorry, Corrine, please sit. I was just lost in my thoughts. I do that a lot now."

After Corrine had settled into her seat, she looked at Craig's ring finger. Then back at his face. "So she was cheating after all." She spoke joylessly because she took no pleasure in his misery. He was a good guy in a lousy situation. "You want to talk about it?"

Craig didn't know why, but he did. He hadn't talked to anyone about his divorce before, but somehow he thought now was the time. He spoke non-stop for over twenty minutes. Corinne never interrupted but was paying rapt attention.

"So, you still love her, don't you?"

"What the hell kind of question is that? I just spent the last several minutes telling you why I divorced her."

"True, but you never once called her a bitch, or a lying cheating whore. You never bad-mouthed her. It was always Mandie or my wife...You still love her." It was a statement, not a question.

Craig hadn't really thought about that part of it. "Yes, I suppose I still have feelings for her. I mean, you just don't stop caring at the snap of your fingers," he snapped them as he said it. That's when he noticed something. Corrine wasn't wearing her wedding ring, and there was no pale skin where it should have been either.

"He caught you." And he pointed to her ring finger.

Now it was Corrine's turn to be melancholy. "No, I outed myself..."

"Really? I'm surprised, I mean after everything we talked about."

She smiled ruefully. "Yeah, well, a very good friend of mine made me feel guilty about..."

"Shit, I'm so sorry, Corrine, I wasn't trying to..."

She waved at him dismissively. "It wasn't your fault. All you did was open my eyes to the truth of what I was doing. After our meeting, I could never act normal around Tom when I got home from a trip. The guilt was getting to me, I guess. He finally noticed something was off, so he asked me about it." She was shaking her head sadly. "I couldn't lie, so I just told him. Really it was a tremendous weight off my shoulders, but he reacted just like I thought he would. He didn't deserve what I did. He is a nice guy. In a way, you remind me of him." It was obviously emotional for her, but she continued. "It was a funny thing. I know I told you that he wasn't my soul mate when we married? Well, I finally realized that he had become that to me, so I told him. Soul mates don't lie to each other."

"So you are divorced then?"

"No, not yet. We are legally separated and undergoing counseling. I don't think it will help though. He seems so saddened and hopeless during the sessions. He's moved out of the house. He's such a good father to our kids. I know it hurts him tremendously to be separated from his children."

"Well, I hope it all works out for you." He couldn't help but smile. "So, you still love him then."

Corrine snorted. Craig couldn't tell if she was laughing or crying. She just kept her head down, looking at her drink.

They talked for over three more hours, mostly about inconsequential things, because their emotions had become too raw to do otherwise. At the end of the evening, they adjusted their travel schedules so they could run into each other more often.

Craig looked at his watch. It was past midnight. "I'm sorry, Corrine. I didn't mean to take up your entire evening. You must have had other things to do?"

"No, not really. I don't do that anymore, Craig." She said it kind of sheepishly. "I was deluding myself back then. I'm going to do everything in my power to win my family back. So that includes keeping my legs closed. So you're out of luck there cowboy." Her smile was back.

Craig had to laugh. And he shook his head regretfully. "Me too. Just kidding, it's just that the opportunity to do otherwise hasn't presented itself. And now you turn me down? Man, my luck just sucks, doesn't it?"

They laughed and headed in separate directions. Both of them were already looking forward to the next time they could meet and spend more time together.

And they did just that. Over the next several years they would meet up two to three times a year. As expected, Corinne's marriage ended in divorce. She was saddened by that, but she had prepared herself for the worst case. The damage she had caused Tom was just too great for him to overcome. She didn't blame him at all.

Her friendship with Craig, and their lengthy conversations together, helped her cope. At one point they had considered sleeping together. However, they felt that in their lives it wouldn't be hard to find a friend with benefits. In fact, they both had those types of relationships at various times. They laughed that it was much harder to have a friend without benefits, so why ruin a good thing? The truth was they were both rudderless ships adrift in an ocean of loneliness. They found comfort in their fellowship.

On the other hand, Craig and Mandie remained cordial, but only saw each other at family functions they couldn't get themselves out of. When Mandie would spot him at these gatherings, she would always give him a sad smile and look hopeful. But Craig would simply give her a non-committal nod and move on, trying to put distance between them.

********

Many years later, while attending one such function, Craig had an uncomfortable feeling. He couldn't really put his finger on it, but he thought everyone was sneaking looks at him, especially his daughter Torrey. Then he found out why.

"Hi, Craig."

"Mandie."

It was a little unnerving having his ex-wife staring at him, especially since he found himself trapped in a corner. The only way out would have been to go right through Mandie. He could also feel a dozen or so pairs of eyeballs looking his way too.

He just sighed and resigned himself to his fate. He had managed to dodge her all these many years, but now he was trapped. He was only about six months away from retiring and had plans to move to the Valley of the Sun to live out his days golfing and drinking. He didn't need this complication.

"I finally understood why you left me." Just like that. No 'how are you doing' or 'hasn't the weather been nice.' She hit him right between the eyes.

"Yeah?" He was genuinely curious to see if she truly understood.

"It wasn't because I cheated, was it?"

He shook his head no.

"It was because I was never going to tell you, wasn't it?"

He nodded slowly. "How did you come to understand?"

She laughed regretfully. "Several years of therapy. Someone finally was able to get me to understand how terrible those words were. I couldn't believe I was capable of inflicting that depth of torment on someone I loved. We might have been able to get past my affair if I hadn't said that?"

"I don't know if we could have kept it together in the long run, Mandie. But up until you spoke those words, I was still trying to find a way to make us work."

"The sad thing, Craig, was that even after I realized what I had done, I got mad at you for breaking us up over just my words. If you could get past the cheating, why not what I said? How could those silly words have been worse than what I did? I didn't understand it until much too late, I suppose. I kept thinking that if only you hadn't left, I could have convinced you of my love."

"Well, Mandie, the truth is, I never doubted that you loved me. Corrine helped me see that. The truth is, I couldn't get past you destroying my trust and the anguish I felt because of it."

"If you had given me a chance, I know I could have regained your trust..."

"No, Mandie, I don't think you could have." Tom interrupted sharply. "You don't understand how deep the trust I had in you was. Men aren't necessarily the simple creatures pop culture makes us out to be. We have emotions, deep emotions. We live with the constant fear that we won't be good enough, or that somehow we will fail our families. I shared that level of intimacy with you. It was something I would never let another human being see, for fear I would be found out a fraud."

"What are you talking about Craig, you're the strongest person I know?"

"It's mostly an act. A man's inability to let others see his weaknesses is a genetic self-preservation technique. It probably goes back to prehistoric times if a male showed weakness or fear, it could cost him his life."

"That was millions of years ago..."

"Mandie," Craig interrupted. Since I was ten years old, you are the only person I have ever let see me cry. Do you remember when my father died?"

"Of course, but what..."

"What do you remember most about that time?"

She knew the answer right away. "How I held you in my arms as you mourned the loss of your dad. I never felt closer to you in my life."

"No one else saw it, Mandie. I wouldn't let them. I was vulnerable and counted on you to help me through it. I cried in your arms like a baby. I left myself altogether exposed to you. That's how deep the trust was I had in you. If we lived to be a hundred, I could

never let myself be that vulnerable in your presence again. I would be too afraid that you would expose my defenselessness to others.

"Another thing, do you remember all the silly games and other sexual intimacies we shared in bed and other places?"

"Yes, and I miss them terribly..."

"Well, for me the worst part of the cheating was the fear that you would tell your lover about what we did, and laugh together. Even if you didn't laugh at me about it, would you, did you share any of them with him?" Her shoulders sagged and she couldn't make eye contact with him.

"You were the only person in the world with who I shared all my hopes, fears, dreams, and failures. You saw the best and the worst of me. Do you understand now?"

She finally did. And she began to grieve for what she had so casually thrown away. But she was a fighter, and after a protracted silence to find an acceptable outcome, she soldiered on.

"Craig, honey, look at me, please." He did. "I am so sorry for not understanding. But you are wrong about one thing. When you confronted me back then, you said that I was more important to you than you to me. That simply isn't true. I was just too selfish to understand it, but truthfully I needed you, I still need you, much more. I can't go on without you in my life. That's why I'm here begging your forgiveness, and trying to find a way for us to move forward together.

"Listen, let's assume you are right, and that we can never be what we once were. Couldn't we still be good together? Does it have to be an all-or-nothing proposition? Believe me when I tell you that I will take what I can get from you. I know you still care for me..."

"Of course I do, but..."

"Wait, please listen. I'm not naïve enough to be thinking that we could get back together and magically be back to what we were. It's my fault, it is all my fault. I killed a beautiful special thing with my selfishness." Her tears were falling freely now, but she felt hopeful. "We could take it slowly, start out being friends, you know?

"To begin with, I would be happy having you back in my life however minimal it might be. I don't want to only be the person you nod politely to at family functions for the past seventeen years. Ignoring each other is becoming hard work. To me, just going out to dinner together would be a huge step forward. Do you see what I mean?"

"I do understand what you are saying, but..." It was hard for Craig to continue. He had been hiding his emotions away for years. He had finally gotten comfortable with who he was, and now this.

She wasn't however, about to let him run away and hide. She moved closer to him, gently placing her hand on his tightly folded arms. "Craig, maybe I'm being selfish again, but have you really been happy without me in your life?

"Look at us." She waved her arm across the room. "We are here celebrating the birth of our third grandchild, and we are acting like complete strangers. How is that right?"

She began to cry but held fast and continued strong. "Just take me to lunch. Or, if you like, take me somewhere quiet where no one can see or hear us and yell and scream at me. But please, don't ignore me any longer. I'm getting ready to retire soon and I don't want to spend it alone. Do you? It seems like such a waste of precious time."

Craig's mind drifted back to a conversation he had with Corrine. Mandie didn't know it, but several months ago he spent a few days with Corrine and her husband Tom. That's right, her husband. Craig was dumbfounded as he was waiting to meet Corrine in a hotel bar. She walked in, arm in arm, with Tom. They were both wearing their wedding rings.

When Craig got over his shock, he listened to what they had to say. It boiled down to neither of them had found a replacement for the other. They concluded it was because there wasn't a better partner, they belonged together. Then they both laughed and said plus, they didn't want to die alone.

Tom did most of the talking in the first part of the meeting. "Corrine reached out to me. We sat together and really talked for the first time in years. I guess when you get older a lot of things don't matter as much as they used to. The best times of my life were spent with Corrine. And yes, so were the worst. Why were they the worst? Because she meant so much to me. In the end, the good memories outweighed the bad. But in any case, she was a constant in my life." He was emotional as he continued.

"Finally, she asked me what I thought the worst that could happen if we tried again. That really stopped me. What was the worst that could happen? I came to the conclusion that nothing could happen that hadn't before. And I lived through it."

Craig was always a thoughtful man, so Tom's words weren't foreign to him. He understood when you reach your forties, you become aware that someday you will die. But, it is still an abstract concept. When you are in your sixties, death is a matter of fact. It becomes a constant in your decisions and thought processes. What do I want to do with the time I have remaining? You also think about how you can spend more time doing what is important, or enjoyable, as opposed to those that are not. You begin to clear the detritus from your world. Craig was no different than any other sixty-five-year-old. He considered all these things, but as of yet, he had no answers.

Corrine interrupted at this point. "We knew we couldn't go back and be what we once were, so we decided we needed a new paradigm."

Tom quickly raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Corrine laughed, no, no, nothing weird like that, Craig. We simply decided that we would be together as partners. Our kids are grown and gone, so that is no longer an issue. We sold our house and most of our other possessions that had taken over our lives because we had let them. I keep working because I love what I do. Tom quit because he hated what he did. Now, when I have to travel, we travel together.

"I guess that's a long-winded way of saying; there is no longer anything beyond Tom and me. Do you remember many years ago when I told you that I needed to time to just be me? Not a mother, wife, or homemaker? Craig nodded. "Well, that's what I am now when Tom and I are together. I'm only me, nothing else and it is all I want."

Tom excused himself at that point, mumbling about forgetting something. It seemed a contrived exit designed to leave Craig and Corrine alone.

"Craig, next to Tom, you're the best friend I have. I care so much for you and it pains me to see you unhappy..."

"I am not unhappy."

"Yes, you are. Your pain is evident every time I see you. Don't misunderstand me; I don't think you go around daily feeling sorry for yourself. I don't believe you feel anything. You've numbed yourself so that you won't get hurt again. And it breaks my heart to see you like this.

"Tom gave me a second chance when I didn't really deserve it. What I did to Tom was far worse than what Mandie did to you. Can't you give her a second chance? If not for her, then do it for yourself."

"No, Corrine, what Mandie did was worse, but I understand your point. I'm just not sure I have the courage to do what you are asking. You're demanding that I have the 'two o'clock in the morning, alone in a dark alley kind of courage.' I just don't know."

Craig's mind returned to the present. Mandie was silently watching him with imploring eyes while still holding on to his arm. It seemed to Craig, much more tightly than before.

Craig had spent all these years building walls around his heart. He couldn't tear them down overnight, he wanted to, but maybe it was too late. Sometimes though, you have to just step onto the invisible bridge across the abyss. It's the only way to know if that bridge is real or not.

"I kind of like the idea you had about going someplace quiet so I could yell and scream at you, Mandie, if you want to give that one a try?" He smiled unreservedly for the first time in a long while.

EPILOGUE:

A very contented sixty-year-old Corinne Glenwood sat quietly at the table in her breakfast nook. She was sipping a cup of coffee, going through last night's emails. The morning sunlight was streaming through the open shutters. It was early Spring and still quite brisk outside, but she opened the windows anyway, to allow the fresh air inside. She would need to close them after a few minutes because she had found that as the years rolled by, her body's numerous aches and pains were quickly inflamed by the cold. Yet, breathing the spring air always gave her a sense of hope and renewal. It was part of the endless cycle of life. It gave her comfort in her old age, and it lifted her spirits immeasurably. So she repeated this process daily, even when it rained.

Just then, her husband Tom shuffled into the kitchen, wearing the tattered old coffee-stained robe that she bought him a hundred years ago. Every time she threatened to buy him a new one, he would only say, "Why, what's wrong with this one? It still works."

The familiarity of it brought a smile to her face. She wanted to watch Tom struggle with the coffee maker because that was entertaining also. But instead, she turned her attention back to her email.