Ardmore Pt. 04

Giselle might have wanted to keep her sexual orientation a secret but her extramarital activities became very public around the time of the separation. In Ardmore, the news spread in days. By the time the divorce was final she had moved miles away.

Years later she did apologize to both Gary and Leo for her affair. There was no mention by her of any other lovers. That view of her world was in conflict with at least two other women who later claimed liaisons. Even so, her relationship with Leo is improving, and we continue to encourage him to see her more often.

It took almost a year before Gary began dating again. Lit and I spent much of that time trying to set him up on a semi-blind date with Sydney Caldwell. We suspected those two would hit it off, and they did. For my part I never imagined I would conspire with my wife to become a matchmaker. Lit still teases me about how easily she led me through the process.

To make a long story short, Gary and Sydney are very happily married now and Leo has two little sisters he absolutely adores.

As for our immediate family, both our children are out of the house. Allie is working as an engineer in Philly and has an apartment there. She also recently became engaged (to Jocelyn's cousin). Drew is the starting shortstop at GW. He will be a senior next year and must decide if he wants to pursue baseball as a career. If not, he says he wants to teach, which made Papa take notice.

I gave up my quest for my doctorate. It was taking too much time away from Lit, and these days every minute with her is precious to me. She has been cancer free for five years but there are no guarantees. The disease cost her left breast.

We did encounter a problem with our insurance coverage related to the type of reconstruction we wanted. Our carriers refused to pay the total cost of the procedures. Fortunately, we had this very, very large cache of funds available for such a purpose. It seems that my wife consulted with one of my sisters (I can only guess which one) before accepting Cassie's investment opportunity. In hindsight I am very glad that she did.

While they can do wonders with reconstruction these days, there was scaring. It's less pronounced now, but it will always be there. Lit knows and she stopped caring about it...and of course I never did.