Together Again

Jim and I met on August 18, 1986 at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. We were stationed there with the United States Army. I was a twenty year old single private from North Adams, Massachusetts and he was a thirty nine year old married sergeant with two teenage sons. His wife and sons were living in Indianapolis, Indiana while he finished his enlistment. For a year, Jim drove six hundred miles round trip every weekend to see his family. While Jim was finishing his enlistment, his wife, Pat, was looking for a house. They had a year after his retirement to move and Jim wanted to wait but his wife didn't want their sons going to a city school.

She wanted them in a township school where they would receive a better education. In early July, she found a house and wanted Jim to look at it. The last week of July, he saw the house and reluctantly approved the purchase of it. On Monday, August 18, Jim was assigned to a special detail because of his impending retirement. The same day, I was assigned to his detail because of my upcoming honorable discharge. For the first week, we were friends and coworkers. One night, we planned to meet at the library but got our wires crossed about the time to meet.

The next morning, both of us were angry because we thought we had been stood up. We agreed it was a miscommunication and decided to go out to dinner that night. Thursday night of that first week, we played cards with a couple of friends of his. On Friday, we had a half day off so we went to the Dunbar Caves in Clarksville, Tennessee. After that weekend, we spent most evenings and nights together although the army tried to keep us apart due to his rank and marital status.

On Labor Day weekend, we drove to Indianapolis where I met his wife and sons. I was a little fearful that his wife would suspect we were lovers. I was also excited about visiting Indianapolis because I had never been there before. Jim took me to the Speedway, the zoo, the Children's Museum and downtown for a country music concert. After our return to the base, Jim and I continued seeing each other and doing things on the weekends. We went to Opryland one weekend and saw a show at the Grand Old Opry. We also visited the Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky and Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.

The last two weeks he was at Fort Campbell, we didn't spend much time together because the army had me doing everything they could think of to keep me away from him. Jim left Fort Campbell on November 22 and returned to his wife and sons in Indianapolis. I didn't have much chance to say goodbye to him the day he left because I was confined to quarters due to my continuing desire to be with Jim. I managed to sneak out of the barracks for five minutes to say goodbye. After Jim left, I felt lost and alone. I didn't have that many close friends at Fort Campbell because of my shyness.

I didn't know what was going to happen with us because of the traveling distance. I felt that once Jim left me that he would forget me. I did tell Jim several times that I would never ask him to leave his wife and sons. The day after Jim left, the army took me off all restrictions because he was gone. My first day off restrictions, I went to Nashville for the day just to get away from camp and to do some Christmas shopping.

Jim started working for a property management company on December 1, 1986 doing maintenance work although he had never done that type of work before. I stayed at Fort Campbell until I was honorably discharged on December 24, 1986. I went back to my home state of Massachusetts and worked various jobs. I got a steady position at a local retail store in July 1987. Due to the store closing in October 1990, I collected unemployment insurance until July 1991 when I started working in the press/mail room of the local newspaper.

After we got out of the service, Jim and I continued our relationship through letters and phone calls. I have to admit that I was not very good at answering Jim's letters. In July 1987, right before I started my job at the retail store, Jim visited me in North Adams for a few days and met my family. We also did some local sightseeing and took a day trip to a nearby amusement park. The following July, he came to visit again and we spent a week traveling together through Vermont and upstate New York. During that week, we talked about breaking up because of the geographical distance between us and because Jim was still married but we stayed together.

I didn't want to end our relationship because I was in love with him. I felt very insecure about my average looks and build but in my heart I knew he wanted to be with me. I felt like I wouldn't find someone who loved and cared for me as much as he did. Jim told me that if I wanted to break up to let him know and he would let me go although he didn't want to.

I met someone in February 1989 that I wanted to date but I didn't feel right about dating someone while I was still seeing Jim. I wrote to Jim and told him about my desire to see other people. He wrote back and said he hated to let me go but he would honor my request. I didn't want to end our relationship but I felt that I had to so that he could give his marriage a fair chance and so that he could finish raising his sons. I also felt I needed to find someone in my region. After our break up, we had no contact with each other until March 2003.

I met my ex-husband, Tony, in May of 1992 and we got married on September 11, 1993. I'm not sure if he wanted to marry me because he never asked me to marry him. He just bought my engagement ring and gave it to me without proposing. I sometimes felt like our families forced us into getting married. I often felt more single during my first marriage than I did before I got married. Tony spent more time at our apartment watching television than he did with me unless something major was going on. He was also very critical of the way I cooked to the point where I got physically angry with him.

On weekends, I like to spend time with my family and I would ask him to go with me. He always refused unless the whole family was getting together. Ironically, after I left him, he started doing things with my family like going to fairs and other attractions whereas before he always said they didn't interest him. I don't think he wanted to be seen with me. We never held hands nor did he put his arm around me in public. I felt like we were more roommates than husband and wife.

At the same time, Jim was struggling to make his own marriage work. Pat loved to spend money, often spending more than was coming in. She would see something on television and have to buy it or have Jim do it. There were times he felt like he was only working to pay the increasing amount of bills with nothing to show for it and not much left over to do anything else.

At that point, Jim and his wife started living separate lives with each of them doing their own thing unless there was a family obligation. The only thing they continued to share was a name and a house. Jim started seeing someone in March 1993. He broke it off in March 2003 when I contacted him.

In early 1999, I bought my first computer and got hooked on the Internet. I started trying to find Jim but had no success because I couldn't remember how to spell his last name. In March 2003, I was looking in a photo album and found a picture of Jim in his dress uniform. The picture was clear enough that I could read his name tag. That evening, I got on the Internet and looked up his address. I sat down and wrote Jim a letter and mailed it the following day. After I mailed the letter, I alternated between fear that he wouldn't answer and hope that he would. I would have tried to contact him again in a month if he hadn't answered my first letter.

In my mind, I thought if Jim didn't answer my letter, I would stay in my marriage although I wasn't happy. The day he received my letter and after he recovered from the shock of getting a letter from me, Jim called me. To this day, he still carries that letter in our vehicle. We talked for a few minutes and set up a time to talk on the weekend when we had more time. For the rest of that week, I felt like I was on cloud nine waiting to talk to Jim. I knew I was wrong to feel that way, especially with both of us being married, but I was just looking to renew an old friendship, nothing more. In my heart, I knew our relationship would turn into something more based on our past.

When Jim called that weekend he said he couldn't talk long because he was helping his son move into an apartment. I said that's fine because I was going bowling with my family. We agreed to talk on Sunday evening instead. Sunday evening, Jim called and we talked for a couple of hours getting caught up on our lives. He told me about his granddaughter and I told him I was married. That Monday, Jim hooked me up with America Online's Instant Messenger and we started talking on the Internet every night before I went to work.

We also emailed each other on a daily basis. On weekends, Jim would call me on his cell phone. During the time we talked on the Internet, Jim told me that his marriage was in name only. He and his wife shared a name, house and bed but nothing more physical or emotional than that. I told him my marriage wasn't much better. We talked about everything from his granddaughter to my nephew, who are five months apart in age, to everything in between. We also talked about trying to meet somewhere in New York in August while my husband was on his annual fishing trip. I know it was wrong to do that or to even think about it.

I had plans to go to Pennsylvania and Virginia for vacation in June with my girlfriend, Elaine, but my car broke down in May and it took nearly all I had saved for vacation to pay for the car repairs. AT first, I was disappointed about not being able to go to Virginia but looking back, I think it was for the best. On May 8, after Jim and I finished talking for the night, I got the idea of going to Indianapolis. I started looking into various ways of getting there. I found out that I could go by bus.

My husband had given me a hundred dollars for my birthday towards my vacation and I still had a hundred left from what I had saved. I emailed Jim with the idea of visiting Indianapolis by bus for vacation. At first, he wasn't crazy about it because he didn't like the idea of my riding alone on a bus for twenty hours. Afte I reassured him that I had done it before and that I would have my cell phone on all the time, he was okay with it. The next day I purchased my bus ticket and Jim reserved a room for me at a local hotel. It seemed like that month lasted forever.

On May 12, as I was getting ready to go to work, I asked my husband if he minded me going to Indianapolis for vacation since I wasn't going to Virginia. He asked me how I was going to get there and what was out there. I replied by bus and to see Jim. He said he didn't care and that it was my decision. Tony was suspicious of my feelings for Jim because the next morning he told me that I had to choose between the two of them and I had until August to decide. He then said if I decided to move to Indianapolis, he would give me six months to be sure that's what I wanted and that Jim was whom I wanted to be with. I told him I would give him my decision when I got back from Indianapolis.

I left Pittsfield, Massachusetts on June 7 around noon and arrived in Indianapolis early on June 8. As the bus pulled into the yard, I saw Jim for the first time in almost fifteen years sitting on a concrete barrier at the bus station in downtown Indianapolis. When I first saw him, I felt as though there were a bunch of butterflies in my stomach. He hadn't changed much except for the glasses he was wearing.

I stepped off the bus, looked him over and said, "Are you looking for someone?" With those words, Jim smiled and pulled me into his arms for a warm bear hug of welcome and friendship which I returned. We spent the majority of my week's vacation together, especially evenings. Jim was working maintenance and was on call for emergencies that week. He arranged his schedule so that we could spend time together. Also during this week, Jim introduced me to Martha, a friend of his that he has known for over twelve years. She very graciously offered me a place to stay in exchange for companionship and help around the house if I moved to Indianapolis.

During that week, I talked to my mother and she told me she disapproved of my life changing choice. I suspect my husband had shared my plans with her before I had a chance to. I had asked Tony to wait until I got back from vacation to say anything to anyone. In my heart, I knew that I was going to hurt my family but that was a decision I had to make on my own. I wasn't happy with my job, my marriage or life in general. After visiting Indianapolis, I knew that was where I could be happy, with or without Jim. I also knew my relationship with Jim was going to be a reality. I just didn't know how often we would be able to see each other after I moved to Indianapolis because of his marriage.

I reluctantly left Indianapolis on my birthday, June 14 and arrived in Pittsfield on the evening of June 15. My mother, sister, nephew and husband were waiting at the bus station when I arrived. After dropping my sister and nephew off I told my mother and husband that I was leaving and moving to Indianapolis. Tony was speechless but not surprised. My mother wasn't happy with my decision but told me that I was an adult and it was my decision. My original date for returning to Indianapolis was July 1.

On June 18, I was laying on the couch napping when Jim called and told me he had been fired from his position as maintenance tech because of a conflict with the supervisor. We started talking about changing the date of my return to Indianapolis. My original date to leave North Adams was June 27. AFter thinking it over, I told him I wanted to leave Thursday morning instead. After talking more, we decided to leave our respective cities for Buffalo, New York on Wednesday, June 25 around noon.

I was scheduled to work overnight Tuesday but I called in around two that afternoon and left a message that I wasn't coming in that night. I knew that if I had gone into work that I would not be able to drive safely and I didn't want to be an emotional wreck when I said goodbye to some of my coworkers. Jim called about three that afternoon just to talk. At that point, I had everything I was taking with me packed in my car, ready to leave the following morning. My husband and brother-in-law had gone out for the day and I didn't want to hang around the apartment any longer. Little did I know that Jim was ready to leave also. I guess you could say we were eager to be together.

I asked him if he could leave then. He called his wife and said he was leaving for New York to help his cousin move. I left North Adams and Jim left Indianapolis at the same time. We met at Denny's Restaurant on the New York State Thruway just south of Buffalo that evening. We spent a couple of days helping his cousin move and a day and night at Niagara Falls. While we were in Niagara Falls, the most romantic spot in the world, we discovered that we had both been there two years prior; Jim in June and me in August. We agreed it was better the second time around because we were there together. We left Buffalo on June 28 and got back to Indianapolis late the next day.

After our return to Indianapolis, we started looking for work together and secretly dating. We spent most of our time together getting to know each other again. We took the month of July and the first two weeks of August 2003 off and attended several minor league baseball games, a woman's basketball game, a preseason football game and went to the zoo. We got to know each other better than we did when we first met in 1986 because we had the time to talk and be together.

The first weekend of August, Jim and I took his granddaughter, Kearsten, and his friend's grandchildren to Clifty Falls State Park in southern Indiana for the day. His granddaughter saw us holding hands and told her father. We told Jim's son, Tim, about our affair and he said he suspected something was up. We kept waiting for his wife to call with her suspicions about us but nothing happened. Jim's granddaughter took to me like a duck to water. After that time, we didn't see her until the first of the year.

The first week of August we started applying for work at various places in Indianapolis. We got a call on Monday, August 18 to come in on Tuesday morning to fill out applications for a cleaning company. We had just finished filling out the applications when one of the ladies recognized Jim. She took both of us into her office and hired us on the spot. We started that evening and worked for them together.

Pat was oblivious to the fact that Jim was spending less and less evenings at home, whereas before I moved to Indianapolis, he was always home in the evenings unless he was on maintenance call. We made our relationship known to his wife on Saturday, September 13. She was out with her friends going to garage sales and wanted Jim to take a bookcase to her friend's house. We weren't goint to do it but we decided to go public with our relationship. Jim called Pat back and said he would help her but he wasn't alone. We loaded the bookcase into his truck and got ready to leave. Pat asked him if he was going to be home for breakfast Sunday morning. After nearly getting into a fight with her, Jim told her that he wouldn't be home for the rest of the weekend. She never asked who I was or why I was with him. On September 15, he spent his last official night in the house he shared with her.

He moved in with me where I was staying on the northeast side of Indianapolis. Two days later, he told Pat that their nearly thirty five year marriage was over. There was nothing left of their relationship other than their last name.

One evening in late October, our supervisor told us we had been seen several times sitting in the back of Jim's truck. The truck had a camper shell on it and since there was no place to sit inside the building, we sat out there before we started work. The company took exception to us sitting in the back of the truck and didn't want us to do that so they gave us a two day suspension to think about whether or not we wanted to work for them. We took the days off and decided to make a surprise visit back east for the weekend.

During the weekend, my nephew, Zachary, met Jim for the first time. He was a little confused as to why I was no longer around all the time and why I was no longer with Tony. He thought he had done something wrong to make me leave. Jim and I reassured him that he had done nothing wrong and that I wasn't happy with Tony. During the weekend, I found out my father was angry with Jim. He thought Jim was the one to make first contact. My mother told him I was the one who contacted him. We weren't allowed to visit my parents' home so we stayed with my sister. I didn't think my father would come see me because of his feelings about our relationship.

On Sunday morning, he surprised everyone, except Jim, by showing up at my sister's house to see us before we left. Jim knew he would show up because of his love for me. I met Jim's mother, sister, brother-in-law and stepfather that weekend too. Jim's mother had known for a while that Jim wasn't happy in his marriage. She and Jim's sister had never really gotten along well with Pat.

On our way back to Indianapolis on Monday, we called the cleaning company. They told us they wanted to keep us but in separate buildings. We told them we would think about it and would call when we got back to town. After talking at length, neither of us were comfortable with me working alone at night in an empty building. We called and told them we quit because of their work demands.

On October 22, Pat filed for a legal separation. On November 3, Jim received a summons to appear in court for a preliminary hearing. The next day, Jim hired a lawyer and was advised to file joint bankruptcy to alleviate the enormous financial debt they had. On the same day Jim hired his lawyer, we were looking through a paper and saw an ad for another cleaning company. We called and left our names and numbers. A woman called around noon that day and asked if we were still interested in working for her. We said yes and met her at an office park on the north side of Indianapolis. We were hired on the spot, even before we finished filling out the applications. We were supervisors of one building and temporary area supervisors while the area supervisor was out on medical leave.

On November 12, Jim and I went to Chicago, Illinois to attend a taping of the Jerry Springer Show. It was fun and interesting to watch a live television show being taped. I didn't like Chicago that much, too crowded for me.

On December 8, Jim's legal separation case became a divorce case. I filed for divorce from Tony on January 2, 2004 and it was final in March 2004. Jim and I took a ride to Clarksville, Tennessee the first weekend of February just to see how much the area where we met had changed and to get away for a couple of days. We couldn't believe the changes that had occurred in the Fort Campbell area in the eighteen years that had gone by.

Jim and I went back to New York and Massachusetts for a week at the end of April and the first week of May. We stayed with his cousin in Buffalo for one night and caught her up with our lives. After we left Buffalo, we visited with his family for one night before heading to Pittsfield to visit my family. On the last night in Massachusetts, we spent three hours with my parents just talking and going through old pictures. My father and Jim started talking and bonded because of their mutual farming experiences. My father is not a man who likes to eat out but he told us that if he had known we were staying an extra night, he would have taken us out to dinner, which shocked my mother and I. He had come full circle about our relationship.

We sent Jim's granddaughter a late Christmas card with our cell phone numbers included. We told her she could call us anytime she wanted to. She called us shortly after she got the card and asked if she could spend some time with us. We picked her up the following morning and she spent the day with us. Around Marting Luther King Day, we were working on a friend's house near where she lives. We went to Kearsten's house and took her out for lunch. After that, we tried to see her several times but because of her school schedule and our work schedule, we didn't see her that often. During her spring vacation, she spent some time with us. We didn't see her again until the first week of June when we called and invited her to spend the night with us.

She called the following Saturday and wanted to spend a few days with us. She stayed for three nights and helped me celebrate my birthday. She called again three weeks later and went home after spending six days with us. We also had her for a week at the end of July. At least we knew Kearsten accepted our relationship even if her father and uncle didn't. Jim's bankruptcy was signed on July 23 and finalized in October.

On Wednesday, July 28, 2004, our boss informed us that she had lost the contract to clean the building we worked in. The owner of the property wanted one company to clean all the buildings on the property as a cost cutting effort. After we were told about losing our jobs, Jim and I decided to take a road trip. We left Saturday morning for Louisiana. We went through Saint Louis, Missouri and saw the Gateway Arch which I had never seen before. We spent the night in Little Rock, Arkansas. The following morning we arrived in Bossier City, Louisiana and spent a couple of days with my aunt and uncle.

We enjoyed our visit with my relatives. I had lived with them for several months back in 1985 and there had been a lot of changes in the nineteen years since I had been there. We left Bossier City on Wednesday morning and drove east across Louisiana, Mississippi and spent the night in Fort Payne, Alabama. On Thursday morning, we left Alabama and drove north through Georgia and Tennessee before stopping in Staunton, Virginia. On Friday morning, we left Staunton and drove through Virginia to Gettysburg and Hershey Pennsylvania.

Visiting Gettysburg was a weird experience. You could almost smell the gunpowder and hear the screams of the wounded soldiers as they were shot. The scenery between Staunton, Virginia and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania is incredible and breathtaking. We saw a number of open fields with cattle grazing in them. Hershey is also very beautiful. You can take a fifteen minute ride and learn how a chocolate bar is made or if you are looking for more excitement you can go next door to Hershey Park and ride several roller coasters and other thrill rides.

After visiting Gettysburg and Hershey, we continued on our way to Liberty, New York to visit Jim's family. AFter spending a couple of days in New York, we went to visit my family in Massachusetts. We visited with my family for a week then went back to his mother's house for a couple of days to see how her newly renovated kitchen turned out. We headed back to Indianapolis after nearly two weeks on the road. We got back into Indianapolis the afternoon of August 17.

Our trip started out at as a vacation for us but as we rode along, I started thinking about all the historical places we passed. We went through Vicksburg, Mississippi and passed several other Civil War battlefields. We also went through Bristol, Tennessee where the first country music record was recorded in 1927.

On August 27, Jim and I went to Sault Saint Marie, Michigan with our friend, Angel and her youngest son, Brandon for the weekend. None of us had ever been there and it was fun for all, especially watching Brandon feed the seagulls. Jim and I walked around the city and enjoyed the sights. On the way back, Jim and I stopped in Battle Creek, Michigan and took a simulated tour of the Kellogg's Cereal Plant and watched them make Corn Flakes.

On September 11, Jim and I left for Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We stopped at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky on the way south and enjoyed touring the home of the Kentucky Derby. About the time we checked into the hotel where we were staying in Sevierville, Tennessee, Jim's cell phone rang. My mother was calling to tell us that my sister's mother-in-law, Helen, had passed away during the night. We got our room and stayed in that area seeing some of the attractions there. One of the places we visited was Cooter's Place, a musuem and gift shop owned by Ben Jones, who played Cooter Davenport on the television series The Dukes Of Hazzard. We also met with a woman with whom we play bingo with on the Internet and had a nice luncheon visit with her and her family.

We left early Tuesday morning, had a brief stop in Staunton, Virginia so we could visit the STatler Brothers Gift Shop the drove onto New York where we stayed with his mother overnight before heading to Massachusetts for Helen's services. During the funeral, I felt like I was saying goodbye to my grandmother who had passed away over twenty years ago. I attended my grandmother's wake but didn't really get a chance to say goodbye to her. My seven year old nephew was acting and looking very grown up in his suit.

After Helen's services, Jim and I spent a couple of days in Massachusetts then headed back to New York to spend some time with his family. We left Liberty on Wednesday, September 22 and drove south to Hershey and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Although we had been there months before, we wanted to visit both places again when it wasn't so crowded. We stayed overnight in Breezewood, Pennsylvania and got back into Indianapolis Thursday afternoon.

In mid November, Jim and I had a job interview with a self storage company called U-Stor that comes with it's own apartment. We talked with the manager on Friday and the following Thursday he called and asked if we were still interested in the positions. We said yes and he asked if we could start the Monday of Thanksgiving week which we did. Jim is the manager and I'm his assistant. During that first week, we set up our apartment. We enjoy our work and have made our own lives here.

Jim's final divorce hearing was on June 8, 2005 but it wasn't final on that day. The judge on the case wanted to look over all the paperwork, including Pat's medical records, and review the lawyers' recommendations before making a final judgement.

The last weekend of June 2005, Jim and I went back east for my parents' 40th wedding anniversary party. It was fun seeing all my relatives and neighbors that I hadn't seen in years. We enjoyed the trip but it was not long enough to really relax and enjoy ourselves. On July 4th weekend, we went to Nashville, Tennessee for the weekend. We toured the new Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and the Ryman Auditorium, the former home of the Grand Old Opry. I like Nashville but I wouldn't not want to live there, especially in the downtown area. No offense to any of the people who may live in Nashville but downtown Indianapolis is cleaner and brighter than downtown Nashville is.

Jim's divorce was final on September 9, 2005 and we got married on September 13, 2005 in a simple, no ring ceremony at a local courthouse in Indianapolis. I know what we did was wrong but life is too short to be unhappy. Jim and I are happy together.