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The rest of the week went relatively fast. Thursday, we had our weekly play date at Kelly's house due to rain but were unable to stay for pizza. The day was especially sad because Joan was called in regarding the shooting of an officer and couldn't get to the courthouse thanks to the rain flooding the access bridge. Thus, instead of pizza night, Joan called in her assistant and turned her living room into command central for all things PR.
Thankfully, Joan was able to handle the damage control surrounding the shooting and when Kelly called me later that night, she advised me that the officer’s doctors were able to remove the bullet from the officer's heart. The best news of all was that they expected her to make a full recovery.
Friday night during our scheduled call we decided that Kelly and the girls would meet me at my parents' cottage for breakfast before her community Medicare meeting. I was so excited about introducing Kelly to them that I barely remembered to run this by my mom earlier in the week, and she was giddy, yes giddy, over the prospect of a new love in my life.
Kelly's community meeting was scheduled for 11:00 am, so we decided to arrange the meeting with my parents at 9:00 am, which would give her some time to get to know them without feeling overwhelmed by a long visit. What surprised me most was that the person she hit it off first with, was my father.
Because Kelly's mom, Joan, had worked in the JAG offices when in the Air Force, Kelly had grown up around lawyers. Her unique understanding of a lawyer’s style of communication, gave her an insight into my father’s personality and made my normally quiet father and Kelly fast friends. Within minutes they quickly became absorbed in their own conversation, leaving my mother and I to look on with shock as they chatted away like old friends.
I don’t think I could remember a time when my father was ever chatty, especially around strangers. It used to drive Maggie crazy that he would "refuse" to carry on a conversation with her. But my father only had a handful of people outside of the courtroom that he would speak to conversationally.
That's why it was so unbelievable that Kelly and my Dad had been speaking for 20 minutes straight. After the first three minutes, my mother even looked at me and mouthed, "What the hell?"
My mother and I attempted to join the conversation a few times, but when we went to interrupt them around minute 15, they switched their conversation to a jury duty stint Kelly had taken part in, and we gave up.
Since the kids were busy watching a cartoon in the living area and Mandy was testing out those invisible magic markers that only draw on special paper, Mom and I decided to sneak into the kitchen and touch base.
"What do you think of Kelly?" I asked nervously.
"Though I haven't had a chance to talk with her thanks to your dad finding a new BFF," my mom said with a pointed stare of hilarity, "... she seems like a lovely person. The fact that your Dad likes her should tell you a lot. Especially since he is such a good ‘judge' of character," she added while laughing at her joke.
Full disclosure, I laughed too.
"Maybe I can take dad to the pro shop to help me pick out some new clubs right around the time she's due back from her meeting. That way you ladies can chat. Do you think you can handle all four kids for 10-15 minutes?"
"It will be easy-peasy. Especially since the three older kids seem to entertain themselves and Mandy is such a focused little thing that I don't think she'll be much trouble."
Before we could continue our conversation, Kelly walked into the room carrying some dishes. "I should leave now so that I can set up for the meeting, are you sure you guys don't mind watching Mazie and Mandy for the next two hours?" she asked my mother.
"Not at all, Kelly! I'm looking forward to helping the girls with their cute little press-on polish you brought for them to play with. What a sweet little invention," my mom said while looking dreamily at all the children playing in the living room.
Over the years I could tell that Maggie's infertility had been a hard blow to my mom’s dreams for a large family. Though she never mentioned it to my ex for sensitivity's sake, I knew that my Mom had always dreamed of a house full of grandchildren to make up for only having one child, so having to wait for so many years to add to her family had been a struggle. This was mostly because of her own fertility issues.
During my birth, mom had started bleeding out so quickly that the doctors were worried that she wouldn't make it. Luckily, they were able to stabilize her, but the doctor told them that it would be too dangerous if Mom ever carried another baby.
The idea of losing my mother had scared my father so completely that he called in his fraternity buddy, who was a urologist, in on a Saturday and asked for an immediate vasectomy. The finality of not being able to have another child at such a young age was devastating to my mother, but she found ways to cope throughout the years. Mostly her coping involved free babysitting anytime she heard one of the women in dad's office needed a sitter.
Yeah, my mom was going to love having Kelly's kids around.
Later that day when dad and I returned from our pro shop diversion, I was happy to find Kelly drinking coffee companionably with my mother and laughing over a video her cousin David took of the kids milking a goat.
Leaving them to their conversation, I went to sit in my mom's recliner and glanced over to see my father with a goofy smile on his face. "You have yourself a strong partner in Kelly, son," my dad said in his proudest voice. "Just remember that you deserve each other. Divorce can be destructive, but in the case of yours, I think it was a blessing."
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AN HOUR LATER, AFTER saying our goodbyes to my parents before dinnertime, I found myself dreading the idea of dropping her off at home. Even though I knew we were meeting for ice cream after church in less than 24 hours, I decided to risk asking, "Any chance you'd consider bringing the kids back to my place for a S-L-E-E-P-O-V-E-R tonight? I promise to behave."
Noticing the internal struggle going on in Kelly's suddenly stressed features, I added, "I understand if it's too soon, we can just plan for the trip to your uncle's farm being the first official overnight."
Surprisingly, Kelly said, "It's not too soon. I was trying to remember where I put my extra pack-in-play."
Smiling like the Cheshire Cat at each other, I said "Great!" and had to remind myself to focus on the fact that we weren't alone. Just the idea of sleeping in the same room with Kelly filled my soul.
"But you will have to be on your best behavior because we'll need to set up the pack-in-play in your room. Mandy doesn't sleep well in strange places, so we'll have to get her used to sleeping in your spare room gradually."
Was it crazy that I was ready to have this woman be in my home on a regular basis? To be able to wake up with her every morning would be the highest honor she could bestow on me.
The only thing stopping me from asking her to move in with me like a lovesick fool, was that our county still required leaders in the education community to sign a morality clause. Though it didn’t prevent sexual relations, it did state that regular cohabitation with someone other than your legal partner was grounds for dismissal.
Surprisingly the idea of marrying Kelly sooner rather than later wasn't as frightening as it should have been. It just seemed fortuitous. But now was not the time to bring that up. Maybe by Christmas time, we would be ready to talk about the possibility of an engagement.
Once we had collected the kids' things from Kelly's, we headed over to my place and got everything set up for the sleepover.
Initially, the plan was for Mazie to sleep on Katie's trundle bed, but when John realized that he would still be sleeping in his own bedroom for the evening, he had his first tantrum since he was two years old.
John felt left out of the girls' party, so in the end, we pulled out some old blowup mattresses and set the kids up in the family room for the night.
Having the forethought to grab one of her pre-prepped freezer meals, Kelly was able to persuade us to have a home cooked meal for the evening instead of my previously planned pizza.
"It's a slippery slope, Dale!" she said. "Otherwise, I'd eat pizza every night and gain 30 pounds."
To which I replied by snatching a kiss and saying, "You'd still be ravishing," before I walked back into the family room to check on our kids.
Our kids! We were all going to be a family, I was sure of it.