It had been a shitty Friday. I’d driven to Harpersville to personally talk with a customer who had informed us he was changing to another source. Without his business there was a good chance we would have to cut back on production and layoff some people.

We had talked and talked, but in the end there was nothing I could do to save the account. There just wasn’t any way I could even come close to the price of his new source. Frankly I didn’t how his new source could give him that price and still give him the quality he got from us and I told him that, but all he saw was the savings lower costs would bring,

It was pouring down rain when I left his place and headed for home. It was a shitty day in what had so far been a shitty week. On Sunday my wife of ten years had told me she was leaving me for another man. She said he had more money than God so she didn’t need anything from me. She handed me the papers, told me to sign them and send them in then she walked out the door while I sat there and watched her go.

I read the papers and sure enough she asked for nothing except her freedom. I signed them, made a copy for myself and mailed them first thing Monday morning. On the way home from work that night I stopped at Lowe’s and bought what I needed to change the locks on the house. Ten what I thought were pretty good years right down the shitter. The loss of my marriage, the loss of the customer and the shitty weather had me in a foul mood as I drove home through the pouring rain.

I was midway between Harpersville and my home town and up ahead I saw three figures trudging down the shoulder of the road. I was by them before I got my head out of my ass. “Just because your life sucks you don’t have to be an asshole” ran through my mind as I stopped and backed up to the three figures. I rolled the passenger side window down and told them to get in.

It turned out to be a woman of about thirty and two kids about five or six years old. The young woman said:

“Thanks mister; I gave up thumbing after the first ten cars drove on by without even slowing down.”

“What were you doing out there in the pouring rain in the first place?”

Got into an argument with Lee and he kicked us out of the car about two miles back.”

“In this rain?”

She shrugged and we went the next five miles in silence and then I asked where I could drop them.

“I don’t know. Do you know if they have a homeless shelter in the next town?”

“I have no idea. Don’t you have family around here?”

“We aren’t from around here. We left Michigan and were on our way to Salt Lake. All my family is back in Michigan and all our clothes and things are in the back of the Tahoe.”

I was looking at the road ahead and wondering what kind of man could kick his wife and kids out of the car and into the pouring rain and drive off and leave them. She must have been reading my mind because she said:

“I guess it is my fault. I should have kept my mouth shut, but I got on him about the drinking and the drug use and kept after him to let me drive until he sobered up. I guess he finally had enough of it, pulled over and told me to take the kids and get out of the car. When I refused he got out of the car, walked around to my side, pulled me out of the car, picked the kids up and put them out. It all happened so fast I didn’t even get to grab my purse and then he drove off and left us.”

“He was drinking and using drugs while driving?”

“I couldn’t get him to stop.”

I wanted to ask why she even stayed with someone like that, but I didn’t. In the rear view I saw two shivering kids and that made up my mind as to what I was going to do. Even if there was a homeless shelter in town they weren’t going there. I was going to take them home with me.

I was less than a mile from home when I saw the flashing red and blue lights of police cars and emergency vehicles. I slowed down and moved to the shoulder to pass the wreck. It looked like a head on between a semi and a car. As I slowly drove by the accident the woman exclaimed:

“That’s our Tahoe!”

I stopped and she jumped out of the car and ran over to one of the policemen. They talked and he waved someone over and they talked some more. The kid on the backseat were stressed.

“Why did mommy leave us here? What’s she doing? Is she coming back?”

I tried to calm them down.

“Your mommy wanted to talk to the nice policeman. She will be right back. My name is Pete; what’s yours?”

“I am Bobby and my sister is Peggy and we are twins and we are going to start school.”

The little girl was sucking her thumb and looking like she was going to break out in tears at any second. I tried to prevent it.

“Are you looking forward to school Peggy?”

She just nodded a yes and kept sucking her thumb.

“You will like it. You will get to meet plenty of new boys and girls who will be your friends. Won’t that be fun?”

Another nod and she kept sucking her thumb. Just then the door opened and the woman got back in the car.

“Bad” I asked.

“About as bad as it can get. Apparently he drifted over into the oncoming lane and was hit head on by the tractor trailer.”

After a quick glance back at the kids she said “I won’t ever have to worry about him driving under the influence again. They were nice enough to get my purse out of the car for me, but I won’t be able to get the rest of my things until they have it towed someplace.”

I could see she was barely holding herself together so I said “I’m taking you home with me. I have three extra bedrooms so there is plenty of room for you. Get yourself a good night’s sleep and in the morning you can start making phone calls.”

“Phone calls?”

“You’ll need to call family and let them know. You’ll need to call the insurance company about the car. If he had life insurance you will need to call them. You will have to make arrangements to have him taken care of and I’m sure that there are other calls you will want to make. Right now what we need to do is get you and the kids out of those wet clothes and into something warm and dry.”

“How? All of our things are in the back of the Tahoe.”

“I’m sure I have some things you can use for the time being.”

“Why are you doing this? You don’t even know us.”

“I know your kids. We introduced ourselves while you were talking to the police. I’m doing it because I believe in karma. Someday I may have a family and if they are in trouble and I’m not around I’m hoping some kind soul will step up and help them.”

“I don’t know as I believe in karma.”

“Something made him put you out of the car before he could kill you too.”

She stared at me for a bit and then said “I’m Susan and thank you.”

When we got to the house I showed them where the bedrooms and bathrooms were and told them to get out of their wet clothes and take a hot shower while I rounded up something for them to wear.

“Did you have dinner before being put out into the cold rain?”

“No. We were going to stop in the next town when we got there.”

“I’ll see what I can put together.”

Most of Francine’s things were left behind when she walked out and I gathered some of it up for Susan and couple of my tee-shirts would do for the kids until I could run their wet stuff through the washer and dryer. I put the stuff on the bed in the room Susan had chosen and then I knocked on the bathroom door, opened it just a crack and yelled (to be hard over the noise of the shower) for them to bring their wet clothes with them when they came down.

I went downstairs and looked in the fridge to see what I had. I had enough hamburger to make hamburger steaks so I turned on the oven to make the steaks and then peeled some potatoes to make mashed potatoes.

When they came down I got my first really good look at Susan. She was a stone-assed fox! Wet and bedraggled she had looked good, but cleaned up? Definitely a twelve on the ten scale.

I took their wet clothes and put them in the dryer and Susan parked Bobby and Peggy in front of the TV and then came into the kitchen where I was opening a can of green beans. She asked if she could help, but I told her I had it covered. She took a seat at the kitchen table and asked:

“Is your wife going to be all right with us being here?”

“I don’t have one of those.”

“You have this big house for just you?”

“I had a wife and our plan was to fill the rooms with children. We tried for years before finding out there was something wrong with her plumbing and she was unable to conceive.”

“You had a wife, but you don’t have one?”

“She left me for a man with more money. More money than God is the way she put it before she walked out on me.”

“How long has she been gone?”

“Five days. She left me last Sunday.”

Dinner was ready so she got the kids from in front of the TV and brought them to the table. While we ate the kids talked about the puppy they were going to get when they got to Utah and how much fun they were going to have with the new friends they would meet when they started school. Then from out of nowhere Peggy asked:

“Are you our new daddy?”

It caught me by surprise and as I thought about how I should answer I was saved by the bell. Literally! The front door bell rang. I opened the door to find my wife Francine standing there.

“My key wouldn’t work.”

“Not surprising since you don’t live here anymore.”

“I’m here to pick up some of the things I left behind” and she started to walk by me, but I blocked her and said:

“You don’t have anything here.”

“Come on Pete; let me get what I left in the closet and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“You having trouble with your hearing? I said you don’t have anything here.”

“That’s bullshit Pete and you know it. I left a bunch of dresses and some shoes in the closet.”

“Yes you did and I packed them up and gave them to Goodwill.”

“You had no right to do that!”

“Of course I did. When you left you told me you didn’t want anything and that your new man had more money than God and then you walked out the door. You didn’t want anything and I damned sure didn’t want your clothes around reminding me of you so I got rid of them. Now if you will excuse me I have guests for dinner and I need to get back to them” and I closed the door on her.

I lied. Her clothes were still in the closet because I hadn’t decided what to do with them. I don’t know where the “Goodwill” came from when I lied, but Goodwill sounded like a good idea. I’d take care of that in the next day or so.

By the time I got back to the kitchen I hoped Peggy had forgotten her question because I had no idea of how to answer it other than saying “No” but I could see her child’s curiosity asking “Why not” or some other question. I needn’t have worried because Susan had apparently taken care of it. When I sat back down Bobby asked:

“Who was at the door Uncle Pete?”

“Someone who was lost and asking for directions” I said.

After dinner Susan put the kids back in front of the TV and then came into the kitchen to help me clean up. I told her I had it under control and she should be with her kids.

“This is all strange and probably even a little weird for them and your being with them will have a calming effect on them.”

“Nonsense. They have already adapted. Sally asked me if we could paint the walls of her room pink.”

“She’s over the death of her father that quick?”

“He wasn’t her father. To her he was Uncle Lee. I might as well get it all out right now. Lee was a friend of my husband. It is a bit complicated. My husband apparently saved Lee’s life when they were in Iraq and Lee seemed to feel he owed it to Tommy to look after us when Tommy died. I needed help so I accepted his.”

“He felt an obligation to help you but put you and the kids out of the car and into the pouring rain?”

“After a while Lee seemed to think that since he was doing things for me that Tommy would have normally done he was entitled to the privileges Tommy had and I didn’t agree.”

“Privileges that ... oh, I get it.”

“Things have been going downhill between us ever since. When he got us to Utah he was going back to Michigan.”

“What are you going to do in Salt Lake?”

“Find a job and a place to live.”

“You don’t have anything out there waiting?”

“No.”

I got the feeling that my asking questions was making her uncomfortable so I said “It’s been a long day for me and I’m a bit tired so I’m going to turn in. I’ll see you in the morning.”

As I lay in bed waiting for sleep to take me I thought about Susan and her situation. Something about it just didn’t seem right to me. But then it wasn’t any of my business.

I woke up Saturday to the smell of frying bacon. When I got downstairs I found Susan at the stove fixing breakfast.

“How do you like your eggs” she asked.

“Break the yokes and fry them hard.”

“That’s the way Tommy used to like them.”

“Kids up yet?”

“No. I’ll get them up when breakfast is ready.”

“I don’t normally work Saturdays, but I’m going to have to go in for an hour or so. Will you and the kids be all right while I’m gone?”

“We will be fine.”

After I ate I ran into work and did the paperwork necessary because of yesterday’s business meeting and then I headed home. The kids were watching cartoons on TV and Susan was reading the morning paper that had hit the porch after I’d left for work.

“Find anything interesting in that rag” I asked.

“Some jobs I might be interested in applying for and some places for rent.”

“Decided against Salt Lake?”

“Haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet. I do have to find a place to stay. I can’t impose on you.”

“Nonsense. You can stay here until you can figure out what you are going to do.”

“I called the police department and found out where they towed the car. Could you possibly run me over there to pick up our things?”

“No problem.”

I didn’t have car seats for the kids so we buckled them up tight and then we went and picked up her clothes, the car seats for the kids and then headed back home. We got there just in time to see Francine trying to get in the house. I told Susan and the kids to stay put and I got out of the car and headed for Francine.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“There are things here that I want.”

“We already covered that Francine.”

I put heavy emphasis on the “Francine” because she didn’t like it. She preferred Fran or from me it used to be Franny.

“You handed me the papers, told me you wanted nothing but out, told me to sign them and mail hem in and walked out on me. I took you at your word. You said you wanted nothing so that’s what you get. Nothing! If you show up here again I’ll call the police and accuse you of stalking me and get a court order keeping you away from me. Now git!”

“We will just see what my lawyer has to say about that” she snarled.

“Good. Run up your tab with him.”

She left. Angry as a wet hen, but she left.

I went and got Susan and the kids out of the car and Susan asked “Who was that?”

“The wife who wants to be an ex-wife.”

We unloaded the car and carried the stuff inside. The Susan wanted to know how far we were from Salt Lake and I said:

“It is about an eight hour drive. Why?”

“There is something there I need to get. I’ve decided to stay here if I can find a job so is there a bus station in town?”

I know why I did it. Susan and her kids were growing on me and I wanted to keep them close so I said:

“I can drive you. If we leave now we can be there by seven.”

“That’s awful nice of you to offer, but I can’t get what I’m going for until after nine on Monday. I’m guessing that is a work day for you.”

“I can arrange to take it off. We can leave Sunday around noon and spend the night there. You can take care of your business and we can be back here by six or seven.”

“I know you are helping us because you believe in karma, but don’t you think you are going above and beyond?”

“Not really, besides, all this is keeping my mind off my wife and what she did to me.”

“Well then to earn my keep I’ll do dinner tonight.”

I spent the balance of the day doing yard work and then played with the kids while Susan fixed dinner. After dinner I called my boss at home and arranged to take Monday and Tuesday off. We spent the remainder of the evening watching television and when Susan was putting the kids to bed I decided to hit the sack too and getting a full night’s sleep before getting an early start on Sunday.

I was curious about the suitcase Susan brought with her as we loaded the kids in the back seat. She saw the curiosity on my face and told me she needed it for the stuff she was picking up. I shrugged and we headed out.

Eight and a half hours later we were in Salt Lake. Susan told me where she had to go in the morning and it was a bank in downtown Salt Lake. I found a hotel close to it and we checked in. The next morning we were at the bank when it opened and she went in with the suitcase while I kept he kids occupied in the car. She was out in twenty minutes and we headed home.

An hour out of salt Lake we stopped and had breakfast. The restaurant had crayons and a sheet of paper to color on for the kids and while the two of them were working away with them Susan said:

“I know curiosity is bugging you so I’m going to tell you a story. The way you have treated me since you picked us up has shown me you are a good man and I believe I can trust you. What I did at the bank was go to a safety deposit box and clean it out. There were documents in it that will allow me to set up new identities for me and the kids and enough money to set us up in a new house and carry us for several years.”

“You need a new identity?”

“Yes. There are some very bad people who are probably looking for me. They think I have something they want or at least know where it is.”

“Do you?”

“It was in the deposit box.”

“So give it to them.”

“The problem is that they will never believe I didn’t make a copy of it or that there was more and I only gave them part of it.”

“What is it that they are so intent on getting it back?”

“Information that can send them all to jail.”

“All of them?”

“I guess you could call them a crime family. My husband was a CPA and he fell in with a bad crowd. He was doing books for them. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but Tommy got the bright idea that as long as he was helping hide their ill-gotten gains he should be entitled to some of it and he helped himself to some of it. Then he decided that he needed insurance in case he got caught. He put all he had done and how he had done it with the supporting documents on two USB flash drives.

“In case he had to run and hide he managed to build new identities for us and on one of his trips to the west coast he stopped in Salt Lake and set up the safe deposit box. I didn’t know anything about it until one day he told me about it. He felt they were onto him and he decided he had to let me know what he had been doing in case we had to leave town in a hurry. He was right; they were on to him and one day three large men showed up and walked him out of his office and took him somewhere.

“I have no idea what really happened, but the story I got later from a man named Gino was that they told Tommy he had ten days to get the four hundred thousand he had taken from them. Tommy told them he had lot it all gambling. He was told it didn’t matter he still had to get the money back to them in ten days or bad things were going to happen. Then apparently Tommy got stupid. Instead of taking the ten days and using them to run he laughed at them and told them what he had on them and told them if anything happened to him it would be turned over to the authorities. They beat the hell out of him and then told him he was going to start losing fingers and toes until he told them where the information was.

“There were four of them and he was alone and they apparently thought they had him cowed because they didn’t expect him to do what he did. He caught them by surprise when he went after one of them, managed to get the man’s gun and killed three of them before the fourth man killed him. They dumped his body where it would be found and then after two months with nothing happening they decided that Tommy was bluffing. Another month went by and they started worrying that he might not have been bluffing and the information was out there, but the person who had it didn’t know they had it. They decided that I must know where the stuff was and came after me. Probably dumb of me, but I didn’t connect what they wanted to the box in Salt Lake.

“They told me I had ten days to get the stuff for them. If I didn’t they would kill one of my kids. Ten days later they would kill the other one and ten days after that they would kill me. I told Lee and he said I needed to get to Salt Lake, get what was in the box and then disappear. He figured they would be watching me so the way we worked it was that I went to work and while I was there he picked up the kids from school, packed our clothes and then picked me up at the loading dock in the rear of the building. We figured if they were watching me someone would be sitting where they could see my car in the parking lot. We figured we would be a couple of hundred miles away before they didn’t see me leave work and go to my car.”

“That’s another good thing to come out of you being put out of the car before Lee managed to get himself killed.”

“What?”

“If they connected you to Lee and went looking for him and somehow found out about the accident the fact that he was alone in the car would be a dead end for them. They would figure you weren’t with him at all or he had taken you some place and left you there. There are what, maybe four or five hundred towns or cities between where you started your trip and where Lee died? It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack for them. With your new identities they will never find you.”

On the ride home I asked her what her plans were now that she had the contents of the safe deposit box.

“Find a job, a place to live, get the kids in school and start building a life for us.”

“What kind of work would you be looking for?”

“I’m an accountant, but I won’t be able to work as one unless Tommy managed to make me one to go along with my new identity. In fact I might not be able to find any job. I can’t give references or show any work experience. I’ll probably have to apply as a single mother who got married just out of high school and became a stay at home mom until the kids started school. I’ll need to find a place that will take me on with no work experience.”

Then she got involved with the kids and we made the rest of the trip in silence. I had a lot of time to think while driving and by the time we got home at six it was dinner time so I decided against going to the house and instead stopped at the Village Inn. We had just ordered when Francine came in with a man who looked old enough to be her father. In fact he looked older than her father.

I saw her notice us and I saw the look on her face when she saw I was with a woman and two kids. The look was clear as a sunny day and what it said was “Where in the hell did they come from?” She stopped in her tracks to look, but the old guy grabbed her arm and pulled her along behind him. I guessed he must be the more money than God guy.

Susan asked “What?”

“What what?”

“You just had a strange look come over your face.”

“MY soon to be ex-wife just came in with the guy she left me for.”

“Where?”

“Table in the back. Woman in the orange dress.”

“Table next to the restroom entrance?”

“Yep.”

“She left you for that?”

“Not necessarily for him, but for his money.”

“Thank God for stupid women.”

“Why would you say that?”

“She set you free. Maybe not really free at least not until the divorce becomes final, but free enough that you are fair game and I can take a shot at you.”

That caught me by surprise and it must have shown on my face because she said “Why the surprised look? You must know at least a dozen women who will be after you as soon as they find out you are single again. I just happen to be in the right place at the right time to be first in line.”

“You can’t be serious? You don’t even know anything about me.”

“I know two things and that’s enough to spark an interest.”

“What two things?”

“For one you are a very good looking man, but the most important thing I know about you is what kind of man you are. A man who jumped in feet first to help a woman and her kids and asking nothing in return. The kind of man most women look for. The kind of man I want.”

I didn’t know what to say to that and I just sat there looking at her.

“Need to use the restroom” she said and she got up and went.

I was watching the kids working on their pictures with their crayons and thinking about the kids I had expected that Francine and I were going to have before she, i symbolically, kicked me in the nuts. The thought prompted me to look toward her table and I caught her watching me. I wondered what she was thinking.

I saw Susan leave the restroom area and stop at Francine’s table. She said something to Francine that put a nasty look on Francine’s face and then she headed for our table with a big smile on her face. Curiosity got the best of me and when Susan sat down I asked her about it.

“I just thanked her for turning you loose so I could I could get to you. I don’t think she liked hearing that.”

I liked hearing that. That Francine didn’t like hearing what Susan said. It made me smile and do something mean.

“Give me your hand” I said to Susan.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

She offered me her hand and I took it in mine and then leaned forward and kissed it. I gave her a look of affection and said:

“Something that I hope will drive her nuts. She is looking at us and her facial expression is a combination of pissed off and shocked. I can almost hear what she is thinking. “I’ve only been gone a week and he has already replaced me?”

“So when we leave we should be holding hands?”

“That’ll work.”

Our meals came and as I ate I noticed Francine couldn’t seem to take her eyes off of us. It helped me make up my mind on something I’d been thinking about all day. If just seeing me eating with Susan and her kids and Susan’s statement to her upset her how would she take finding out Susan was living with me?

We finished our meal and left the place holding hands. My back was to Francine so I couldn’t see how she took seeing it. I hope it ruined her night.

Once we were home and the kids were in bed I asked again what she was going to do now that she had the contents of the safe deposit box.

“I already told you. Start a new life. Find a new job, a place to live and get the kids into school.”

That was it. The opening I needed.

“You already have a place to stay. You are here and there is no need for you to leave. As far as a job I’m pretty sure if I talk to my boss you can get on with my company. We are short handed in accounting and I’m pretty sure they will jump at someone with your experience.”

“You forget I can’t them my past employers for references.”

“I said I’d talk to my boss. Don’t worry about it.”

“If you are sure about it okay, but be warned. I’ve already state my intentions.”

Susan was an extremely good looking woman and I almost said “Your intentions are gratefully accepted” but I felt that would be rushing it. Instead I said:

“So what are we going to do tomorrow?”

‘I’m going to need a car and I’m going to have to pick a bank and rent a deposit box. It is going to be difficult. There were only three credit cards in the box and they only have a five hundred dollar credit limit so I’m going to have to pay cash. I’m going to have to find a good used car in the eight to nine thousand range. I’ll have to keep it under ten because of IRS reporting requirements. The seller would have to say where he got the money if he deposited ten thousand or more.”

“It isn’t any of my business so you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but just how much was in that box?”

“One hundred thousand and information on how to access eight hundred thousand in a couple of Cayman Island banks.”

“So if you could buy new what kind of car would you get?”

“Probably a Chevy Tahoe.”

“Okay. What we will do is go to the Chevy dealer in town tomorrow and buy a Chevy Tahoe. It will be in my name but it will be your car to use until you buy it from me.”

“I’ve got enough from the box to pay you now.”

“Okay. So first thing in the morning we will go to the bank and after that the Chevy dealer. Then we will drive through town and I’ll show you where the school is, where the stores are, where I work and anything else you might have an interest in. Work for you?”