Joe's Diner - Chapter 5

My Continued story resumes - -

 

My daughter Jessie and I would visit Chinese Families

 

Abby’s family insisted we have a reception. In fact they had already made the arrangements and invited people.  Things went pretty well at the reception.

You know how it is when you are put on display while meeting the family. Some of the older ones couldn’t remember whether it was her or me who was the blood relative and who was the in-law.

After a while Abby stood up and said, “If anyone hasn’t met my husband, stand up dear, this is him.  Now you young ladies don’t you mistake him for one of these fine looking single men walking around here for he is taken and he is mine.  

 

As far as what we will be doing it starts like this. We will live at my place temporally and he will begin teaching at the university. I have just started working for a large corporation counseling the staff with problems that affect their work output.”

I took the microphone and said, ‘This message especially pertains to any old want-a-be boyfriends - - just stay away.

For the first month we told everyone we do not need any company and after that we will see… It’s not that we don’t love you but getting settled in with our new jobs and getting used to each other requires some time.

The spare time during the next week was spent sending out thank you notes for all the wedding gifts we received.

For the next year we were into each other till she became pregnant and ever so slowly things began to change.

She was studying advance psychology alone with working part time and being pregnant made it difficult to keep up with her studies. The end of the semester came just before the baby came and she managed to get a passing grade.

She wanted to name the baby girl Jenny but I wasn’t happy with that for it reminded me of the diner and the pain associated with it.

We settled on Jessie which I thought fit her nicely. Abby nursed the baby for about three months and then switched her over to the bottle. At first the babe didn’t adjust to the formula and lost some weight but finally began to gain again. Meanwhile we had hired a live in nanny because Abby had a job offer to work for the State.

With the nanny’s help Jessie began to gain weight back she had lost. Abby worked a full shift and then in the evenings took classes to continue to upgrade her degrees. She was positioned at a State facility for women and was counseling some of our nation’s worst offenders.

She took everything as a challenge and wouldn’t give up on any of them. After her shift she had volunteered to counsel young women from the local church outreach.

When she arrived home each evening she was exhausted and went straight to bed. She seldom spent any time with Jessie and when I challenged her on that she would reply; that’s what the nanny is for isn’t it.

I spent the evenings with Jessie and we were good friends whereas she hardly knew her mother. All the passion went out of our life and almost never were we intimate. Then it was only after me demanding she give in.

I was hoping we could rekindle the flame we had when first married but she wasn’t interested and the thought of it was repugnant to her.

This went on for three years and then she was offered a job in another State as chief counselor at the state prison. She said we would have to move for she wanted the job very badly.

I told her, please not do it and she said she was sorry but had already committed to take the job.

We talked late into the night. Sometimes calm and sometimes heated but I could not change her mind.

 

We decided the only solution to this issue was to divorce and of course I would have to take Jessie for she had no time or interest in raising her.

Since I returned from China I had been teaching English and related subjects like writing and editing.

I also started studying Chinese and different dialects of the language. Jessie and I would visit many Chinese families and spend the evenings with them speaking only the Chinese dialect they spoke.

Writing the language was still beyond me but I could speak different dialects with a certain amount of ease.

We rarely heard from Abby. She would telephone and on occasion she would send Jessie a card which by now she would just throw it in the garbage without reading it.

I would retrieve it just to see what she was doing if she told about it in the letter.

Jessie had picked up a bit of the Chinese language from our time with the Chinese families and her playing with their children so we would speak Chinese at home part of the time.

My divorce had long since been final and my time with Abby was fast fading in my mind.

To be Continued