My bachelor party consisted of Maggie and me taking in a Celtic’s game at the Garden and a short night at the pub relishing the victory. Maggie wouldn’t tell me much about her day with Susan. She said she had explained our financial situation, and the pre-nuptial agreement, which was a surprise to me. I guess I had told her to take care of everything which did leave her with quite a lot of latitude. Susan had signed the necessary paperwork and then they spent the day learning everything they could about each other. Maggie said there weren’t any secrets but she didn’t really want to talk about it.
The wedding was apparently a tasteful and fun affair. I am not the one to talk to about the details. I spent my day sharing excited smiles with Maggie and staring at my beautiful wife. No one seemed to be disturbed when Maggie stood her post next to me during the ceremony or when it was time for her to give her ‘best man’ speech. She had a lot of material to work with, but didn’t embarrass me too bad. The room was deathly quiet and emotional as she finished. She promised, after knowing me and my family nearly all of her life, that my parents would have wholeheartedly supported our marriage and would have loved Susan.
***
David and I never had a fight. Not one in 15 years of marriage. People might think that is unhealthy. But it wasn’t.
We had lots of disagreements and David never shied away from a discussion. Frequently, he thought an issue was one we had to agree upon to move forward as a couple. So we would argue our position, laying out all the facts as we saw them. And we would keep talking until someone came out on top. Sometimes, it would take months. But there were never harsh words and he never raised his voice. David adopted my position as often as I accepted his. It was never one sided.
Sometimes, David said that people could have more than one solution to a problem, even if he preferred one way over another. In those cases, he would ask me questions and let me explain my reasoning. He would offer advice, but once he felt he understood my position, he was done. And he just lived with it. And those times when I realized much later that he had been right all along, he never said a word. He would just hug me and tell me how much he loved me.
He was quick to remind me that he was the boss at the office, so people had to do what he said. But at home he was my partner and we needed to find solutions that worked for us, not him. It was very sweet, but a bunch of bull shit.
Rebecca Davis and I met for lunch every time David was traveling on business. He had lunch with her every day he was home, and she was my office spy. She kept me abreast of any problems at the office, or if David wasn’t acting like himself. David knew she was feeding me all the details, but he didn’t care.
“I have no secrets from you, Suze. It’s probably a good idea for you to have a network of spies. I am getting pretty forgetful in my old age.”
Becky told me over lunch one day about how David made the department managers present any suggested changes in the senior staff meeting, saying that it would give everyone an equal opportunity to ask questions and identify any potential problems. But when he noticed that one of his best programmers wasn’t suggesting any changes he did some recon. When he realized that the man was painfully shy and afraid of public speaking, he told him he should make his presentation from his office via conference call, so that he could have all his materials available at a moment’s notice. David said it would be too disruptive to bring everything into the meeting room. After the man made his first successful presentation, from the safety of his office, David gave him a raise. Yeah, my David was a hard ass alright.
There was only one area that David was completely unwilling to compromise: his complete devotion to me and our family. I told him frequently that he didn’t have to come to every recital or game and that he didn’t have to be home for every dinner when he wasn’t traveling. If staying late at work late once in awhile meant that he didn’t have to work late at night or be up before the sun in his home office, or if it just meant he could have some free time, we could manage without him. He would vehemently disagree.
“Suze, you and the kids are my number one priority. How will the children know that they are the most important thing in my life if I am not there to show them? Nope. Work will have to take a back seat. And if I can’t find a way to be with my family and work then I’ll quit, sell the business and be a stay at home dad. If that happens though, you may still want to cook the meals. We wouldn’t want my being around to become a punishment.”
He was trying to be funny. It was very charming.
“Suze, the best part of my day is spending time with you and the kids. Please don’t ask me to give it up.”
I imagine that the romance novel covers and advertisements with half naked men work because most women fantasize about having a stolen moment with the man of their dreams. But I woke up to that dream guy every day, and went to bed with him every night. My David made all those guys look like pussies.
You see, my David is a hunk, a beefcake of a man. Soccer moms, coeds, models, movie stars. They all wanted a piece of my man and who could blame them. No one had dared to walk up to him completely naked yet, but I had been witness to my fair share lingerie covered boobs. I even had to mention to our babysitter once that a string bikini was not appropriate attire to wear around David and the kids.
But David just laughed it off. He just shot down women left and right, breaking hearts on a daily basis. Displaying his wedding ring like it had super powers. Still, I worried about him. Not often, but enough. He always had a good answer.
“Suze, why would I want her when I get to fuck you anytime I want?”
Oh, he was so right. Anytime he wanted.
***
I hated travelling for business. When the kids were toddlers, we could travel as a family. It was as if we took little mini vacations all though out the year. I tried to get my days started as early as possible with my staff’s pre-meeting briefings over breakfast, scheduling presentations and meetings before noon, and shifting client dinners to lunches. Susan would spend the mornings with the children at the hotel, swimming or watching a movie. I tried my best to be home early in the afternoon. Then we would head off exploring our host city for the rest of the day. It didn’t always go as planned. Sometimes meetings ran late, sometimes we had larger problems. But for the most part it was a great way to stay together as a family.
When Michael started school our mini vacations together as a family were limited to summers and breaks. As the kids grew even older, they had their own interests and activities, so the mini vacations became a cherished memory. I found a compromise. Shorter trips, longer days, stacking meetings and clients back to back. It meant my staff hard to work harder, longer days, and prep for several clients at the same time. But when I explained my reasoning, they all seemed to understand and those with families of their own appreciated the compacted schedule. Booking travel and meetings was a logistics nightmare, but Miss Davis was my savior. I followed the itinerary that she always prepared for me to the letter and rarely had a problem. She monitored flight schedules and weather and traffic, made any necessary changes on the double and 99% of the time had me everywhere I needed to be, most importantly home, on time.
When webcams were made available on most laptops, we made that part of our standard laptop configuration and I started having more room service dinners. With the webcam fired up at home and mine sitting in my hotel room, it was almost as though I was spending my evenings at home. We could do homework, play games, dine together. It almost made traveling alone bearable.
Most importantly I could poor myself a drink have my evening chats with Susan and wait for my favorite words.
“How was your day, Suze?”
“Everything was OK, honey.”