Dexter carried the tray with his sandwich and soft drink over to one of the dozen tables in the chain sandwich place. The sandwich that he ordered had a little heart symbol next to the item on the menu suggesting that it was a healthy choice. He didn't really know about that, but he liked turkey sandwiches anyway. Of course, drinking a soft drink kind of undermined any healthful effects of his sandwich.
He sat down at a table and unwrapped his sandwich. It had always seemed to be a waste to wrap a sandwich in paper to carry it fifteen feet from the counter. The paper did serve a dual purpose, as it was also the plate.
He took a bite out of the sandwich thinking that he should have gotten potato chips to go with the sandwich. It could have used a pickle to go along with it as a side.
He sighed thinking that if he had wanted a deli sandwich, then he should have gone to a deli, rather than a chain sandwich shop. There was a difference.
"Hello, Dexter."
Dexter looked up to find his ex-wife standing in front of him.
He swallowed his latest bite of his sandwich and then said, "Hello, Janet."
"Can I join you at your table?" Janet asked.
This was unexpected. Dexter could feel the old anger rise, but he fought it down. Now that they weren't married, it just wasn't worth fighting with her. There was going to be a time when they had to be civil with each other. He guessed now was as good of a time to start as any.
"I guess so," Dexter said.
Janet frowned at the lukewarm response, but said, "I'll get my lunch and come right back."
He watched her go over to the counter. She had lost some weight. She looked more like a woman and less like a Sneech. She actually had hints of an hourglass to her figure. She had also let her hair grow a little longer, and her clothes weren't so dowdy.
Janet returned after a minute with a sandwich, and a bottle of iced tea. She sat down and unwrapped her sandwich. Dexter noticed that it was a turkey sandwich as well. She basically ignored him while taking the first bite out of her sandwich. Dexter was finding the silence unsettling.
"You've lost some weight," Dexter said.
Janet said, "Yes, I have."
"You look good," Dexter said.
"Thank you," Janet said before taking another bite of her sandwich.
"You're welcome," Dexter said.
Dexter took a bite out of his sandwich rather than attempt to continue what was becoming a rather awkward conversation. The two ate without saying much. Dexter wondered why she had wanted to join him at the table if she wasn't going to talk.
When Dexter finished his sandwich, Janet opened the conversation. "You made the news again."
"What did I do?" Dexter asked.
It seemed to Dexter that somehow he was always in the news. About every two months an article of his would suddenly appear on the news as if he had proposed something revolutionary. The article about the steak house had made the news and was touted as promoting a new way for restaurants to provide service.
Business commentators were trying to figure out what business practice he was going to change next. To say that they had been taken by surprise at the resurgence of service, would be an understatement. No one was more surprised by the results of his articles than Dexter.
Janet answered, "The Dexter James scholarship."
"Oh, that. Well, I had a bunch of money and didn't know what to do with it. Charlie recommended a charity. I liked the idea of helping some kids get through college without ending up in debt," Dexter said.
He had taken a third of the money from the class suit and created a scholarship for engineering students. He had never forgotten that discussion with the young man at the hospital who had become a wage slave because of college debt.
"It was nice," Janet said.
Dexter shrugged his shoulders. "It was a lot of work, getting it set up. I wanted something that would fit kids who didn't qualify for any of the normal government crap and whose fathers weren't rich enough to put them through school. You try writing that as a condition on award. I was pulling my hair out by the time we got something together."
"Is it true that it is for engineering students only?"
"Yes. I think we need more engineers in this world," Dexter answered.
Janet sat back and studied Dexter. "Being an engineer was important to you, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it was. It still is, but I don't get a chance to do engineering anymore, and it's too late to return to it. I'm out of practice," Dexter said.
Janet raised an eyebrow at the comment about him being out of practice.
He sighed.
"That's what I hated the most about that company. The only way to move up, was to move out of engineering, and into management. I never wanted to be a manager. All that I wanted to be was an engineer. All I wanted to do was to take care of my family. They used the latter, to deny me the former."
"You did a good job of taking care of your family," Janet said softly.
"Don't give me that," Dexter said angrily. He hit the table with his fist as he added, "I blew it with the kids, and I blew it with you."
"I didn't say that in sarcasm. I meant it. You did a good job of providing for us. You're still doing a good job of that," Janet said.
"I sucked at being a husband and a father," Dexter said.
"Not really. I'll admit that there for a while, you weren't a very good at it, but it wasn't your fault," Janet said.
"Yes, it was," Dexter said.
"You were stuck playing a game that was rigged against you. The company was using your desire to support your family to take advantage of you. They made it impossible for you to be a good husband and father. You had a choice: provide for us, or be there for us," Janet said.
Dexter said, "We all know what I chose. I was never there."
"You provided for us. You kept a roof over our heads, food in our stomachs, and clothes on our backs. You put the kids into the best schools available to us. You provided them with a chance at a real future. It may not sound like much, but that's becoming almost impossible, today," Janet said. "You did it, and that's an important thing."
"I should have been there for you," Dexter said.
Janet said, "It takes two to tango. I wasn't there for you. For that matter, the kids weren't there for you, either."
Dexter was about to make a comment about her knowing all about it taking two to tango, but he bit the words back before they had a chance to escape.
Seeing the expression on his face, Janet said, "I know what you think. You're wrong, but I understand why you believe the way you do."
Dexter took a sip of his soft drink through the straw trying to get his emotions under control. He wanted to blast her, but this wasn't the kind of place for that type of confrontation.
"I know I hurt you. I apologize for that," Janet said.
"Apology accepted," Dexter grunted.
His answer was automatic. His father had always said that when someone sincerely apologized, you accepted. You might never forget the insult, but you accepted the apology and went on with your life. To do otherwise could, and would, lead you to becoming a bitter person filled with venom.
Janet shook her head. She knew better than that. "Don't accept it, yet. You aren't ready to forgive me. You're still too angry."
"Don't tell me what I'm feeling," Dexter said sharply.
Janet took a drink of her iced tea. She still had a third of her sandwich, but she had lost her appetite. She toyed with it waiting for Dexter to calm down a little.
"That day in the hospital you were right about a lot of things and you were wrong on other things," Janet said.
"About?" Dexter asked.
After taking a deep breath, Janet said, "In a way, you were right that there was another man."
"Who?" Dexter asked.
He felt like he was about to lose the sandwich that he had just finished eating. The fact was that he didn't want to know the identity of the other man. He guessed that he was supposed go out and beat up the guy. After all, wasn't that a man was supposed to do? He wondered if he was going to have to take on some gym strongman or some rough construction worker who could tie him into knots. He hoped not.
"You," Janet answered staring him straight in the eye.
"Me?"
Janet said, "You were wrong about there being another man, but you were right about me being in love with someone other than you. I was in love with the you from years ago."
"Thank you," Dexter said sarcastically. "That makes me feel a whole lot better."
There was one bright lining ... he figured that he could beat himself up rather easily. He did that pretty regularly, now.
"It should," Janet said. "You see, I never fell out of love with you."
Dexter sighed. "So what happened when you realized that I wasn't that man anymore?"
"I never came to that realization. As far as I can tell, you're still the guy I fell in love with."
"But I'm not that guy," Dexter said.
He didn't know how to be much plainer. He had told her that at the hospital. It seemed a wasted effort to have to repeat himself.
Janet said, "That's what you think. And you see ... that's where you're wrong. You're still the man who believes that being an engineer is the most noble thing that a man can aspire to be."
"It is," Dexter said.
"You're a true son of Martha," Janet said. "You're still trying to fix things that are broken. You take apart the world to see how it works, then you try to put it back together, better than new. That part of you hasn't changed. That idealist, the man who wants to make the world a better place ... he's the man I fell in love with so long ago. He's the man I still love."
"But I'm not an engineer anymore," Dexter protested.
Janet scoffed at that. "Dexter James! Don't give me that bull. I've seen your website. You're providing engineering solutions to problems that everyone has. You're still trying to make the world a better place. So what if it isn't by making a new gadget or widget or thing-a-ma-bob. You're still trying to fix the world."
"I don't see it that way," Dexter said.
Janet said, "There for a while you lost touch with yourself. You lost your way during those years at the company where they tried to turn you into an incompetent middle manager. I wasn't too fond of the guy you were acting like, but I knew that deep down inside you were still Dexter James."
"I don't know," Dexter said. "I kind of take exception to being called an incompetent middle manager."
"You were. You knew what the problems were, but you didn't fix them," Janet said looking at her husband in the eye.
"Well ... I did fix a lot of them before I was fired," Dexter said.
"You did?" Janet asked.
With her busy schedule at work during that time period she hadn't been too aware of what was going on with Dexter. It was hard to talk by instant messaging. She wished that she had known that.
"I made some major changes in my department and I was turning things around," Dexter said.
"What kind of changes?" Janet asked.
Dexter answered, "I redefined everyone's jobs. I got rid of a bunch of Mickey Mouse bullshit. My people didn't have to work overtime to get their work done. I was getting home by six every night, with no calls on the weekends."
Frowning, Janet wondered how much she had missed during that time.
She said, "I didn't notice that. I wish I had known."
"What can I say? I turned back the hands of time at work, so that things were being managed the way they had been when I was a young engineer. Guess what? It worked pretty damned well, if I say so myself," Dexter said.
"They didn't want a competent manager. I guess, in that sense, you weren't a good employee," Janet said.
Janet wrapped the remains of her sandwich back in the paper it had come in.
She stood and said, "Give me a call when you remember who you are. We'll go on a date."
"We'll see," Dexter said.
Janet said, "I'll accept that as an answer, for now."
"That's the closest you'll get to a yes anytime in the near future," Dexter said.
Janet's shoulders sagged. In a fraction of a second she appeared to have aged a year. She sighed. "I really hurt you, didn't I?"
"Yes," Dexter answered flatly. He didn't think lying about it would make things better.
"I'm really sorry," she said.
Unable to stop himself, Dexter asked, "Why did you do it on my birthday?"
"Do what?" Janet asked puzzled by the question.
Dexter asked, "Why did you sign the divorce papers on my birthday?"
"I didn't," Janet said.
She tried to remember the date she had signed the papers. That whole week had passed in a fog.
"You did," Dexter said.
"I couldn't have," Janet said.
"You did."
"Oh my God!" Janet shouted when she realized that he was serious.
She fled, with tears running down her cheeks. Dexter watched her race out of the shop, then he looked down at her sandwich on the table.
"I don't think she'll be back for the rest of her sandwich."
Dexter continued to stare at the sandwich. He began to think of it as if it was an alternate manifestation of Janet.
"I can't believe you didn't know what you had done," he said. "Do I mean that little to you?"
A small kid walked over to Dexter and said, "Mister, do you know you're talking to a sandwich?"
Edited By TeNderLoin