Lonesome Dove

.....one more that is.  A wrinkle has developed recently that involves another (possible) soul.  One who will never have the joy of sharing in the life of the man I love.  Someone who was suspected of existing, but never found.  A tsunami of emotion has flooded the lives of our children who now have knowledge of someone they are unsure of or what to do with this revelation. 

Wade and I had no secrets.  I'm sure we had some small secrets but definitely no big, earth-shattering secrets.  We loved each other, warts and all.  Honesty was one of the cornerstones of our relationship from the very beginning.  And he shared with me early on that while separated from his first wife, a woman he was seeing had told him she was pregnant.  With his child.  She, too, was separated, but chose to return to her husband and raise the child with him.  Wade had struggled with this, wondering if indeed this was his child, but could not justify in his mind or his heart that by intruding into her life anything positive would come from it.  He and I discussed on several occasions that when she was an adult and if her parents shared with her this (supposed) fact, he would be available.  I say supposed and possible simply because nothing is factual at this point.  But the question has been there for many years.  27 years to be exact.

I did not know the name of this woman so had no way to search her out when Wade died.  I asked his closest friends if they had any knowledge of this and no one knew of it.  About a year before he died, he shared this with his mother and brother, but no names were ever mentioned.


Yet somehow the ex-wife has now come in contact with this woman and felt compelled to share with her daughters, who have shared this with me and my/our daughters (I had one, he had three, we had one.....yours, mine, and ours). I do not know who sought out whom, but it is irrelevant at this time.

The kicker is that I moved into a neighborhood close to Wade's family (as was our plan) and have now learned that 1) the girl's father lives in the same neighborhood and 2) the girl works at the C-store down the street.  I have seen her many times since I frequent the store several times a week.  Now I see her with a different eye and I wonder.  I wonder who is driving this bus; who's hands are steering the wheel and where exactly is the destination we are headed towards?