Smokey Roads

"Hello stranger." She said to me when I turned around.

"Well hello, June. You are looking good." I didn't see her date anywhere around.

"You too, Josh. Your Mom and Dad said you were doing real good and spending a lot of time working over in Tennessee. I'm happy for you, I really am."

I introduced her to Sandra and I could see just a hint of sorrow in her eyes but she did good hiding it from anybody else, at least I thought so. We gave each other a little hug and she returned to the group she was with.

The next thing I knew I was on the receiving end of a glancing blow to the side of my head.

Sandra screamed out. "No, Bill, you can't do this!"

By then it was too late. He took another swing at me and I laid him out with an overhand right. Sandra was crying and then to my surprise June came running over and crouched down to help the man on the floor.

"Jesus, Josh, what the hell??" June asked.

I looked at her and tried to make the connection before I realized this was the guy she was with earlier.

"Honey, he's my ex-husband, Bill." Sandra whispered to me.

"June, he attacked Josh, not the other way around." She said to her.

By then the bouncers had picked him up off the floor and ushered him out the door as June excused herself to the restroom. Sandra and I turned ourselves back to the bar and two fresh drinks waiting for us courtesy of the house.

"Now you know why I had a restraining order. He's nuts." She said.

I just agreed and tried to put it to the back of my mind. The episode kind of dampened the evening for us and as we were thinking about leaving, June walked back up to us. Sandra explained who he was and what he did and June was nearly in tears. Since he had been her date, amazing coincidence or not, she was now without a ride so the two of us agreed to take her home to her sister Ann's place.

As we were walking out, June paused to wave goodbye to somebody and Sandra and I walked out the door and started toward the parking lot. June had just come out behind us and was catching up when I saw the white flash and the loud pop in front of me.

I fell to the ground, pulled my concealed carry out and immediately returned the fire with two shots striking Bill Dresser in the chest felling him on the spot. I began feeling around to determine if I had been shot. I didn't feel any pain or blow anywhere so I guessed the drunken sot missed me.

Just then Sandra screamed out in panic.

"Oh my God, she's been shot."

I turned around and June was sprawled on her back with a trickle of blood flowing out of a small hole in her right temple. House security was rushing to the scene as I got to her side and realized she was still alive and semi-conscious. Some people liken the experience to time standing still but it was more like watching a movie and being a bit detached from events.

A woman asked me to move aside and she started administering first aid and in what seemed like mere moments but was really a few minutes an EMT arrived and took over. They transported her to Mission Hospital as we followed. At some point I had the frame of mind to call Ann to let her know what happened and to come to the Hospital.

When she arrived, June had been moved into surgery and we were sitting in the surgical waiting room for somebody to tell us something. Eventually a nurse came out and told us that June was still in surgery and that it was going to be a long night before they knew for certain what her condition would be. For now, she was critical.

Sandra and Ann stayed together while I went looking for something to eat and when I returned they were both arm in arm waiting near a window. Ann was a wreck but after we got some food in her we all grabbed a seat nearby and waited out the surgery. It was three hours later when a doctor came out to share his prognosis.

"We have her moving to intensive care at this moment and at this point we think she is going to live. The extent of the damage will not be known until she comes out of the induced coma we moved her into so that her body can recuperate.

"The bullet fragmented on impact but a portion of it affected her medial temporal lobe which might impact certain kinds of memory. We won't know this until later however her motor functions should not be impacted based on what we found during surgery. Obviously we will know more over the next few days."

We were allowed to visit quietly with her for a few minutes and Sandra and I spent the evening comforting my distressed sister in law. The next morning the doctors gave Ann and her parents an update. It was basically the same as the previous night.

June stayed in the induced coma for 4 days. When she was woken Ann and her parents were there and the first person she asked to see was me. Before I went to the Hospital to see her, Ann brought me up to speed.

"She's got good speech and hearing although her right eye is still a bit blurred but the doctors think that will right itself in time. The thing is she's lost some of her memory. She has no idea how or where she got shot or by whom. Now, you need to prepare yourself for this, Josh.

"She thinks she's still married to you. It's like nothing in the last two or three years ever happened. I'm serious, she thinks the two of you were getting ready to make a bunch of kids and this will have to put that off for a couple months or so."

I didn't know what to think at that point and I debated even going to the Hospital but Sandra in her wisdom would not hear anything of it. She went there with me but stayed downstairs in the lobby while I went up to the ward.

June looked like a mess but she was awake and resting. Her parents had just left to go downstairs and Ann was sitting on the other side of her. She didn't waste any time.

"Josh, where are my wedding rings? I know I had them on yesterday morning or whenever, before all this happened."

Ann just looked at me sadly almost as if she hoped I could respond like I was still her husband. I really didn't know what to do. The problem here was that I was in love and I had the engagement ring sitting in my bedroom dresser waiting for the opportunity I thought would be realized several days ago.

"June, do you know what the date is or the year?" I asked her sincerely and with a soft voice.

"Well, it's supposed to be July, 2012 but my doctor tells me it is not the case and I just don't understand it."

I looked over at Ann and asked. "You didn't tell her?" She just shook her head with a tear in her eye.

"June, don't worry about your rings right now. It's more important that you get well and hopefully get some of that memory back." I tried to smile as I said it but I think my troubled countenance interfered.

June wanted to hold my hand as I sat there and I didn't object even though my mind was reeling trying to absorb the impact of all this. We talked about a lot of things and the family and about the recovery in front of her but I shied away from the elephant.

Later, in the waiting area I talked with both Ann and June's doctor about her memory prognosis. It seems she was OK with most memories. She recognized family and friends but struggled with piecing dates and events together. A lot of things she had no recollection of including her adultery and our divorce.

"Is there the likelihood she will get these memories back?" I asked the doctor.

"That's always hard to predict. It could be that a person or place might trigger recognition. We will have to see. I can't tell you how to go forward here, Mr. Sutton. All I can say is it is 50/50 one way or the other. She might stay where she is or she might get it all back. We just don't know.

I thanked the doctor and gave Ann a big hug. I also told her I had planned on proposing to Sandra the night June was shot but didn't get a chance. She told me Sandra already told her that. I guess I didn't keep a secret as well as I thought.

The truth of the matter was that I already knew what I was going to do. I just had to go downstairs and do it.

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...The twin Can-Am Spyder F3s raced down the gravel surface of the old Hootch Road with the wind in our hair and a mile of dust behind us. When we came up on the Big Creek bridge we pulled into the rest area lot for a break and to wet a line for the chance at that big lurker of a brown trout. Suffice to say he's still roaming the same waters today...

A lot has happened over the past year since June was shot and Bill Dresser was laid to an unsettled rest following our altercation in Asheville. I sold my house in Waynesville and the company allowed me to work out of a regional office in Cosby, of my choosing. I chose an extra room in Sandra's farmhouse since most of my work was travelling during the day. I still have some overnight work but it's manageable.

Sandra has worked her nurse practitioner midwife role into pretty much full time now but last May we took two weeks off together to enjoy our own time in the sun down in Key West. Joshua and Sandra Sutton came back half rested, tanned and ready to begin their new lives together.

A year ago as I rode down the elevator to reach Sandra in the lobby of the Hospital I thought back on my failed marriage and what I could have had in front of me and it was an easy decision, really. I had already moved on. Why should I throw away the happiness I now had for somebody who was still a cheating, cuckolding slut even if she didn't remember any of it. Hell, I know drunks and druggies who don't remember a thing the next day and they are still what they were the night before.

Ann made it easy for me. She sat June down and explained life to her. She even brought my old nemesis Charlie around to see if it would kick start her memory to no avail. In the end June accepted the truth even if she didn't remember it and I think that ultimately caused her a lot of remorse.

She went through a period of depression and then my angel did something remarkable. Sandra made a trip over to Waynesville on her own one afternoon during the week. I was traveling overnight and didn't know anything about it. She told me about it a couple months later.

"Josh, I felt I needed to do something. I want you to imagine how you would feel if the identical thing happened to you and the woman you love was, right out of the blue, running off with no explanation to marry some other guy. I don't know for sure how I would react but I'm pretty sure it would have been pretty much what June was going through.

"She knew her husband or the man who used to be her husband was in love with a woman and planned on marrying her. That had to devastate her and I can understand that. She knew too. She knows the truth and it's acknowledging what she did that sank her into those depths of depression.

"I gave her a choice; to either wallow in self- inflicted pity and spend the rest of her life in misery over something she did or she could move on with her life just as she did before the shooting; her choice. A benefit of moving on was her friendship with me, with us, both of us and that's what she is doing."...

... By the time we had our lines in the waters of Big Creek two more Cam-Am Spyders pulled in next to ours and June and her significant other for the past 6 months dismounted and joined us in trying to convince the big lurker to strike one more time...

Somehow through all the angst and turmoil of betrayal, divorce, struggling to move on and finding new loves, June and I managed to come out of it all as friends. My parents still love her and have her over often, along with her new love interest. They have accepted reality and love Sandra as much as they love June.

For me, life is good now and the only problem I can see on my horizon is how to fit the new addition to our family on the back of a new two seat Can-Am. Sandra told me last night I was going to be a daddy.

MFH