Eva

In this chapter, there will be another major life change for Jon and Eva. Kind of huge. Also the end of this part takes place in a 2020 where the Corona Virus doesn’t exist. My world, my rules. Is this the last chapter? Read on, loyal readers, to find out if the story ends here or continues on for another chapter or two.

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In March of 2014, Eva and I adopted our ‘late in life’ children, ten year old Vincent (Vince) and eight year old Maria, formerly Andretta, now Grossman. They lost their parents almost two years before in a car accident. Eva and I had been looking to foster a child and instead we got a brother and sister and we fell in love with them almost immediately. We jumped on the opportunity to adopt them when the time came, and they were fully loved and integrated into the family by everyone, including Rachel and Connor. Vince really bonded with Rachel over music and she worked with him on the guitar and piano whenever she was home. In addition, he had regular music lessons every week plus help from me on guitar, and he joined a hockey team the following Fall. Maria took ballet lessons in town, something Eva took her to, a mother-daughter thing. Then on Sundays they went to Sunday school after church (Catholic), which Eva and I took them to, even though she and I are Jewish. We were raising them in their own religion, as their parents had, until they were ready to make their own choices. Life was busy for us at 53. We loved it.

2014 was a very busy year in our family. Eva and I finished our 23rd year as principals at Wayne Upper Day School, making us the longest tenured principals in the schools’ 154 year history. The Trustees threw us a party at the end of April, a black-tie party, The invitees were all drawn from random entries of alumni, staff, past members of the Board, even a couple of current students. We were given a few gag gifts and a pair of really nice gold watches. We loved our careers and we had no desire to leave for any other opportunity and someone would have had to make us one hell of an offer to get us to even consider it. It didn’t matter, really; we had contracts that went to 2021 and we planned to honor them, which would be 30 years there. Since we’d be only 60 by then, we had doubts about whether we’d be ready to retire at that point. We were healthy, active and we felt we were at the zenith of our careers and of our mental abilities.

Connor was spending the next two years as Executive Officer on his ‘boat’ (the Navy calls submarines boats), the USS Tampa Bay. It was seasoning, to train him to be a captain of a submarine. He was scheduled to transfer to shore duty in the academic year 2016-2017 to teach physics at Annapolis, then a year studying back at South Carolina Nuclear school, and then another year back at sea to sharpen his skills before he would be up for command of his own boat as a full Commander at age 37. Leigh and Ollie, his wife and son, would be dragged along with him, but Leigh was a Navy brat and knew the drill. And while in Annapolis, they’d be much closer to us. We’d see more of our grandson. Besides, they’d have two years of living together after all the periodic separations all the time.

Cammy was busy as you would expect the senior partner in a law office in LA to be. She had been chosen for the job a few years back because she was, in the legal informal terminology, a ‘rainmaker’. She made it rain, ie. she brought in new clients. A lot of them, with lots of billable hours. She learned the entertainment law business in quick order and she made it rain in LA. She turned that office from a backwater of 12 associates barely justifying their salaries into a nice sized firm of about 70 lawyers with paralegals, assistants and secretaries making solid salaries. She herself had a low-to-mid seven figure salary but she doubled that or more with bonuses. And she still had her own investment account from her days living with Eva and me, now worth tens of millions. Cammy was the definition of success. She was a real Hollywood Mover and Shaker, and people came to both seek her advice and dread her phone calls. And Kyle was the doting father, the perfect house husband. He took care of Anna, oversaw the upkeep of their small mansion, and adored his wife. They were great together. And when they decided to put Anna in a top private school out there without waiting on one of the years long lists, Eva and I were able to make a call and send a letter and get Anna bumped to the top of the list. Professional courtesy. I’d do anything for my sister and niece.

And Rachel, last but definitely not least. She graduated from Julliard that May. We managed to get eight tickets for her graduation, for Eva and me and our little ones, for Connor and his family and for Phyllis, the proud grandmother. I couldn’t finagle any more tickets for Cammy and her family of Kyle and Anna. We just couldn’t get them. It was painful for both Cammy and Rachel; they had been so close when Rachel was a child and Cammy was the Cool Aunt. But they all came to Philly for a long weekend to be at the graduation party at a nice bistro and so Cammy could meet with her partners in the law firm.

Rachel told us a few weeks ago she was moving to Portland Oregon to be the lead pianist at their symphony orchestra. She could have taken the second seat in Houston’s orchestra, but even though Portland is a much smaller community, it was better for her to be first seat so she’d get more exposure than a second chair would in a larger city. Big fish, small pond theory. I agreed with her. She had a much better chance of moving up from Portland, including possibilities as a solo artist. Eva and I agreed to subsidize her relatively meager salary for a few years to give her a chance to establish herself and make a name for herself. Five years. But it couldn’t be a permanent thing.

At the luncheon, Connor got up and, after clinking his glass to get everyone’s attention, he gave a toast to his sister. “I want to thank everyone for being here today to honor my incredibly talented and beautiful sister Rachel. She’s going to be a big name one day and we’re all going to be able to say ‘I knew her before’. Rachel, you’re an amazing musician and an even better sister and daughter. And niece and aunt and….” mild laughter fluttered around the room. “But best of all, you’re an incredible person and a real credit to our mother and father, Eva and Jon. I know how much they love you because I know how much they love all their children, including our new brother and sister.” He waved to Vince and Maria, who smiled and waved back. “Good luck in all you do, Rachel. I can’t wait to be invited to your first headline performance, wherever in the world it is. We all love you, Squirt!” Lots of cheers and Rachel got up, crying and hugged her big brother for at least thirty seconds. Eva and I burst with pride.

Later we were sitting with Rachel while Maria and Vince were busy being spoiled by Phyllis. She was telling us about the apartment she found in Portland and how she was going to give private lessons to help with the bills. Eva and I were both feeling wistful. Our family was spreading all over the country. Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, kids move away. And sisters. Even with our young children keeping us busy, we’d miss having Rachel near enough to see her regularly. Connor, though moving nearby for a year, would be busy and then keep on moving on; such is the life in a military career. But we had Vince and Maria. That took a bit of the sting away.

In the evening, after we picked at a light dinner of salads and some grilled chicken breasts (no one was really hungry), we were sitting out in the backyard, all four of our children plus Leigh and Oliver, as he preferred to be called, and Cammy with her small family, and Phyllis. Walt and Will had come down for the party but had to be back in New York for the morning. Eva and I held hands as there was cheerful, playful banter among our family and I smiled to myself. Our lives together started pretty roughly. I thought back to those first few years. The loss of my mother, the collapse of my father as well as his death. How I almost lost Eva, which would have been the worst blow of all. Harold’s passing. And getting shot on that terrible day in October 2001.

But we also had so many great things in our lives. Our four wonderful children, our grandson and daughter-in-law. Cammy and her family. Great jobs we loved and where were were respected and even beloved. All the children we worked with over the years who went on to good lives of their own. Overall, life was pretty amazing.

I squeezed Eva’s hand, gently, and she looked at me with a soft smile. I could tell she was thinking much along the same lines. We built something beautiful here, and, on that warm, slightly humid May night in Eastern Pennsylvania, we watched and listened as everyone enjoyed being together. Quietly I said, so no one else could here “Angel, we’ve done all right for ourselves, haven’t we? We’re happy together? YOU’RE happy with me?”

“Bear, how can you even ask me that? How can you doubt for a minute the life we have? First of all, I love and adore you. And I plan to do so until my dying day. Our children, our extended family. Friends. Our careers. The students whose lives we’ve changed over all these years. And you actually ask if we’re happy together and if I’m happy with you? Maybe you’re getting senile.” She said that with a bigger smile.

“Not that I’m aware. Then again, I’d be the last to know.” We laughed together, a healthy laugh that got others attention.

Vince, who was turning out to have not much of a filter, asked “Hey, what are you laughing about without us?” His own smile was infectious.

Eva pulled him to her lap and said “We’re laughing at YOU!” She blew a tummy ‘fart’ on his torso and he giggled.

“Me too!” Maria of course got into the act and Kyle picked her up and did the same for her. Then I did the same to Oliver and Connor did it to Anna and then the adults were getting their ‘farts’ from the kids and we all were laughing raucously. We’re a real classy bunch, the Glazer-Grossmans.

Nighttime, after the kids were in bed and everyone else at their hotel, Eva and I knew what we both wanted to do. We wanted each other. Needed each other. We stood by the bed and kissed, soft and loving and passionately. We’d lost none of our touch for making each other feel great. Maybe we slowed down a little, maybe a little less frequency in our ‘extracurricular’ activities. We still loved and lusted for each other.

Eva was kissing my chest as she unbuttoned my shirt. “I love your hairy chest, Bear. Even more now than when we were young. It’s such a nice mix of black and grey. Very sexy.” She bit my breast softly, swirling her tongue over my nipple. It sent little waves all through my lower body. Eva knew which buttons to press, and she pressed them perfectly.

I held her head in my hands in a very loving way, stroking her hair, tickling her neck, then down her spine as I kissed her head. “You are still the sexiest woman I’ve ever known. And Angel, you’re still incredibly beautiful. The most beautiful woman I know.” I lifted her face up to see me and I kissed her with all my love.

“You always make me feel like a Queen, Bear. Almost thirty five years now. And I still feel like the most beautiful woman when I’m with you. And that gets me hotter than a volcano every time.” She stepped back and dropped her nightgown, standing in front of me in a pair of pink cotton panties. She still fit into those little bikini styles and she looked sooo good. My body was certainly taking notice, and Eva was taking notice of my reaction. “Take off your briefs, knave. For your Queen.” Her lips were moist, her eyes were glassy and her body was all aglow.

“For my Queen, anything.” I bowed my head, getting a small laugh out of my Queen. Then I pulled down my briefs and stood up straight, in both senses of the word. “Is my Lady pleased?”

“Very. I’m even going to Knight thee. I dub thee….Sir Erectus of Studly.” We both giggled like idiots and knelt before her, laughing my ass off.

“I guess I need to earn my promotion by servicing my queen.” I opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue and wiggled it around. Eva laughed almost hard enough to wake our children. “Wasso fnne?” I muttered with my tongue still out.

“You, Sir Erectus. Should have named you Sir Dumbass.” I grabbed her and she yelped with laughter as I pulled her down to the carpet. We were kissing, laughing and rolling around. This was more pure fun with sex than we’d had in a few years.

I spanked her lightly as we moved and Eva let out a chuckle. “Is that all you’ve got, Sir Erectus? You know what a naughty Queen I am!”

“Oh yeah? Let’s see just how naughty you are!” I spanked her harder and, as the shaft of my cock rubbed right over her clit, she shuddered as a small burst of pleasure traveled her body. I nibbled on her earlobe before blowing gently into her ear and I got a growl of approval in response.

“You really light my fire, Bear. I am so ready for you” she moaned as she kissed my throat, making my cock twitch on her tummy. “Take me now, Sir Erectus!”

Eva wasn’t the only one ready right then. I shifted my body just a little and the head of my cock found the entrance to her warm home. A thrust down of my hips and we were enjoined, locked together, just like we had done for thousands of times over the years, just as wonderful now as it had been at any of those other times. We moved as one, in a rhythm we perfected over time, and it was exciting, pleasurable, intense, and very loving and lusty. I was up on my arms, looking into those blue gemstones of her eyes, seeing everything I was feeling reflected back at me. I plunged in and held still, making my cock twitch in her pussy. Eva clawed at my lower back and my ass as we both grunted and groaned. Then more, more thrusts, more lifting of her hips, more sweat and more love. We kissed over and over as we shared one of the best fucks we had in a few years.

“Bear, don’t stop. Harder! Please, fuck me harder!”

“Your wish is my command, my Queen!” I lunged into her, my cock coated in her warm oils and the oozing precum I provided. I was close myself; our timing had always been great and this time was no different. “Oh, god, I’m cumming my Angel!” My eyes went wide as my dam burst and my balls provided a heavy load of cum as she joined me. Her body went tense and her breathing ragged as Eva pulled my face to hers for a fiery kiss. Our tongues snaked back and forth, dancing and loving as our bodies and minds shared the ultimate pleasure. Then I relaxed and Eva slowly released her grasp on my penis and my ass. We shared a bunch of very gentle kisses that kept our climaxes going just a little longer. “I love you so much, my darling Angel. It still keeps growing, every day.”

Eva brushed my hair with her fingers, the hair I still had (about half of what I had when we started 34 years before) and she kissed my cheek. “And I love you too, my sweet Bear. In ways I’m still learning about.” We kept touching and kissing on the floor of our bedroom, sharing our most intimate touches and kisses. Eventually I helped her up and let her use the bathroom before I went and did the same. We shared a little more tenderness before turning to go to bed. We still had things to do with our family the next day.

Eva never told me about the twinge she felt in her chest just before her climax.

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The next few weeks were spent as they typically were. We worked, finishing up the school year, which included the Senior Banquet and Awards dinner, we took the kids to the beach house on weekends (sometimes Rachel joined us, sometimes she didn’t), Eva and I kept busy with tennis and taking the kids to their various lessons. In mid-June, Vincent had his first Communion, handsome in his shirt and tie, carrying his candle paired with a little girl. Even though Eva and I were not Catholic, we still felt a sense of pride for him. We knew enough to know this was a major step in a Catholic childs’ life.

Afterwards we hosted a small party for friends and some family; we even invited Marty and Cassie Andretta, but of course, they didn’t even respond to the invitation. Larry was there with Gina, a women he met a few months back, and Patty was with her husband. They were civil to each other, bordering on friendly. It was as good as they would get.

During the party, I noticed Eva looked like she wasn’t feeling well. She was sweating even though it was a comfortable day and she just wasn’t as animated as she usually was during a party. I excused myself from the people I was talking to and made my way to her side. “Hey, are you all right? You look like you’re not feeling well.”

“To tell the truth, I’m not feeling all that well. My stomach feels like its burning and there’s this pressure in my chest….”

“OK, we’re going to the emergency room now. No argument. You sit while I get your wallet and quietly break up the party. Rachel can get everyone out and watch over Maria and Vince. I’ll be right back.” She just nodded her head and sat in a chair.

I grabbed Larry, told him quickly what was happening, and he got his car while I got her license and insurance cards. I paused for a very brief moment to pray to whatever powers may be in the universe. Please protect her. Please. I hurried down and Larry and I got her up. People were noticing and I tried to keep things as easy as possible. Rachel spoke to me for a minute and I asked her to just watch over her siblings and I’d call as soon as I could from Bryn Mawr hospital.

Then Vince and Maria came over, looking scared to death. I understood; they were terrified of loosing another parent. I couldn’t stop to deal with that at the moment, so Patty and some other friends took over, cleaning things up while Larry and I took her to the hospital.

In the back of Larry’s car, Eva looked very sick. “I feel like I have an elephant on my chest, Bear. I don’t want to die, Jon.”

I held her hand tight and I said “There’ll be no talk of anyone dying. You just stay with me, Angel. We’ll be there in just a few minutes.” Larry was driving as fast as he could without getting into an accident. We were at the hospital in five minutes and I grabbed a wheelchair and wheeled her in, calling for help. A couple of nurses and aides came quickly and took her from me and told me to wait in the waiting area. I sat down in a chair and shook all over. I hoped that wasn’t my last sight of my wife. I hoped like hell. But I was scared to hell.

Larry came in and I stepped out quickly to call Rachel. As soon as I did, I knew I had a big problem besides Eva. I could hear Maria and Vince crying in the background, scared more than I was, and Rachel wasn’t much better. I honestly didn’t know what the best thing to do was, so I got her to turn her phone over to Patty. I asked her if she could drive them to the hospital, where at least we could comfort each other while we were in the dark. Of course she did, and twenty minutes later my children, besides Connor, were there. I hugged the little ones first and then Rachel, and we all sat there to wait and find out what was happening. Larry and Patty and their significant others all stayed, and we passed the time in mental agony.

Larry kept going to the triage station to try and get some information, but none was coming yet. Each minute felt like an hour. Each hour….well, you get the picture. Finally, after over two hours, a young doctor came and found me and took me aside with Larry. I needed someone just in case.

“Mr. Grossman, I’m Dr. Teller. Maybe you remember me? Alex Teller? I graduated in from Wayne Upper Day in 1998?” I honestly didn’t, and I doubt I would have remembered any student right then. “Anyway, I have news. Mrs. Grossman had a heart attack. It wasn’t a severe attack, but all attacks are serious and we treat them that way. Right now, we gave her something for the pain and she’s resting comfortably. We found she has two coronary arteries partially blocked and we’re going to put in a couple of stents tomorrow. Now, it’s heart surgery and it’s no small deal, but it’s a fairly safe procedure and we expect her to fully recover. The surgeon will see you in the morning and explain what he’ll do and what she’ll have to do afterwards. She’s overall very healthy so she should do very well. I’m glad to see you both again, though I wish it was better circumstances.”

I asked a few questions and he answered, then he sent me to talk to my family, then he told me I could go back to see her for a few minutes with my children, whom Eva was adamant on seeing. So I went to tell everyone there what was going on, making sure the children especially understood that their mother would be fine after being in the hospital for four or five days. Then I brought the kids with me to see their mom.

Eva looked much better, even with the oxygen tube in her nose and with the IV in her arm. Her color was better and she looked more comfortable. “Hey, Angel, how are you doing?” I brushed her hair with my fingers, like she had done to me thousands of times before.

“Better with my family here. Come hold my hands, kids.” Rachel, Maria and Vince shared her two hands before they all started crying, but not as bad as before. We all talked for a little while before the nurse in charge told us we had to leave. It would be a few hours before they sent her to a room and the ER was no place for a long visit. So I held Maria and Vince in turn so they could kiss her goodnight, then Rachel did the same, and then I sent the three of them out and told them I’d be there in five minutes. Then I sat to talk to my wife alone.

“Thank goodness you’re going to be all right, honey. I don’t think I could stand it if anything happened to you. You’re my world, Angel. My heart and soul.”

She grasped my hand and she started crying. “I’m so sorry, Bear. More than I can tell you.”

“What are you talking about, my love? This is hardly your fault. You’re sick, it happens.” She was worrying me.

“Jon, I felt something a few weeks ago. That night, when we were making love on the floor….I felt some pain then, but I ignored it. A few times since, at work, other times we were together.”

I was shocked by what she was telling me. “Why did you keep this to yourself? Why didn’t you say something? Eva, this could have killed you. You would have left me alone and our kids without their mother. What were you thinking?”

“Please, Jon, not now. We’ll talk about it when I’ve recovered a little. Next week. Please, Bear.”

“All right, honey. I don’t want to upset you. But from now on, you tell me if ANYTHING doesn’t feel right. I mean it. We all need you. And we will talk about this. But I won’t lose my temper. I love you way too much for that.” I got up, leaned over and kissed her, sweet and loving. A few shorter ones. “Get some rest, my love. I’ll be here early in the morning. I’ll call your mom, your brothers, and my sister when I get home.”

“Make sure you send them all my love, Bear. I really am sorry. And I love you so much.”

“I love you too. Sleep. I love you.” I went out and collected my family. Larry drove us home and when I got inside, almost everything was cleaned up, thanks to our friends. Rachel went about enlisting Maria and Vince to help with the rest, getting their minds off their worries. I told them I was going up to change and I’d see them in a few minutes. When I got upstairs and into our bedroom I sat on the edge of the bed. I patted the spot next to me, where Eva often sat while we talked or just behaved romantically. “Dammit, Angel. You should have said something.” I was angry with her in a way I rarely ever was. We almost never fought and even when we did, we hardly ever raised our voices beyond an argument level. But if she had been there with me then, I think I would have lost it with her. I had to shake it off before I saw my children. I washed up, splashing cold water on my face before I dressed comfortably and went back down.

“OK, family meeting” I called, gathering my three kids. “Before I call your grandmother and your aunt and uncles, I just want to make sure you’re all doing ok. Because besides your mother, you’re all the most important people in my world. My beautiful children. Your mother also loves you more than anything, and when she comes home at the end of the week, she’s going to need to take it easy for a few weeks. So I need everyone to be extra loving and extra gentle with her. We can all do that, right?”

The little ones nodded their heads with sad faces. They were scared, but they weren’t agitated. Rachel was also nervous, but I knew I could rely on her to help me with her brother and sister, as well as Eva. She wasn’t moving to Portland for over a month yet and I’d need her help, even with Rosa there during the week.

“OK, we’re all agreed, we’re all going to be on our best behavior for Mom. And I want you to know, she’s going to be fine. I know you’re worried. I’m worried too…a little. But she will be home in a few days and in a few weeks she’ll be her mean, nasty self” I said with a smile.

“Hey, don’t you pick on Mommy!” Vince said with his own smile.

“Yeah, Daddy. You be nice to her!” Maria added, also with a grin.

“Hey don’t look at me. Mom’s got plenty of defenders right here.” Rachel also was grinning, feeling a little more comfortable. But we’d all be worried until Eva walked through the front door in a few days.

Rachel took her brother and sister and they played music together, singing along while Rachel played on the guitar, and I went to make difficult phone calls. First Phyllis, who insisted on coming up from Florida and staying with us. I had to agree; Rachel would have to give up her room for her grandmother for a few days and sleep on the fold out in the family room. Then I called Will and Walt, both of whom let me know if I needed anything at all, private nurses, specialized care. I told them we could take care of anything she needed (and they knew it) but I thanked them all the same. As we all got older, she and her brothers became much closer than they were as kids. And as financially well off as Eva and I were, they were very successful in their various computer companies. Fucking rich. They made sure Phyllis had everything she needed.

Then I called Cammy. It was a hard call for me; it was just like having to tell my kids all over again their mother was sick. And it reminded me I had to call Leigh afterwards; she was close to Eva in particular and it was Oliver’s grandmother. Later for that call. Kyle picked up and, after a very quick hello, he gave the phone to my sister. I called while they had friends over.

“Hey Jon! How’s things back East?” She was so happy to hear from me.

“Actually, I have some serious news, Sis. Eva had a mild heart attack and they’re putting a couple of stents in tomorrow morning.”

“What! What the hell happened?” I filled her in as to what happened earlier in the day, and I confided in her that Eva had warnings something was wrong for weeks and didn’t say anything to anyone.

“I’m furious with her, Cammy. She’s been having chest pains for weeks and she said nothing! We got lucky that this wasn’t worse than it is. God forbid, this could have been a call telling you she….she…” I lost it finally, letting out my own tears that I’d been holding back all day. Who else could I do that with besides my sister? I tried to keep as quiet about it as I could so as not to upset the kids, but I had to cry to someone. I could have done so with Larry or a couple of other friends. But aside from Eva and my kids, there was no one closer to my heart than my sister.

“Jon, I wish I was there. And in fact, I can be there early tomorrow. As soon as I get off the phone, I’m going to book the Red Eye. I can be there by 9.”

“No, your place is with Anna and Kyle. I’ll be ok. Thanks sis. Really.”

“Bullshit, Jon. Eva’s like my sister and my mother. Anna and Kyle will be fine for a few days. I want to be there for you both. For my nieces and nephew. For Oliver, if you bring him. In fact, I’ll bring Kyle and Anna with me. She’s done with school already. Jon, you and Eva are the heads of our family. The Suns to our Planets. We want to be there. I’m going to make my plans and I’ll call you back. Don’t argue with me.”

“I should know better than to try. Thanks, Cammy. So much. Love you.”

“I love you too, Jon. And you and Eva and your kids are still the only ones allowed to call me Cammy. Just you.” She hung up and instantly I felt much better. My sister the big shot executive. And first rate best friend.

I called Leigh last and after I told her about Eva, I offered to get them tickets to fly down. Oliver was almost done with school and, being 7, he wasn’t going to miss much the last week. She said she was sorry Eva wasn’t feeling well and she gladly accepted my offer. Any excuse to see my grandson was a good one, even this bad one. And it would do Eva a world of good.

God bless Larry. While I sat in the hospital the next morning with my three children -Connor was at sea, which was why Leigh and Oliver were coming alone- Larry picked up Phyllis and Leigh and Oliver at the airport. He took them to the hotel I arranged, then brought them to the hospital, where big hugs and kisses were exchanged. Then we sat kind of quietly, all of us going through our own mental hell, waiting for the doctor to tell us what was the result.

Thankfully, we didn’t have much longer to wait. The surgeon, Dr. Buchman, came out and told us everything went fine, that Eva was resting comfortably in recovery and I could see her, plus one other, in a couple of hours, for fifteen minutes. Then the next day she could have more visitors. He said she’d make a full recovery but would need a few weeks of rest. I asked about whether she’d be able to attend graduation in three weeks and he said yes, but she was done working for the school year. So I was going to have to carry the ball the rest of the year. I did it before, and so did Eva when I couldn’t work. It was what made us a good team.

Cammy came in a few minutes later with Anna and Kyle in tow. It was like a family party without food or drink, but there was a cause to celebrate. We all went out for lunch and then I sent Cammy with my house keys while I went back to the hospital with Phyllis.

Eva looked tired but better, smiling when she saw us. “Angel, how do you feel?” I said as I kissed her.

“My chest hurts, but I feel better, Jon. Hi Mom. You didn’t have to come up here.”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” Phyllis replied. “My baby is sick, I’m coming to help her.”

“Mom, I’m not your baby anymore. I have babies of my own.”

“Sweetheart, your babies are always your babies. Especially to this Jewish mother!” And back and forth they went as I held her right hand and Phyllis held her left. Eva asked about the children and I told her they all missed her and she could see them the next day, in the afternoon. Rachel and Phyllis, along with Cammy and the others would be there during the day while I worked and our little ones went to school. Then Phyllis kissed her again and gave us some time alone before I had to leave.

“Eva, Angel….don’t do this again. If you’re sick, you tell me. I’ll do the same. I slept alone last night and I hated it. I’ll hate it all week until you come home. If I had to do that the rest of my life…” A tear fell down my cheek. Eva used her thumb to wipe it away.

“I’m so sorry, Jon. I promise in the future to tell you if I don’t feel well. But you have to do the same for me. Because I couldn’t stand losing you either. We have a lot of life to live and people to live for.”

I kissed her hand and we both sent all our love back and forth. It was time to go and I told her I’d be back the next day with children and our grandson and our niece. I took Phyllis home where everyone was waiting and I told them all Eva was fine and we’d see her the next day.

I had to work Tuesday; we were just too close to the end of the year and I had a lot to get done. By then everyone knew Eva was in the hospital and everyone I saw told me to send their best wishes to her, staff and students. Everyone but me, Maria and Vince was able to see Eva in short shifts during the early day, then we joined them all in the late afternoon. As long as we didn’t tire her out, it was the best medicine for her. Cammy couldn’t stay

Friday she came home and being surrounded by her family, especially the young ones, made her happier than anything or anyone else, including me. For the next week Rosa and Phyllis made sure she took it very easy, then she was able to start some light exercises. Vince and Maria got past their understandable anxiety as they watched their mother get stronger. Rachel also helped out, mostly by watching after her siblings at night and taking Maria to her dance practice. The day after graduation Maria had a recital and Eva promised to be there.

I was really busy, getting everything ready for the end of the school year, especially staff evaluations. Somehow, I got it done, I even went to the graduates dinner, which my wife had to skip. But Eva was there at graduation, like she was every year for 23 years. I doubt I could have made her miss it under any circumstances. She ended up being the Belle of the Ball. Everyone wanted to thank her, parents as well as the students. I was feeling like I was Second Class (not really; Eva was my Shining Star as well).

Maria’s recital the next day went well, though it was obvious she wasn’t cut out to be a professional dancer. The important thing was she had fun, like Vince with hockey the next year. Over time they’d find things they enjoyed and were good at, like most people do.

Over the summer, we spent our weekends at the beach house, our little piece of heaven. The kids went to camp during the week, Rachel was busy with friends and other aspects of her social life (including a young man named Paolo, a violinist, but that couldn’t last) so Eva and I had time to ourselves. When the doctor gave her permission, we started playing tennis again, though at a slower pace to start. We went to shows and movies, even a few concerts (Dead and Company were touring!). But there was one thing missing.

One night, about ten days before I flew out to Portland with Rachel to get her set up in her new apartment, we were lying in bed, touching and kissing, but not going further, Eva brought up what was on her mind. “Bear, are we ever going to have sex again? Dr. Buchman gave me permission weeks ago. I’m really missing you, baby. I’m missing US.”

I held her hand tightly in my own. I kept avoiding this and it was time to talk it out.

“Angel, I guess I’m afraid. Afraid you’ll get so excited that something could happen to you. What if you had another heart attack? If it was….more serious than the last one. I couldn’t bear losing you.”

Eva didn’t get annoyed; instead she giggled. “As great a lover as you are, Jon, I don’t think you’re going to give me a heart attack. I looked it up and the odds of sex leading to a heart attack are so low as to be infinitesimal. Come on, Bear. We can go slow. This time. But you won’t get off that easy all the time. I’m going to need my stud of a husband from time to time. But this time I promise to take it easy on you. Maybe.”

She had me laughing and I realized this was a major part of who we were. We’d always been sexual with each other, almost from the first date. Certainly we’d been loving. And I wanted her, as much as she wanted me. “Fuck it” I said before enveloping her in my arms and covering her lips with loving kisses.

“That’s the spirit! I’m sure you remember what to fuck, even” she said with a chuckle. “Oh, god, Bear. Don’t stop kissing me.”

“I won’t, honey. I could devour you right now!” I just gave myself over to her, pushed away my doubts and worries, and we had a great time. Like we hadn’t had in months, even before her heart attack. We took it relatively easy with each other…the first time. We enjoyed each other so much, we went again, more vigorously, including oral sex. And Eva was just fine when we were done. Maybe even better than me.

“That’s what I needed, Bear. I needed you. I needed to feel desired.”

“I’ve desired you for thirty six years now, Angel. I still sometimes feel foolish for not noticing you sooner. We could have had…two more years? Three?” I smiled as I kissed her delicious lips.

“So greedy. My greedy Bear. But I agree. I wish we noticed each other sooner. Every day we’ve had together has been a gift.” She kissed my chest and then a spark came to her eye. She had an idea. “Hey, before you take Rachel to Portland, why don’t we take her and Vince and Maria to New York? The younger ones have never been, and we can show them where we grew up, take them to Marco’s. We could also have Connor and Leigh come down and we’ll make it a real family trip. I’ll call mom and see if she’s free. I know Cammy and Kyle are going to Hong Kong in two weeks, so they’re probably not available, but we can ask. We could even see about staying at the Plaza.” Her eyes were twinkling. The first hotel we ever went to together, that first time we went into the City together. Thirty six years ago. I loved it.

“Let’s do it. We’ll pull Maria and Vince out of camp for a week. They’ll love this. We’ll call everyone first thing in the morning and then I’ll make the reservations.” So we made calls in the morning after we told the kids what we wanted to do. Rachel was a little unsure; she had to say goodbye to Paolo as is, and felt bad about leaving him earlier than planned. Ultimately, she came around. She knew it was a last chance to spend with her family, possibly for quite some time. Connor and Leigh (and Oliver of course) were thrilled, Phyllis was practically packing as Eva talked to her, but Cammy couldn’t make it. She had too much to do before she went with Kyle and Anna to Hong Kong. That’s how it is with last minute vacations. There’s always someone who can’t make it.

Phyllis flew in the next day, and the day after that the six of us got in Eva’s SUV and headed up the New Jersey Turnpike for New York, two hours away. We checked into the Plaza, where I booked nine rooms for our whole brood, including Will and Walt and their families, and even Uncle Phil and Aunt Annette. They were in their early 80s then, but in pretty good shape. Then, a huge surprise: Cammy, Kyle and Anna came after all. When she knocked on my room door, I could have dropped from the surprise. “I knew if I said we were coming, you’d insist on paying for our room. No way. Besides, Jon, the look on your face…” she was laughing her ass off and I pretended to be angry with her. Then we hugged and kissed, along with Kyle and Anna, who at 11 was really turning into a carbon copy of her mother. And she was brilliant like Cammy as well.

That night, everyone met for dinner in the hotel restaurant, all 22 of us, paid for by Walt (or was it Will?). They set us up in a small private room so we wouldn’t disturb other diners and we were somewhat loud and we had a great time. It was especially great seeing Connor, as it was hit and miss as to when he was available. We knew his deployments were hard on his family and Leigh knew she could call us if she needed anything.

After dinner, we all made our way to our rooms as we planned a busy day the next day. Eva, Cammy and Leigh all wanted to go to Rockefeller Center early and see the Today show, maybe even get our large family on camera. It wasn’t my thing but I wanted to please my wife. But first we were in bed that night.

After we got changed and into bed, Eva said “This hotel is one of my favorite memories, our first hotel. When we just had fallen in love.”

“Like I could forget. Did you realize we’re on the fifth floor? Like that time?”

“Oh my god, you’re right! I can’t believe you remembered that, Bear! I wonder…what are the odds its the same room?”

“Doubtful. It doesn’t have the same layout, as I remember it. But still, you never know.” I turned to her and snuggled her close and I kissed her neck. “You feel like making a new dirty memory?”

Eva laughed, a healthy laugh, and sexy too. “Like I would say no to you. Come on, do your nastiest to me!” I pushed her on her back and we both were laughing as we kissed hungrily. If it wasn’t for the small scar on her chest, I never would have known she had been sick a few months before.

I peeled her t-shirt off her shoulders and pushed it down her body until she kicked it off her feet. Eva was just in a pair of plain white bikini panties but damn, she looked so sexy in them. We were 55 and she still was incredibly sexy to me. She was moaning as I kissed her, her lips and neck, her ears and her throat. I worked down to her chest and put a few special kisses on her scar. “My gorgeous Angel” I whispered as I kissed over her breasts.

“And you’re my still handsome Bear. Beautiful to me, always.”

“Always” I agreed, talking about her beauty. I licked her nipples, right and left, left then right, and Eva was squirming around in her arousal. I rubbed my fingers outside her panties, right over her pussy, as I kissed down her body, especially her lower tummy, that incredibly sensitive area above her panty line.

“If I knew we were going to do this tonight, I’d have worn a very special pair for you” Eva moaned breathlessly.

“I like surprise sex. I still like your sexy panties, but I really don’t need them, Angel. I get so hot for you no matter what.”

She brushed her fingers through my thin scalp hairs, looking down at me with all her love I winked at her and she giggled as I pulled her panties down past her hips and I tossed them aside. She didn’t get quite as wet as she did when we were young, but there was still plenty of her natural lubrication there and I was about to add more of my own. I took long licks of my favorite treat, up and down her tender lips and Eva moaned louder as her hips rose off the bed. I made circles around her lips, still covered with her hair, the way I loved her to be, natural and like a woman, not a girl. I didn’t care if I had to spit one out every so often. This was my wife, the way she always was. Beautiful all over.

I kept licking and sucking at her lips, sliding two fingers inside her pussy as I nibbled on her clit, bringing her to the peak before backing off, teasing her the way I knew she loved. I’m sure there are great things about sex with a new partner every so often, but I think it’s best with someone you’ve been with and know well. It’s not at all boring, like some say. I loved knowing what made my wife hot, what got her going and she knew my triggers as well. We had great chemistry and it made for great sex after all those years. When I brought her over her climax, Eva couldn’t help from crying out loud as her body shook with a great force. Before she even started to come down, she pulled me up to her face and kissed me hard and lusty.

“You’re amazing, Bear! I love what you do to me. And now, I’m going to do great things to you. My love.” She kissed me again and again, long and sexy kisses as she moved quickly down my body. She was hungry for her dessert. Me.

“You’re very impressive yourself, my darling. And you do wonderfully wicked things to me.” She gave me her own version of a wink, making me laugh (she could never quite get it right) as she covered my cock in kisses. Just the idea of being with my love got me all excited and I was nice and hard for her before she even got there. But I did swell a little more when her lips touched me.

Her tongue and lips explored my cock and balls, licking here, sucking there, even probing my asshole. Then she bobbed up and down while watching me, looking at my reactions of pleasure. my legs kept moving around as I tried to enjoy the fantastic things she was doing to me. When she had me all hot and anxious, she moved on top of me and gave me a great ride. Slow to start, deliberate in her movements. I touched her everywhere I could, letting my fingers touch her most sensitive places. I gave her nipples a few well timed tweaks and Eva gasped as she came suddenly. Her pussy was grasping my cock, maybe not as tight as she did when she was younger, but it felt great to me. “Give me your cum, Bear” she said hoarsely. “Cum, my love.”

“Just a minute…” I gasped before filling her with my own sticky sauce, blending with her honey. We were sticky, sweaty, and incredibly happy and forever in love. We kissed over and over, breathing hard, cuddling soft. It was as beautiful as any time we made love.

“Thirty five years, Bear. And I love you more than ever.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth, my darling Angel. I am still so crazy about you.” I started singing Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years as Eva snuggled closer to me, resting her head on my chest. My voice wasn’t what it was, but I could still carry a tune well and I still loved singing to her. More important, she still loved when I sang to her.

When the song was over, I shut the lamp by the bedside, and we cuddled in the dark for a while. We didn’t have to say anything then; it was all said in our touches. After a while we shared our I love you’s and we went to a loving, peaceful sleep.

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We got on the Today Show the next morning, the Grossman-Glazers ages 7 to 81. The kids especially loved it and that was good enough for me. Over the next few days we walked in Central Park, went to a couple of Broadway shows, went to a few museums and even made our way to a Yankee-Tampa Bay game (Tampa won, almost ruining the experience). We went to Chinatown and Little Italy and some new ethnic restaurants, including an Ethiopian restaurant that was a very pleasant surprise. The children especially enjoyed eating many things with their hands.

We did a whole bunch of touristy things, even though some of us were native New Yorkers.

The next to last day there, we made a pilgrimage to Queens, to our old neighborhood. First Eva and I showed our youngest children our first home together in Flushing, where Eva and I owned our first home together, where Connor was born. He got a tear or two when he remembered that first home of his, and Eva, Cammy and me were also nostalgic. Then we showed where we went to high school, where we met, and we told that story to Vince and Maria. Then the houses we grew up in. When we got to mine and Cammy’s home, we both got more than teary. There were a lot of memories there, and not all were pleasant. There were things I never had told Cammy. Vince and Maria each held one of my hands tight and Anna hugged her mom. Our young children knew instinctively when we needed them most.

Then we made our way to Marco’s in Whitestone, and it was still there. Still looked the same, down to the cheesy tablecloths. We had to wait a little so they could accommodate our large party. Eva and I, and a few others, ordered the Chicken Cacciatore, so we ordered appetizers to hold everyone over. And damned if the hostess wasn’t one of the waitresses there when we started coming there all those years before. After Eva and I noticed that, we told the story of how this was the site of our first date, some of what we talked about, one of the most pleasant memories either of us had. And when the food came out, it was as good as it ever was, as if the same chef was still in the kitchen.

Eva and I asked to see the hostess, who was about five years older than we were. We told her how this was where we had our very first date thirty six years before and how, whenever we came there, we never ordered anything other than the Chicken Cacciatore. I told her it was the best I’d had anywhere, and that included in the Italian section of Philadelphia.

He name way Angela and the restaurant was her family’s. Marco was her grandfather and now she owned the place and she was thrilled to have such long term and happy customers. Her brother was the cook and she called him out and we shook his hand. They picked up the tab for the four bottles of wine we ordered and they also bought dessert for the kids. I personally think it was the best part of the whole trip.

We piled into our cars to drive back into Manhattan and when we were halfway there, Maria asked “Daddy, where are your Mommy and Daddy? Why do we never hear about them?”

A lot of feelings came rushing up at me. Eva covered for the moment, seeing how the question affected me. “Honey, how about we sit down when we get back to the hotel and your father will tell you about them there? It’s hard to talk about some things while driving.” I squeezed her hand, thanking her for the reprieve that gave me time to get my thoughts together. I had to decide how much to tell them, and I knew it was long past time to reveal to Cammy certain things she didn’t know about our father. That would be a private conversation, maybe down in the bar.

We got back and the children all dressed for bed and put on robes. I told Cammy, Connor and Rachel if they wanted to know certain things about our past they weren’t aware of, we could meet in the bar in an hour and all three agreed. It was strictly a Grossman family meeting. Even Eva was not invited. Besides, she had to be upstairs in case the children needed her.

Eva and I sat down with our little ones and I proceeded to tell the part of the story they’d heard, about how Eva and I met and became a couple and then got engaged in a short time. Then I told them how my mother, who would have been their Grandmother Carol, got very sick so we moved up the wedding so she could be there to see us get married. How she died a short time later. I saw tears in both children’s eyes. Then I told them how my father didn’t handle it well, and he and I had problems, how he wasn’t taking care of their Aunt Cammy so their mother and I became her guardian, like an adoption, like we had done for them not long ago. And then how he died not long after Connor was born. I was sad, I missed them both every day of my life, but now I had a wonderful life, surrounded by amazing people and how we were parents to four of the most wonderful children. And I knew in some way my parents, like their original parents, were watching down on all of us and how proud they must have been about the family we had. Because before they both got sick, they were the best parents imaginable.

At the end of the story, they were both sad, but not suffering grief. They both hugged me before hugging Eva. It was the best cure for the hurt that still could eat at my heart, the love of my own beautiful family. “I’m sorry, Daddy” Maria said in her soft little voice.

“Me too, Daddy” Vince added, subdued and sweet.

“Hey, listen to me, both of you. You have nothing to be sorry about. It all happened a long time ago and I’ve had a long time to get better. I miss them because they were very loving parents to you aunt and me. Sometimes, sad things happen in life, sometimes much too soon. But hopefully, good people come into your life and fill the empty places. Like your mom here. Your older brother and sister. Friends. Nieces and grandchildren. And both of you. I love you both as much as I love anyone in the world. The whole family does. My sweet children.” I kissed them both, and they hugged me a little tighter. Then Eva took over while I went to the bathroom in our adjoining room and got myself together. I had more stories to share still that night.

Eva got them settled into their beds and found me in the bathroom, washing my face and combing my hair. She came behind me and hugged me very tight. “Are you going to be all right, Bear? Are you sure you want to do this?”

“It’s long overdue, Angel. Especially for Cammy. I never told her things about our father. She still wonders what happened that summer when you were at camp and my father and I didn’t talk for weeks. She has a right to know. And Rachel and Connor should know finally more about their grandparents. The good and the bad. I never talk about them and it’s high time I did.”

“Well, not too late. I’m going to be waiting for you when you get back, to take care of you. And you should know, the way you spoke to Vince and Maria….it was beautiful. They are such wonderful children and they feel closer to us all the time. Now, go meet the others. Just don’t upset them. I worry about them as well. And I love you so much. My Bear.”

I turned around and held her in my arms like I’d done a hundred thousand times. Maybe two hundred thousand, maybe more. “The best thing I ever did was sit next to you, Angel. Smartest decision in my life.” We stayed like that a minute more, then I had to go downstairs.

Rachel, Connor and Cammy were already in the bar, sipping their drinks. I got a double scotch and sat with them and I proceeded to fill in the missing facts about Cammy and my parents/grandparents that Rachel and Connor never knew. They all knew how close our family was, especially my sister, and then I told them how Eva and I caught my father cheating on mom. Cammy was shocked; she never had a clue about that. It cut her, right in her heart but she urged me to continue. I told my children about mom’s cancer and how it caused Eva and me to move up our wedding plans. They knew most of that, but I still told the story in order. The terrible pain from her death. Then they learned how their grandfather kind of fell apart in the months and years after. How when I went to confront my father about stealing from Cammy, Harold and I walked in on an orgy. Again, Cammy was floored, and my son and daughter were dumbfounded. They never knew him but hearing about that was just something no one could conceive. Then how we lost him from our lives. I was crying softly telling the story and Rachel held my hand. Cammy held the other as I finished, about how he refused to get sober even after Connor was born and then he died a few months later. That was it. The family skeletons were out of the closet.

We were all silent for a while. We didn’t even touch our drinks. Cammy eventually asked me “Jon, why didn’t you tell me those things before? About Dad cheating. About him having a….I can’t even say it, with that bitch Jessie? I mean, not back then. But you could have told me sometime in the past thirty years. You didn’t need to carry that by yourself.”

“I didn’t carry it by myself, sis. Eva carried it with me. But I didn’t know how to talk about it. The only reason I brought it up tonight is between seeing the house today and then Maria asked me about our parents in the car tonight. It all came rushing back at me. It was time to tell you. To tell all of you. I still don’t completely understand why Dad fell apart like he did. I never will. And I guess I can live with that.”

We got up and stepped into the elevator and we hugged each other in the hall outside our rooms. Rachel and Connor went into their rooms, leaving my sister and me for a minute. “Jon, we’re going to talk about this. I’m not angry, but I’m kind of stunned. I have some more questions. I don’t know if you can answer them. But I have to ask. But not tonight. I have to hold my daughter and husband. You go hug your incredible wife. What she had to put up with…” Cammy just shook her head before she went into her room.

I went back to mine and Eva was reading in bed. “Hey, Bear. How did it go?”

“About as well as expected. Not bad, but I dropped a few bombs on them. They’re going to be hurt for a while, like I was. Like I still am, I guess.”

“Get comfortable and come here to me, Jon. I want to hold you.”

It sounded so simple yet so good. I just stripped down to my briefs and climbed into bed with my love, the only romantic love I ever knew or ever wanted, and Eva held me to her breast as she soothed me. Her fingers tickled my head and she rocked me gently in small motions. We didn’t say anything since it had all been said before. My heart and soul reached for hers and we stayed like that for I don’t know how long. All I know is we found ourselves making love together, soft, loving. Perfect. There were no explosions when we came and yet it was incredibly fulfilling. Eva has always known just what I needed and when I needed it. Always did and she always will.

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Two days later we all said goodbye and went our separate ways, back to our lives. Two days later I flew with Rachel to Portland (after a tearful goodbye with her mother and younger siblings) and we started moving her into the apartment we found online. The next day her furniture came and we went the day after to buy her a car. I wanted her as safe as possible; she didn’t know anyone there yet. I don’t know if I could have done that when I was her age, move across the country and start working and living on my own, but Rachel was always mentally tough. I worried like a father would, but not more than normal. If anyone could do this, it was Rachel.

Four days later I had to say goodbye to her. That was hard, as hard as anything I’d done in a long time. We had no idea when we’d see her since the Fall was concert season and she was trying to find an agent and tour on her own come the Spring. I sure as hell wanted her to be successful, but the thought of not seeing my daughter for an indefinite period of time was painful.

“Well, sweetie, this is it” I said in front of her building a short distance from the concert hall. “You have money in your account and if you need more, just call.” I was having trouble finding the right words to say goodbye; everything just brought out a load of tears.

Rachel wasn’t doing much better. “Daddy”- she hadn’t called me that in a long time- “I can’t thank you and Mom enough. Everything you’ve done for me….Oh, shit, I don’t know what to say!” We chuckled; she rarely cursed in front of me but I knew she had a mouth like a sailor when she wanted. “Don’t worry about me. I start rehearsals next week and I’ll meet people. I won’t be alone or lonely. But I’ll miss all my family.” She hugged me and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. I held her as if I never wanted to let her go. But I had to.

“You know if you have any big problem, something you can’t deal with, call your Aunt Cammy first; she’s less than half the distance than we are. She’ll help you in any way she can. Well, my Little Angel, I have to go. Take care of yourself and good luck. I know you’ll be successful. You’re the most determined person I know, even more than your brother or your mother. I love you, sweetheart.”

“You’d better go, Dad, before we both make idiots of ourselves here on the street. Have a safe flight and I’ll call Mom later. Thanks again for everything. I love you too.”

I got into my rental and after one last look, I drove off, still crying as she waved in my rearview mirror. I knew she’d succeed but still…she was my baby.

I had a 2PM flight which landed in Philly at 11:15, then by the time I got my luggage and got my car and drove home, it was almost 1AM. After I said hello with a big kiss for Eva, I went to check on Maria and Vince. Both sound asleep. I didn’t have the heart to even kiss them and risk waking them up. I ached when I thought about them growing up and moving away some day. But not for a long time yet.

I went back to our bedroom where Eva was also feeling sad about Rachel. After I washed and brushed, I got into bed and even though it was almost 1:30, we cuddled for a long time, sharing our sadness as well as our hopes for her success. In a few weeks another school year would start, September 2016, our twenty fifth year as principals. We couldn’t even imagine another life. But the first seed in the next phase in our lives was planted that Fall. It wouldn’t happen fast, but it was coming.

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The school year for the most part was like every other year. New students in the seventh grade, some of them scholarship students (we now had 40 in each grade). The usual problems, some minor drug problems, a few fights, the usual problems that most schools face. Vince started 7th grade in our school and both he and Maria were thriving. It was hard to believe they’d been with us five years then; it seemed both longer and shorter at the same time. Connor had a good time teaching at Annapolis and we got to see him and his family at least once a month. Cammy and Kyle and Anna came to us that year for Chanukah/Christmas and Phyllis was still in good health so she joined us too. Unfortunately, as we expected, Rachel couldn’t come; it was a busy concert season, especially around the holidays. She loved it out in Portland. It was a ‘young’ city with a vibrant social scene and she had a nice group of friends. Even a man in her life, though she didn’t talk much about him, not at that point. All in all, the first half of the academic year was great.

Then in January, things started down the long path to our moving on.

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In January every year, the Board of Trustees has their elections, a total of 12 people from the pool of parents and alumni. Some were both, alumni now sending their own kids to the schools. There was a new principal duo in the Lower school, not a married couple, Andrea Lieberman and Dan Creighton. Now, I don’t usually mention politics, but I think it’s been obvious that Eva and I are pretty liberal politically. Both Andrea and Dan were conservative, not the old, traditional conservatives; those people we always got along with. They were the new conservatives, the type sweeping through the Republican party that year. So we butted heads a lot. It was a personality thing, primarily because we strongly disagreed about our approaches to education. They had been hired at the behest of a relatively new Trustee, Alex Maitland, who’d been on the board since the previous January.

Maitland was a real new conservative, vocal, loud, and obnoxious about it. He was in his early 40s and his daughter Susan was in Vince’s grade. Now Eva and I got along very well with the vast majority of the Trustees over the years, with a few exceptions. We did not get along with Alex Maitland. Not in the slightest.

He was determined to torment any and all liberal minded people. He hated that we were directing the education in the school his daughter went to. He clashed with most of the other Trustees, even the ones who might have been sympathetic to his views. His first year he was a lone voice among the 12, and he still managed to get people of his liking hired as principals to the Lower school. There was something about him. He was a force of nature. Unfortunately, that force resembled a hurricane.

In January of 2016, three Trustees resigned, an unheard of number in one year. He managed to get two of those seats filled with people who thought like he did. Eva and I usually looked forward- reasonably- to the monthly meetings. Starting that January, it was more like looking forward to a migraine. The meetings became more contentious, especially on the subjects of hiring new teachers, compensation and benefits for the staff and, most of all, textbooks.

The books we used had a major influence in subjects like history, the subject dearest to my heart. Maitland and his cohorts wanted to buy books by revisionist historians who didn’t write about the history of the world and the country as it actually happened, but from an almost extremist political viewpoint. Those books wouldn’t be accepted in almost any public school system and more importantly, using such books could have a negative effect on how colleges would view the value of a degree from our school. Eva and I tried to explain this and for the time being, we were still able to buy the books we knew were appropriate. But it was becoming a real battlefield. History was under attack now. The sciences were next on their agenda, especially biology, which included Sex Education and Creationism.

After the May meeting, Eva and I came home very frustrated. In all our years at Wayne Upper Day, we never had problems like this before. Even when we disagreed with the Trustees on something, it was always civil. Now every month there was a huge fight about something. Thankfully, we still loved the rest of the job, especially the students. And we still had the respect and support of an overwhelming number of the parents. Besides, we had contracts that covered us for another four years.

That night after we got in bed, I let out a huge sigh. “I’m getting too old for this shit, honey. Four more years of this…I might lose my mind. And we hoped to stay beyond this contract.”

“Yeah, these meetings aren’t much fun” Eva replied. “They never were ‘fun’ so to speak, but this is getting brutal. If Maitland gets three more members who think like him, he could start getting his way on a whole host of issues. And I know a couple of the older members are getting fed up dealing with him. He was one of our students twenty years ago. I don’t remember him being anything like this. In fact, I don’t really remember him at all.”

“I looked up his old records a few months ago because I didn’t remember him either. We don’t remember him because he was unmemorable. An average student, didn’t participate in any extracurricular activities. He was a non-entity. He’s sure making up for it now.”

“I just assumed we’d stay here until we retired, maybe another five years after we fulfill this contract. I’m beginning to think that’s not going to be possible, unless things change radically. I don’t see him leaving on his own accord. Maybe when Trump loses the election in November, it will take some of the wind out of his sails.”

We all know how that worked out. Never assume anything in politics.

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Over the next four years, a number of things happened. First the good news. Cammy got named as Vice Chairman of the Board of her firm and her family moved back to Philadelphia, back on the Main Line, to a big house in Bryn Mawr. She and Kyle were very happy; he never resented her success and was a great full time father to Anna, who turned Sweet Sixteen in 2020.

Connor went back to school for a year in SC, then he trained for a command and received one in April of 2019, Captain of the USS Galveston, based out of Kings Bay, Georgia. We wouldn’t see him much, but it was a great time in his life, what every Navy officer aspires to, their own command. He’d have it for three years. Oliver was eleven then and coming into his own as a young man who loved to play baseball and enjoyed physics like his father. Connor and Leigh made things work, despite the added pressures on his professional life.

Rachel. Our Rachel. A year and a half after moving to Portland, she found an agent and manager, and she started doing concerts up and down the West Coast, sometimes as a soloist and sometimes in a guest role when she wasn’t with Portland. Then in 2018 she got an offer to be the pianist in the Chicago Symphony. It was an offer she couldn’t refuse and in August that year she and the man she was living with, Tony Garza, moved to the Windy City. Tony was a stockbroker and he found a job there without much difficulty. They were very happy together, but had no immediate plans to get married.

Walt and Will sold their company, made a killing, then started another, moving out to Silicon Valley to the center of the tech world. Phyllis was still mostly healthy, though she couldn’t come up North during the winter. That was getting hard on her, so Eva and I brought the kids down for a week each January.

Speaking of the kids, Vince and Maria, by 2020, were sixteen and fourteen, respectively. They were growing up happy, healthy and bright. And Eva and I still took them to the cemetery every few months to visit Michael and Linda, so they wouldn’t forget where they came from. It was their right. They weren’t upset, not for a long time, but they were sad, in a healthy way. We’d all talk a little afterwards, reminding them of things we knew about their birth parents. They were overall happy, well adjusted teens.

On a personal note, that year was also Eva and my 40th anniversary. A big milestone, with the traditional gift being rubies. We didn’t want another huge party like our 25th, but we wanted it to be special. So we invited our family to join us on a trip to Israel, which we had visited four times previously. We did it over the Easter break, and since Passover coincided with Easter that year, we did Passover in Israel. Walt and Will couldn’t join us, but Eva’s mom, Cammy, Kyle and Anna, Connor, Leigh and Oliver, and Rachel and Tony all came along. A Baker’s dozen of us, seven rooms in few different hotels over two weeks. We hired a ‘rabbi’ to officiate as we renewed our wedding vows again, this time on the beach just before sundown in Haifa, followed by a dinner in a fine restaurant. Our four children were our ‘wedding party’ and they also held the four poles of the chuppah (the canopy under which a Jewish wedding is conducted). It was all very casual, almost like a hippy wedding. It was fun and romantic and Eva and I swore our love for each other again in front of the people most special to us in the world, a couple who had been there the first time and others who had not. It was a perfect night.

Of course, when you have a ‘wedding’, you have to consummate the marriage. Eva and I did that, still playful after all these years to paraphrase Paul Simon. We still enjoyed all sorts of sexuality, role play, oral, sometimes getting very nasty with each other. That night was mostly romantic in bed, but as our passion built we got friskier to the point where Eva asked- no, demanded- that I spank her a few times, something I hadn’t done in some time. But I was feeling the heat with her and after a couple of tentative swats, she told me to smack her ass harder, and when I found the right smack, the kind that stung just right, Eva came like thunder, shuddering as she rode me. Then when I was ready, she hopped off and jerked me until I popped all over her tits. I still could come up with a very thick and sticky load that coated her slightly sagging breasts.

“Not bad for an old man” I gasped playfully before I kissed her lips and neck.

“Don’t you dare say that, Bear. You’re far from old. Neither of us are old. Besides, I hope we’re still together and loving when we are old, at least twenty more years from now. I want us to keep finding ways to please each other for a long time from now. The day we can’t do that for each other anymore, that’s the day we’ll be ‘old’.”

I nuzzled her neck and shoulder the way I knew she adored, making her giggle and moan at the same time. “I can’t imagine ever losing my desire for you, Angel. I guess it may happen some day, but that’s what Viagra is for.” We chuckled and kissed and we touched each other in the most intimate ways. When we held and kissed each other in bed, it was still the most wonderful expression of our love for each other. We never tired of that, never would, even in a million years.

So everyone was doing great as we closed in on our thirtieth year at Wayne Upper Day School. In 2020 it was our twenty ninth year and as we got to May, it was the time when we would start to talk about our next contract. Eva and I hoped for a five year offer to take us to age sixty five, even though the last five years had been tough with the Trustees, the faction led by Alex Maitland. He now had five seats, but those who were on our side had the other seven. Enough to keep us on. So we thought.

We walked into that May 2020 meeting and noticed right away that the members who sided with us were looking grim. Maitland, as chair of the hiring committee, was all smiles. Eva and I knew what that meant. We sat down with our hearts in our throats. He started the meeting.

“Jon, Eva, good of you to come. Well, lets start. It’s been twenty nine years now for you here. That’s an incredible record, something you both should be very proud of. We know you’ve influenced a lot of young minds over the years. Thousands. Really, it’s incredible. You have one year left on your current contract. I’m sure you’re expecting us to offer you another five years, right? Well, congratulations! We have your next contract here for you!”

Eva and I looked at each other. What the hell was going on here? The mood in the room was saying one thing while Maitland was saying something else that we didn’t expect. And he looked happy about it. We silently took the envelopes he offered and opened up our next contracts. It didn’t take long to see why he was so damned pleased with himself.

First, there was a pay cut, 20%. The money itself wasn’t important; we were financially set for the rest of our lives. But that kind of cut was a slap in the face. We knew the endowment was flush; we helped raise the money every year. There was still a long waiting list to get into the school. So there was no financial reason to cut our salaries like that. Then there was a cut to the scholarship program, down from 40 students per year back to 10, starting with the incoming seventh grade. At least they weren’t kicking out any current students. We wouldn’t be able to buy textbooks without the Trustees approval. No hiring without their approval. And so on. They were cutting our balls off.

We looked at each other again, then I said “What is this, Alex? Why are you even offering this contract to us? It’s obvious you don’t want us here anymore. It’s clear in every word on the pages of this so-called contract. Did you really expect us to sign this? Work for five years like toadies?”

“No, I expected you to tell me to shove it. Which is what you’re doing. Fine with me. You can stay for the last year but then you’re both out of here. And you can take your weak kneed ‘liberal’ agenda with you. A couple of wimps.” He was grinning like a viper and Eva and I were beyond shocked. “Just like my parents” he spat with contempt. Jesus Christ, what kind of monster hates his parents because they’re liberals?

“Alex, would you knock it off? Please?” Burt Voigt, a long timer and friend of ours said. “You got what you want. End this already.”

“Shut up, Barton. Or else” Maitland said with menace. So, he was blackmailing Voigt. Probably one or two others. He knew shit about them and was glad to use it. This creature was making decisions that affected how young people would be educated. It was terrifying.

Eva got up and her voice dripped with her own contempt. “Alex, you know we had to look up who you were when you attended here because we couldn’t remember you. You were a nothing as a student, and you’re a nothing now. Your parents were good people. They never would have stooped so low as to blackmail people. I don’t know what you have on some of these people and I don’t want to know. We’re supposed to have a collegial atmosphere here. Not this cruel, vicious attitude. We’re not signing this. A little over a year from now we’ll be leaving. I’m sorry for the students here when you start this second rate education system you’re determined to install. Creationism and revisionist history. We’ll be glad to be gone.” I got up with her and we just stomped out of the room, on our way home, on our way to unemployment a year from then.

Alex shouted after us “And we expect you to help train your replacements!” We knew we’d have to, but I was thinking Fat Fucking Chance. But we knew we would do it, for the children at least.

We walked home, a less than ten minute walk on that nice warm May evening, crickets chirping, otherwise quiet and serene. We walked with dignity and determination. But after we walked in the door and said hello to Maria and Vince, we went into the library and started crying. It wasn’t so much what they tried to do to us. It was the way they were taking away what we were best at and what we loved to do. For almost thirty years we thought of Wayne as our home as well as our jobs. The students were our ‘other family’. The house was our home. We’d have to leave in a year. There were so many great memories. You can pack photos and artwork but you can’t pack up the memories that make a house a home.

I sat on the love seat and Eva sat across my lap, crying and I was with her, crying as I held her. Vince and Maria obviously heard us and came in, concerned looks on their faces. “Mom, Dad, what’s wrong?” Vince asked for both of them. “Is there something we need to know?”

“Come sit down, kids. Your father and I have something to tell you.” They sat in chairs across from us, worry in their eyes. Eva turned so she sat next to me and stopped her tears. “You know your father and I have another year on our contracts to work here and stay in this house. We expected to be offered another five year contract so we’d have stayed here until we were sixty five and you both would have finished here and been in college. Well, they offered us a contract, but it was the kind of contract they knew we’d never agree to. There were things about it that were very insulting, very demeaning. If we signed just to keep you here to your graduations and to end our careers here, our authority would have been gone. We can’t stay like that. So, after next year, we’re going to have to leave. Vince, you’ll get to graduate, but Maria, you’re going to have to go to another school for your last two years. I’m sorry, Maria. We both are.”

Maria, however, was a very mature fourteen year old. “Mom, I’d rather go to another school than stay here where they treat my parents so poorly. I wouldn’t let you keep me here. In fact, I don’t care if you change my school next year.”

“Same here” Vince chimed in. He was going into his senior year, a terrible time to switch schools.

“No way, Vince” I spoke up. “We would never take your senior year away from you. That would be incredibly unfair to you. But thank you. Thank you both. You’re really special young adults. We love you with all our hearts.”

Maria hugged me and Vince hugged his mother. They really were great kids, with the usual amount of teenage defiance and rebellion. Nothing we couldn’t deal with. But when it came down to it, they were sweet, loving teens, every bit our own as Rachel and Connor were. We hoped their birth parents were proud of the job Eva and I did, wherever they were.

That weekend we took them to the beach house. Eva and I looked around when we got there, wondering if we’d have to sell it the following year. We had no idea where we were going to end up, and if it wasn’t nearby, we couldn’t keep it and enjoy it as we had been doing for the last twenty seven years. Selling this house would hurt as much as anything else going on. So in between cooking and laying on the beach (the water was too cold to swim in), walking the shore, Eva and I discussed our future while our kids went off to spend time with their local friends.

First we talked about retirement. Were we too young to quit working all together? We decided while money wasn’t an issue (between our investments and our pension, we would have no money worries for the rest of our lives), we didn’t feel like we wanted to stop working. We loved our work and weren’t interested in just stopping. So we decided to put together our resume’s and maybe even consult a professional head hunter. But the odds of us finding work together were slim. We had been in an uncommon situation. Then we had to decide how far we were willing to relocate and after some back and forth, we decided we’d listen to any reasonable possibility anywhere in the country. To keep working, we’d probably have to keep our options wide open.

The end of school was kind of rough that year. It was our next to last graduating class, though the word wasn’t out yet. Eva and I, along with the Trustees, were the only one’s who knew our 30th year would be our last. So far. We asked our kids not to say anything to anyone, and they kept our secret.

We were gradually telling our family and friends, and when I told Cammy, she really blew up. “I moved back across the country, back to the people I love more than almost anyone, and you’re telling me you’re probably going to move away in a year? What the hell happened, Jon?” I filled her in on the contentious nature of our relationship with Alex Maitland and some other member of the Trustees and how they forced us out. She thought about it and said “They covered their asses. They couldn’t just fire you by not offering a contract. They figured if they did, without just cause, you could try to sue them for age discrimination or something. In fact, that contract they offered wasn’t a real offer. I could argue that in front of a judge. Let me, Jon. Let me go after those fucking assholes!”

My sister was a real tough litigator. She only lost one case in all the years she tried cases in front of a jury. I was tempted to sue and let Cammy tear them apart. “Cammy, it’s tempting, but I don’t think so. It would take years to resolve. And I don’t have a clue how they’re insured for such a case. The money could end up coming from things the students need. Besides, neither of us want to work under hostile conditions for years to come. It would be a toxic work environment and I don’t need that at this point in life. Let it go, sis.”

“All right. But I would have loved to leave my teeth marks in their collective asses.” We laughed together, a bittersweet laugh. It would suck if we had to move away from my sister. Worse than suck. We missed her for years; it would be awful to move away from her now.

We passed the summer quietly, spending time at the beach house while Vince worked at one of the gift shops part time and had his first girlfriend, Toni. Maria…well, Maria worked on her tan and drawing young teenage boys like flies. She was a real beauty and Eva and I had to be vigilant with her; she was only fifteen, too young for anything more than just being friends. That was what we thought. Maria of course had other ideas and we fought about it sometimes. The same things we went through with Rachel a dozen years before. It made for days where she wouldn’t talk to us. We didn’t let Vince date until he was sixteen either. We weren’t going to give Maria more leeway.

During the summer we got our resume’s in order. It wasn’t that hard; no potential employer was going back beyond the twenty nine years we’d spent at Wayne Upper Day. It really took a few hours with personal information and education history added. I’m actually amazed it took more than ten minutes, but we wanted to be careful.

We brought it to a headhunter, Dolores Gomez, in downtown Philly. She’d never seen anyone, let alone a married couple, with one job resume’s that covered almost thirty years of employment. She was honest with us, saying there was little chance of finding another private school looking for co-principals, especially at our age. We understood and asked her to see what was out there and that she shouldn’t rush. We still had most of the next year.

We returned to work in September with heavy hearts. We hadn’t told anyone there yet, but this was going to be our last year at Wayne Upper Day. We couldn’t keep it secret for a long time. But we were trying to keep it quiet for as long as possible to keep everything stable. But in mid October, at the monthly meeting with the Trustees, we were introduced to Mary and Christopher Horvath, the couple who were replacing us. They were in their late 30s, childless, and we were told they were starting November 1st and we were to work with them through graduation, as their mentors/trainers, like Joe DeMilo had done with us all those years before. The only good thing was the Trustees, out of the goodness of their hearts, were allowing us to stay in the house until July 20. We had eight months to figure out where we were going and to find a place to live. It all became real to me and Eva that night. We were really leaving. It led to another crying fest when we got home.

The transition between us and the Horvath’s was not smooth, and that was being kind about it. They had their degrees from Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr.’s school, and were determined to bring in a fundamentalist Christian view to education. And when they started, spending their days with us to learn about the school and the people, the cat was out of the bag. It took a couple of hours for the rumors to start spreading, and within a day, the word was out that Eva and I, Mr. and Mrs. G as we were commonly known, were in our last year.

We were flooded with requests from students to meet with us and our secretaries had to turn most of them away. Then the parents started calling, most of them equally unhappy and requesting meetings. Eva and I decided we had to have a meeting with everyone who wanted to attend, so we scheduled it for the following Sunday in the school gym, where there was room, with chairs set up, to accommodate just about everyone who wanted to attend.

As we got ready that Sunday, Vince and Maria made breakfast for us, but we couldn’t eat. Our stomachs were in knots and we just managed some coffee. Cammy and Kyle stopped by with Anna, Rachel called us from Chicago to offer her support. Phyllis also called to send her love. She asked us to come visit for part of our winter break and we told her we would. Then, before 2, we drove the two minutes on that cloudy, blustery day to try to calm the fears of our other family.

When we got in, we were surprised (and pissed off) to find that Alex Maitland and the Horvath’s were already running a very ugly meeting. Eva and I called this meeting and they just took over. Our kids held our hands as we looked inside from the door, with shouting going back and forth. Parents and their children were still filing in, trying to talk to us outside the gym, hugging us, offering support. Then the four of us walked in and the gym exploded in applause. We appreciated the support but it was an uncomfortable situation. Maitland reluctantly handed us the microphone and I got the people to quiet down and listen.

“Folks, it’s great to see you all here and it’s really wonderful to see the love and support you all have for my wife and I, as well as our family. But I have to tell you, whatever is said here today, this June will be our last time graduating the senior class. We are moving on; it’s a done deal, and next September, there will be a new couple as principals, Mary and Christopher Horvath. We love this school and we love the people here. And if you want the school to continue to thrive and your children to continue to succeed here, you need to give them your support. They deserve the chance to put their ideas in place before you criticize them.” That got things rowdy again, a lot of people shouting their unhappiness. I sympathized but part of me was bitter. The parents were the ones who voted in Alex Maitland and his friends and their agenda. It should have been apparent what would happen.

Eva took the mic then. “People please. Please listen. We won’t be staying. It’s time for us to move on to something else, we don’t know what yet, but I’m sure it will be something special. And for your children’s sake, please give the new principals a chance. Don’t make this hard for them. The Trustees wouldn’t have hired them if they didn’t think they were qualified.” We felt like we had dirt in our mouths, coming close to lying to everyone. We personally had little faith in the Horvath’s and their beliefs. Revisionism and Creationism were in their plans. But this was not our concern any more. We had no control in this or any other decisions going forward. We just hoped for the best for the future there.

So it went for the next couple of hours. Maitland may have thought he bit off more than he could chew, but there was no going back. The Horvath’s were hired, they had their own five year contracts and Eva and I were moving on. At the end of the meeting, we had a tough time leaving the building as we were surrounded by parents who knew us for years, even decades. Some of them had three or four children who passed through our doors over the years and still had children in school here. It was heart rendering for us, and for them as well.

We finally got out of there by five and we took the kids out for a seafood dinner. It was quiet and sad. And this was November. How we were going to feel come June….

Thanksgiving we hosted as much of our family as could come, a last Thanksgiving in this house, our home. Every occasion was bittersweet now. We continued to clash with Mary and Christopher as the year went on. By February, we were concerned about where we would live come July. Would we stay in the area? Where would we move if we left?

And then, as we started figure it was time to retire, the last phase of our working life came to be. Dolores Gomez called us one very cold Wednesday night in February. Eva put her on speaker so we could both hear her and talk. “I got a school that’s interested in both of you. The money isn’t what you’re used to, but it’s not terrible either, and you said the money isn’t a primary concern. It’s a very good school that has had a tough time with their current principal and they’re willing to hire both of you to run things. The thing is, it’s in Durham, North Carolina. Not the ends of the earth, but it’s not close to here. So it’s a major relocation for you. If you’re interested, they’d like to fly you down with your kids on a Thursday so you can see the school on a school day, then have some meetings over the weekend. Like next weekend. They really need to find someone for the next school year, which starts in August down there.”

“Can we call you back tomorrow?” I asked her.

“Sure, that’s fine. The school has a good long term reputation. So give it a good consideration.”

Eva and I talked it over in our bedroom, the place where we always were able to talk things over. “I don’t love the idea of moving four hundred miles from home” Eva said, tossing things over in her big brain. “But it sounds like a great opportunity. A good school near Duke University. The kind of school we’re used to working in. Maybe it’s got a good racial mix. I always wished we could have done more about that here. We tried with the scholarship program, and now they’re going to tear it down.”

“Let’s focus on the new opportunity, Angel. They must really want us if they’re willing to fly us all down for four days. And honestly, we haven’t gotten any other offers and I’m not ready to retire. You’re not either, right?”

“No way. I love playing tennis together and swimming but I’m looking for more out of our lives. If possible, I’d love to keep working for five or more years. Even ten.”

“We’ll be married fifty years in ten years. A huge milestone.”

“Don’t plan on not making it, Bear. We’re going to do everything to stay good and healthy. Starting with this.” Eva hopped on top of me, still athletic and flexible at sixty. It was the prelude to some awesome sex. We still had it, and we had it bad for each other.

The following Thursday we flew down with Vince and Maria. We got the rental car they reserved and followed the GPS directions to The Durham Academy in a neighborhood called The Valley, a short distance south from Duke University. We got there at about 11, a nice brick building surrounded by gardens and trees, with a football field/soccer field and a baseball diamond. It was all fairly new, maybe ten years old. We got a good feeling right from the start. The four of us went up the steps and we were stopped by a security guard who called us into the office and from their authorization he issued us passes to stick onto our left lapels. These days security is a serious issue. We took it seriously at Wayne Day as well. I had firsthand knowledge of how things could go wrong.

We were met in the office by Dr. Louis Kellman, their chair of the board of Trustees. He arranged for Maria and Vince to sit in with senior and sophomore classes, respectively and he asked a couple of students to stick with them for the rest of the day, including lunch. Then the three of us sat down and he explained what the school situation was. They were currently at 70% capacity, a number which would not be sustainable for long. The low enrollment had to do with the current principal who had taken on staff of a subpar standard in her mandate to either help raise money or cut the budget. She chose budget and as as result the quality of the teaching staff suffered. That in turn led to lower test scores and parents in the area were sending their children to other schools that were doing better at sending graduates to top colleges. We talked about teaching philosophies and we also told him if he could arrange for a short term increase in the budget so we could stop the loss of good teachers, we’d work hard at fundraising, something Eva and I were very good at back in Wayne. The money was out there; this was in the heart of the Research Triangle of North Carolina, the three top colleges of Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State in Raleigh. Dr. Kellman asked how long he thought it might take to get things turned around, replenishing the endowment and building the quality of the school.

“It won’t be fast” I said, holding Eva’s hand. “We’ve never worked without at least a five year contract. Understand, we don’t know anyone here and we’ll have to host some fundraisers. We assume you know people from the alumni of the three colleges here.”

“I’m a graduate of UNC Law School, class of ’75. I’m also a graduate of this school, when we were in the old building. It breaks my heart to see what’s happened to this fine school. We made a mistake in hiring Sandra Hill. She didn’t even try to raise money. She just immediately started letting older, popular teacher go to save money. From everything we’ve heard here, the two of you did an amazing job in Pennsylvania. Why else would they have kept you for thirty years? And speaking of which, why did they let you go now?” He looked hard at us.

Eva explained the politics of the times were the primary factor in our leaving a job and home we loved very much. “We kept our personal politics out of the classrooms. We have teachers who are liberal and conservative and everywhere in between. All we asked of our teachers was that they kept the students engaged and that they always taught truthfully, and never condescended to the students. We’re leaving Way Upper Day with a flush endowment, students who go to the best universities and state schools, and excellent reviews from students and parents year after year. But the leaders of the current trustees tried to cut our salaries by twenty percent, and they wanted to take away almost all of our authority. We couldn’t stay under those conditions.”

“You know, we probably can’t afford to pay you what you currently earn. We probably couldn’t even match the twenty percent cut they offered.”

I responded to that. “Dr. Kellman, that’s not the same circumstance. They made that cut and the changes in our contracts to get us to resign. They could have kept things as they were but this was a personal conflict with one Trustee in particular. If you want us, and if we decide to come here, we don’t expect the same salaries we were making there. Why don’t we look around, meet some of the staff and students?”

We walked and talked, stopped by the lunchroom where the food looked really good. We went to some classrooms, one’s Eva and I chose, and we saw some teachers fully engaged and others who were just phoning it in. We saw bright students who were enjoying the teachers who interacted well, while in the weaker classes, the students were mostly bored. It was a huge problem, but one that could be fixed with money and the authority to hire better teachers.

We agreed to meet Dr. Kellman and the rest of their Trustees Friday evening for dinner at his home. We found a place to take our kids to dinner that night and they told us what they thought of the school based on their brief exposure. It was a mixed reaction, what we expected. After dinner, we went back to the hotel, a nice place and after saying goodnight to Vince and Maria, Eva and I settled in to talk seriously.

“This place will be a real challenge if we take it on, Bear. A lot of work. They need to invest in a lot of better teachers. Some of the ones we saw today…..I never would have hired them. They were just going through the motions.”

“Some were very good, though, Angel. Young, interested and interesting. A good core to begin with. But I have to ask you….do we really want to get into a rebuilding project at our age? I know they can’t pay us what we’re used to and I don’t care about that. The challenge is the interesting thing. But do we want this now?

Eva cuddled with me and we both were quiet for a while. Her fingernails were tickling my chest, teasing me, as I lightly traced my fingers up and down her arm. We were talking about a very serious subject, out future, but we were feeling those old romantic, lusty feelings. We always got like that in strange hotel rooms. The next thing I knew, Eva was reaching into my pajama bottoms and touching my rapidly swelling cock. I could see her color rising as well. We smiled at each other, loving and eager and in that moment, we both knew if they offered us the positions, we’d accept. It had been a long time since we had such a challenge.

We closed the slight distance between us and embraced in a long, sexy kiss. My hand cupped her breast over her nightgown and her hand caressed my neck and cheek. Our deep kisses kept going, breaking and starting again, over and over, tongues tasting each other. Her hand went back to my cock and massaged me until I was fully hard and I pulled up her nightgown to her hips so I could touch her pussy, which was nice and moist. We moaned into each others mouths as our desire for each other, as strong as it ever was, took control of us. We hurriedly got out of our bed clothes and Eva climbed on top of me.

The feeling of my cock sliding into her pussy made us both shudder. That’s how turned on we were. She was rocking back and forth, then side to side, changing direction and the speed of her motions. I was lifting my hips to press into her, up and down, grinding my cock into her warm, wet pussy. We held hands, twisting our fingers together. “I love this, Bear. I love how you still make me feel when we make love. I love the way you make me feel every day, all day long.” She groaned as she enjoyed a couple of gentle orgasms.

“Angel, you make me feel like a king every day of my life. You have since we met. I’m the luckiest man anywhere in the world.”

Tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes, tears of joy and contentment. Her body started moving faster and I met her thrusts with my own. I let go of one hand to I could tease her nipples, which made her move faster. Her nails scratched over my chest as she got closer to cumming. I reached lower and rubbed her clit in little circles, the way I learned she loved a long time ago. Her body shook, her eyes went wide, and she came with a low shout.

I was getting close myself and Eva could see it on my face; she knew my tells like I knew hers. “Hold it just a moment!” she said as she got off me and turned quickly. She took my pulsing cock into her mouth and jerked the shaft rapidly with her hand.

“Oh my god, Eva! I’m cumminggg!” My semen burst from my cock into her hungry mouth, swallowing as I spewed, then she stopped, holding the rest in her mouth. When I was done, she moved once more, this time kissing me, sharing my cum with me, something we hadn’t done in some time. I licked her tongue eagerly, swallowing some of myself and pushing a little back into her mouth. It was as much a kiss as a swap and we stayed that way for much longer than we needed to. Finally Eva rested her head on my chest, listening to the pounding of my heart. It was as much out of love for her as from the exertion of our love making.

It took a few minutes before I could think straight and say something, so in the meantime i caressed her back while she did her usual move of toying with my chest hair. I asked her “Do I tell you how much I love you often enough, Angel?”

She took a long pause. “Eh, maybe. But I could always hear it once more” she giggled.

“I love you, my little ballbuster” I told her as I gave her a playful spank.

“You love what I do with your balls. Primarily, I empty them.” More chuckling from both of us. Then she got serious. “Bear….are we really going to do this? Uproot our lives and move four hundred miles away? Start all over in a new school? We don’t have to. We could retire. I’ll miss Philadelphia. And I’ll really miss our beach house.”

“I know, honey. So will I. But I think we have to do this. I don’t think we’re the retiring types, not yet anyway. If they offer the jobs, we’ll give it five years. Maybe ten. If you agree. It’s both our decision.”

“I think you’re right. I don’t feel ready to stop working. It’s just such a change. I wonder if we’re up to it.”

I was quiet. I wondered if we were up to it too.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

We spent the day driving around, seeing the scenery, even though the day was fairly cold. Back home there was about six inches of snow on the ground but here there was just a dusting. We had lunch at a barbeque joint that was delicious. In the afternoon we went to the Museum of Life and Science, then back to the hotel to change into nicer clothes for dinner. We left money for Vince and Maria to have dinner in the hotel restaurant and then Eva and I went to the Kellman residence, a big old house on a huge property. This was old Southern money. But the days where money intimidated us were long past. We’d been dealing with such people for a long time and besides, we were very well-to-do ourselves.

Inside we were introduced around the the various Trustees and their spouses. The Board was almost all men as opposed to an even mix like back at Wayne Day. After a nice dinner served by a team of waiters, we went to talk in the library (bigger than ours) as the mostly wives went to the parlor.

The short version was they agreed to a three year injection of six hundred thousand dollars to raise salaries in order to entice new teaching talent. Mine and Eva’s salaries would be less than we were used to, but not less than we expected. We’d be expected to help raise money, bring up the test scores and get the school to full enrollment in three years. That was the length of the contracts they offered. That was how long they were giving us to change the culture and the trajectory of the school.

We excused ourselves to a private room to talk it over. We would have preferred five years but that wasn’t what they were willing to give us. So we made a request of our own: If we achieved what they were asking, they’d pay us a sizable bonus to make up for the lower salary. A little back and forth on the actual amount and we shook hands. We had a deal. We just asked to take the contracts back with us to let our lawyer look them over, which they expected.

We flew home the next day, Saturday, and we called Cammy right away. We had to ask her to look at the contracts and to break the news that we were moving on come August. She wasn’t going to be happy.

When I spoke to her, I just told her we had some new contracts for her to read.

“What, did Wayne Upper Day come to their senses and ask you to stay?” my sister asked on the phone

“Not exactly, sis. We’re still leaving Wayne. We have to move on.”

She was picking up the sad notes in my voice. “Move, Jon? Where to? I just moved back here!”

“We’re going to North Carolina, Durham. We got a decent offer for both of us.”

“No, Jon! You can’t be moving! What is that, three hundred miles?”

“Four. It’s like a six or seven hour drive. We have to, Cammy. They want us. No one else even offered, certainly no one nearby. And we have to sell the beach house. That’s breaking our hearts, along with leaving everyone we know and love. But we’re too young to retire.”

“Jon….I just moved back” she muttered again. Then I heard her crying and my chest ached. “You’re leaving in August?”

“Yeah, actually we need to be there by August first. The first day of school is August seventeenth. We need to be there at least a week earlier, and we have to find a house there and move in by the first and set up. God, we have to buy furniture! We have so much to do while we finish up things here. We’re flying down next weekend to start house hunting. Cammy….please be happy for us. It’s a great opportunity for us to turn around a struggling school.”

“Dammit, Jon, leave it to you to hit me with a reasonable argument. Bring your contracts over tomorrow. Kyle will make dinner for us.” As I got off the phone, it hit me how many people we were leaving behind. Larry, Patty. A host of other friends. The Jersey Shore and all those friends. All the young people we’d helped and were an influence on over the years, some of whom were even grandparents now. We’d be further from Rachel, but closer to Connor when he was home. Closer to Leigh and Oliver, and to see Phyllis, who was starting to have trouble. We had been talking about putting her in a top assisted living facility with Eva’s brothers. So much change.

We went to my sisters the next day and, try as she might, she couldn’t find a reason not to sign, aside from the money. She couldn’t believe we were willing to work for a 30% reduction. No one in her world willingly takes a pay cut. It sends a bad message. Mine and Eva’s situation was different.

When dinner was over, we all hugged as if we weren’t going to see each other again. We would. We were going to be in Wayne for another four months. We had no idea how fast it would go.

During the week that followed, we made calls to Leigh, who was thrilled, to Rachel, who was less than thrilled but understanding. Besides, she was traveling all over the country by then, even traveling to Europe a few times. Her career was taking off and she had an international reputation as a concert and solo pianist. We saw her maybe once a year, but our pride for her was immense.

Phyllis was thrilled to have us a little closer. She was stubborn about giving up her condo and her independence, but she was realizing she couldn’t live on her own much longer. We asked her if she wanted to come live with us, but she really couldn’t stand the cold winter and besides, her friends were in Florida. Walt and Will, after we told them our news, made plans to go there and find a good assisted living facility for their mother. Eva cried about that that night. I held her and comforted her as I always did and as she had done for me many times.

First thing, Eva and I had to start going to Durham on weekends to find a house. Vince and Maria stayed with Cammy and Kyle when we traveled so they could keep up with their studies and their friends. We were set up with a real estate agent, Dale Ford. We had spoken to him on the phone and we told him what we were looking for in size and the kind of neighborhood. Then we told him our price limit and that we’d be paying cash and we could hear him practically salute us over the phone. The first weekend he showed us four or five properties within ten minutes of the school, but they weren’t what we were looking for, so we told him for the following weekend to expand the search radius. The second house we looked at that second trip, in a neighborhood called Forest Hills, about 20 minutes from school….well, we fell in love with it. It was on a rise of ground, a Tudor style, two stories with a long attic. It sat on a quarter acre of land with an in ground pool. It had five bedrooms, three bathrooms on the second floor and two half baths, living room, dining room, library, big kitchen and an added on Sun room, which was bathed in warm light during the day except on the coldest or cloudiest days, on the first floor. Like our house in Wayne, it hat three fireplaces in the living room, the library and the master bedroom. The house was in excellent condition, with a new roof four years before. The windows were all modern storm proof and insulated The asking price was within our price limit; the same house on the Main Line would have been double the price. We went back the next day to meet the owner, a widower name George Kantakis, who was selling to be closer to his daughter and her family in New Mexico. He’d been in the house twenty two years and wanted to move away about as much as Eva and I wanted to leave Wayne. He was a nice man and when we told him we could pay cash, he knocked three percent off the price. We shook hands and we had a house, provided the inspection worked out.

It did. He planned to move out July 1st, so we gave him a $20K check as a down payment with the balance to be paid when he moved and we officially took possession. It was early March and we had a thousand things to do in the next few months. We had to put our beach house up for sale and clear it out and sell off the furniture. Then we had to start getting our Wayne house possessions packed. First, the second weekend in March, we went back to Durham with Vince and Maria so they could see the house and come furniture shopping with us. Vince was already accepted at Georgetown for the fall, Class of ’24 so he would only be living there a few months of the year. Maria still had two years of high school, at Durham Academy. Soon she’d be off to college too, and Eva and I would finally be living on our own most of the time. But not yet. We had two more years with one child living at home full time.

Maria and Vince loved the new house, though all they saw of it was the outside at first. They liked the idea of a pool in the warm weather. It would take some of the sting out of losing the beach house. So I called George and asked if we could show our kids the house. He was very hospitable and was glad to let them come and look around, pick out their future rooms, get the feel of the place.

After that, we went furniture shopping. North Carolina is still the center of the US furniture business, though they don’t manufacture nearly as much as they used to. But the top brands are still made there and we found a store that had high quality contemporary styles and we were able to buy all the bedrooms there, all five. That was a hefty purchase, then we found another store where we found most of the pieces for our living room and library, and a third store provided our dining set for 8, with leaves to open for 12. All the stores were able to deliver by July 3rd. We would have to do the Sun room and some individual items we needed on another trip. We were exhausted for that weekend.

Over the next few months, we sold the beach house and focused on cleaning it out, deciding what we wanted to keep and what to throw away. Most of the furniture went to our local friends, who threw a huge party in our honor over Memorial Day Weekend. Cammy and her family came, as did Larry. When we cleaned things out, it was a difficult, painful task. So many memories in 27 years. So many great summers there. It made us realize how tough cleaning out the Wayne house would be. We turned over the keys to the beach house on June 1st and Eva cried most of the way home. I barely held it together because I was driving. We made a fortune on the house but we lost a wonderful life there.

During May we also went to New York to see Eva’s brothers and Aunt Annette and Uncle Phil, who were showing their age. Thankfully Nick and Jerrold had their care well in hand. That weekend was a tough series of goodbyes, including a stop at Marco’s, a last chicken cacciatore. That was particularly sad for us. The place of our first date, still in business over 40 years later.

As we cleaned out closets and the attic at home, we found so many pictures and 16mm films I shot of our vacations. We spend a couple of nights with our young ones watching those and feeling depressed. Maybe melancholic would be a better word. Sad, but without the misery inside. It was hard, damn hard.

At work, we were still clashing with the Horvath’s. You’d have thought they would have eased up on us with just a few weeks left before they were rid of us (and they were moving into the house July 1st, a month earlier than planned). But we were never going to agree with them about education. And ominously, seven teachers wrote letters of resignation, so they all had to be replaced over the summer. It wasn’t our problem, but Eva and I felt like we were leaving our family in troubled times. It couldn’t be helped.

Students walked around the halls with sad expressions, not the usual excited faces that come with the impending end of the school year. We had a few every day that June stopping in our offices to say personal, tearful goodbyes, and it was all we could do to keep from falling apart. The situation was pissing off Chris and Mary even more. They should have expected that taking over from people who had been in their jobs for 30 years would make for a rough transition. But no one, not even Eva and I, realized just how difficult it would be for all of us.

We got together with friends and/or Cammy and Kyle, sometimes Anna and our kids, every weekend. Larry was very sad dealing with our leaving. We were like brothers, and with losing Abi and Dora a few years back, I felt like I was leaving my other brother behind. The last time I thought I was going to see him, June 6th, we got kind of drunk and swore forever friends, like guys do when they get a bit smashed and let their guard down. We talked about seeing each other; he would travel to see me, I’d come back to see him, but I think we both knew it was iffy at best. It hurt like hell.

Then the following weekend we went out to dinner with Patty and her husband and a few other friends, a quiet dinner in one of the nicer restaurants she and Larry still co-owned, a Spanish Tapas place. Larry met us in the lobby and led us to the back into a private room where instead of about ten people, almost 80 were there, including Vince and Maria, Cammy and Kyle, even Walt and Will and their families. Even Phyllis, who was with her sons. Leigh, Oliver…..and Connor. And the big surprise was Rachel and Tony. She cleared the weekend for this dinner and me and Eva cried over the whole thing. A big sign was across the top wall, “Goodbye Eva and Jon! You will be sorely missed! Love, EVERYONE!”

Eva and I both were shocked in the most pleasant way, crying without any shame as our friends and family cheered and applauded and took turns giving us kisses and shaking our hands. It was especially wonderful to see Rachel and Connor with his family. We saw so little of them recently. And Larry and Patty put aside their differences to make this happen for us. They were special friends in every way. It was one of the best nights of our lives and when we got home, Eva and I made it complete with a great, bawdy fuck.

The following Wednesday night was the last time Eva and I attended the Senior Dinner at Villanova, a week before graduation. In addition to the Seniors and their parents and the teachers. Alex Maitland and most of the Trustees stayed home. Already there were rumblings about removing them. Enrollment for the fall was still solid, but that was only because of the long waiting list. A lot of current students weren’t coming back in September. We took no pleasure from that. No matter where we went the rest of our lives, we would always love Wayne Day School.

It was a bittersweet night. It always was a pleasure to do the official goodbye to the graduates, give the awards and make the speeches. That year, so there weren’t four speeches to bore the crowd, we managed to make an agreement with the Horvath’s for one member from each couple to give a speech. Eva spoke for us and Chris for them, two very different speeches. Eva talked about the promise we found in the members of the graduating class, that we expected big things from them, while Chris talked about how important it was to love their country and have God in their lives. Not for the first time, later that night Eva and I talked how we would never understand how Chris and Mary thought. I’m sure they said the same thing about us.

We took a couple of days between the dinner and graduation to finish packing the house. Graduation was Tuesday the 23rd, and we were leaving on Monday the 29th. That week between the two was incredibly busy, finishing packing, the kids were saying goodbye to their friends and we were saying our last goodbyes to ours. We also made our plans to spend the last Saturday with selected friends, while Friday and Sunday were set aside for Cammy and Kyle. It was a very busy schedule.

Graduation day. Our last there. The official end of our tenure as the Principals at Wayne Upper Day School. We got dressed that morning with breaking hearts, dressing in our best suits like we always did for this special day. As we had our coffee and some toast, about all we could eat that morning, we checked out our kids. Maria wore a pretty blue and gold summer dress and Vince, who was graduating, wore a brand new Brooks Brothers grey suit for the occasion. He looked damn sharp and Eva and I were incredibly proud, not because of how beautiful our kids were, but they were also both excellent students. Vince was graduating seventh in his class and Maria was in the top ten percent of hers. In two years she’d be graduating and heading for college. As sad as the day was for us, our children made us burst with pride.

At a quarter to 10, a little over an hour before the ceremony began, we stood in the foyer of our house, now with all these boxes all over the place, and looked each other over, making sure everything was in place. “Are you ready, Bear? Our last graduation here.”

“Honestly? Not really, Angel. We’ve had a year to prepare for this and it still feels like a knife in the guts.”

She hugged me and we both had tears in our eyes, but we held back from crying outright. Eva didn’t want to have to redo her makeup. “I didn’t think this was going to be so hard, Bear. This school is a part of us.”

“And we’re a part of this school. Nothing lasts forever, Angel. But I would have loved to finish our careers here.” A few sniffles, then Maria and Vince came out from the hallway.

“Come on, parents, lets get going” Vince said, trying to lighten the mood a little. “Graduation is here!”

“Come on, graduate” Eva said with a smile. “You too, Missy. Let’s do this.” And we walked out of the house to our last graduation ceremony at Wayne Upper Day.

During the ten minute walk, we noticed a lot of cars in the varous parking lots, then a big overflow on the grass field. When we got to the football field, where our graduations were always held (except during foul weather) we saw that the groundskeeping team had set up for a lot more than the usual five hundred people or so. A LOT more. Like a two thousand seats and bleachers. And in all those seats were thousands of people, all there early, and when we were spotted arriving, the school band started playing some very upbeat music, and the crowd cheered for us. It was a huge goodbye party as well as graduation ceremony. Some of our friends were there, along with Cammy and her family. And past graduates. A lot of them. We later found out they were chosen by a lottery; if there had been room, there would have been more people there.

Eva and I cried then, big wet tears, and we saw Vince and Maria with big smiles; they had known about this and kept it secret from us. The little creeps (just kidding). We hugged them both, a long, loving hug. then Cammy, Kyle and Anna joined us. We had butterflies in our stomachs as we made our way to the stage to start the ceremony at 10, like all the invitations said. Everyone pulled a fast one on us. Even Chris and Mary Horvath were applauding for us, which went a long way to putting the bitter feelings we had towards each other aside. Chris whispered to me that Eva and I could give the speeches that day, that he and Mary would sit on stage but wouldn’t make speeches.

After everyone settled down, I spoke first. “Welcome to the 2020 Wayne Upper Day Graduation. I can’t think of any other reason why you’re all here”, a small joke that got a lot more laughter than it deserved. I talked primarily about the graduates and the challenges that faced them, how proud Eva and I were to have known them all for the six years they’d gone to school there. Then I talked a little about us. “Thirty years. Mrs. Grossman and I, or Mr. and Mrs. G, as you prefer, have been honored to have been a part of your lives and watch you all grow into such fine young men and women. And to all those who surprised us today….we’re just stunned. Stunned and pleased. It’s been such an honor to know you all and to help guide you into adulthood. We are humbled to be honored this way.” I couldn’t say any more; I was overwhelmed with emotions.

Eva got up and said a few words as well. “I can’t believe we’re moving on. We’re going on to a great opportunity, but this will always feel like home. We have lifelong friends here, incredible memories of our family growing and growing up here. A couple of sad times. But the vast majority have been great times. We’re turning over the keys to the house and the school to Chris and Mary Horvath and we hope the classes to come will be kind to them and give them a chance to feel as much at home here as Jon and I have. Please give them a chance, the way earlier classes gave us a chance when we came here from New York thirty years ago. Mr. and Mrs. Horvath, come on up and say a few words.” They were surprised, but they went to the podium and gave short speeches thanking us for all our years of service and hoping they could do half as good a job and Eva and I did. Then we all handed the graduates their diplomas and I let Eva tell them to flip their tassels and she pronounced them all high school graduates to thundering applause.

Then one last surprise. Steve Brent, the ‘boy’ who spent a terrified few hours with us on 9/11 when we couldn’t reach his mother, and Jackie Allen, now Jackie Klein, who was taken advantage of by a now nameless teacher not long after we came to Wayne, came up on the stage and on behalf of the alumni association, thanked us for all we had done for the thousands of students who passed through the doors of the school over the years and then presented us with his and hers Rolex gold watches. It was way beyond anything we expected and Eva and I cried again as we thanked them both as well as the entire alumni of the school, out ‘other’ family as we called them. We hugged them both, emblematic of the fine adults we turned out year after year. Vince and Maria joined us and we waved goodbye as almost everyone took pictures with cameras and phones. All in all, it was a pretty great morning and afternoon. Pretty great indeed.

Cammy and Kyle took us out to lunch, a nice cafe in town, and people came up to us all during the meal and thanked us and wished us well for our future. Eva and I felt the love of the town and would all through the last week we lived there. Anytime we went into town for any reason at all, people we knew, and a few we forgot, came up to us to thank us again and again for the effect we had on their children or themselves over the years. It was beautiful and it also made it all the harder to think about the fact we were leaving in a few days.

Friday night we went out with Cammy and Kyle for dinner in Philadelphia, a fancy French bistro, and my sister and brother in law insisted on picking up the check. No argument allowed. We didn’t say goodbye because they were coming with Anna to spend the day on Sunday. It just felt like goodbye when we said goodnight.

Kyle drove that night, so Eva and I let ourselves get kind of buzzed. And when we got buzzed, we got randy. Even more so than usual. After i washed up and brushed my teeth, Eva disappeared into the bathroom, giggled and winking at me. “Be ready in ten minutes, stud. Don’t even think of denying me tonight.” She closed the door, still giddy.

“When have I ever denied you!” I shouted through the closed door, louder than I needed to. She wasn’t the only one feeling drunk and horny. I chuckled to myself as I stripped down to my underwear and I drunkenly started singing “Joy to the World, I’m getting laid” like Charlie Harper (Sheen) sings in the Two and a Half Men episode Walnuts and Demerol. Hey, I was drunk and in a great mood and I was fucking horny. And my wife was horny. It was a perfect storm for dirty sex.

That was confirmed when she threw the door open and stood in the entrance to our bathroom in a black, flimsy Babydoll nightie, barely long enough to cover her ass which was also covered in black lace. “My husbands going to play with me” she said in a kind of sing-song way, giggling as she climbed on the bed. “Come and get me, Bear. My horny Bear? God, I hope so!”

I got up on my knees on the mattress, showing off my erection, framed snugly in my briefs. “Horny Bear is right! Like as superhero. Underdog, Mighty Mouse, and Horny Bear! Able to leap petite wives with a single bound!” I got up on my feet and jumped over her prone form from one end of the bed to the other while my cock was growing in length and girth. Then I hopped back again and landed a little awkwardly and fell over, luckily on the bed and not on the floor. Still, I made a resounding crash sound when I hit mattress and Eva got up as fast as a bunny and moved over to me.

“Bear, are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?”

“The only thing hurt on me is my pride” I grumbled and next thing Eva and I knew, we were both laughing our asses off.

“That is so sexy, Jon. Watching my husband uncoordinatedly lose his balance and nearly break his neck.” We kept laughing, harder and harder. Objectively it was funny. Personally……ok, it was still funny. Eva pounced on top of me and kissed and cuddled me and I did the same in return to her. “I’d better make sure nothing is broken.” She reached into my briefs and fondled my still stiff like plaster cock. “Hmm, nothing broken here. Maybe I should double check…” she chuckled as my briefs were pushed down to just below my balls. “It looks like it’s still functional. One sure way to find out” and with that my beautiful, sexy, wicked and horny wife started bobbing up and down along my dick, swallowing me within a few seconds and making me groan very loudly. She still could give head like a ‘pro’ and I was in heaven.

Then there was an urgent knock on our door. Maria shouted “Mom, Dad? Are you all right in there? I thought I heard a crashing sound!” She had real concern in her voice.

Eva took my cock out of her mouth, already shining in her saliva, and called back “Yes honey, we’re fine! Dad just took a little fall on the bed, but we’re both fine!” We were fine, but we were also laughing like silly sex maniacs. Maria almost certainly figured out what was going on in our room….well, not the details. But she’s a damn smart girl.

She had a chuckle to her own voice as she talked to her perverted parents. “Ok, if you say so. You just behave in there!” We were trying to stifle our need to burst out in laughter. At best, we were only partly succeeding.

“Go do whatever you were doing, Maria! Good night!” She walked away laughing and Eva and I let out our huge laughs, our sexual needs temporarily forgotten.

Temporarily, I said. After we got control of ourselves (about three minutes later), Eva again grasped my still raging erection and gave it a kiss right on the glans. “Awww, I neglected him” she said with an exaggerated pout. “Let me make it up to both of you.” Back she went, picking up where she left off, making love to my throbbing cock and balls. I went back to moaning, this time trying to keep from getting too loud. It wasn’t easy; she was doing the usual amazing things to me, the things she knew so well. I grabbed at her leg, pulling in a way she well knew meant I wanted to do my own dirty things to her. She moved her body with her knees, never letting my cock get out of her mouth, until she straddled my head. I had a great view of her still nicely rounded ass in the black lace, something I always loved to see since I let her know about my fetish when we met forty one years before. She gave her ass a little wiggle for me to let me know she was ready for whatever I was thinking of doing.

I started by kissing her thighs, the bottom, right near where the thighs met her ass, then I made my way to the insides, still so soft and so tempting. Years of playing tennis together kept her legs in great shape and years at the beach gave them a beautiful rich color. I kissed and nibbled on her inner thighs and I could hear her and feel her moan, even with my dick in her mouth. Then she wiggled again, more urgently, letting me know she needed more, much more, from me.

I hooked my finger inside the crotch of her panties and pulled to the right, exposing my prize. At sixty, Eva still produced plenty of her lubrication, which clung to her lips and the hairs all around her pussy. She kept it trimmed but never shaved, which was just how I liked her. I loved making love to a woman, not a wannabe girl. And Eva was the sexiest woman I ever met. I tapped her pussy with the tip of my of my tongue and she squirmed, pushing her hips back towards my face. I knew what she needed.

“You want me to eat this delicious pussy, Angel? Or are you my Devil tonight?”

She briefly stopped sucking me. “I’ll show you want kind of Devil I can be, you Dirty Bear. Eat me until I cum on your face and I’ll fuck you like a teenage slut!” Back she went to devouring my member.

“Promises, promises” I taunted her, but then I attacked her hot cunt, using my tongue to swirl around her gash as my fingers held her lips apart. I knew well what my wife loved and I mixed things up, using slow strokes of my tongue to tease, then faster lashes to build up her pleasure and then I slowed things down as she got close to cumming. She was doing similar things to me, sucking my cock with a lot of tongue, then she held it in her soft little hand as she sucked on my balls one at a time. I was squirming underneath her while she shuddered above me.

“That’s it, you Dirty Bear. Eat my pussy. The way only you know. You make me feel like such a naughty girllllll” she cried, drawing out the last sound like a rumble from her throat. “You’ve always been an amazing pussy eater! Eat your whore, Bear. So fucking good.” She was grinding her hips, mashing her cunt on my face, soaking my nose and chin.

I pushed two fingers into her gaping, grasping cunt and she let out a low howl, low enough so Maria and Vince wouldn’t hear her. We hoped. “MMMM you’re still so tight, my wicked little Devil. All these years later and you’re like a fucking vise. Squeeze my fingers, my little slut. All mine, forever.”

“Oh god yessss. Your slut, and you’re my fuck boy.” Then she swallowed my cock, taking the head into her throat, something she hadn’t done to me in at least a year. I shook all over as Eva vibrated me with her throat, then let me out so she could breathe, all while I made her clit thrum with my own talents. I sucked it between my lips and hummed and Eva pushed into my face harder as she had a pretty powerful climax. We might have continued that way, with her making me cum in her mouth or throat, but it was late and we had a lot to do that weekend. So without even discussing it, Eva turned around and held my cock while I held her hips and guided her down onto my cock.

I always loved that feeling of Eva’s pussy wrapping around my dick. Always so snug and warm, moist and velvety. And then she started moving in all directions, side to side and then back and forth. Always unpredictable, which made it all the better. I moved around underneath her and made my cock twitch which gave her waves of pleasure. I lifted my hips, pushing up onto her clit, and then I gave her a medium spanking, a few slaps that heightened her sensations.

“Fuck me, Dirty Bear! That feels fucking great! My hot stud of a husband.” She bent forward and gave me a hot wet kiss, a kiss that lasted forever. I held her close so her tits were squeezed on my chest so our nipples were rubbing together through her filmy negligee. Then I turned over so she was on her back and her feet pointed to the ceiling while I lunged into her cunt over and over with ever increasing urgency.

“I’ll fuck you as hard as you want, my slutty Devil. My amazing wife, all at once, all rolled in together. My perfect love. My wild, lusty woman!” I was staring into her blue gemstones, eyes that thrilled me since that first time I noticed them in the hall at high school. Then I said, with all seriousness “I love you, Eva. With all my heart.” I moved with deliberate motions, grinding steadily, in and out, fucking hard yet at the same time, a very loving act. It’s hard to explain. After all that time, we were still madly in love and also deeply in lust.

We were moving together, bringing each other to the brink. Lots of moans and groans, a lot of sweat on both our bodies. Eva was digging her nails into my upper arms as our breathing got more ragged as we climbed the ladder. “Do it, Bear. My handsome Bear. Cum with me. I want to feel you exploding inside me!” I kissed her hard, lips locked together, as I reached the top, thrusting in deep and hard each time my cock throbbed with a heavy spurt of my orgasm. Feeling my cock swelling and shooting brought Eva to her own climax. Her body milked me, gently drawing out every drop of my essence. Both our bodies were tense with the release, then we both relaxed, sharing the sweetest, most gentle romantic kisses, each one filled with our love for each other. I gathered her to me and held Eva like I’d drown if I let go. “Jon, I love how you hold me. I love everything about you. About us.”

“I love you too, honey. You’re my world. You always have been.” We kissed and cuddled, enjoyed the loving feelings. Then, even though we were very tired, I sang to her, The Beatles Here, There and Everywhere. A very pretty love song. Eva didn’t say anything; she didn’t need to. I could sense how she was feeling just through our touches. Love, sadness, nervousness. But mostly love. We needed lots of that to get through the next few months. When I finished the song, we kissed and said goodnight. “I love you, Angel. Always and forever.”

“Me too, Bear. I love you always and forever. My beautiful Bear.” We drifted off to sleep, sleepy, sticky and with warm, loving hearts.

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Saturday was spent finishing packing up our small things. The only thing we wanted to have to deal with on Monday before the movers came at 8AM was things like the bedding in each room and the small bathroom and kitchen items we needed to get through the last couple of mornings. We were done by 3, and Eva and I went through every room, starting at empty bookshelves in the library, empty cupboards in the kitchen, empty closets in every room. The house we called home for thirty years was now a shell, with the main furniture the only things staying. The Horvath’s might be getting new couches etc. We didn’t know and we didn’t care. That was for them to deal with. The only large items coming with us were the mattresses.

While we were throwing out food from the refrigerator, Eva said “Jon, remember when we moved into out first apartment in Flushing and we didn’t realize that the bedroom sets came without mattresses? How we had to scramble to one of those mattress places that had next day delivery?”

“How could I forget? That was actually funny, looking back. We slept on the floor that first night. And we didn’t sleep” I said, smiling lecherously.

“Yeah, it took a while before we were ready to sleep. I can’t believe how lusty we still are. Almost like when we were eighteen. Well, maybe not quite like eighteen. But I have no complaints.” I hugged her from behind, kissing her cheek and neck. Then our kids came downstairs.

“Jeez, don’t you two ever stop?” Maria said, rolling her eyes, but with a good sense of humor about her. “After last night…”

“A little respect, young lady” Eva said, not really complaining, more like returning the ‘abuse’.

“I’m not being rude, Mom. Actually, I’m glad you both still love each other so much.”

Vince kept quiet, getting some juice and coffee for himself and his sister. We were going out to breakfast in a little while since there was nothing much to eat in the house. As he sat at the kitchen table, he asked “Mom, Dad, Maria and I were wondering. Would you mind if she and I went to the cemetery today? It might be a long time before we get to go again.” Maria also looked dead serious; this was very important to them.

“Of course not” I answered. “I’m sorry we haven’t gone in so long (it had been about six months, a long time). In fact, we can all go after breakfast if you want. Your mom and I would like to go. We feel very close to your parents. But if you want to go by yourselves, if you need that private time, we understand.”

Vince and Maria looked at each other and then Maria answered. “You can come with us. It would be nice for us all to be together one last time.” So we went to breakfast, which became a somber meal, and then we went to Calvary Cemetery in Conshohocken, about ten minutes from home. Like we usually had done when we first started taking them, when they were still small children, Eva and I sat on a nearby bench while our children took their time and had a very sad visit with Mike and Linda. We were crying softly while we watched our children make their final peace with their ‘original’ parents. Then they asked us to come over and say our own goodbye. It was all quiet, all of us thinking our own silent inner thoughts. I said, to myself, that I was sorry I never got to meet them, I was sorry they were taken away way too soon, and I hoped they knew that Eva and I did our best to give their children good, happy lives in a loving home, surrounded by a lot of loving people. We loved Maria and Vince every bit as much as we loved Connor and Rachel, treating them no different than their older siblings. By the time we were all ready to leave, we were very sad but we were also at peace.

That night Vince and Maria each went out to say goodbye to their friends while we went out with Larry, his date Laura, Patty and her husband Jeff (all three of them got along surprisingly well, especially when it came to socializing with me and Eva) and four other couples we were close to. We went to a gourmet Chinese restaurant, Sang Kee Peking Duck House, with great duck and Chinese Barbeque meats. And beer, lots of beer all around, except for three designated drivers. We were boisterous and getting some dirty looks from a few other diners, but too bad. It was a celebration and sad goodbye all together. When we were done, Eva and I said painful goodbyes to everyone except Patty and Jeff, who drove us home. When I hugged Larry goodbye, I kissed his cheek like he was my brother. He was the closest thing I ever had to an actual brother. We were both crying. “Come down and visit us any time, man. Please. We have a pool there. We’ll drink beer a grill some steaks and….” we both couldn’t stop crying.

“You always have a place to stay when you come home, Jon. And this IS your home. Don’t forget it. Ever.” I let go and Eva hugged him almost as long. It was just so painful inside. And we were going to have to do the same with Patty.

Sure enough, when they took us home, we did go through the same heartache with Patty and Jeff. Patty really. Jeff was a friend, but Patty was close to being a sister for both of us. Patty and Eva hugged longer than Larry and I did, also promising each other to visit. Finally they drove off and Eva and I waved goodbye, hurting deep inside.

In our bedroom, we just hugged for a long time. Sex wasn’t even on our minds. We just needed loving comfort. The morning was a different story. We heard our kids downstairs and we let them watch whatever they wanted while Eva and I took our time, making love for the last time in that house. We had to get up too early the next day to even try that night, so we had our last love in Wayne that morning, drawing it out, making it last through a lot of fantastic feelings. When we came, it wasn’t quite together, but it was close enough and we kissed and cried afterwards. We hugged as long as we could before we finally had to get out of bed and get showered and shaved for the day. Cammy, Kyle and Anna were coming for the day around 1:30, bringing lunch with them. We went downstairs amongst the clutter of boxes and tagged items. The kids were as quiet as we were; it was just as hard for them to say goodbye to the friends they made over their years with us. We talked a little, had some coffee, and we sat out back, enjoying the view of the back lawn and tree line. It never actually was our property, but after thirty years there, it sure as hell felt like it was ours. It was our Home, with a capital ‘H’.

Cammy and family came over right on time, with a bag of Hoagies and fries (Hoagies is the local name for subs or hero’s) from our favorite sandwich place. They joined us in the backyard and we ate while we all felt a range of emotions. Maria and Anna were good friends as well as cousins, both sixteen years old and a lot in common. We spent the afternoon ruminating, sharing memories. Cammy had called this house her home for a while. She and Kyle got married there, right in that same back yard. We raised our family here for most of all their lives. Eva and I lived there for half our lives. To some degree or another, this was home for all of us and we talked about all of it, including the bad times, like when I recovered from my gunshot wound and Eva recovered from heart surgery.