TRICKY TRIANGLE

CHAPTER 8

AUGUST 1985

“Morning, you’re up early,” Hal greeted his old friend. “Coffee?”

“Morning, yeah,” Ed replied, rubbing his face. “I thought you didn’t work today.”

“I don’t.”

“What are you doing up at five?”

“I’m used to getting up at three,” Hal shrugged. “Getting up at five is sleeping in. How come you’re up already? Dawn didn’t come to bed until just before one. I assumed you two were up talking.”

“We were, but I went to bed at eleven thirty. Dawn said she was gonna read for a while.”

Hal smirked, snorted, and shook his head. “She does that.”

“You don’t approve?”

“The reading late doesn’t bother me, it’s what she reads.”

“What does she read?” Ed asked nonchalantly as he sipped his coffee. He already knew from snooping in her drawer a few days ago and discovering novels of erotica.

“Trash,” Hal replied as he snorted again.

“What do you mean?”

“Dawn usually has two books going,” Hal said with a sigh. “She reads a basic romance when I’m around. Then she gets something she keeps locked in a drawer in her sewing room after I go to bed.”

Being secretly privy to this information, Ed felt himself tense. “Does she know that you know?”

“I’m not sure,” Hal replied as he then chuckled. “I caught her putting away a book one night when I got up to use the bathroom. She was startled and dropped it. I got a glimpse of the cover, and let’s just say, it was a bit more graphic than your typical romance book.”

“So what happened?”

“Nothing,” Hal shrugged. “I was groggy with sleep and played dumb.”

“That must not have been too hard,” Ed joked.

“You got that right,” Hal said and then sighed.

“I’m just kidding, man.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Hal lamented. “I think Dawn might be having an affair.”

“What!” Ed exclaimed.

“Shh,” Hal frowned as he put a finger to his lips.

“I don’t believe it,” Ed said as adrenaline surged through his body. He felt an odd mixture of thoughts and emotions. He was both tantalized and jealous. He felt sorry for Hal as well as  disappointed with Dawn. He also felt ashamed about his own desires for his friend’s wife. “Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure. That’s why I said think, you know, as in suspect.”

“What makes you suspect?”

“About two months ago, I overheard a phone conversation she had with Ron Melrose.”

“Ron Melrose! From church? The deacon that has a wife and five kids? I don’t believe it!”

“I find it hard to believe myself, but I’m just putting two and two together,” Hal said, snorted, and then laughed despite himself.

“Alright, I used to be a detective,” Ed said. “So lay it on me. What’s your evidence?”

“Well, exhibit one is the trash she’s been reading the last couple of years,” Hal replied. “Then She and Ron became pretty close friends when they were paired chaperoning a Wednesday night youth group over the winter at the school gym. Then in the spring they started running together two or three times a week. Then the phone conversation I overheard.”

“So, what exactly did you overhear?”

“It’s not necessarily what, but the manner of how she was talking.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her tone of voice was a bit too low, and, um, a bit too friendly, if you know what I mean?”

“I guess so.”

“Let’s just say, I could tell she wasn’t talking to another woman.”

“Okay, so did she say anything that was actually incriminating?”

“Just one thing, she called him Ronny,” Hal said with a sigh.

Ed waited for more, but Hal just looked at him. “What else?”

“Nothing else,” Hal shrugged.

“So, she talked low, friendly, and called him by his name,” Ed said, smirking. “You could have just described Wendy talking to you.”

“Your wife never called me Hallie,” Hal replied.

“She’d call you Henry teasingly from time to time.”

“Yeah but when she called me that, she was teasing because she knows I don’t really like being called that. But it was never like, ‘oh, Henry, hi, how are you?’”

“Well, there were times the green eyed monster whispered in my ear about you two,” Ed said. “But then my better sense took over, and I realized I trusted you both. You need to give Dawn the benefit of the doubt.”

“I am. Otherwise, I would have confronted her,” Hal said, and then narrowed his eyes. “Did my friendship with your wife really bother you?”

“Sometimes,” Ed said with a shrug. “On the other hand, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Wendy’s character and spiritual growth over her last couple years of life are one of the few things that keep me clinging to a hope that there is a God.”

Hal nodded, and then looked at the floor. He perceived that now wasn’t the time to be an apologist for God. He had prayed that Ed would return from Florida and stay the summer just like last year. Although summer was half over and Ed returned on motorcycle instead of with his camper, it wasn’t too late.

“You know, this dilemma is your fault,” Hal said with a mischievous smile.

Ed’s eyebrows raised. “My fault? How do you figure?”

“If you would have come back for the summer, Dawn would be hanging out with you instead of Ron.”

“Oh, so an affair with me would be better than with Ron?” Ed asked with an arched eyebrow.

“I trust you with my wife, just like you trusted me with yours.”

Ed felt his conscience pricked. This was another thing that made him cling to the hope of God. What gave him this sense of right and wrong. His pulse quicken with the confession that almost came out of his mouth. He opened it to tell his best friend that his overwhelming attraction to Dawn was the reason he didn’t come back this summer. But something else came out. “How about I interrogate Dawn on the matter?”

“Interrogate her? Do you want to get her mad at me?”

“Hal, I was a cop, a detective even, I know how to be subtle.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll take her for a ride on the Harley, and I’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“Do not even hint that I suspect she might be having an affair, it’s pure speculation. You are the only person on the planet I have told or am going to tell.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Dawn and Ed did go for a ride later that day, ending up at a state park. They got off the motorcycle and took a walk down by the river. Ed lit a cigarette as Dawn chastised him. “You seem to be smoking more than ever. You ought to quit and take up running. I haven’t felt so good in years since I started last spring.”

Ed saw his opening. “Oh yeah, how often do you run?”

“Pretty much every day.”

“Do you ever run with anybody?”

“The Melroses usually run with me a couple times a week.”

“Melroses, as in plural?”

“Yeah, you remember them from church, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Ron and I were leading out in a youth group last winter, and I got to know him and Brenda pretty well. She had been telling me how she lost fifty pounds by diet and exercise, primarily running. She challenged Ron and I to join her.”

“So the three of you go running a couple times a week?”

“Yeah, they only live a block away. On Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, Brenda finishes an aerobics class at five. Ron stops at our place, and then he and I go meet Brenda at the Rec center. Then the three of us jog down to the trail by the river.”

Ed had to keep from laughing. He also had to refrain from saying, “So you’re not having an affair with Ron?”

Ed couldn’t blame Hal for his insecurities, though. There did seem to be sufficient evidence of untoward behavior. If the tables were turned, he would have been more uptight than Hal.

“I’m serious, Ed, you ought to at least quit smoking.”

“I know. I have quit off and on from time to time. But after Wendy died, I guess I need the crutch.”

“Want, not need,” Dawn scolded lightheartedly.

Ed considered Dawn’s secret vice. Everybody had something it seemed. Did Dawn need hers, or just want it? What was Hal’s? To Ed, Hal didn’t seem to have one. He was a faithful believer and a solid citizen. Even with his concern over his wife’s spiritual apathy and possible adultery, he handled it far more patiently than the average man would.

“Hal thinks I should bring the camper up for the rest of summer and into the fall,” Ed said, reaching for his pack of cigarettes, then stifling the urge, and placing it back in his pocket.

“Eddie, that would be wonderful!” Dawn enthused as she put a hand on his forearm.

Eddie, Donny, Henry. There was probably nothing to the extra flair of endearment other than being fond of a good friend. Or was there? He and Dawn sat on a bench by a rippling creek. Dawn kicked off her black Puma sneakers, stretched out her legs, and put her toes in the water. Dawn was wearing jean shorts, just as she typically did in their youth. Her legs were still just as shapely and tan, Ed thought, and she was almost forty. Maybe there was something to running.

Ed smiled to himself as he reminisced about youthful lusts. He and Hal’s heart racing as they snuck into Ed’s dad’s secret stash of Playboy’s. Then the debates. Blonde, brunette, or redhead? Leg man or chest man? Ginger or Mary Ann? Wendy or Dawn? What childish ponderings. Ed still bought Playboy’s from time. He bet Hal didn’t, though. Wouldn’t he be a hypocrite if he did? He should ask him when the last time he perused a girlie magazine.

“So what are you gonna do?” Dawn asked. He felt her eyes upon his face, yet he didn’t take his eyes off of her outstretched legs. He wondered how she would react if he told her how nice they looked? Maybe he should. Then if she was more flattered than aghast, he would kiss her. If she scolded him, he would tell her that’s why he should stay away. If she kissed him back, what then? Betray his best friend, or would he simply be sharing a woman they both loved?

“Well, I’m sort of outnumbered,” Ed said. “You and Hal both want me to come back for a while. I also checked on campsites. A few people have pulled out for the summer already, so I shouldn’t have a problem getting a spot.”

“Wonderful!” she exclaimed as she gave his hand a squeeze. If she noticed his blatant stare at her bare legs, she didn’t let on or seem to care. “I’ve missed these rides we go on.”

“I don’t know, Dawn…”

“What don’t you know?”

“Will it bother Hal if we take up where we left off almost a year ago?”

“He suggested you come back, right? He knows we like to go for rides, that I like to go for rides. We could afford a motorcycle, you know, but he doesn’t like them.”

“I know, he says they’re dangerous,” Ed snickered.

“Actually, he says the other people on the road are dangerous.”

“He’s got a point.”

“Plus, we let him and Wendy share a common interest,” Dawn said with a shrug. “I don’t regret sharing my husband with her at all. He was so strong for her when we were both too devastated to really lift her spirits.”

“Yeah,” Ed replied, feeling a lump in his throat.

“Now he can share me with you,” Dawn said, happily as she smiled sweet and innocent, but then winked a wee bit seductively.

Was there something behind that wink? He would indeed come back for the rest of summer and into the fall to find out. But just to find out. He had thought it best to not torment himself with her presence. But he discovered on this road trip that just being with her was better than dreaming of her from a far.

(DESTINY’S BIBLE STUDY NOTES AND QUOTES)

(The LIFE and MINISTRY of JESUS Part 21)

The Sermon on the Mount (See Mathew 5, 6, and 7)

Christ disappointed the hope of worldly greatness. In the Sermon on the Mount He sought to undo the work that had been wrought by false education, and to give His hearers a right conception of His kingdom of His own character. Yet He did not make a direct attack on the errors of the people.

Christ’s first words to the people on the mount were words of blessing. Happy are they, He said, who recognize their spiritual poverty, and feel their need of redemption.

The proud heart strives to earn salvation; but both our title to heaven and our fitness for it are found in the righteousness of Christ. The Lord can do nothing toward the recovery of man until, convinced of his own weakness and stripped of all self-sufficiency, he yields himself to the control of God.

We often sorrow because our evil deeds bring unpleasant consequences to ourselves; but this is not repentance. Real sorrow for sin is the result of the working of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit reveals the ingratitude of the heart that has slighted and grieved the Savior, and brings us in contrition to the foot of the cross.

The bitterness of grief and humiliation is better than the indulgences of sin. Through affliction, God reveals to us the plague spots in our characters, that by His grace we may overcome our faults.

When brought into trial, we are not to fret and complain. We should not rebel, and worry ourselves out of the hand of Christ. We are to humble the soul before God. The ways of the Lord are obscure to him who desires to see things in a light pleasing to himself. They appear dark and joyless to our human nature. But God’s ways are the ways of mercy and the end is salvation.

Elijah did not know what he was doing when in the desert he said that he had had enough of life, and prayed that he might die. The Lord in His mercy did not take him at his word.

The highest evidence of nobility in a Christian is self-control.

The Holy Spirit never leaves unassisted the soul who is looking unto Jesus.

Every impure thought defiles the soul, impairs the moral sense, and tends to obliterate the impressions of the Holy Spirit. It dims the spiritual vision, so that men cannot behold God.

The Lord may, and does forgive the repenting sinner; but though forgiven, the soul is marred. All impurity of speech or of thought must be shunned by him who would have clear discernment of spiritual truth.

After explaining what constitutes true happiness, and how it may be obtained, Jesus more definitely pointed out the duty of His disciples, as teachers chosen of God to lead others into the path of righteousness and eternal life.

The world loves sin, and hates righteousness, and this was the cause of its hostility to Jesus. All who refuse His infinite love will find Christianity a disturbing element. The light of Christ sweeps away the darkness that covers their sins, and the need of reform is made manifest.

While those who yield to the influence of the Holy Spirit begin war with themselves, those who cling to sin war against the truth and its representatives.

Each fiery trial is God’s agent for their refining. Each is fitting them for their work as co-laborers with Him. Each conflict has its place in the great battle for righteousness, and each will add to the joy of their final triumph. Having this in view, the test of their faith and patience will be cheerfully accepted rather than dreaded and avoided.