For new readers, who may not have read my author notes, this is written in a conversational way as I talk to my deceased husband. When I refer to someone just as "you" this means I am addressing my husband, Evan.

In the last chapter, I mentioned another incident would cause a media frenzy in the near future. Thankfully, this had no impact on our immediate family, other than to alert us to the fact much was happening in the world outside of our own walls. Since the Summer Olympics were beginning so near us, we were especially interested. Even Tennessee was involved with the white water rapids north of us also being a site of activity.

It was the end of July, when a single crude pipe bomb exploded in Centennial Olympic Park, the main site of the games. The explosion killed two and injured 112 people. A security guard, Richard Jewel, alerted police to the backpack just before the blast occurred. The FBI became involved and immediately profiled Jewel, although they had nothing linking him to the crime. When the profile fit, and they were sure they had their man, they leaked his name to the media, and for days, he was harassed and questioned before the FBI gave up and admitted he was not the guilty party. Profiling has its drawbacks.

Since this case went unsolved in 1996, I’ll move ahead and follow it to its conclusion.  A few months earlier an abortion opponent, Eric Rudolph, had bombed an abortion clinic in Birmingham. The crude bomb used was so similar that two years later, in 1998, the FBI declared him to be a suspect. The FBI also suspected him to be the right-wing extremist who had bombed both a gay nightclub and also an abortion clinic in Atlanta.

The FBI put out a warrant for his arrest, and Rudolph disappeared into the Appalachian Mountains to live off the land. There were people who felt strongly about abortion and were deeply prejudiced against gays. They considered him to be a hero, condoning the violence. Evidence showed he was being helped by some on the outside. His escape triggered a massive manhunt which lasted five years. He was finally apprehended going through a trash can near the North Carolina mountains in 2003. Apparently, his craving for fast food became his undoing. In 2005, he confessed to all four bombings and was sentenced to multiple lifetimes of imprisonment. 

Back once again to the Shelby family, Charlie and Connie returned from their honeymoon and moved into the apartment they had rented across town. They had only been back a few days, when Charlie’s grandmother died suddenly. She'd seemed healthy at the wedding, and I had enjoyed getting to know her. They went back to Mississippi for her funeral. A few weeks later Charlie’s parents came to Chattanooga to see where they were living and to visit with us as well. Connie and Charlie also had his sister’s family stay with them for a while. Connie was discovering being the lady of the house often means playing hostess for company. Charlie’s job was on the nightshift.  Connie got busy and refinished some furniture in her apartment to keep from being bored while he slept.

With Connie out of Carol’s apartment, Carol let a Spanish girl she had met in a singles group move in with her temporarily. Carol wasn’t convinced Delia would be compatible enough to be a roommate, but she needed the money the girl paid her. She hoped her stay would be a short one. Carol often had potlucks at her apartment with friends. One weekend, she invited the family. We left dad with a phone to call if he needed us. For a couple of hours, it was good to be able to get out of the house and have a meal with family.

Don finished the work on the outside of our house, but he needed more work. We agreed to let him put ceramic tile on Dad’s floor. Dad wasn’t happy about having to be moved from his room and crowded into Christi's massage room across the hall while Don worked. The floor looked much nicer when it was finished, but Don was still having trouble coming up with money for his apartment rent. We had to let him have an additional $400 in advance of working it off. The doctor who had promised to rehire him was still looking for an office to set up for another practice. 

This time, we agreed to let Don refinish our cabinets. I went a little nuts once all my cabinets were emptied, with all the doors off, and drawers out. It took Don a while to finish the job and having the kitchen in such chaos was making it almost impossible to get meals together. In addition, I was trying to keep Lauren occupied while Don worked. The odor of varnish and sawdust was everywhere. While Don worked inside, you stayed busy outside working in your garden. You had a bumper crop of lima beans to be picked, shelled and frozen along with other vegetables, so this created additional problems in the kitchen area.

The heart doctor had insisted we make an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to see if something could be done to help Dad walk again. I took him for an appointment, in spite of his protests. The doctor x-rayed and said he needed knee replacement surgery, but he didn’t recommend it because of his age. He said the surgery was painful and would require extensive physical therapy. Dad would need to be highly motivated to walk again. Dad agreed to get an injection in his joints to help with pain, but the outcome would be only temporary. 

Christi's car broke down. She had met a guy, who claimed he could fix it for her. She left the car with him, which was a bad decision. It turned into weeks of him giving her the runaround about not having a chance to look at it. In the meantime, it meant one of us had to drive her across town to her receptionist job.

She was burned out on her job and was anxious to quit and be a fulltime massage therapist. Her heart was no longer in her work. Because she was late so often, we were all amazed she had been able to work there as long as she had. She hoped to work with a lady chiropractor in another part of the city. She and the lady had become friends, and she'd agreed to hire her once Christi got her massage license. Christi had passed the boards, and was awaiting the license. For years she had been doing massages in our house without a license. 

It was now late August and Connie and Charlie were both working, but now it was the start of the fall college semester. If things worked out, this would be Connie’s last semester, and hopefully, she could find work in her field as an interior designer. Once again, we paid for Connie’s tuition and the required materials for her courses.

I was still four years from the earliest I could draw Social Security, so all of the money we had to keep shelling out was on you. People who never had kids didn’t realize what they were missing. There was a time I assumed getting them to eighteen would be the end of our responsibility. It must have been wishful thinking, or maybe you and I just flunked the chapter on tough love.

THIS IS US:
Evan is 67 and a retired drafting supervisor from Chevron Oil.
Beth is 58 and has given up working in the printing field and is home taking care of disabled father.
Carol is 33, recently divorced, and a nurse, working at a hospital in Chattanooga and living in an apartment.  
Don is a twin. He is 31, a recent graduate of Life Chiropractic College
Christi is Don’s twin. She is working as a receptionist at a chemical company and doing massages on the side.
Kimberly is Don’s wife. She is a nurse working at Chattanooga hospital
Lauren Elizabeth Jane Shelby is Don and Kimberly's baby in nearly two..
Connie is our youngest daughter. She is twenty-three. She is a senior in college. 
Charlie is Connie's husband as of June 30, 1996.