Chapter 2

Ann Bristol waited behind the car she had hit. Her hand had slipped off of the steering wheel and her bumper had made contact with the car. Although the damage was minor, she was not the type to leave without letting the person that owned the car get her insurance information. She had been in a hurry to pick up a few things at Walgreen's before she got home and her mind had been on the changes that were about to happen at work.

She lived alone since her daughter had gotten married. Her daughter, Jessica, had married a computer science major and he had a job waiting for him in California after graduation. They had gotten married the weekend after they graduated and left for California the next day. Her daughter called about once every 2 weeks and she seemed to be doing well in California. She had a job as a teacher and she said that she really enjoyed working with kids. She added, as long as they're someone else's, at the end of the sentence.

Things had been strained between the two of them since her divorce. Jessica knew that her father had been wrong, but she felt than Ann had to have been at least partly to blame. Ann never discussed the reasons for the breakup with her daughter. Her husband had told Jessica that he found someone else and that he and Ann had just grown apart. Jessica became belligerent with Ann at times and argued at the drop of a hat. Just before they left for Californian, they had argued and Jessica told her mother that she was becoming a bitter old woman. That hurt her, but Ann knew that there was a bit of truth to it.

Ann and Ray had met in college. Both of them were engineering students and she fell for Ray immediately. He was the life of the party. He was always the one to host the fraternity parties or to take an impromptu trip on the weekends. They started living together off campus in their senior year. Ray proposed to her at their graduation. They both got jobs in their hometown and got married a couple of months after graduation. Ann worked for the two years before Jessica was born. Ray insisted that she stay home and raise their child. She made a good home for her family. She was frugal with their money and they lived fairly well on Ray's salary.

She thought that they had an excellent life together. Their sex life was good and they did many things as a family until the night Ray told her that he had been unhappy for years and that he wanted a divorce. She found out later that he was leaving her for a much younger woman at work that he had been having an affair with for over a year. She had suspected him of having an affair before, but he always denied it and she could never prove that he did. She knew now that she should have seen it coming. The business trips became much more frequent, he never wanted to go anywhere with her, the meetings were usually at night and lasted until midnight, his bonuses were not as large as they had been, and he was often rude to her and they seemed to argue about everything.

The divorce became an ugly affair. Ray had asked that everything be divided equally. She had asked for the house and for child support for Jessica. She also asked that Ray be required to pay for Jessica's college tuition. The judge ordered Ray to give her what she had asked for and also ordered that Ray leave her their old car so that she could find a job. Ray had to replace the money he had cleaned out of their bank account. Ann never dated after the divorce, which happened 8 years ago.

She started looking for a job as soon as he left the house. She was having no luck finding a job and rarely even had an interview. A headhunter told her that she couldn't help her since she hadn't held a job in over 20 years. Her uncle found out that she was looking for a job and offered her a position in his factory as an engineering assistant.

Her uncle owned a fabrication plant in the town named after his great-grandfather. Rolf Parameter had been successful as a fabricator of parts for other manufacturers. Although his factory didn't build the appliances, many of the pieces of the toasters, blenders and other household appliances that people bought came from his factory. Ann went to work for him and she slowly proved that she had the ability to handle her job as an engineer. She rose through the company until she was promoted to the position of Production Manager. In her that position she was responsible for scheduling, production and for maintaining and upgrading the equipment.

After she had worked at her uncle's place for a year, they lost a major account to a factory in China. Ann was sure that she was about to lose her job. One night, as she was lying in bed, she tried to think what she could do to protect her job. She came on the idea of diversifying the types of accounts that they had. Consumer goods were highly cyclical and they often had slow downs, though nothing as bad as this.

The next morning she approached her uncle about her plan. He listened to her and gave her the go ahead to try and get a more diverse mix of business. He assigned her duties to others and gave her permission to travel to other manufacturers and try to get their business. In a matter of months the lines were humming again with orders from the defense industry and automobile manufacturers. They were now running at 100% capacity and would put on a third shift after the new machinery was installed. She continued to solicit business from other companies and she was becoming well known in the industry. Headhunters had started calling a couple of years ago and she always turned them down. She knew that her uncle relied on her and she was thankful that he had been there when she needed him. She wouldn't even think of leaving the company.

Her salary had kept pace with her worth to the company and her uncle considered her his confidant. She began to have more and more of a say in the company. Ann and Rolf Parameter had lunch together every day and discussed the problems, sales and goals of the business. At 70, Rolf Parameter showed no signs of slowing down.

She had few problems with the men she supervised. Everyone knew that she earned every penny she got as salary. Few of them would put in the hours that she did. No one knew that she put the hours in now because she dreaded going home to the empty house.

She handled all of the union negotiations and rarely had problems on the shop floor. She tried to be fair with everyone.

Although Rolf Parameter owned controlling interest in the company, he did have a board of directors. Ann had taken over chairing most of the board meetings and she had earned their respect. The board members knew that she spoke for Rolf Parameter and that he would back any of her decisions.

She often thought to herself that if she could only have been as successful in her private life as she was at work she would still be married. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was, in part, responsible for the breakup of her marriage. She felt that if she had tried a little harder maybe Ray wouldn't have strayed. She realized that her hurt was deep inside of her and she probably would die blaming herself.

She saw the man walk out of the store. She watched as he walked toward her. She was sure that this was the man that owned the pickup. He looked at her and she smiled at him before she spoke.

Chapter 3