Serendipitous: A Love Story

Many of you know party of my story with my husband. But I'm not sure I've told the whole story. I'm going to respond to @meitanteikudo's Prompt Factory prompt: Serendipity.

This is the story of Keith and Jonica.

Keith and Jonica were high school sweethearts. They met in 1981. They dated on and off until 1984 when Jonica moved to California and Keith moved to Texas.

In 1987 Jonica moved back to Texas and went to work in her mom's Law Firm. Jonica was young and attractive. At 18 years old she had a lot of boys and men pinning after her, but she was not interested in settling down. When she wasn't working with her mom or caring for her little brothers, she went out to bars, clubs, and parties.

At one of these parties an old friend from high school approached her and told her Keith was back in town, had heard she was also back in town and was looking for her.

The next weekend he found her at a party. But he was too drunk. Jonica helped him to his car and got him in the passenger seat. A friend was going to drive him home.

Keith would let go of Jonica's arm and kept drunkenly mumbling, "Don't leave me again."

The very next day, as Jonica was playing with her little brothers in the front yard of her parents home, Keith, dinner and looking very poor together, pulled up into the driveway. Jonica drive away with him.

She moved into his apartment that very week.

Shortly after Jonica moved in with Keith, he bought a ticket for a contest at the local convenience store.

And he won!

He won a bunch of camping and rafting equipment. So, Keith and Jonica headed out to the Guadeloupe river and went camping. A few weeks after they got home, Jonica realized she was late. A trip to Planned Parenthood priced she was pregnant.

So, they moved into a bigger apartment and had a baby. Before the baby was born, Keith asked Jonica to marry him. He got down on one knee and everything. But Jonica was too afraid of being abandoned to every want to get married. She said, "No! What are you doing? Stand up!!"

After the baby was born, her name is Kara, btw, Jonica saw what a great Daddy Keith was and agreed to marry him. Kara, at 4 months, attended the wedding. It was only 4 days after Jonica's 20th birthday!

A few months after they were married, Jonica got heartburn and felt faint. Uh oh! She never got heart burn. She returned to Planned Parenthood and, you guessed it, found out she was pregnant again. Kara was only 8 months old!

Well, Keith and Jonica had another daughter. Jonica was only 21 and Keith was 22 when their second daughter was born. Jonica was 19 when their first daughter was born.

Babies having babies!

It was hard raising two young children when they were basically children themselves. Jonica had always had trouble with depression, and after Kayla was born, the hormones conspired with her pre-existing condition to give her postpartum depression.

Keith and Jonica, at the time, were unaware of this condition. They just thought the stresses of raising a family were too much. They fought. A lot.

It was at this point, Jonica decided she couldn't take it anymore. It wasn't so much a decision as a survival instinct. She had battled with major depressive disorder most of her life and was worried she would fall into a depression hole and not come out. She had babies to take care of!

She left.

Jonica broke Keith's heart into a billion tiny pieces.

Their separation turned into divorce. Despite having two children together, they did not speak more than a few terse words until Kara, their eldest daughter graduated from high school.

In the meantime, Jonica had gotten treatment for her depression. The efficacy of said treatment is still up for debate. It was effective enough for her to realize leaving Keith had been the nicest mistake of her life. She probably already knew this, but was pretty stubborn. In 1998, she admitted this out loud and acknowledged she wanted nothing more than Keith back in her life as her partner.

But Keith had moved on. He got re-married after his girlfriend fell pregnant.

Jonica had also tried to move on. She never remarried, always insisting she was already married (even though she was divorced) and didn't need to do that again. But she was in a long term relationship with the father of her youngest daughter.

Until she wasn't. Not any of the relationships she'd had could measure up to her soulmate.

Keith's relationship wasn't faring much better, the woman he married wasn't a particular good mother or wife. Keith had hoped she would be a better mother and wife. More like Jonica.

They had a lot of problems.

After Kara's graduation, Keith and Jonica met up at the graduation party. They ended up talking for hours upon hours upon hours. Keith kept saying he should go, but he kept talking. At one point, Jonica asked him, "So this marriage of yours. How's that working out?"

Keith is nothing of not loyal. He told Jonica he was working really hard to make the marriage work.

Jonica felt sad. She had hoped he would say the marriage was dead. But, Jonica is nothing if not honorable so she squelched her feelings down and backed off.

What does all of this have to do with serendipity? How is any of this a love story? This all sounds devastatingly sad. What's going on??

I'm glad you asked!

A few years later, Jonica hadn't heard from her daughter in a few weeks and wondered if Kara had switched phone numbers yet again. So, she texted the number she had for Kara:

Is this still Kara's number?

She got a text back almost immediately:

No. This is Keith. Kara went to live with my mother. Hey new number is xxx-xxx-xxxx. You could call her now, I think it would be a good time for her to talk.

That was a lot of words from a man of few words. Jonica felt encouraged and asked if she could call Keith. He agreed.

That first day they spent about 8 hours on the phone. Jonica had to charge her phone several times to keep talking.

The next day they spent another 6 hours on the phone.

Keith and Jonica slime 9 on the phone almost every day for a few weeks, having hours long conversations. Finally, Keith got up the nerve to ask her some questions. The important one was, "Did you really stop loving me?"

After that question and answer of, "No. Not for a second. I've wanted you back forever but you weren't speaking to me and then you got married!"

Things escalated.

Keith marriage was definitely over. She cheated. He have her the house and the car and left. He moved to his grandparent's 30 acre ranch in the Texas Panhandle.

Jonica drove from California to Texas and visited for a week. She forced herself to leave after a week when though she badly wanted to stay. After another few weeks, Jonica drove out to Texas, this time to pick up Keith for a visit to her house in California. Jonica had a bunch of chickens and owned her own home.

After a few days, they decided to move out to Keith's ranch. Unfortunately the chickens had to stay in California. But the dog came with them.

Jonica took another trip back to California, this time to pack up her house and drive a big ole U-Haul to Texas. The move was permanent.

Eleven years later, and Jonica is grateful every day for the serendipitous text she sent to Kara, and got Keith instead.

And they lived happily ever after.