This is an episode within my memoir about families, resilience, and how we made our lives work—or not. It’s my contribution to the GirlieOnTheEdge blog prompt for this week. The prompt word is exchange.

Cecil’s wife had left him and he didn’t know how he’d get along without her and their baby daughter.

His mother, fearing for his sanity—and his life—insisted that he go to a psychiatrist for help dealing with his multiple losses and his combat fatigue.

Unable to figure out what to do, Cecil did what she demanded.

The shrink had a simple answer—find another wife, he said, handing Connor a lonely hearts newsletter.

Cecil took his advice, exchanging one woman for another who also left him.

Cecil was left, devastated and out of control, trying to save a marriage—either one of them.