{"id":18564,"date":"2025-09-03T16:00:36","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T21:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/?p=18564"},"modified":"2026-02-23T14:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:32:14","slug":"it-just-slipped-in-twice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/it-just-slipped-in-twice\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTwice.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lion\u2019s<\/p>\n

 <\/div>\n

\u201cI am in my prime. Professionally. Financially. Intellectually. Not sexually. All things considered, my sexual prime came in the back of a 1970 Nova and went out the door of a judge\u2019s office three months later.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I crack me up. I really do. Yesterday, I randomly tweeted the above out of one of my books that I thought was one of my better lines. That\u2019s Finn Marston,1<\/a><\/sup> from Lion\u2019s Share<\/em><\/a> narrating the circumstances of his shotgun wedding at 19.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s funny (yes, it is; fight me), but the real<\/em> story is in Lion\u2019s Share<\/em>\u2019s opening line.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\""It<\/p>\n

In 1998 (I think) my mom, brother, and I set out on a road trip to Salt Lake. I cannot, for the life of me, remember why. I stayed in Provo with an internet friend, who was getting divorced from her asshole ex-husband, and her two single-digit kids. She was broke, her soon-to-be-ex wasn\u2019t paying child support, and she didn\u2019t have a job so she was on assistance. We had a couple of late-night heart-to-hearts. She had re-dedicated her life to Jesus, in non-Mormon evangelical Christian parlance. She was going to church, paying tithing (on her meager income), and had just gone to the temple to take out her endowment<\/a> (fornication and adultery are verboten). She was wearing her garments<\/a> appropriately and faithfully. She was focused, determined, locked in.<\/p>\n

Fast forward a year or so. We were in a Mormon singles chatroom, and we were in DMs, chatting about her life. She was still broke. Ex still wasn\u2019t paying child support. She was doing well with church and she was dripping with new zealotry.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

I had noticed that in the general chat, she was flirting with this guy from a state somewhere far northeast of Utah.4<\/a><\/sup> I remembered his deets,5<\/a><\/sup> and as far as I could tell, he was a very nice, decent, hard-working, spiritually upright fellow who loved his kids. Said his ex cheated.6<\/a><\/sup> There were no warning bells as to his person. However, there were some warning bells as to how life with him would be:<\/p>\n