When She Stops Saying She Loves You

I spent a lot of my life in self-induced isolation.
Completely voluntary, as I was afraid of the vast expanse outside my bedroom door. I’d wear my suit of in-difference armor, activate my deflector and set sarcasm to high yield to keep anyone from meeting the real “me”. No, they would get an uncanny valley avatar to interact with; one that wouldn’t care about the slings and arrows and would carry on even with half of its soul hacked to death.
So it was surprising that I actually had a girlfriend in high school and got married one year after graduation. It was easy at first—you’ve shared so much time with someone that you feel they complete you and the ceremony and paperwork puts it all together in a nice little package.
At least until the mortgage, bills and kids come in.
We had a few mortgages, several bills and four kids in the span on of fifteen years. It took fifteen years before my resolve started to buckle and that marriage foundation that I had held onto for so long cracked,
It was all because of an alert from the cell phone provider.

Ding! This text is to inform you have been charged 2.00 for international texting.
International?

Did one of the kids reach out to someone in Japan or communicate with a Nigerian Prince?
I swiped through my phone and loaded the app..
Ding! This text is to inform you have been charged 3.00 for international texting. Please see our app to avoid international roaming and texting charges.

“You better believe it,” I said to myself.

I was at work at the time, sitting at a desk within an enclosed server room at Federal Express. My sold job was to monitor the company’s internal network for intrusions which gave me a little time to web surf and read a few books on my phone.
The cellular application greeted me with the log-in screen and the phone continued to ding about international roaming charges. One or all of my kids were about to have their cell service terminated.

I logged in and cycled though the their accounts:
My oldest, Lexi; her account was clean, she had domestic texts...there were over 9000 of them, but they were free.
Nick’s had very little texts; but a lot of data usage. I would have to look into what we was streaming
Marissa was in a race with her older sister with close to 8000; but they were local too.
Serena had no texts, as she was grounded from her phone due to mouthing off to her mother; never give a nine year old a smartphone.
Was it my own phone, perhaps some form of malware? No, my profile was clean.
I opened my wife’s account as the phone dinged again with yet another warning.
Her account showed several text to a foreign number.
I spun my chair back to my work PC and searched for the number online—the results were not helpful so I copied the phone number and then *67’ed the number—for all I knew it was some marketing agent but why would she respond back to it so much? Unless it was indeed malware sent by some person in a boiler room trying to gain backdoor access to our bank account.
I always hoped there was a especial place in Hell for those types.

The phone rang and a male voice picked up.
“Hello?”
“Oh, hello,” I replied in my best foreign-sounding account. “I’m calling from the National Lottery and I—“
The phone clicked off—I admit, I would’ve hung up on me too.
The phone dinged again, another three dollars.
I wanted to text my wife and ask what’s going on and why was she using text? I mean we had messenger!
Remembering that, I loaded her online account up on the PC and opened the email section that also contained the messenger application. We used to send each other sexts in the past—but we stopped after it started getting a bit too crazy. I mean, how many times can one say “I want to fuck you so bad” before it sounds like a bad promo movie?
She had a lot of e-mail, mostly junk, as she used to ask me to help keep her in-box clutter free but one day she said she got the hang of it and could do it on her own...the thirteen thousand items in three different folders told a different story.
The conversation folder had a lot of files in it all of them from an email address of 4oreverMe4U to my wife’s account. It had to be spam messages. A Russian “bride” who sent out missives hoping someone would take a bite.
I clicked on a random message and the text had not even loaded up before a dick pic popped into view...followed by a picture of my wife’s breasts...and then a picture taken lower and the word “fuck” conjugated in several tenses.
The other messages were about the same—like a film strip version of an xhamster video. The most recent message mentioned that he wouldn’t have access to data while he was in Europe and to use another number—the number that was continuing to make AT&T stock holders very happy, three dollars at a time.

I sat back in my chair and ran several scenarios flashed through my mind:
I imagined it.
It was an elaborate prank. A sadistic and horribly evil prank; but it was elaborate in how they pieced it all together and made these videos— the ones recorded with a very good camera-probably a GoPro.
It was all truth, all real—but how to deal with it?
Murder suicide would be out of the question—I had four kids.
Murder—of the guy—was something I could kind of live with but i had no legal way to buy a handgun due to my past mental history.
Mental history!
That had to be it, this was just a psychotic episode and if I closed my eyes I could bring myself out of it
Ding!
Damn.

I left work two hours later as if nothing was wrong. My wife asked me—by text— to run by Kroger and pick up coffee and soy milk and I obliged as asking things like “how many times this guy been at our house and whose room are you going at it in” gets lost in context. However, as I stood in the ever-so slow moving self-check-out lane queue I could not help but think about how this was all going to go.

Pretend nothing’s wrong?
Come home with a scowl so she asks “what’s wrong?”
Assuming that she was even at home, as my wife was a realtor who sometimes worked...strange...hours.

Of course, now I wasn’t sure what business she was actually in.
Was she helping people move in or was she welcoming them to an open house?
Those were the kind of thoughts that could cause someone to slam their late model Ford F-150 truck in the living room of their house...but the truck was still being paid for and the house was under a mortgage and an HOA.
I turned my phone on silent but it would vibrate every once in while, no doubt adding to my carrier’s coffers.

The drive back home took longer than it normally did as I drove on autopilot—not exactly paying attention but I was sure I didn’t hit anyone—at least I didn’t recall hearing screams, scrapes or sirens and maybe if I had the officer would have gone easy on me if I showed him the messages my wife sent the other guy. Maybe I would have gotten a warning.

The street lights were already on as I turned onto the street that entered my neighborhood, “Mallard Park”—even though I never saw any ducks in the rather large lake that was at the center of the housing development. Our house sat on the lakeside allowing for some decent swimming in the summer but at that day the high was only in mid-twenties, as it was January.

Our house was a two-story brick house with an attached garage: the perfect Norman Rockwell of the 21st century home. It looked less inviting as I drove up to it, as if it was ready to implode and disappear into another dimension and for a moment I wanted it to so I would not have to face the inevitable and it would make a hell of a good story to sell to Hollywood.

My wife’s car was not in the driveway so it would be left up to me to start dinner or to call “China Panda-Dragoon” for take-out, the kids loved fried rice. Not that I couldn’t cook, I just didn’t feel like doing it that night for fear that I would turn a burner on high and slam the over loving crap out of my hand onto it.

The warm air of the HVAC swirled around me as I walked inside as the sounds of two televisions, a video game system, and someone talking on the phone filled my ears.

“Marissa, Serena, turn off the TV’s; Nick, save the game; Lexi, call them back! The house is a mess.”

The combination of groans, grunts and defiance rang out from all over the house.

The kids were given one chore to do each day and it was always on a rotating schedule that would pop up on their phones as a reminder until they turned it off so everyone knew what they had to do, even Serena, as the chores never changed beyond the normal weekly cycle. Not like I’d require her to mulch the lawn.
No, that’s a summer job.

I put the soy milk away, the coffee into it’s designated container and then took the death walk up to the master bedroom.

Master.

I had to wonder how many of those pictures were taken in there. If I bothered to look through all of the pictures I may have seen the baby-blue paint on the wall, the flowery border trim or even the large mural painting that we received as a wedding present.

The kids bickered downstairs about who didn’t do said chore from the night before so I trekked back down and stood in the middle of the argument: no had dine the dishes for the past two days so Nick was refusing to do them too.

“Pick your battles, young man,” I said as he seethed about having to wash (well, rinse and then let a dishwasher do the brunt of the work) three extra plates and a spatula, “And sometimes the war isn’t worth the casualties!” I said as he slammed silverware into dishwasher, but at least he wasn’t smashing cups and saucers.

The door clicked open and my wife walked in.
“How was everyone’s day?” She said with the brightest eyes.
“It was. Interesting,” I replied as I held up my phone.

“How long?”
“What are you talking about?” She asked as she hoisted her purse up and walked out of the foyer and stopped short of the stair case where I stood.
“How long have you been sleeping with him?”
I really didn’t want to say that—knowing that all of the kids heard it. I had them turn off their distractions in order to do their chores and here I was dropping the proverbial f-bomb.
“Excuse me?” She stood her ground.
“His email address is 4oreverme4U and right now he’s in Europe and can’t use messenger so you’ve been talking with him via text. Which, by the way is twenty-five cents per text.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I loaded her email account and clicked on one of the pictures. “Tell me this is not you!”
“It is me.”
“How long?”
“Two years,” she replied with very little effort. It was like she was just waiting to tell me; seeing how long it would take me figure it out. Perhaps there was a Twitter poll on it.
The kids were standing at different doorways, hearing everything—thoughtful parents would have tried to shield them the verbal assault their ears could receive.
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“I can think of a lot of things-“
“You’re distant.”
“Because you are! I can’t even touch you without feeling I need to ask for an appointment. Apparently, Mr. Forever can drop a load, literally, whenever he wants to.”

My wife threw her hands in the air as she walked past me.
“The kids?”
“Hearing the truth, I guess,” I said as I raised my voice.

Again, sensible parents would have sent them out of the house—either giving them money to drive to Sonic, to a friend’s house or at least shove them out the door, but that thought did not come to either of us.

“Hey!”

She stopped and spun around on her heels. “Two years ago you started your new job, with a crazy schedule at the same as I was going through my license training.”
“Yes, we’ve been busy.”
“During that time, you would come late. Where were you?”
“Sitting at a computer, at work, trying to stop system viruses. And you?”
“I found someone who would listen to me.”
“I havre listened to you. Intently. I would have quit my job if you wanted me to...”
“But you didn’t.”
“Oh no, you are not playing the victim card on this. I didn’t go and send porn letters to someone and I didn’t have sex with them!”
“You think that’s it, that it’s just sex?”
“No, I don’t,” I replied. “Did you you tell him you love him?”
“Why?”
“Because. Just. Just tell me.”
“Why do you want to want to know?”
“You stopped saying it to me a long time ago. I’d say it to you and you’d nod or do something to avoid saying it. Every time.”
“You think it’s important that I tell you that? You have co-dependency issues.”
“Yes, I do, but hearing my wife tell say she loves me is not co-dependency it’s part of our marriage vows. It’s part of the damn promise; it’s what makes a true relationship and since you’ve stopped saying it—and by the way, where is your ring?”
“It needs to be re-sized.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know,” she replied as she turned away.
“Do you love him?”
“Yes.”

I wasn’t ready to hear that. I thought that if she sold that to my face-with us looking at each other in the eye she would see how damaging that answer was. It wasn’t like a knife to the heart, more like a shard of glass thrusted into your chest and your heart accelerates, you feel sick and the thoughts of dying a quick and gory death flash in your mind alongside the happy thoughts and the ones of your wife in the arms of another man; both of them fully aware of the shattered lives made with every thrust, every kiss and every term of endearment to each other.

Time went still and there was a sharp ringing in my ears as I lowered my head and dropped to my knees. My mind whispered a denial of the whole scenario.

Deny everything that was happening.
She didn’t just say that; tinnitus flared up.
She didn’t just lie multiple times; it was a misunderstanding.
She didn’t stop wearing her ring; it was just lost.
“I’ve prepared papers for divorce.”
“So soon?” I asked with my eyes closed. “Why not give it a few more days?”
“Mom?” Lexie asked from the hallway.

What do you tell your kids when they hear all of that? If they were under five we could have lied or tell them that everything was okay and that mommy and daddy were just having a little fight but they were all old enough to have watched “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and I’m sure Nick had seen one too many episodes of “Family Guy” as he would sometimes use a fake British accent. So, TV showed them a template for the dark side of marriage and their mother had confirmed that life was worse than TV; there was no laugh track.
“Your father and I are divorcing.”
As if she had to repeat what she said just in case I—and the kids—had not heard her a few moments ago.
“When are you moving out?” I asked.
My wife shot a Medusa-like glare at me. I was not about to be told that I had to sleep on the couch or go to a motel because I hadn’t done a thing.
“I’m not.”
“Where are you going to take this?”
“I’m staying here. The kids need me.”
“They need both of us but you’ve added someone else. Will he go by, “uncle” or will you expect them to call him dad?”

At that, Lexie’s eyes burst into tears. I wanted to go over to her and tell her that I was sorry for what was happening but I couldn’t because I hadn’t done anything wrong except being a bit too blunt in my words.
I stepped around my wife and walked up the staircase but with I accelerated my footsteps until I was longing up three steps at a time. I ran to the bedroom, locked the door, opened the top drawer of my dresser and took a Manila envelope of banking information and some insurance forms. I shoved them into my backpack and then opened a locked box that was in the back of the drawer. The box contained my grandfather’s old revolver. I picked the gun up and with a small screwdriver I removed the cylinder from the gun, pocketed it and then placed the weapon back in place. I too, had watched TV.

I left the house without arguing with her; in fact I didn’t even look at her face and if I did, it would look like a distorted image and not of the woman I fell in love with years ago. The one who I gave a rose to almost every week; so many they were used on the day we were married.I even gave her specially made copper roses, heated by fire to achieve blood red petals. These were kept in a glass vase.

I will also state, with maybe a bit too much information, I once bought a “pantyrose” for her. I have no idea what became of it and didn’t want to put much thought into anything that was sensual or sexual as it would have caused me to crash my truck in blind rage or in depression. I wasn’t kicked out, but I wasn’t about to sleep on the couch and I wasn’t going to check into a hotel. I drove to the local Starbucks, took out my laptop and transferred funds from the back and into my Paypal, just in case she still had access to the account data or decided to go to the bank in the morning.

What Happens Tomorrow

My parents lived in the next town over. It was a fifteen minute drive to their Homeowner’s Association affiliated house in one of the original neighborhoods on the outskirts of the incorporated county. The zone was called Lakeside View but only, maybe, five houses actually got the lakeside view as the other side was still tree-lined and the other houses were up a small incline. It was a good thing though, as the lake was creek-fed and it liked to crest at the times where one’s flood insurance had either lapsed or thought their house was a fortress. My parents have had several “lakeside neighbors” since they first moved in.

I arrived at the house after ten o’clock and, since I knew where the key was always hidden (under a statue of Col. Reb, the old “Ole Miss” mascot); I walked in, carrying a backpack and a gym bag. The house was dark and quiet—they usually never stayed up past ten o’clock; even my younger sister who was still living with them at that time due to “issues” with school and life in general. They were all morning people; it appears I was the only one who inherited the night owl gene.

I stepped as quietly as I could through the house, though the hardwood floors tattled on me with every step. I made it to one of the extra bedrooms on the second floor. Mom has taken the remaining rooms upstairs, three of them, and ‘themed’ them: baseball, teddy bears, and seaside life. I picked the baseball one only because it was the one with less clutter. While it was decorated in such a way that only a sports nut could love it, at least it wasn’t overrun with tchotchkes, bears in tutus and seashells with googlie-eyes.
No bother to turn the lights on, nor did I choose to get undressed. I had already sent an e-mail to work that there was a death in the family and they could contact me for further information. I was sure my manager wouldn’t pry for more details; which was a good thing as I would probably laid into him on everything that had happened and how I felt about it. My boss would have to unwittingly be my counselor if he had been up to reply to that message.

My phone buzzed.
It had been buzzing for the past hour, all of them messages or calls from my wife. I had to ask myself why I was I still calling her that? How many weeks had gone by that we would lie in be and I would move my arms towards her in a subtle hint and expect her to turn to me and just touch me. Anywhere, to be honest.
But that seldom happened.

If I wanted anything between us I had to initiate it and it really snuffed out my confidence when I had to ponder if she was really even into me or sex, with me that is. It started to go as to twice a week and then once, followed by a week and a half due her period and then another week would go by and she would say she was tired.
Did I look like Brad Pitt?
No, body wasn’t chiseled.
Russell Brand?
No, hair wasn’t long enough and no believeable British accent.
An average dad-bod who once had an earring but never understood gauges?
Yes, and even with some issues with fat on certain parts of my anatomy, I didn’t think I was a complete and total lost case but she made me feel like that. I had started to believe that I was going to be, well, not ‘screwed’ as that wasn’t happening either, but thinking that I would forever live my life talking with people over a chat room or forever swiping at tinder whole thinking that no one would ever want to look at me.

I had thought about using the Ashley Madison site, but, I wasn’t going to “have an affair” as the site once boasted one to do, even if I was completely miserable. I wanted to field like maybe a marriage counselor or a couple’s retreat could help us.

But she had already retreated, or maybe that should be charged, into a new love.
The phone buzzed one more time before I turned it off. I had a thought to throw it across the room but I needed it. I needed it to keep in contact with my kids, to gather evidence on my wife’s infidelity.

Why couldn’t she just look at porn or glance at the chest of some dude on the street? Why did she have tp take it to the next level? I was there. I would lie next to her and ask her how her day was but receive one-word answers-like talking to a teenager addicted to Instagram. I would call her after work to talk about something and she she’d tell me she was busy at the moment BUT would call me back as soon as possible.
That return call never happened. I would have to be the one to call back but at times I didn’t want to as she halfway listened to me anyway.
I couldn’t deny that I was completely innocent in this-but to compare I merely jay-walked across the street compared to her committing multiple counts of matrimonial murder in the first degree.

I had to think if I had ever met him as I could barely make out his face in any of the pictures. I could have shook the guy’s hand at an open house or some social function at the realtors office and that made me angrier the more I thought about it. I would be able to find out who he was eventually and at that time—as long as my lawyer never found out—I could do a little damage to his life; it would never come up to the emotional peak that he caused me but maybe I would feel better.
He knew she was married and even worse she let it happen without even talking to me about it. We could have had a nice therapeutic session and tried to piece everything together.

Again, I never cheated on my wife, at least not in the physical sense.
Perhaps I have looked at other women, a parting glance and a not so subtle fantasy to go along with the fleeting memory as I would forget about her a few minutes later. Did that make me guilty? At times. There were times when I would see a dress or mini skirt and wonder if I could ever convince my wife to wear one.

Then, she started to.

I thought, hey, wish fulfilled and I didn’t have to say anything.

Except to see that dress or that skirt flung at the got of a bed in a scandalously depressing jpeg. Scandalous because it was someone else taking it off of her.
Depressing that I actually found out about it.

Maybe I could have lived as a cuckold husband who actually had no idea. The picket fence, the family barbecues, the perfect Norman Rockwell home. I needed to only get a pipe and slippers to complete the fantasy. She would be out, with him, over and over again and I would have been none the wiser, having fun with my kids and feeling that the love of my life had a bit of a wall put up but maybe it was just work.

She would turn away at night and in the morning and ignore and form of foreplay; okay...just tired I guess.
Yes, tired from the night before at some hotel or at this guys house, or at our house.
We once thought about installing a security system—complete with cameras—but she stopped suggesting it ; it has been almost two years since we last talked about a 360-degree color camera system to protect the kids.
No, not having it protected her secret and my sanity.
So much for both.

My eyes wanted to close; they wanted to cry and I kept them looking up at the ceiling what was barely visible in the dull light from a street lamp that leaked through the the window shades.
My heart wanted to just shut down, to stop beating and if I took my phone charger and plugged one end into he socket as I bit down on the other end, it would cease to beat until an EMT could get to me to shock it back to life.
My brain just said that life really sucked at that moment and I had to agree with it. We had to think about she was going to do next; what would she tell the kids about me? Would she take any blame in this? Could I afford the therapy they were going to need after all of this?

I kind of wanted a drink but couldn’t feel the drive to get up and go out to a bar, plus, the only ones opened at that late of an hour were in the parts of Memphis where only one who had a death wish would want to go. I kind of had a death wish, but the thought that by offing myself then she would win brought out even more anger. It was a vicious cycle and was going to get worse unless I drank a lot and passed out of spilled my guts to someone else, anyone.
“No. Friggin. Way.”
While not the best person to vent to, my sister had opened her door and walked past the room to see my lonely shadow on the bed. I laid everything out that had occurred earlier in the day.
“You should have waited and gotten more proof and nailed the bitch.”
“I think several pages of text and pictures is good enough.”
“Yeah,” she replied as she took a step back. “Sorry, that came out a bit rude.”
Normally, I would have yelled back at anyone who insulted any member of my family, but at that moment I brushed it off. I had thought of worse to call her.
“Are you going to stay here form a while?”
“A few days, until I can look for someplace to call my own.”
“Why not have her move out? I mean, it’s your damn house too.”
“The kids.”
“Your kids too.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s best if they stay where they are.”
“But you don’t know what she’s telling them. I mean, they’re teenagers, they’ve heard of all this stuff from television.”
“I’m hoping they could tell that it wasn’t all my fault and that, for the most part, I took the high ground. Sure, I said a few things I shouldn’t have said, but, in that moment...What was I supposed to?”
“Sorry, bro.”

4: “Sunrise”

I slept okay during the night, surprisingly, considering it was after three before I actually closed my eyes. No dreams remembered but I woke without a shred of fatigue; maybe I was running on a cocktail of adrenaline and fear, so I ran with it and left my parent’s house a little before seven o’clock; went to the local Starbucks and sat down with my laptop and phone to work on calling a lawyer—any lawyer—who would take my case and wouldn’t rob me of any remaining dignity.
Two hours and several cups of coffee later, I had found a lawyer and set an appointment with him for that afternoon—I had at least one thing going my way. My phone chirped several times during the call as my wife was calling and sending text messages.
“Yeah, you text me now,” I whispered as I swiped over and pondered deleting a few of the texts messages but decided to keep them as evidence that she was, essentially, harassing me with unwanted contact—because it was bit too late at that point to reconcile, that ship had sailed.
I still wanted to find out who that guy really was...but everything I thought about doing to him would be considered illegal or could be twisted to serve her purpose of serving me some form of papers. I had met him once or twice in passing. A wave or a subtle handshake in a ‘hi, I’m friendly but I have no idea who you are and don’t really care’ way.
My phone chirped again, it was Lexi—who shouldn’t have had her phone on while at school.
When are you coming home?
I wrote out a long response about her mother than deleted it.
I typed out a few sentences about how life can sometimes be cruel and play you for a fool and that sometimes people are not who you think they are. I deleted that too.
I don’t know was all I could type in reply.
Can we stay with you, where ever it is you go?
I wanted to tell her yes, but I had no idea on how it go.

* * *

“Why did you leave your house?’
“I needed to cool down.”
“I see. Can I speak to you frankly?”
“Of course,” I replied.
“Unfortunately, that’s the stupidest thing we as men can do. We leave. Yes, it’s sometimes for the best. The anger, the threat of violence and the yelling.”
“Are you referring to me?”
“No, most likely it’s your wife yelling, by how you described it to me.”
“Yes,” I replied.

I stood in front of the desk of Charles Mordell, the divorce attorney who said he could squeeze me in that afternoon. His office was a cross between what one would see on a television commercial for a ambulance chaser lawyer, with a mix of a public library. He had three bookshelves of leather bound books or maybe they were simply empty shells made to look like he was well-versed in the law. Either that, or he raided the local Goodwill book store of antique tomes.

“While it screams chivalry and sounds like the best thing to do it hurts your position because you have been removed from your home. It may take an act of the courts or God in order for you to be able to set even a pinky toe into your own house.”

“I can’t win for losing, I guess.”
“It happens to the best of us. We want the best for our kids but sometimes we don’t what we’re doing anymore and when situations like this come up, the lost feelings come back in spades.”
“Yeah,” I replied as I felt that I maybe needed to go to a bar and drink.
“But before you lose hope and go drown your sorrows in the ye ole hooch, let me tell you that your case give you a great chance of getting custody of your children and leaving the courtroom with your head held high. You just need to avoid confrontation from your wife. Stay off of Facebook. Don’t talk to her one on one.”
“That hasn’t happened for awhile.”
“Have her present everything to you in writing,” he said as he leafed through the filesI gave him. “You have quite the paper trail. And that’s great. If it wasn’t sad because of what it means.”
I nodded.
“It will get better. You’ll get your life back.”
“To be honest, this is kind of a good thing.”
Chuck looked at me like I was suffering shock. Maybe it was the expression on my face that he had seen a million times before: the thousand yard stare mixed with thoughts that everything will be sugar and rainbows once again.
“How so?”
“It’s best I found out now instead of years down the road. I’m a fool but at least I won’t be an old fool. There’s a new life out there, I just have to get the current under control. I know it’s always going to be there and it’s going to hurt. I just don’t want it to bring me down.”
“I tell all of my clients that they should seek psychological counseling if they feel despair.”
“I feel fine.”
“I would still recommend a session.”
I only nodded.

An hour later I was back at the coffee shop in front of the movie theatre with a latte in one hand and my phone in the other as I searched for a doctor I could talk to, preferably a male due to the situation. I would have liked to assume that a female doctor would treat me in a professional opinion but I had a sinking feeling that the second we sat in her office I would feel that by talking about my feelings whole would see me as some sort of hideous hunk of human waste who was only there to talk about a woman who was not there to defend herself.
And I’d probably agree with her.

And then I’d pay her money.
Otherwise, I’d pay money to a bar and maybe a dance-assuming I could get the mettle to actually go to a strip club.
I could only drink my coffee and sigh as I started to think of all the negatives. The affair had been going on for some time and she had to look at me and I had to look at her and all of those times, I never had a clue.
Sure, I had suspicions, only because this is the world we live in, the one with broken people, destroyed lives and bitterness abound. The true human nature and I was feeling it at that moment. I only needed someone to cut me off in traffic and I was pretty sure I would have lost it and gone Memphis on them.
I left the coffee shop and drove to my parent’s house where I finally had to lay everything out on the table to them. They sat silently after I finished and I waited for the barrage of negativity and I would have shrugged it off as misery loved company but all they said was I could stay there and that things were going to get uncomfortable for the kids.
“It already is.”
“We should take the kids out for a day.” Mom said as she walked to the counter to pour another glass of tea,
“I’ll let you guys make that offer. I’m apparently not allowed to talk to them directly right now.”
“I’m sorry son,” Dad replied.
“It happens,” I said. “I would gave preferred to win a different kind of lottery.”

I had no idea how convoluted the family court system was. Even though Chuck told me every time I had to come into his office to sign a paper and, of course, write him a check. I went to therapy sessions, my wife went to therapy sessions too and if I had down a quarter of the things she accused me of doing in those meetings I would have either shot myself or, if I was a major scumbag, congratulate myself on being an outstanding player in the BSDM game.

I had to have supervised visits with my kids. Never mind the fact that my genitals were not the ones sent across the internet for clandestine reasons. No, the state thought that I would take my kids on the run because of the disdain I held for their mother. They were right, I had a lot of disdain. In fact, I had disdain to spare; but I wasn’t stupid. The problem was that she had tried to program them against me and I, in turn, had to tell them the truth of what was happening to our lives. Yes, I told the older kids everything. Lexi was in denial that anything was happening. Nick wanted to come live me. The twins? They were given a new video game system by their new “uncle” so they were usually too engrossed in playing ‘Mario Kart’.
“He’s over at the house a lot now, Dad,” Nick said as he glanced at the consular sitting in the far corner of the room.
“I wish I could help.”
“Please, get me out of the house. I’ll go to a new a school. Seriously.”
“Seriously, you need to stay at home and listen to your mother. I keep saying this and I mean it: I love all of you and it is for the best of you to stay in a comfortable environment.”
“But it’s not comfortable,” Lexi replied. “He’s like wanting to take us places and do things with us. Like, like he wants to replace you.”
“He’s just trying to get on your good side. After all of this has, passed, he may marry your mother.”
“Oh god, a step-father!” Lexi stated with emphasis on the word ‘step’.
“It’s not that bad of a word.”
“Yeah, just like Grandpa James.”
“Okay, but your grandfather was an exception, not the rule.”
“Hey dad?” Serena asked as she looked up from her game.
“Yes, Rini?”
“Do you know how to get first place on Rainbow Road?”
“I have no idea what you’re referring to, small one.”

I had to continue paying for everything at the house, even though my wife was making more than I was due to how many times I had to leave work to go to appointments and court sessions. In three months I had exhausted what little money I was able to stow away from our savings account. I contemplated working at Walmart or Chik-Fil-A but feared that my family would walk in while I was on shift. I admit, I would feel humiliated and berated, even if nothing was ever said.
Yes, there were some nights when I felt like cutting a brake line, but then the angel on my shoulder would come to my rescue and tell me it wasn’t worth it and that—in time—I would be free of shackles placed onto me by the state.
“She wants an increase on her support payments?” I asked Chuck a week later as I sat across his desk. “I think I take home enough of my check to buy a case of ramen and deodorant. What’s her reason?”
“Living expenses.”
“Has she sold off a few of the dresses in her closet that I’m still paying for? How about getting her to downsize from her BMW to a used minivan. Come on, Chuck, I’m being bled dry.”
Chuck nodded. “I know. I know. Which is why we’re going to have to start going on the offensive.”
“The offensive?”
“I know you want to play this like a game of golf but, unfortunately, its going to be more like football. They’re dog-piling you and the referee’s are blind.”
“I don’t watch golf or football.”
“You’re going to need to think like the bastard she’s painting you to be.”
“Going down to her level? I can’t do that.”
“She submitted the counselors report that you told one of your daughters how to be a rainbow child.”
“A what?” I asked as my jaw dropped.
“I have no idea, but they assumed it was code for something so they also want to plan a custody hearing.”
“Are you fucking shitting me?”
Chuck slammed his hands on the desk and stood up with a sly grin. “That’s him! That is the guy I need to have come out!”

To say I was livid would have been an understatement. I stammered for a few minutes in front of Chuck. A part of me hoped he would call an ambulance as I felt I was ready to go into convulsions, foam at the mouth, and collapse to the floor. Either that or I would have stormed over to whatever building housed that social worker and just plain bitch-slap her as what she wrote was totally misrepresented. Most likely on-purpose as the record would be read by everyone without me there to add the fact that she was talking about a go-kart racing game.

“You need to stay calm.”
“I am calm!”
“Yes, you’re as collective as a Vulcan.” My sister replied as she picked up a shot glass.
We sat in a booth on the far side of a bar in Midtown. I had a glass of water along with a small glass of Jack next to it.
“Okay, listen to me. Are you listening?”
“Yes, I hear you loud and clear.”
“Just checking to see if you’re not drunk.”
“I wish I was.”
“Okay, here’s what you need to do: Go out and do something. Take the kids to a party of something.”
“Supervised visits.”
“I’ve thought that through too. Mom and Dad could take them out and if you happened to appear at said place, well, what are the odds you would be there?”
“The twins would tell their mom the moment she asked how it went.”
“So?”
“Social worker?”
“To Hell with the social worker,” she said as she finally took a drink.

“It’s easy to say that. I’ve wanted to say it since the day she came in with the kids. Again, I’m not the one who flashed themselves across the internet. But I’m the one who has a target on his back.”
“What is the deal with that anyway?”
“The mighty state assumes the mother is right.”
“That sucks. I mean, I’d think it was a cool “get out of what ails ya” card if it didn’t affect someone I know.”
“Thank you.”
“You do need to get out and meet people. You haven’t touched that drink since the server put it down.”
“I’ve been contemplating. It will be my first drink in seventeen years.”
“What about New Years?”
“Sparkling cider,” I replied as I picked up the glass. The ice had melted a bit, leaving a bit of a clear layer over the liquor. “What I really want…after all of this is over, is to not lock myself into a small apartment and do this. Sit and drink middle shelf booze.”
“Bad for your liver.”
“Yeah, and I’ll look like how she wants to portray me.”
“I don’t understand. I mean. Like you said, she’s guilty.”
“Collateral damage, ” I replied and took a very large drink.

Careless Memories
As the court dare approached I tried to block everything else out but my family. I went on those stupid supervised visits but we also tried out my sister’s idea buy hacking my parents take the kids out to Chuck E. Cheese’s or to their favorite hibachi restaurant and I would just “show up” to join them. Rini and Marisa were usually given a lot of tokens or a lot of sushi to keep them occupied from any conversation the rest of us had about how everyone was doing.
Lexi had issues with school—fights with people who used to be her friends and sleeping in class due to staying up late worrying about her life. Nick tried to put a front but he was angry at everything and there wasn’t much I do about it short of kidnapping.
Kidnapping the children, that is.
I usually ordered a small sushi roll or some chicken wings depending on where we were at the time. At that night, I had a tornado roll: tempura fried shrimp with eel sauce. I tried to enjoy the flavor but, due to depression everything always had an off-kilter taste. I was becoming what my wife wanted the court to see me like.
I didn’t like it, but it wasn’t like I had a choice in the matter or a way to bring myself up from the doldrums.
“Can we stay with you?” Nick asked.
“I wish you could. I really do.”
“Just let us,” Lexi replied,
“If I did, then your mother would bring the police and not only would they take you back to her they would arrest me.”
“She’s trying to do that?” Nick asked.
“I’m not going to say it like that, but…yes.”
“Bitch,” Lexi muttered and everyone at the table stopped eating to look at her. “Everyone’s thinking it, so, there, cat’s out of the bag.”
“Language.”
“I can think of a whole lot more stronger words.”
“I believe it.”
“Are you going to let her get away it, dad?”
“Get away with what, Nick?”
“This. It’s like a plot from Special Victims Unit. We only need the ‘chung chung’ sound effect.”
“It’s not like that yet. You mother would need to be pregnant.”
Lexi and Nicky looked at each other and then sheepishly looked at the table.
“What’s going on?”
“Well, Mom and…him were talking about it.”
“Wait, seriously?”
Lexi swallowed hard.
“Yeah,” Nicky replied. “So you know, alpha male kills the kids of the previous for his own off-spring.”
“As much as I think its great you’re watching nature shows, this isn’t exactly the same.”
“Yeah, it’s worse, “ Lexi replied as my parents walked back to the table with the twins.
“Can we buy one of the Cooie fish?” Rini squealed.
“Koi,” I replied.

I kept up the image of happy dad until everyone had left.
After that, I felt like flying into a rage. I would have smashed every car in the parking lot a la Micheal Jackson but instead I drove back to my parents’ house and tried to go to sleep.
That didn’t happen as I sat up in bed and tried to figure out what the hell had happened with our relationship? All those times I assumed that our issues were due to work and they could be worked out a little bit of time. I wouldn’t be home, she wouldn’t be home or if I was at home maybe I was working on work-related things in order to maybe, one day, not require her to work anymore.
She had stated that as much as she loved being a realtor it kept her out too much and that one day she would stoop working and stay with the kids. I didn’t think to ask if this future included me because I assumed that it did, since we were married at the time.
And we all know what happens when one assumes?
So, I spent the night with several knives jabbed into my heart and the repeating memories of dating, marriage, and sex. All three I thought were mutual to the two of us. Maybe they were at the time. Maybe they weren’t. I wasn’t a rich man, so she didn’t marry me for money. But for a few seconds during the night, I kind of wished I was. If I had won the lottery or played more than one quarter at that slot machine one time then neither of us would have had to work and we wouldn’t been pulled in by our jobs.
But a child? Was this baby mine? Was it during one of those quick, we’re both nearly asleep so it seems to be mechanical times? Those times where it felt that I was being a bother? Like, well, I better appreciate this moment and just go with it? I was the charity case and her co-worker was the king.
That hurt. To think it was all empty. To wonder if I didn’t matter in the equation and that she was picturing this other guy and do whatever he wanted while I felt that she was my world. I guess I should have noticed it when she stopped saying she loved me.

I went to work that morning and stayed civil and causally upbeat. My supervisor didn’t ask anything from me beyond the normal and he never asked questions so it was an okay day at the office.
However, once at my parents’ home, everything fell apart.
“We’ve been served,” my dad said as he handed over three large envelopes.
I pulled my hair back with both hands. “For what?”
“It appears Rini told her everything that’s been going on.”
“I figured she would. I was only a matter of time. Should of gotten her the fish too.”
“That’s just for your mom and me. There’s no telling what’s in your envelope.”
“I’ll call Chuck. I guess have some things to pound out.”

The Reflex

Chuck tired to talk me out of it, stating that the family court would see it as “verbal badgering the other party” but I fought back with what she was doing was bullying on the lighter side and sexual battery on the other side.
“You better prepare yourself some Hell. Because this will raise it.”
“You read the paperwork. If she wants a war. I’ll give her guerrilla war. Screw the Geneva Convention.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Charles replied with a grin.
I gave Chuck all of the e-mails and entered in a demand for a paternity test.
And that’s when my soon to be ex-wife took the M.A.D. approach.

Two days before our day in court, my attorney called me at work with the news the date was extended out.
“Okay, so it’s extended for a month.”
“There’s more. I hope you’re sitting down.”
“Yes, but that’s not going to help,” I replied as I leaned back.
“She wants to petition sole custody.”
I like to think I kept my cool. My trash can, however, got so mad it slammed itself against the wall and had a permanent dent.
“Why?”
“Well,” Chuck said with a sigh. “The kids stated how they felt about her and she was able to to bend that animosity towards you.”
“Chuck, you can fight against this, can’t you?”
“Of course. However everything gets thrown into the ocean and we have to start fishing again with paperwork.”
“What about the paternity test?” I asked as I shook my head to my boss when he opened the door. Apparently, the trash can had struck a nerve after its barrage at the wall.
“Its been put on hold.”
“Do I really want to hear the reason on this?”
“It’s a good one, I’ll give you that.”
“What’s the reason?”
“They state it’s a form of sexual harassment.”
I buried my face in my free hand. “This is…this is petty.”
“Yes, it is. It’s going to be an uphill battle as she has some major paper pushers.”
“Yeah, I feel like I’m paying them too. So, I’ve lost my children for now?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You know I’m not for petty revenge, Chuck.”
“I wouldn’t blame you in this situation. I’d bail you out if necessary but try to stay on the level.”
“Yeah, I sank to her level and she went deeper.”
“It happens.”

I left Chuck’s office with a burning pain in my chest. It wasn’t my heart as the feeling was a few inches below the xiphoid process. Maybe it was the entrance to my soul—my soul that was spinning down an eternal toilet flush.
I took my phone out and contemplated contacting the older kids. I’d tell them to pack light, grab their sisters and meet me down the street. We would have at least twelve hours before anyone noticed they were missing and by then we could be anywhere.
I’d have to rob a bank or win it big at the casino before that would happen.
“She makes twice as much as I do,” I muttered as I started the truck and once again went into a thousand-yard stare.
Sure, I kept working too, it was something I felt I needed to do. I was from the south. The man worked for his family and if his wife wanted to work, then fine, she works—but there would be nothing about me staying at home and re-enacting the lyrics of a Lonestar song.

I was for her wanting to go to work. I even accompanied her to a two-day training conference in Nashville, to a hotel where the clerk never heard of the words “wireless internet” and my cell phone was just a music player. I was not able to get any work done. On the other hand, the twins were born nine months later.
I turned the headlights on and drove out of the parking lot. I didn’t want to go back to my parent’s house. I wanted to go to my house and be with my family. My family was right: why was I the one who had to leave? Maybe I should have ordered her to leave but, no, I was jut trying to keep the peace and thought we could keep everything on the level; a nice and clean fight.
No such luck. My wife loved playing the part of the heel and the Vince McMahon system of Justice called me on everything. My life was kind of a wreck. I came very close to becoming an angry drunk. I thought strongly about starting smoking—and not tobacco if it could have eased the pain.

The thought of what she might be telling the kids made me break into a cold sweat followed by nausea. My brain went on auto-pilot and I envisioned all of the lies and deceit that they were being told: How it was all my family. How I was never there for anyone because I was always “too busy” with work to be home on time for dinner.
My shift didn’t end until 5:15 and I had to drive across town to get home; not like I had a home office like Jason Seaver or like her boss who lived up the road form his work. Maybe I could have won the lottery or invested stock in Apple, then I could have given all the attention to my family.
But I didn’t, just like I didn’t pay attention to the Jeep Cherokee that had abruptly stopped in front of me.

The strike was hard enough to jostle me back into reality but not enough to do too much damage to either car—at least I hoped not. I cursed under my breath and then said a few words in a louder tone. With my luck, the driver would be some guy who was life was worse than my own or that guy’s wife—who was driving his vehicle and he would take it out on her and me, somehow.
I turned off the engine, reached into the glove compartment for my insurance and looked to the floor to see my cell phone screen was cracked.
As if the night couldn’t get any worse, there was a knock on the driver’s side window. It was either the police?
No, too soon.
The other driver with a gun?
Maybe, in fact, I hoped it was pointed at me, chambered and with the safety off. I’d save a fortune court fees.
“You okay?” A female voice asked.
I only nodded, I refused to look at the driver.
“You sure? You look a little shaken. Listen, I’m sorry I stopped short.”
I turned to the window to look at her, but her image was a bit blurry.
“Do you want me to call the police for a report?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Of course,” she replied as she stepped away. I took off my seatbelt, opened the door and stepped out.
She had her phone to her ear and I took time to look at my truck and her vehicle. The font end damage to my car was okay, but her backend looked a little crumpled.
I shook my head. It looked okay a few minutes ago.
I stood next to the truck and she walked up to the back of her car.
“They’re on their way, Does it look bad?”
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“Mmm-hmm. My dad is going to freak out.”
She probably called him right after the collision. The man with the gun scenario was still possible.

Rio

I slapped the paperwork on the desk, sat down and stared at it for a few seconds. My truck was fine but her vehicle could not drive out on its own. A man did arrive to pick her up but he said nothing to her or me, he just talked to the police officer, took similar paperwork and they drove off.
The address on my license still listed my house, so maybe he would go there and take out my “replacement”, thinking it was me; a mistaken identity, a la American Beauty. I’d save a bit more on court fees, but then she would say she was traumatized and that I had given the police the wrong address on purpose.
I knew she’d try to do that—the Gerard would be turning in her head as he would lay dying.
“No death, no one has to die,” I whispered. “Except for my savings and blemish feee insurance record.”
The other driver told the police that she she had stopped short because she was looking at a text on her phone and misjudged the distance of the vehicle behind her as she slowed down. I didn’t say a word that I was distracted. I didn’t say I felt disconnected a few moment before the impact. I refused to say that I either wanted to go on a rampage a la “Falling Down” or just wanted to drive my truck off the Hernando DeSoto bridge.