CHAPTER FIVE
Don’t Quit Your Day Job
My husband began yet another career in the midst of all that. He began working at a shop in Cameron making parts for trains. He was there a few years when the boss decided he wanted to start getting into real estate. Buy houses cheap, clean them up and then rent them out or sell them for profit. My husband was the consummate chameleon so he was ready to take on any project and convinced his boss that he could do all the repairs and make him loads of money. One day he asked me if I wanted to go to one of the houses with him. He said it was for sale. We drove to the house and instantly I was in love with it. It was a gorgeous country house, two story, fireplace, vaulted ceiling in the living room, huge front and back yards and enough room to raise a family. I never imagined we’d actually get approved to buy it.
A few months after my mom passed away, we were eating dinner one night in our living room and my daddy called. But it didn’t sound like my daddy. He sounded drunk! Now my daddy could outdrink the best of them in his day but mama had changed him. He barely would drink a beer after mama agreed to marry him, so I knew he wasn’t drunk. My heart sank, I knew instantly it was a stroke. I told him I was on my way. From Rogers! That would take a while. I called a neighbor first. No answer. I called my cousin, again no answer. I called 911. Told them the situation and that we were on our way. We raced there and he was being loaded on to a gurney when we got inside. By this time his speech was a little better and a neighbor had seen the ambulance and gone over. Away we went to the hospital. It was a stroke! He lost movement in his right side, but regained most of that over time with physical therapy. His speech stayed slurred but not to the point of trouble talking just a few garbled words. I went every night to the hospital after work. Sometimes the husband went but mostly just me. He spent three weeks in the stroke ward. Finally I got to take him home. All the time I had spent in hospitals over the last year, I should have just moved into one of their rooms.
I told him things had to change and that I would be coming on weekends to take him shopping and do his laundry. I didn’t want him driving right now, not until he was cleared by the doctors.
This went on a while then we got approved for the house. I took daddy to see it and showed him ‘his room’. At first he was against it but I pushed. Finally he agreed. He never really told me no, not as a kid either.
We closed on the house and moved daddy in too. I will say this for my then husband; he never hesitated to help my dad. We set daddy up in the back room on the first floor. He had a front room where I put his entertainment center and his TV and recliner, then his bedroom where a dresser and bed went. Eventually he wanted it all in the back room and we did so. He said he didn’t need all that room and was having a hard time getting around.
I didn’t realize at the time but my daddy was making a dying den. Slowly but surely he stopped doing his exercises, stopped walking, stopped bathing. He was giving up. Who could blame him? He was taken around the world and back in his 83 years on this earth.
My daddy was a true American hero. World War II was not kind to him. He was shot in the neck, a through and through wound. He told me stories of how they packed his wound with sand before the medics got to him. He wasn’t supposed to make it to the hospital. But my daddy was not going down that easily. Then they told him he would be paralyzed from the neck down. I beg to differ. My daddy walked out of his hospital a few short weeks after being shot. He was medically discharged receiving both the Purple Heart and Distinguished Medal of Honor. I’m sure I am leaving several accolades off but his medals have since disappeared.
If I would have realized sooner, I would have helped him hang on longer. But my daddy was nothing if not stubborn. I begged him to tell the doctor things, I even told the doctor things which he would then deny with me sitting right there. Finally home health started coming and most of you know that means Hospice is not far off.
I would give my daddy mini mental health tests. You know, what year is it? Who is president?, those types of questions. I learned from his psychiatrist that patients in early stages of Alzheimer’s will often realize they are losing their faculties and begin a sort of running list of things they get asked and will be able to recite the answers, almost like reading them from a book. I suppose this is what my daddy did.
CHAPTER SIX
Is It Over?
Things between my husband and I were never really better, only on the surface. We fought a lot. He honed his violent skills even more. His favorite thing around this time was to jump on me where I was sitting, either force my eyelids open to look at him or dig his thumbs into my eyes until I cried. Again, no marks left. Anything could set him off. The house was never clean enough, his clothes were never washed like he wanted, dinner was supposed to be on the table AND HOT when he walked in, even though I never knew day to day what time he would be home. He came home for lunch less and less despite the fact work was literally 5 minutes away.
I decided to ask the ladies at church for some advice. This wasn’t easy because I had to admit all my wrong doings and sins to them. I was deeply ashamed of what I did. I started by asking to meet with just the preacher’s wife. I talked to her, more like I literally vomited nearly 15 years’ worth of problems and abuse to her. I told her about my online affair and that I had never met him. I hid nothing from her. She was empathetic and tried her best to listen without judging. She admitted she saw some things in him that worried her but we always seemed happy so she let them pass. Perhaps I missed my calling and I should have been an actress! Next course of action was to bring in a couple of the younger wives and another trusted Elder’s wife. I met with them and again, hid nothing. The younger wives were supportive and I am still friends with one of them to this day. The Elder’s wife however, was less than supportive. She told me that I was pushing his buttons to make him act that way. I will never forget the sting of those words.
I continued talking to the younger wives for a while. Things did not get better. He was becoming even more distant yet at the same time, more abusive. I saw him less, but he made up for it. The days or nights he was home he spent drinking. I’ve seen him polish off an entire bottle of cinnamon schnapps in a day. CINNAMON! If I got up to do anything around the house he would be following me asking what I was doing and why I wasn’t spending time with him. If I sat on the couch with him I was lazy and needed to do something. I could not win.
Then came the smoke signals through the proverbial trees. I used his truck once to run to the grocery store. It was blocking mine in and rather than move his then get in mine, I just went in his. I get the few bags of groceries and head home. I get home and am gathering the bags together and of course something falls out of the bag and I have to dig for it. But when I pull out what I thought was my item, instead it was a tiny teddy bear with a fake rose proclaiming I LOVE YOU. It was pretty dusty so I didn’t figure he got it for me. I blew it off. Next came the ‘gifts’ from his female co-worker, the only female working at his latest job. He came home with cologne, shirts, homemade cookies… the kind of things a girlfriend would buy, not a co-worker. Then the last sign I needed to know he was actually cheating on me, because I had to be hit over the head with it…, an empty disposable cell phone box in the floorboard of his truck. This one I demanded answers over. He claims, and I giggle still thinking about this, that he saw the box on the highway and wanted to see if there was a phone in it. So, let’s get this straight… you stop in the middle of a highway and hop out and get a box you see. You have time to do all this but not the inclination to check and see if the box is empty or full? Even so, once you’ve found the box was empty, wouldn’t logic suggest you throw the box away? After all, the truck was pretty much spotless, save for an empty cell phone box when I saw it. I had known it all along but this just put that last nail in the coffin, too many little coincidences. Mind you, I wasn’t really mad… in fact, I was probably a little relieved.
It was a couple of weeks later that he comes in and tells me he needed some time for himself, you know to figure things out. I am guessing to decide if he wanted her or me. Hey, I’ve been there… take all the time you need. Insert sarcasm here. I asked where he was going. He said he had an apartment but would still pay the bills at the house. He said he would give me money at church on Sundays. Again, so let’s get this straight… you have suddenly decided you need some time but already have an apartment? Most people would at least do a hotel for a few days. No, this was much more than some alone time… it was an escape.
We still met at church every Sunday like good little Christians. He sat with me, even held my hand from time to time. I am thoroughly shocked we were not struck by lightning inside the building! Keeping up appearances is one thing but we were in church, LYING to everyone! Or so I thought. As it turns out the Elders all knew and had told a few of the church goers. My, my, my… how rumors fly! After church occasionally we would go eat with other couples but mostly he would just hand me money, hop in his truck and head to his new life. This worked for a while. I was getting a break from the abuse and he was doing his own thing. I eventually grew tired and he eventually decided he was cutting back my bill money. I decided I was filing for divorce ‘again’. This time around, my daddy paid for it, the divorce that is.
I found a lawyer who encouraged me to take half of his guns, half of his coins and half of his knives. He had been collecting them since we got married. I wanted nothing more than to be done.
We hashed out a few details, I kept the house and we swapped trucks; it was paid for and he kept the newer truck and all his other stuff. I would have taken a big wheel to drive in order to be finished! But finished it was not. He drug his feet, wouldn’t return calls to the lawyer, retained his own lawyer and took his sweet time NOT signing the papers. This was in year 17 and I was afraid I was going to see year 18.
Once he came to the house to pick up some of his things. He brought one of the young men from church with him to help. He chased me around the house calling me a wh**e and sl*t and accusing me of sleeping with every man in nine counties. I grabbed my keys, nothing else, not even shoes… and headed for the door. I jumped in my truck… but in my haste to get away from him, I didn’t realize our dog had run out behind me and was hiding under my truck. I jammed it in gear and took off and ran over my sweet, sweet girl. I stopped and jumped out. I saw her lying there… still breathing and crying. I begged him to pick her up and put her in the truck and he just stared at me. I bent down and picked her up. She was in terrible pain and she bit me. I didn’t care. I rushed to my vet. I called them on the way and they said to take her to a hospital in town because they didn’t have an x-ray machine. I did. The vet did some tests and x-rays and said she had a broken pelvis. I was allowed to take her home. I slept that night with her on the floor, patting her and loving on her. The next morning she began throwing up blood and I rushed her to my vet. They said her injuries were more severe than originally thought and they could try and save her but she would be in awful pain for a long time. I decided she had been with me 13 long years and keeping her alive was more for me than her and I made that tough call to put her down. Stupidly I called him and told him so he could say goodbye. He came and said his goodbyes. I stayed with her till she was gone. Only writing this now do I see how much death and pain I’ve been a part of in the last years. I leave the vet’s office and he is still outside. This was 2 hours passed. I went back in and told them and explained we were divorcing. They offered to call the police but just as they were about to, he left.
He came another time to pick up what should be the last of his things. I left before he got there. I didn’t want another scene. Well, without surprise, he went through every last drawer, box and cabinet in that house. Left a huge mess and apparently took some things I’d long forgotten. I cleaned up the mess and tried to remind myself it would be over someday. That makes me chuckle.
Meanwhile, the church has decided to choose sides. I begged them not to, just to let us both be church members. One of the Elders even called me and told me I was ‘using’ some of the younger members (the same young man who came with my husband to pick up his things) to start lies and try and turn people against my husband. I was told they would not stand for it and if I wanted to continue to go to church there I would have to abide by some rules. RULES? Are you kidding me? Gee, thanks for your time. CLICK. I never went back. Ever.
My lawyer finally suggested I could finish things without his signature, it would cost more but I could do it. I was ready and willing to sell my blood or a kidney to make it happen. I called my lawyer and told him to just do whatever and he miraculously told me that my ex had signed the papers and his lawyer was messengering them over. You have to be kidding me!!! I was so excited. Now, at this point it still has to go before a judge, but that’s pretty much just formality. I was finally going to be divorced.
Court time came. He was a no-show but that didn’t matter. This time I have no idea where he was sleeping… but he was not there. This of course was blamed on me. I should have told him when to be there. Excuse me, isn’t that what your lawyer is for? My case was called. I answered some basic questions. A few stamps and seals later I was officially divorced.
I left the courthouse and went to a friend’s. She and I climbed in back of that truck I had gotten in the divorce and wrote JUST DIVORCED in giant white letters across the back glass. Was it mature? Probably not, but neither was the “I’m not with stupid anymore” t-shirt I bought and wore. It was however, hugely cathartic. That simple little thing gave me so much freedom.
My freedom didn’t stop there. I immediately made a hair appointment. When I was married he insisted I keep long hair. No matter what I wanted, he wanted long hair. The Stepford wife in me kept it just the way he liked it.
The new me, the divorced and you can’t tell me what to do anymore, not so much. I chopped it to an inch below my ears. Even I was a little freaked out! But I rocked that short little do.
I went out with friends again. I enjoyed life again. The sparkle in my eye was back. Honestly it was amazing. I tried for so long to be what he wanted. I made many mistakes along the way but none deserved verbal or physical abuse. None. The really interesting thing is I even counseled a girl at my work about being abused. I told her she didn’t deserve it, all the while I was living it right along with her. And the Emmy goes to…
Live and learn I suppose.
I got into counseling and saw a therapist for a while. She suggested I try online dating. Remember, I don’t drink and since I felt like my whole church turned against me after the divorce, and I worked at home… just where was I supposed to meet someone?
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