Okay, so this was one of the darkest times
in my life, and my life is made of bits of darkness.
1st of April 2011
Dear Cassi,
It comes to me that I’m telling you the
events of January and here it has become April as if I let time get away from
me, and here I stand trying to catch up with it. Much like the detritus in my
life I’ve got garbage running round in my head.
One of the most important events of this
year was your ex-husband calling me. It’s a point impossible to ignore in my
life because it’s so telling. By the texts on my cell phone I can tell that it
was on the 12th of January that he called some time after eight in
the evening. It was a dark time for me. I was at this moment fighting to get a
post I could work from Allied, a fight I knew to be futile, and the bleakness
of my life had risen around me like walls. Soon those walls would fall and
consume me, but that is not the subject of today.
I remember looking at my cell phone and
seeing a number I didn’t recognize. I answered and I could recognize your
ex-husband by his voice.
“Rick? I’m sorry. Richard” he said and the
fact that he had used my real name stunned me. His abuse of my name had been at
the center of his lies. He had constructed a falls person, this “Rick” and Rick
had been a man I didn’t recognize.
“Do you have a minute?” he
asked and this through me even further off my guard. “You stopped talking to me,
and if I couldn’t talk to you-“
As if I hadn’t told him my feelings on his
behavior a thousand times. Our friend ship had degenerated into nothing but
arguments.
“I told you to call and leave a message” I
said getting cut off.
“I called you three times and I didn’t
realize anything was wrong until I told you my grandmother had died,” he said,
and what a statement. He didn’t know something was wrong when his closest
friend didn’t speak to him for three weeks. His text about his Grandmother’s
death had implied that he would be in further contact. The fact that he had not
contacted me after this led me to believe that he used her death as a way to
get at me.
“Then Mr. Hill told me that it was about me
calling you Rick and I know I did that a lot, but I knew it was more than that.
Isn’t there something I could do to make it up to you?”
“It” He was refusing to say what he had
done in the hope that I had failed to understand the scope of his deceptions. I
told him “Nothing comes to mind.”
“I want you to be happy. It’s not my
fault,” he said repeating a lie I heard before, “I’m impulsive. I didn’t have a
plan.” So now I know he had a plan. Why would he deny without accusation? All
this time he had thought that I would come round, but there was no hope of
that. How could I have forgiven his transgressions? What could he do now that I
couldn’t lay trust on him even in the smallest degree?
“My life was hellish with you in it,” I
said only saying what I was thinking. I expected nothing as reply to this.
“I didn’t want your life to be hellish.”
“Yes, you did,” I growled.
“I’m going to go now,” he said putting on
an act hoping for sympathy. “If you change your mind you have my number.”
Little does he know that I deleted the contact.
That was a door that closed some time ago
and it feels as if it was a lifetime away. This conversation was no more than a
fragment of a ghost caught in the night mist.
It would appear that I broke the one page
limit some time ago. It couldn’t be helped. As I look over my words I find that
there are things missing but it is now too much to recall it all.
What will become of
things?
Richard Leland Neal
I am not sure how I would react to that either. Christopher calling you by the correct name is a big step but i also feel telling you of his grandmothers death was to try and make you feel like you should talk to him. It is too bad about gram. I found out shortly both had passed. While I was moving (one of numerous times that followed our divorce) I found some pictures of his family. One was a picture of Gram with the boys on Christmas when they were little. I mailed the pictures to Carolyn as I felt they should be returned to her (gram had mailed them to me while Christopher was deployed). Carolyn sent an email thanking me and explained that both had past. I will state that Christopher was in fact one of impulse and did rely heavily on others to take care of him. Do you remember that night we spent around an hour in your garage looking for tax documents? He had given me POA and informed me that he a) owed his grandparents $1000 and b)had a lot of bills in collections from a car accident c)had a defaulted student loan d)had not done his taxes in 4 or 5 years. I told him I would get on it as our future depended on doing so. I used my job injury settlement to pay of the nearly $1600 student loan. I went to the tax place and had the taxes done for him than paid off another smaller bill on his credit report. I also paid the money owed to his grandparents. I provided the furniture and other necessities of life for our apartment as I had them when we met. I also gave him my car (I will never forget trying to teach him how to drive a manual) and bought another. Upon separation we had about $8000 in the bank account and I only got $1000. He sated it belonged to him (though my checks and taxes had also been deposited into the account) because he made more money than I did! He ignored the fact that before being married we made the same amount and that BAH and Family separation pay were only given to married soldiers and added up to $2000 a month. He did not sign papers until he was due to be out of the army. I left with only what fit into my car with the exception of the couches you told him you had no room for (and I thank you because I no longer had a bed as he kept it) in your house. I was responsible with the finances unlike most women in my position and what I got for it was a request to continue living with him divorced and an offer to have college paid for if I agreed. I never was able to return to college but such is life. I struggled for a time and eventually came out on top :-). If it werent for him I would have not met the wonderful man I have now and have a son that I am I wouldn't trade for anything! I am sure people know nothing of all of this but it appears he has grown since than at least some so I wont hold a grudge. He finally left the comfort zone of California and hopefully the bad influences such as Mr Van Rude behind. I think Christopher should write you a letter rather than try to have a phone conversation. Thoughts on paper are thought out as they are not said on the spot. But the people trying to patch things up need to stay out of it. You are both adults and can speak for yourselves if and when you are ready!
ReplyDeleteI guess it’s some kind of funny, Cassi, that this is the first time you’re reading the blog named in your honor. Well, you didn’t have net access when this started. I wish this could have stepped off on a better note but, well, the world never works the way you want it to.
DeleteI have read some but never been able to post comments! I also have all 3 kids 5 days a week now so I have been a tad busier!
ReplyDelete