Chapter 5
Decided to just go for a two-fer today. LOL. Want to get the story moving along.
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Chapter 5
Sitting in a rest stop trying to get a little sleep before I continue driving but I’m too wound up to really be successful at it. Not to mention a little freaked out by all the strangers that keep glancing into the car or staring at the trailer I’m pulling. They may be nothing more than mildly curious but it is making me feel wiggy and jumpy.
I’m not sleeping in a parking lot because of poor planning. Honest. The hotel I had reserved screwed me over by losing my reservation even though I had a confirmation number printed off to prove it and an accompanying email stating that I would arrive late. They were oh so apologetic but there was nothing they could do. They did do the humane thing and refund my payment immediately though I had to force the issue and threaten to call their corporate home office, the BBB, etc. etc. The situation was made worse by the fact that the only other hotels in the area that weren’t booked up were well outside of my price range. What choice did I have but to move on a little further down the road? Damn me apparently for not realizing there was going to be a BronyCon Convention going on … and no, I am not going to explain how odd it was to see grown adults surreally prancing around in My Little Pony costumes while I tried not to have a nervous breakdown at yet one more road block as I tried to escape the hell my life had become.
If I hadn’t learned to accept the typical bad luck I’ve been blessed with I would have just sat down and had a temper tantrum and then cried like a baby. But it wouldn’t have done any good – and I was already a little freaked by one “brony” putting a hoof around my shoulders and asking me if I needed a friend – and I was too tired for those kinds of histrionics anyway. My options were slim to none at that point because I was on a schedule. I called Mr. Haines this morning and told him that I was hitting the road by nightfall. I managed to get away earlier than that thank goodness, but all the time I got ahead has now been eaten up and I’m worried that I’m falling behind.
I also gave Mr. Crocker my new phone number as I had been forced to go to the expense of changing phones … and therefore phone number … because Kirk had started to call and text the previous day and it was starting to screw with my head right as I needed all of my mental faculties to move forward.
How could I have forgotten it was Kirk’s father’s birthday? I had always gone with Kirk to the cemetery in the past. Even when we were in the middle of a fight we still put it to the side at least long enough to take care of that obligation. I guess he didn’t want to go by himself this time. Maybe I should have gone with him, I don’t know. I felt bad for him but explained that it wasn’t healthy for either one of us to pretend things hadn’t changed. I hurt him without intending to, it is just that what he wanted wasn’t reasonable. Was it? He wanted me to keep him company, deal with his grief, share it, and somehow not let our divorce affect my ability to do it. Maybe I was the one being unreasonable. I just don’t know, not even now that I’ve had time to think about it. Either way, my refusal hurt him and he used it as an excuse to send a volley of the newest nasty things my way and when I wouldn’t fight back he angrily hung up on me. So yeah, I cried. What I was crying about I still don’t have a clue. Hurt feelings? Grief? Feeling guilty? General sadness? That is no different than every other day has been since Kirk left so why am I still bawling my head off at the least provocation? Good question. Ask another. Maybe I’ll have the answer to that one.
I pulled myself back together and continued to try and complete my to do list, starting with packing the last of the apartment up. But then the calls and texts started coming. Most of them were from Kirk but there were also a fair number of calls from “friends” I hadn’t heard from since before the divorce was final. A little too coincidental. I had some offers for lunch. People said they wanted to get together and check up on me since they’d heard this, that, or the other. See how I was doing. See if I needed anything. Yada, yada. There is no way that many people suddenly chose that day to take a renewed interest in my existence. I put everyone off by telling them I had a new job, that I would have to get back with them. After a while I simply stopped taking calls and they switched to texting me. Yippy skippy. Lucky for me I ran out of minutes and people who tried to reach me would have gotten the “sorry, Shanna is unable to accept calls at this time” message from the nice, genderless, voicemail service.
I added a stop at the big box store to my already un-completeably long list of to do’s to pick up a “card of minutes”. I dropped the books in the return drop box since it was too early for the library to open … saved me from the temptation of revisiting the Friends of the Library stall. I took my car to a quickie oil change place and had them to also run a quick diagnostic. A little radiator fluid, a little windshield fluid, and air in one tire and I was good to go. That was a huge relief. My brother had always been the one to keep the family cars in tip top shape. Selfishly I missed him more at that moment than I had for a while, had a flash of anger at myself, then was a little relieved that neither he nor my parents were around to see how screwed up my life had gotten. Yeah, not a shining moment for me character-wise but I wasn’t feeling particularly bright and shiny either. And the emotional yo-yo’ing that I was in the middle of was making it pretty doggone hard to force myself to go from point A to point B in a straight line.
I debated laundromat or big box store next and settled on the laundromat since the big box store was of the 24-hour variety. While I waited for my loads to finish I ate some popcorn that I’d made earlier to have as a snack. Low in calories and high in fiber to fill all of my hollow spaces without over-filling the seat of my jeans. I also worked on whittling down my to do list and getting it more manageable.
Checking, I saw to my surprise that the books I’d ordered were already “out for delivery” and that more than likely they would have arrived by the time I expected to get back to my apartment. I hoped management would do what they normally did for something like that … they’d have the maintenance guy put it in my apartment rather than leave it in the office. Hope, hope, hope.
I shook my little bottle of laundry detergent and added a few cleaning supplies and paper goods to my list of things to buy since I didn’t know what I had to work with on the Estate. I decided to skip trying to go to yet another one of the grocery stores and instead decided that since the voucher had been cashed out, to spend it at the big box store on things that I needed.
Laundromat accomplished I headed to the big box store and that’s where I got an offer that seemed providential. One of the sales people let me know there was a trade-in program for my phone if I upgraded to the next generation of a competitor’s phone … and the phone came pre-loaded with what would have been three months of minutes for me. The only catch was I couldn’t port my old number over for some strange non-competition agreement between two communication companies. It only took me half a second to sign on the dotted line. And this time I wasn’t giving the new phone number out to anyone except my boss.
From the big box store, instead of going back to the apartment to finish cleaning, I headed to my storage unit. I had brought the rest of the empty storage boxes I hadn’t used with me and I packed away the food that was still in my trunk and repacked some of the things in the storage unit to make it easier to load when I brought the trailer around. It was nearly dark by the time I was finished but I knew it would save me some time and effort. I’d also had a mini garage sale while I was at it, getting rid of several big pieces of furniture that there was no way I would be able to take with me … mostly stuff that was left over from the divorce or from my parents that I hadn’t been able to make myself part with at the time … and some small items like clothes that I’d never wear again, some of my parents’ and brother’s clothes and shoes, and a little flotsam that had been following me around longer than it should have. A couple of sofas, a couple of chairs, a refrigerator and chest freezer, an ugly old coffee table that had belonged to my brother that made me realize just how crazy I had been there for a while. The heaviest items that remained were my cedar chest and the one that had belonged to my mother … both of which were handmade by our respective fathers to hold the things we had been saving until we had our own households but were now filled with family heirlooms and personal keepsakes. I would use a furniture dolly to move them but it wouldn’t be easy. I also finally and forever got rid of the few wedding mementos that I’d been hanging onto. My dress had been my mother in laws and it went back to her and then to her granddaughter. My bouquet had been a victim of one of my first emotional outbursts once I accepted the divorce had become inevitable. But I finally got rid of the napkins and other things though I couldn’t quite bring myself to put the pictures in the dumpster as well but more because they were also pictures of my parents and brother and mother in law in them. Maybe one day I’ll figure the rest out but that’s not happening right now.
Getting rid of the worst of the emotional flotsam, sofas, and other large items halved my burden but I still wondered if it would all fit. There was the bedstead that my father had made for me and the practically brand-new mattress set that went with it that had been our “guest bedroom” furniture because Kirk had wanted something more modern and king-sized for the master bedroom. The two cedar chests that held a lot of family heirlooms, linens, and photo albums. I still hadn’t brought myself to go beyond the top layer of my mother’s. My father’s tool chest and some of my brother’s mechanic equipment that my sister in law … ex sister in law … hadn’t managed to find when she ransacked his work truck. He’d given them to me to store until he could get a more permanent place to live. Heaven is a more permanent place, but he certainly doesn’t need the tools now … but I couldn’t part with them then and since I was told I would have a garage space of my own I got stubborn and decided not to part with them now. Then there was all of the storage tubs with the miscellaneous items and the ones with the food.
It was nearly dark by the time I got back to the apartment and I was filthy and tired. I also got the information that sent me off down Paranoid Parkway. I was getting my mail from my box when the wife of one of the on-site maintenance workers came over.
“Shanna … tu hombre aqui’ todo el dia esperando por usted.”
I knew just enough Spanish to get the general idea of what she’d said. “My man? What man?”
“Tu esposo.”
“My husband. You mean my ex-husband was here?”
“Si. Dejo hace 30 minutos. Le dejo un mensaje. Debajo de su Puerta.”
I looked at her and said, “Gracias.”
She smiled and waived me off as I jogged to my apartment trying not to look over my shoulder to see if Kirk was hiding out, waiting to pounce. Kirk had been waiting for me all day? Had only left thirty minutes before I had come home? And he’d left me a message under my door. Why, after nearly a year he was starting to do this I had no idea and was afraid to even guess. The divorce had been finalized almost half of that time. It just made me nauseous with worry.
I almost skidded on the paper that had been slipped under my door jam. It looked like he’d written the note on a piece of paper he’d torn out of the type of graphing notebook he used to sketch schematics in.
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Shanna, call me as soon as you get this note. We need to talk. This is very serious.
I know you said you have a new job – and I hope that is where you are at right now – but I asked around and no one knows where it is or who you are working for or basically anything about what is going on with you. I was surprised to find out you’ve cut everyone out of your life. Although I suppose I shouldn’t be; you’ve got walls as high as those at Jericho. But some of these people have known you longer than I have. And now you aren’t even answering your phone when you know people have to be worried about you. That’s just wrong. The only natural conclusion that can be arrived at is this new job is something others would consider highly inappropriate.
All of this just reinforces what I’ve witnessed myself over the last year or so, you’ve changed. And not for the better. I guess I missed the signs of how hard you took your parents’ and brother’s deaths. I’m sorry for that. Maybe you were right to get counseling after all. But it doesn’t seem like it has helped. Instead you’ve shut down and don’t talk to anyone.
What’s more I’ve been watching what is going on at this place you live. Why would you do this to yourself?! It isn’t healthy at all. My god, most of the people don’t even seem to know how to speak English. And if they do speak English, they do it with so little education you can barely understand them. No wonder you are acting so weird and paranoid. Anyone with any sensibilities would have dealing with the kind of crap I’ve seen today. Jesus, I had three whores proposition me while I’ve been waiting for you to come home. And a few times someone tried to sell me drugs. Is this really how far you’ve let yourself go?
I know we left things off in a bad place. I just couldn’t take it anymore. And not even me leaving seemed to wake you up. But this? Shanna I’m really worried about your well-being. If I don’t hear from you soon I am going to be back first thing in the morning and we are going to have this out one way or the other. You can’t keep living like this.
Call me dammit. I care what happens to you even if you don’t. Kirk
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After reading Kirk’s letter all I could do was stand there in the middle of taking off my shoes and stare at the piece of paper. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, pitch a fit, or just what. What I wound up getting the longer I thought about it was scared. Kirk had always been able to spin things to his advantage. He was so good at it that I’m pretty sure even he believed most of the BS he sometimes spouted. It took me a long time to admit that because he always spun such an easy picture to believe. And he even had the best of intentions while doing it which made it just that much easier to fall for.
All of the calls from people I hadn’t heard from in months suddenly made sense. Kirk had wanted information. I hadn’t given it to him so he was trying to use others to get it for him. In the process, and as a rationale, Kirk was painting a picture of me being in the process of losing my mind or something close to it. Why he would feel the need to do this I wasn’t sure, but maybe he needed to so he could have some kind of explanation of why I no longer acted the way he expected. His father’s birthday was probably part of it. He always cycled through a bit of depression when it came around. Now it seemed he was projecting his issues onto me. At least maybe. I don’t know. If it isn’t obvious, I’m pretty good at rationalizing things myself.
The problem was I couldn’t defend myself against some of the things he was likely to say. I have changed. Not necessarily for the reasons he thinks but I have changed. The deaths of the people I loved most in the world next to him did hurt more than he had been willing to recognize and that just added hurt on top of hurt; especially since I had been there for him during his own grieving process, going through it with him even though Mr. and Mrs. Field hadn’t been my biological parents. The place I lived did suck, and it did affect me, but not to the extreme he was assuming. And he was right, I hadn’t talked to most of my so-called friends for months, but that wasn’t completely by choice; it is pretty damn hard to talk to people and spend time with them when they don’t want that from you.
What he imagines his endgame to be I still have no clue, I just knew in that moment that there was a strong possibility that it was going to completely screw me over whether he saw it that way or not. If the process of the divorce had taught me nothing else it had taught me to recognize and be wary of Trojan horses.
I made the decision that I was going to be out of the apartment and away before he could show up. I scrambled to pack the last few items and to clean the rest of the apartment so I could turn it over with a clear conscience, not like I was skipping out in the middle of the night although I admit that is exactly what I was doing … just with paid bills instead of trying to avoid an eviction. By the time I was finished it was well beyond full dark and the apartment complex had grown quiet with most going to bed because they had jobs they had to be at early. I started carrying down the boxes that were left and I put them all in my backseat. Then I manhandled my mother’s chair into my trunk, tied it shut, took one last look around the apartment and then dropped the key into the office drop box. I didn’t know where I was going at first and it was getting too late to be driving around on that side of town so headed towards the lot where my brother’s trailer was.
I had twenty-four-hour access to the trailer and used it. I attached the trailer to the hitch and headed to the storage unit which I also had ‘round the clock access to. It was a struggle but I got the chair out of the trunk and moved it and everything that was left out of the storage unit into the trailer, and even managed to load it so that it was evenly distributed and wouldn’t shift around making the trailer hard to handle. It was after two in the morning when I finished and I was just about to run out of adrenaline but I couldn’t afford to stop; the problem was I had nowhere to go. In desperation I drove to the RV park my brother had worked for, and luckily the night security guard recognized me.
I told him, “I’ll pay for a spot. It’s just one night. I had to vacate my apartment a day early and my other plans got turned on their head.”
The guy laughed. “Man oh man, I’ve been there a couple of times myself.” After thinking for a second he said, “Sure. Why not. It’s only one night and we got the space as a buncha Snowbirds flew home. But you gotta be gone before nine. That’s when the boss gets here and he’ll wanna chew your ear off with stories of how missed your brother is around this place. Man, we’ve gone through five mechanics since he … left.”
I thanked him profusely again and he told me not to worry about it and go get some sleep, that he’d drive by in his golf cart a few times to make sure no one bothered me. Which I gratefully did even if I did have to do it sitting up in the driver’s seat.
I was up at daybreak and was able to leave only after he insisted on checking all my tires and making sure they had the right pressure for the load and road I would be traveling. It was a kind gesture I accepted in my brother’s memory and it saved me the cost and time of stopping at a garage. At nine I called Mr. Crocker. Ten o’clock found me at one last stop to get a couple of jugs of water and some deli items to hold me over so I wouldn’t have to eat fast food since my plan to make my own got tossed out the window. Out in the store parking lot I ate a fruit and yogurt cup and a granola bar. I also wrote a letter to Kirk.
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Kirk, I received your letter but my schedule is such I cannot call. That said, there’s no reason for you to worry. I’ll try and address your concerns but it will make this letter a little long winded and sound, as you often used to accused me of sounding when I was in a rush or stressed … “snappish” … so my apologies in advance.
First, while I appreciate your concern, it is misplaced. I haven’t cut anyone off. Some of our friends just didn’t know what to say after a while. Some acted like the divorce was a contagious disease they were afraid of contracting, and they withdrew on their own. You know who they are because they did it to you too, or so you said during the divorce proceedings when you thought I was the sole cause of it happening. Some just out and out blamed me because I couldn’t fix whatever it was that was that was making you so miserable; a couple even blamed me for your refusal to even attempt to fix things. Maybe you were on the receiving end of that as well; I don’t know, and it is way too late and unconstructive to start guessing. I refuse to start digging up bones at this late day.
As for people thinking I cut them off, mostly I think I stopped trying to force myself on people that my calls made uncomfortable when I accidentally overheard you and Patricia talking about how it seemed as if I was trying to manipulate people and make them feel sorry for me. The two of you made it clear during your discussion that others also thought the same thing. They say you never hear anything good about yourself when you listen into conversations. Well, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop but what I heard hurt. Who said it hurt worse. You and one of my oldest and closest friends. You were sitting right behind me in the movie theater and neither one of you ever realized I was sitting there; alone because another so-called friend called to cancel only after I’d already purchased my ticket and entered the movie auditorium. I couldn’t even sneak out of the theater because I was afraid of the potential confrontation and I was already embarrassed and hurt enough. I tried not to hear anything else but I did.
Your words and hers caused me to re-examine a lot of things. I was not consciously doing any such thing as manipulating people and don’t even believe I was doing it subconsciously, but it was then that I made the decision to be even more careful about what I said, how I said it, and who I said it to, than I had already become. My choice at that point was clear, and still is in hindsight regardless of how others may have perceived it. I wasn’t going to go around explaining myself or justifying myself only to watch that be twisted into something it wasn’t.
As for what occurred yesterday, you are misinterpreting it. I ran out of minutes on my phone. That sometimes happens. It happened yesterday specifically because I was inundated with calls from so many people that I hadn’t heard from since before the divorce was final. What should have lasted over a month of my normal usage, disappeared in less than half a day. When and if I can respond to everyone individually, I will. Right now I’m in the middle of moving and starting a new job. It is not always possible to do what we want right when we want. Obviously, by your own admission in your letter, you are still in contact with most everyone so please feel free to explain this should anyone ask.
Secondly, yes, as you pointed out I did go to counseling. It wasn’t easy but at the time I wanted to do everything I could to understand our problems and repair our marriage. The mediator and judge understood that. You allowed your lawyer to twist my attempts into something it wasn’t. That’s more bones that have been buried that I refuse to dig up, but it is tempting. The things you let that woman do is one of the main reasons why I have a hard time speaking with you. You may not have given her specific instructions, but you allowed her to do it, to destroy my reputation through innuendo and gossip and outright lies, to encourage and order others to do it as well, to crush my ability to get a job in teaching or even to sell items online. There’s been too much that has happened, too much that has been said, and it is extremely difficult not to say anything that might instigate yet one more altercation between us. Neither of us needs that. It isn’t constructive and it isn’t healthy and after all this time, completely pointless.
Thirdly, I am well aware that the apartment I was living in was far from where I had been at one point. Thank you for your concern but, in reality, it isn’t any of your concern. How you could possibly expect me to maintain our previous lifestyle on the wages I was making even before your lawyer, with specific intent, made sure I didn’t get any more calls for substitute teaching positions has zero logic. It took both of us to pay the bills we had when we lived together as man and wife. When you left it meant that 75% of the household income ceased. It required an adjustment on my part to deal with my new reality. It is a point of pride for me that I did it without running around whining about it to others. I did, at the suggestion of a person at the employment office, make a complaint against your lawyer with the Florida bar as well as several legal review websites. If you are still missing your mother’s jewelry and cannot gain satisfaction from your former lawyer, I suggest you contact these people as well. The woman has multiple complaints against her for a broad range of things; someone might be able to assist you or point you in the right direction.
Lastly, about my well-being. That isn’t yours to be concerned about anymore than my location of residence is. You made the choice to walk out. You made the choice not to participate in any effort to repair what was our marriage. You made the choice to pursue a divorce. You therefore need to accept that you have lost all rights over me and it is by your own choice.
Unfortunately, I am sure some people – possibly even you – are going to view this situation as intentionally hurtful but that can’t be helped. I need a fresh start and to that end I am going to make a new life for myself, and that includes a new job in a new location. I hope you can understand and at least wish the best for me as I do for you as the divorce has insured that we now must move on with our lives separately. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to go with you to your father’s grave for his birthday but I know that the man he was would understand and I hope that you eventually do. I also wish for you that your relationship with your sister continues to improve and that you both heal. Good luck Kirk. I mean that sincerely. Shanna
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I debated whether to mail the letter to Kirk roughly a gazillion times but in the end I felt I owed it to him … and perhaps more importantly I owed it to myself. Maybe I could have written less. Maybe I should have written more. Maybe making a copy of the letter for my own records was a little paranoid. I don’t know, I simply did the best I could in good conscience. The divorce was his choice. Now moving on and starting a new life was my choice. And I am doing it on my terms which to me means at least trying to be a decent person in the process, even if he didn’t offer me the same consideration during the divorce. I have to be able to live with myself long term, not just get some temporary satisfaction in the moment.