I'm exhausted -- and I'm writing this while working on my project for the judge AND watching Lost. Thing Twosies had her bday today. It went as well as a ridiculously full day can go. We had ice cream sundaes, and they were yummy.

Work turned into real work today! Things went well. I found myself sooooo happy that I suffered through Corporations all last quarter. I knew at the time that it wasn't the material that was bothering me as much as the class itself. The professor, the way the class was run, all of that. But I did learn something, b/c when a Rule 10b-5 issue came up, it was NOT Greek to me. Woo hoo!!

Now, onto the rest of the story [sigh. this is always a VERY emotionally draining story to re-live.]

_____________________________________

We left off with me forgiving and forgetting the gift of $$ from the Bad Lady. During the next semester, He was working on a paper which was an expansion of his law school "thesis" (what they were calling the writing requirements at the time). She was helping him. She was calling a lot, still. I remember one day she called, right after Thing One was born, and she asked how I was doing, and I said I was fine. She asked if I was tired, that after her daughter was born, pregnant, she was tired all the time. I said no, I felt great and was not tired at all. I was snotty. How big and strong of me.

I was lost in my own world for some time. Thing One was very little, Schlurg was honestly never around. I was a bit out of it, I think. I don't even remember those initial months. I know that Schlurg and I were so miserable, and at one point, we were talking about me leaving and spending some time with my parents. I remember one night, after I finally got the baby to sleep, I went to bed. Schlurg and I were either fighting - or so distant that we had not enough feeling for one another to fight. he was asleep, and i was awake, and miserable. Lying in bed next to him, while he was snoring, thinking of how awful things were. I spoke aloud - quietly - but aloud. "I hate you. I hate you so much, and i am so unhappy, and I hate this life, and I hate you hate you hate you for making me this way."

He told me later - many years later - during the divorce - that he was not asleep. He heard everything I said. He said nothing to me - not then, not the next day.

Then one day, we got a hang up call. We often got these hang up calls. I had become accustomed to them - they were almost constant in our entire marriage. This day, things were bad, I was in a bad mood, and when the hang up call went away, I dialed *69. I did this often with the hang up calls, but almost every time, I would get the message about the number being out of the calling area. This time, She answered the phone on the other end.

I was not surprised that it was her voice. (her voice was VERY distinctive, and I'm sure it still is. It's a smoker's voice like you would not believe.) It took me a very little while after the call was over to realize that if she answered the phone .... she was not in the state where she was supposed to be. She was there. In CA. And local.

Right after I used *69, the phone rang again (within 5 minutes), and this time, she asked for my husband. I told her he wasn't home, and she asked that he call her. She did not leave a number. He got home, I told him to call her, and he did. We had plans .... I forget where we were going, but it was something for me (I can't imagine what that was - I had no life. I think it may have been a book reading at a local bookstore). But he left. he went to meet her at a cafe. (he told me she was in town, and insisted on seeing him, and he had to go).

When he returned, he told me that she was "messed up" - and then we did whatever it was we had planned for that night.

one day soon after, Schlurg's father called. Schlurg's father NEVER called. He and Schlurg's mother were divorced when he was 3, and his father moved to another country. I saw him less than 5 times in our entire marriage. for about 2 hours, tops, each time. So it was very odd that he called.

I remember that Schlurg was in the shower. When I told him that his father was on the phone, he JUMPED out of the shower, soap in his hair, grabbed a towel, and in 2 seconds was in his study with the door closed. he was wet (obviously) and had stepped on our floor heater, and burned it. I heard it sizzle. It turned into blisters.

They were on the phone for some time. Schlurg then got back in the shower to rinse off, dressed, and came to talk to me. He told me that [brace yourself] the Professor had personally funded the $25,000 "fellowship." She had since then sort of cracked. Her husband found out that she cleaned out their savings, and was pissed. She then started talking about things like ... alternate realities. Apparently [according to Schlurg] her first phase was saying that Schlurg was Christ come again, and she was ... i don't know, his wife. Then she was begging him to .... um, live with her. That they could both teach at a school across the water, and have an apartment in the city. He asked what she proposed he was to do with me, and she said he could have us both. One on each side of the Bay, apparently. Then, when he did not acquiesce, she instead said that he was Satan. The antichrist. All kinds of weird things. Also according to him, she started to have some time-shifting issues. Where she thought they were in the very distant past together.

Somehow, in this state, she managed to call his father (in another COUNTRY - they don't even have the same last name!!! How was she to know how to contact him? How did she know the country? How did she know how to find him?) and tell him that if he did not give her $25,000, she would tell ME about their affair. I guess she demanded that Schlurg pay her back, but he refused, on account of us barely making our rent each month. I think her husband was involved in these demands.

the deal was that Schlurg's father would make monthly payments if Professor and her husband promised not to contact ME. Schlurg's father did not believe him when he said that there was, in fact, no affair. Schlurg's father had affairs aplenty, and he was always quite miffed when Schlurg's mother interfered, or got upset. So for him, this was not really such a big deal.

Professor and her husband did not hold their half of the bargain. The husband called me. He yelled at me. I don't remember the specifics. I remember I was scared, and confused, and didn't want to believe any of this. I also remember that day so well. So many things were blowing up - the phone calls (hang ups, yelling, incoherent babbling) were going on all day - Schlurg was at the school, in the library, working. Thing One was 6 months old, and she obviously picked up on the tension, b/c I think she slept for 24 hours straight that day.

Schlurg went about his business. He played basketball, he went to school at 7, and was home around 11. I was scared. I pictured this woman trying to break into my home. Showing up at my doorstep, trying to hurt my baby. Her husband showing up with a gun. I closed my curtains, and I hid inside.

Her husband called babbling about how my husband made this mess, and it was his job to make things right - that it was his responsibility - that it was the right thing to do - nothing specific, nothing to clear things up - and I didn't have the guts to ask --- not yet. First he asked to talk to Schlurg. I said "who's this?" and he said "let me talk to schlurg!!!" i said he wasn't home - and he swore and cursed, and then babbled.

That night, Schlurg was all apology, and Mr. Sad, all "oh, you were right all along, this is so awful, i'm so sorry i've put you through this." We watched a movie. It was something with Salma Hayek - Fools Rush In.

I don't remember sequentially where it happened - but one day, while Schlurg was playing basketball, I went through his stuff. I found a poem in his school bag written in her handwriting - it was not a fax, it was original ink. I felt like that meant he had seen her, had been receiving mail from her, or something face-to-face. When I confronted him with it, he said he had "no idea" how it ended up in his bag.

I also went through his study. [and i defy someone to tell me that was wrong of me, at this point]. I found something that is likely the thing that troubles me most to this day - it was the notepad he had with him when he went to CA to find us a place to live. I knew that he stayed in the Claremont Hotel in berkeley, b/c SHE had a coupon for a free stay. I knew that she had hooked him up with people in the area, and that she gave him leads. but this was a notepad with addresses he had written down while there, and right in the middle of the page, was her handwriting.

I think she was there with him. I asked him once - I think during our divorce (which was, to give some context, at least 3 years after this chaos). He denied it. But i remember while he was gone, and I was staying behind in Alabama. She called toward the end of his stay, and I knew at the time that it was odd that she called. She was the one who sent him on the trip. She KNEW he was gone!! I think that she was with him, and she called the house in order to cover themselves in my eyes.

Yet, I let it all go. i said okay. I wanted to be happy and safe. I didn't want to tell anyone that my marriage was fucked up. Our families were (are still) born-agains. So was almost all of our social contacts. how could I be *that person*? How could I do that to my kids? (oh, it was singular then). Furthermore, how could I survive? Thing One and I were practically symbiotic. I couldn't WORK. I couldn't support myself. I didn't want to run home to mommy and daddy.

So I let it go. I believed him. I tried to be happy.

And the next 6 months, as far as I can remember, were relatively quiet.

Tomorrow will have to bring Part III. I really need to wake up early tomorrow and go running.

posted by Zuska @ 10:01 PM

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