“I’ve made up my mind and I’m not changing it. I will be here in the morning with a truck to get my things.”
“Joe, we haven’t even been married a year.”
He walked past me and out the door.
Could I have done something to make him happier? Was I a bad wife?
I’d been married twice by now, and regardless of each situation, I knew I was the common denominator. What am I going to do? The sofa and a blanket brought some comfort, but I wanted my mother badly.
I dialed her number. “Mother, Joe has left me,” I sobbed.
“What do you mean? I don’t understand!” she replied.
I told her of his recent behavior and my concerns about his relationship with Sherri. She said, “You need to call Greg and talk to him. Rhonda, have you looked into Joe’s phone records or receipts or charge cards?”
“No,” I said, “but that’s a great idea, Mother.” We hung up and I began my search. It didn’t take long before the evidence was right before me.
He’d made several long-distance calls to Sherri late at night when he was out of town. I could see how easy it had been because they both traveled. I wondered if they’d been in the same cities.
I called one of my best friends whom I had not seen in a while and she came right over. To my surprise, she had a lot to say.
“Rhonda, I never did trust him. He just had an air about him that he thought he was better than the rest of us.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you seemed so happy. I didn’t want to be the one to disrupt the future you wanted. But I’m not the only one who felt that way. Our other friends did, as well,” she confided.
My friend continued, “Rhonda, this may be a blessing in disguise. It’s good that you found out what kind of man he is before you had children with him.”
She left me to my thoughts. I realized something was telling me to settle this as quickly as possible and not to make him mad. I had seen his temper occasionally and I wasn’t sure what would happen if I confronted him about the real reason he was leaving.
After a restless night’s sleep, I awoke just as he was supposed to arrive with his moving truck. I looked rough, but I didn’t care.
Surprisingly, he rang the doorbell, even though he still had a key. He brought in some boxes and began packing his clothes. We had sold the few pieces of furniture he had before we married, so I knew it wouldn’t take long for him to pack what little he had. I sat and drank coffee and watched closely what he was choosing to take without saying a word.
He loaded the pickup truck and slammed the tailgate, indicating that he was done. I walked over and asked for the key.
As much as I tried, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “You are not fooling me, Joe. I looked at phone records last night, along with American Express charges.”
He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “You don’t want to mess with me, Rhonda.”
Something told me to let him go. He got in the truck and drove away.
On Monday morning, I filed for divorce from husband number two.
TWELVE
“…I was brought low, and He saved me.”
Psalm 116:6
Isat in my house after filing for divorce the second time, wondering what in the world had just happened. If I could rewind the last fifteen months and go back to the day that Joe stepped into my world, what would I do differently?
First of all, I would have listened to my mother and slowed down the fast-paced romance and looked more closely at the man with the deceitful twinkle in his eye. I’d been so desperate to get married that I placed blinders over my eyes in order to get what I wanted—a husband.
Secondly, he didn’t have any friends. Why had I not questioned that more? My mind raced with thoughts of him and Sherri. How long had they been having an affair?
Why did he want her and not me?
She’s smarter.
She’s funny.
She’s so thin.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I not only felt deceived by him, but by her, as well. I had trusted both of them and they had used me.
Now I was faced with the consequences of my choices. If I wore a scarlet letter after the first divorce, I had just increased the font size of the A to cover my entire chest.
What would Brother James say? Would God forgive me again? And the people at home in Bumpus Mills, what will they think of me?
There were so many questions. Where is Greg? I wondered. I tried to call him, but he never answered. He and Sherri had been married for a few years. Was she really going to leave him for Joe? Plus, Greg was a very successful man and had provided a lifestyle for Sherri that might not be easy for Joe to keep up with.
Stop this. I can’t let this get me down. I’ve been through worse, I told myself.
I threw myself into work and became reacquainted with my friends, who brought a lot of comfort and encouragement. In sixty short days I would be single again.
**********
Halloween fell on a Saturday night that fall and my sales partner, Landis, mentioned that he and his roommate were going to have a party. Landis also lived in Little Rock. We didn’t see each other that often, but he was a lot of fun to be around.
“Hey, Rhonda, come over on Saturday night. A bunch of people are coming to hang out. You need to get on with life and quit letting Joe drag you down. As a matter of fact, I think you should meet my roommate Troy,” Landis said.
“You have got to be kidding. The last thing I need right now is another man,” I replied.
“This guy is different,” he assured me.
“Like I haven’t heard that before. Has he ever been married?” I scoffed.
“Well, no. But he’s a real good guy.”
“Why would a really good guy that has never been married before want to go out with someone like me?” I questioned sarcastically.
I could tell Landis’s persistence would continue, and since his description of this Troy guy seemed very sincere, I let my guard down a little, even though my divorce wasn’t yet final.
“Okay. Maybe I will come, if for no other reason than to just get out of the house,” I told Landis.
Guard down, I went to the party. And the first person I met was Troy. Much to my chagrin, we had an instant attraction.
Troy Madge was not only attractive and fit, but he was fun. His thick hair was coal black, which complimented his tanned skin nicely.
I observed him as he socialized with the crowd. Thank goodness he has a lot of friends, I thought. He seemed to be great with people. Probably because he, too, was in sales, except in the window-covering industry.
The night ended with what seemed to be mutual intrigue. But I wouldn’t jump in with both feet. I decided to tiptoe through the tulips for a while.
A couple of weeks later, two weeks closer to freedom, a friend and I went to the Holiday Inn bar. They had live music and we both needed to get out for the night. As we sat at the bar sipping our cocktails, I heard my name. I twirled my barstool around and was greeted by a huge smile.
“Well, hi, Troy! Fancy seeing you here!” I smiled.
He had a friend with him and the four of us danced until the bar closed. It felt good to laugh and have fun again.
“Hey, would you like to have dinner with me on Saturday night?” Troy asked as we walked to our cars.
Did he know I was still married? I wondered if Landis had told him the details of my life. Surely he wouldn’t be interested if he knew.
“I would like that, Troy.”
I was excited to see him again, but a little apprehensive, too. I had to tell him the truth about my situation and I couldn’t imagine how he’d receive it. We went for a lovely dinner, but I kept looking over my shoulder, wondering what I would do if Joe walked in. After dinner we decided to go back to the house he shared with Landis. I took it as an opportunity to tell him about my past.
I couldn’t control the tears as I explained I had bee
n divorced once eight years prior, but as life would have it, I was currently going through a second split.
Minutes seemed like hours before he said anything.
“So? My mom has been married three times,” he stated matter-of-factly.
Did this mean he was indifferent to the idea of divorce? At the least, he didn’t seem to be judging me, as I had feared he would, but what did marriage mean to him?
The good-night kiss came with a tenderness that I desired desperately. Landis might have been right: Troy did seem different.
We continued dating even though the divorce was still a couple of weeks away. The attorney said it wasn’t any big deal unless my ex made a stink about it. I assured him that he had left me for another. I assumed we didn’t have to worry about that.
Over the course of dating and long conversations, I learned that Troy had been through a lot in his life, as well. His father had left him and his mother when he was only two years old. His mom then got remarried to a man by the name of Robert shortly after the first marriage dissolved, raising Troy to believe the new husband was his real dad.
Troy recounted stories from his childhood. “I was too young to remember, but Mom has told me about Robert beating me until I was black and blue on the nights he drank too much. He could not drink without getting violent. I’m not sure what I would have done without my mom. She protected me, that was for sure. One night Robert asked me to feed the chickens. Mom said I started crying because I was scared. Robert picked me up over his head to throw me to the ground. Mom screamed at him, ‘Put him down right now, and if you ever touch him again, I will kill you!’”
He continued, “Things changed for a little while after Mom delivered her second child, my brother Glenn, when I was four years old. However, it didn’t take long before Robert returned to his old lifestyle, hanging out with friends for a few beers. On those nights, we waited cautiously for his return. I remember well the night I stood in the doorway of the bathroom and watched him push my mom’s head into a tub of water, then rip her dress off. I was too scared to do anything. Mom never knew I saw that until recently.” He lowered his head.
“Then there was the day I won’t ever forget. I think I was around ten. I was sick and tired of the way Robert treated all of us. He didn’t hit me anymore, but that was because Mom had become his new punching bag. Grandma, Mom, Glenn, and I were in the car headed to Denver to see some family and get away from him. Glenn and I were in the backseat when I told Mom that I didn’t want Robert as my dad anymore. She turned around and looked at me, and said, ‘Troy, he isn’t your real father anyway.’
“I was shocked, yet overjoyed. ‘If he isn’t my dad, then who is?’ I asked. For the first time, I was told the truth about my mom’s first husband, my dad.”
He continued to explain that it wasn’t long after their return from Denver when his mom packed up the boys and moved in with his grandma. He said his grandfather had just passed away, leaving his grandma alone to run the window-covering business by herself. It made sense to support her.
After his mom left Robert, it opened the door for Troy to meet his real dad. He said, “To meet the person who I was supposed to call Dad yet knew nothing about was very strange. When I first saw him, all I could think about was how weird his gray hair was. Then I found out that it was a toupee. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would choose to have hair that looked like Bozo’s, but I couldn’t deny he was my father. Without the hair, I felt as though I was looking at myself in the mirror.”
Troy’s dad had remarried after leaving him and his mom. This woman had a son of her own, and the two of them gave birth to another son named Brian. Unfortunately, this wife died, leaving his father to raise Brian and her son alone.
I became confused. “So you have how many brothers?”
He smiled and answered, “It is confusing. I have a brother from my mother and Robert, who is Glenn. Then I have a brother from my dad and his wife, who is Brian. The other son my dad raised, because his mother died, isn’t really related to me. So I have two half-brothers. Make sense now?”
I learned that Troy and Brian had gone on fishing trips together with Glenn. Their big joke was, “Whose brother are you anyway?”
After hearing about his life, I realized this guy was resilient even after facing so much adversity. “Troy, what did you do for fun growing up? Did you play sports?”
“Yeah, sports meant everything to me. I played them all, but football was my favorite. Looking back, I guess a ball served as a distraction from all the craziness around me. Besides, there wasn’t much else to do in Sioux City. I was told I was somewhat gifted and driven, which made a good combination.”
His story continued to evolve. “We hadn’t lived with Grandma for long when Mom started joining her for drinks. The drinking led to nights out, where Mom soon met her third husband. Once again we packed up and moved. This time to a farm across the state line in Nebraska. Our new home was just thirty minutes away from Grandma, so Mom continued to make draperies for the business. Looking back now, a defining moment in my life was when Grandma decided it was time to train me to install the window coverings they designed. It was good money for a fifteen-year-old, so I didn’t mind one bit, but what she taught me was invaluable. I learned not only about installations, but the window-covering industry in general, which landed me this career with Kirsch, a manufacturer of drapery hardware. I was given the sales territory in Arkansas, which is how I ended up here.”
Troy explained that his mom’s third husband was a hardworking man with a big heart. But unfortunately, for unclear reasons, they were only married about five years. Thankfully, those years allowed Troy to start and graduate from New Castle High School.
“Rhonda, you need to understand that my mom and grandma are alcoholics. It’s the reason I don’t drink to get drunk. I enjoy having a couple of beers, but I don’t get drunk because I’ve seen what it can do to a person.”
I wanted to ask him about church, but I hesitated. Why do I care? I asked myself. What does it matter? In my gut, it did matter. “Do you go to church, Troy?”
“I grew up Catholic, but honestly it’s been a long time since I went to Mass. What about you?”
“I joined a church here in Little Rock before Joe and I got married. He didn’t want to go, though, so I haven’t been back since.”
**********
The court date to dissolve my second marriage drew closer, and the more time I spent with Troy, the more I liked him. We enjoyed cooking and watching movies together. It was a nice change from the bar scene. With steaks marinating, candles lit, and placemats on the table, I heard a light knock at the door.
It was always great to see him. This particular night seemed more relaxed than others as we put the meat on the grill and sipped our glasses of wine. The stars were shining and the air was crisp. The smell of a neighbor’s wood burning lingered, reminding me of home.
We finished up dinner and I cleared the table in anticipation of snuggling on the couch. Troy excused himself to use the bathroom just as the doorbell rang.
Unfortunately, I opened the door without checking to see who it was. I had to think quickly in order to duck and miss the fist coming right at my face. The fist belonged to Joe, and the smell of alcohol on him was strong. I screamed for Troy and ran out into the cul-de-sac with Joe chasing close behind. Troy ran out of the house, and just as he reached me, Joe took a swing at him, too. Fortunately, Joe was still dressed in his business clothes and dress shoes with slippery soles. He lost his footing and fell to the ground, allowing Troy and I to run back inside the house.
We locked the front door and called the police, just as we heard glass shattering from the garage. I was frantically talking to an emergency responder on the phone when suddenly Joe appeared at the atrium doors, kicking the door with all his strength and yelling, “I will kill you both if it’s the last thing I do!”
The police could hear his threats and told us they were on their way. As quickly
as Joe appeared, he vanished. By the time the police arrived, he wasn’t anywhere to be found. As the cops talked and the story unfolded, we realized Joe had probably been sitting in the backyard observing our dinner through the glass doors. Had he been out there when we were grilling the steaks? My dinner began to churn in my stomach as I thought about him watching us. I could not hide my emotions as I began to shake.
The cops advised us to leave town and give Joe a few days to cool off. “Is there any place that you can go that he would not think to look?”
Troy and I decided to drive to his mom’s in Sioux City, Iowa, and visit his family. After packing light suitcases, we hit the road while holding hands the entire distance.
Joe was in the military. He is cunning and smart.
Fear overcame me as I played different scenarios over and over in my mind. Troy was steady as a rock, assuring me that we would be okay.
The big question I deliberated on was why had Joe snapped in the first place? He had left me. Had Sherri decided not to leave Greg, causing Joe to face the reality that he had left me for no reason? I knew him well enough to know he didn’t like making wrong decisions, especially ones that made him look like an idiot.
We stayed four days with Troy’s family and decided it was time to return home. The first thing I did was secure a restraining order against Joe, hoping that a little applied pressure would keep it from happening again. I knew once he had sobered up, he would come to his senses and realize if he wasn’t careful, he could ruin his reputation.
What if he comes back? Is he capable of wounding more than my emotions? Did I even know who this man really was?
Tormented by my thoughts, my cozy little home didn’t seem safe anymore. My attorney contacted Joe with a bill for the broken windows in the garage. The check arrived shortly thereafter, enclosed in a blank piece of paper.
My attorney also warned me that because the divorce was filed under “irreconcilable differences,” it meant both parties agreed to the arrangement. He said if Joe showed up in front of the judge, the divorce would not be granted. His irrational behavior was certainly cause for concern.
Hindsight Page 8