I slammed the door. It reminded me too much of a couple of months back, when I had accepted an envelope for John at the door. It was a summons from a bill collector. John got angry with me and told me never to accept anything from someone I didn’t know.
I needed a drink. I made my way to the bar, fixed a rum and Coke, and relaxed on one of the stools. I spun around to look into the room, at all of John’s Navy nostalgia hanging on the wall ... seven historical Navy prints, the DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP flag, the porthole mirror, John’s medals.... John’s medals? I couldn’t believe my eyes. The case with John’s military medals was gone.
Maybe he’d put them on the floor. I slid off the stool to look behind his chair. They weren’t there. I looked next to the Wurlitzer jukebox and into our liquor closet. Not there either. I gave up, grabbed my drink, and sat down on the couch to watch the evening news. Gobi and Gaby joined me, one on each side, and laid their heads in my lap. About half an hour later, I heard the back door open. “I’m home,” John called out. The dogs barked as they ran into the foyer.
“I’m in the family room.”
“How’s my gal?” he drawled as he sauntered over and kissed me on the forehead.
“Not good,” I said. I grabbed the remote and turned the TV off. “Look at the cards on the bar.”
John picked them up, scanned them, and flipped them back on the bar. “Don’t worry about it,” he said nonchalantly. “It might have something to do with Bruce Wenden. The FBI is investigating him on securities fraud. I told him he had to be careful when looking for investment capital.”
“Is that where you were?”
“Yeah, he called me, all upset, so I went down to talk with him.”
“Why didn’t you let me know?”
“It happened so fast. I had to get down there. Sorry, I just didn’t have time to call. At least I wrote a note.”
His explanation seemed reasonable enough, and he was home safe and sound. I remembered what else bothered me. “Where are your framed medals?”
“They’re gone?” He walked over to the empty spot on the wall. “Must have been one of your godson’s friends at the surprise sixteenth birthday party we gave him last week. He said he wanted to borrow them for a school project or something.”
John slipped into his recliner chair, hoisted his feet into the air, and clicked the remote to turn on the television. Strange, I was more upset about the missing medals than John seemed to be. Why would he lend them out and not say anything to me about it? I went into the kitchen and called my godson. “He said no one borrowed your medals,” I reported, walking back into the family room. “I’m worried about what happened to them.”
“Oh, I just remembered. Guess my brain is fuzzy from the long drive home. I took them to the frame shop to have the frame fixed. It was coming apart at one corner.”
“Why would you leave all your medals in it?”
“Don’t be a worrywart. They’ll be fine. Come on, let’s fix dinner. Do you want grilled steak tonight?”
We walked into the kitchen and started dinner together. My world was spinning out of control and I couldn’t find the button to shut it off. The payment from Jason was now nine months late. I still had not met John’s family. John continued spending. He had cancelled his appearance as the guest speaker at the Navy ball during Fleet Week. The medals disappeared and the FBI appeared. For each instance, John had an explanation, with enough of a kernel of truth inside to make it seem plausible. Still, I felt unsettled; although I couldn’t pinpoint the uneasiness, I knew it was there, a small voice whispering in my ear. For the second time in a month the voice had broken through. Once more, without thinking, the words tumbled from my mouth. “John, who are you?”
“What!” He slammed the refrigerator and stared at me.
“Who are you?” I repeated.
“You asked me that in October,” he said, “when I was in Madrid on business, and you called to let me know you were okay after the Loma Prieta earthquake.” John walked to the sink and set the package of steak on the blue tile counter. I put my hand on his arm. He recoiled at my touch. I looked him in the eye. He glanced away. But I would not give up.
“You told me you would answer my question when you got home, but you never have. Some days I feel I don’t know you anymore,” I said, grabbing the romaine to fix the salad. “Coupled with my dad’s illness, it’s draining me emotionally.”
“You know who I am.” He laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
I tore the lettuce into tiny bits into the plastic bowl, harder, faster, then froze and glared at John. “No, I don’t believe I do. I’ve never talked to your family. Jason hasn’t paid the two hundred thousand dollars. After eight years of marriage I still don’t have my military ID. Now the FBI shows up at our door.”
“You know there’s a good explanation for each one, don’t you?” he snapped. “Lady, you’re something else.”
“But you promised and...”
“I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.” He turned away abruptly and strode toward the foyer, but at the door he yelled in pain and crumpled to the floor, his knees landing hard on the oak parquet. “Damn leg!”
I ran to help him up.
“Get away from me,” he commanded as he crawled toward the brick planter. “You don’t care about me.” He righted himself and limped upstairs. John’s health had continued to worsen. Didn’t he know I cared for him? After all, I was the one who’d insisted on getting the new spa to soothe his back and legs. I would just have to be careful how hard I pushed him. I set the salad bowl in the refrigerator, made us both a drink, and went upstairs to smooth things over. It was what I did best.
That evening, I didn’t realize that the FBI standing on my porch was the beginning of what I now call my Crazy Year, a time when unusual events gnawed away at my sanity, leaving me feeling confused and unsure of myself, when all I wanted was a loving and financially stable marriage. I had no reason to suspect that the FBI visit had anything to do with John. And the missing medals? Why would I think they might be connected to an official investigation? I don’t know what I expected John to tell me—but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that John was a lying, devious psychopath with a different agenda for our marriage. So I ignored the whispers in my ear. That evening, as I soothed the situation over once more with John in our office, I made a mental note that I had to try harder to change John’s nonchalant attitude toward our finances. When I did, everything would be fine. I disregarded the warning signs as the storm gathered momentum.
Looking back, I now see that my outlandish behavior with John developed as it did over the years because I had been caught in the crazymaking web of a master psychopath. I had lost my sense of self. Although I realized deep inside that I was drowning in a turbulent storm, I didn’t know how or where to yell for help. So I did the only thing I knew. I relied on my planning skills and organizational ability to try to change John; an impossible task, I know now, because no one can change another person, let alone a psychopath with no conscience.
As stressful as my life had been with John up to now, it paled in comparison with what was to follow during the next year.
Nearly a month later, near midnight on New Year’s Eve, we slipped into the steaming spa in our backyard. John poured champagne into our Waterford hocks, and I gazed at the clear winter sky while I melted into the warm water.
“It’s almost the new year. Here,” John said, handing me a glass.
Neighborhood firecrackers popped in the air. “Happy New Year,” we chimed together as our glasses clinked. John bent over and gave me a long, passionate kiss.
My lips quivered as I remembered the past month. John and I had plunged into the holiday spirit and the traditions we created together. We elaborately decorated our two artificial trees and set out the collector Christmas village. We bought and wrapped presents for each other and family and friends, bustling about and keeping busy. I hoped the activity would quell my conti
nued uneasiness. I could blame it on holiday stress. It didn’t work.
Deep down I understood the source of my depression. John had continued to be evasive. He had not answered my question but did offer a ray of hope. On the night we returned from my father’s birthday celebration, I was feeling upset after seeing how crippled my dad had become since his stroke. John sensed my pain. He promised he would reveal who he was on New Year’s Eve, in the spa. A special time for a new beginning, he said.
Now, as our lips separated, I waited for John to begin. The frosty winter air hung silently between us. I wanted to break the ice. Patience, Barbara, patience, I admonished myself. I knew I had to be careful, so I decided to jump-start our conversation with something that had been developing over the past several months but which I had only recognized in the last several weeks.
“John, you’re not going to Silicon Valley anymore, or talking to the East Coast. Is it getting to be too much for you? Do you want to retire?”
John hung his head. “I don’t know.” He sighed. “I just don’t have the stomach for all the political games with our different customers anymore.”
“We can plan around it, if you want to stop working. We could sell this house and move back to Antioch. With our profit here, we could be comfortable. We’d just have to cut back our spending.”
“I don’t want to talk about moving.”
“Well, what gives?”
John told me that clients of our Two Star Incorporated no longer needed John’s services. The news hit me hard. “Is that why you started playing so many sweepstakes?” I gasped.
“Yeah, I thought I could get lucky and bring in some money that way.”
“That’s gambling! You’ll never get ahead that way. Besides, we don’t have the extra money to buy ten magazines, let alone find the time to read them all, and you need to stop buying that stuff from the United States Purchasing Exchange.”
“You have to make a purchase to be entered in their sweepstakes.”
“John, it’s all crap. No quality, and definitely not anything we need. What we do need is a feasible plan, not a plan based on Lady Luck.”
“Back off. We have some money due. It should make you happy that I still have a commission check coming from the sale of some surplus equipment for Foxboro.”
I dropped back into silence and gulped down the last of my champagne. John quickly refilled my glass. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “Just wait and see.”
“Just wait and see? Like tonight, when you were going to tell me who you are?”
“You’re right. I made a promise. Now don’t interrupt me,” he said, putting his finger to my lips. Words spilled out of his mouth and I couldn’t believe my ears. I became nauseated, then angry. It was the same old story of being born in Costa Rica on his family’s finca, of being the black sheep. On and on, through his marriages, and children, and military exploits, he tried to cast his spell, but this time I wasn’t buying. My delight at a new beginning vanished into disgust.
“Same old shit,” I spat when he finally stopped. “I’m getting out.” He grabbed my arm and held me. I didn’t move.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve told the truth all along. I don’t know why you don’t believe me.”
“I guess because you’ve never proved any of it. There’s never any family to talk to. There’s no military ID. There’s no money from Jason. You name it, you haven’t come through.”
“Please be patient, Barbara. I love you very much. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. It will all work out. I’ll think of something.”
“With all your assets, you should have been able to do something by now,” I ranted. “And, speaking of assets, we don’t even have a comprehensive list of what they are. What would happen if you died?”
“If I get the list together, will you be happy?”
“I wouldn’t call it happy, but it would be a step forward.”
“My attorney from Long Beach is coming to San Francisco in a couple of weeks. I’ll get together with him and put it all down. I promise.”
He put his arm around my shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze. Then he kissed me on the top of my head. I wanted everything to be all right. I was desperate. I felt I was slowly going crazy. So I made a plan.
“Okay, I’ll go with you when he comes.” I had to try to direct the outcome, to get John to finalize a commitment, even if getting him to commit was like trying to catch the wind. Somewhere deep inside me a little voice had rumbled, but I failed to follow through. Right now, once more, I felt in control. Or was it just the effervescence of the champagne? Either way, I chose to ignore the dark clouds that continued to swirl around our marriage.
In hindsight, I should have bolted from the hot tub and not looked back. I had given John plenty of chances to change, to prove his elusive stories, to come through with the money to sweep away our debt. Why would I stay? What anchored me to a situation where my exasperation made me feel like I was going crazy? I didn’t recognize at the time that I was a victim of domestic abuse or the mark of a psychopath. I believe now that it was the fear and shame of a domestic abuse victim combined with the psyche of a practicing codependent (me) who had the misfortune to hook up with a psychopath (John). Subconsciously I feared the unknown of what would happen to me if John were no longer available to help extricate us from our financial mess. With another divorce, I was ashamed my family and friends would see me as a second-time loser. I still believed in “happily ever after, until death do us part.” The challenge for me was to make it be happy, a burden many codependents carry. So that New Year’s Eve, while I was intent on moving our marriage forward, I failed to connect John’s lack of work with the FBI visit, and I placated my inner stirrings with getting a list of John’s elusive property. The approaching storm intensified, but I didn’t notice.
FIFTEEN
Deceitful Winds
Four months later, on Easter Sunday, we were in Hot Springs, Arkansas, at my grandfather’s house. By the time we finished dinner, dark ominous clouds had rolled over the setting sun and the crickets began their nightly serenade. “Looks like rain,” John announced as he scoured the last of the pans.
“Yup. I can feel it in my bones,” Grandpa Jonas added, “and sniff it in the air.”
“It can’t rain until tomorrow afternoon,” I said, as if I could control the weather. “We all have flights in the morning.”
I dried the dishes while my sister Meredith tidied up the table. I was sad and Meredith and Grandpa Jonas were, too. He sat hunched over the table, nursing his lukewarm cup of coffee, on this, the last night of our four-day visit. “It’s going to be mighty lonely,” Grandpa mourned. It had been three years since Grandma passed away.
“We’ll be back, Jonas. I promise,” John said, drying his hands. We all sat down and joined Grandpa.
“I just wish you had gone to the baths with us, Grandpa,” Meredith said, reaching over and giving his wrinkled hand a tender squeeze.
“Been here all my life and never saw a need to do it,” he drawled.
I had visited my mother’s family in Hot Springs many times, but had never soaked in the thermal waters of Bathhouse Row. This trip was different. I desperately needed the hot water and the massage. My soul ached more than my body, but I had hoped the distraction would take that pain away, too.
I had slipped into the New Year mentally exhausted. John was an enigma—a mysterious, somber, jobless man dedicated to sweepstakes and spending splurges ... a man who would not collect money due him. “I’ll do it my way,” he insisted over and over again when pressed for answers.
I would have lost my sanity had I not clung to my career. Only one person looked out for my work success and satisfaction. Me. Want to go up the ladder, Barbara? Get a degree. I planned and worked hard, holding down the job and going to school at night. I capitalized on my skills and determination, and it paid off with respect and new responsibilities. Four years after earning my bachelor’s degree, I had moved up t
he career ladder from an hourly lab technician to an exempt quality assurance coordinator.
The job stirred my imagination and sated my soul. Even better, it allowed me to travel. I tacked weekend stays onto business trips and drastically lowered the airfare. It was a win-win situation. I got to see the sights and my family, and the company got to save money. When a mid-April trip popped up, I called my sister Meredith in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Sixteen years younger than I, she had blossomed in her computer career. She agreed to spend Easter with me at Grandpa Jonas’s in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Three days before I was to fly out, John announced he had great news. He had a job interview in New York, two days after Easter. So, per his logic, it only made sense that he go to Hot Springs with me.
I didn’t know if this was good news or bad. John desperately needed a job, but I had learned not to count on what he told me. Too often his promises vanished like a mirage in a desert, leaving my soul more parched than ever. I needed my space and would have preferred to go alone, but as always, John prevailed. My gloomy premonitions about his presence proved wrong. John’s spirits were up, and it spilled over into four adventurous days with Grandpa. Meredith’s antics and sharp wit provided a buffer. She kept us all laughing. On our last night we sat at the Formica kitchen table, bemoaning our next-day departure. I glanced at the old red clock above the stove. “We’d better get ready for bed or we won’t be able to rouse ourselves when the alarm rings at four a.m.”
“Why so early?” Meredith yawned.
“It’s my fault,” John said. “My flight leaves at six thirty in the morning. The shuttle for Little Rock is coming at five a.m.”
I went off to the bathroom, and the rest of the family settled in the living room. Grandpa Jonas stoked the wood-burning stove. “Going to be a cold one tonight,” Grandpa warned as he slid the floor-length curtain separating the living room from the bedroom across the antique iron rod.
I emerged and set my clothes out for the morning—black wool skirt, white knit top, black high heels. I dressed for success and when I arrived in Midland, Michigan, I wanted to look professional. Meredith went into the bathroom.
A Dance With the Devil: A True Story of Marriage to a Psychopath Page 15