They celebrated ninety days together with a spate of e-mails, recalling in each how much they missed each other, ending or beginning the e-mails with juvenile sentimentalities of a haughty, embarrassing tone: I get so scared that I am going to wake up and find it was a dream, Donna wrote once. To her, it was a “fairy tale” she never wanted to end.
Within her letters and e-mails, Donna dropped subtle hints about Gail and how she viewed Gail as a third wheel in all of this. Donna herself was in the process of divorcing her husband. She couldn’t understand if George had felt the way he said, why he could not do the same. Though she rarely—if ever—challenged George on this point, she said she knew it was a “very difficult” decision for him to make. She was clear George had shared with her how much he “did not want to hurt” Gail, but, on the other hand, it was becoming “very hard” to deal with it for Donna. She said how easier things were, once she had officially separated from her husband. Donna knew it would be the same for George. The fear was in doing it, not the aftermath.
George answered that e-mail by sending Donna a link to an article referencing how important it was for males of his age to have sex, which spoke to how this man dealt with serious issues. To George, his mind was on his needs, both sexual and emotional. He did not care to discuss separating from Gail. He made it clear that Donna needed to focus on their relationship and forget about the decisions he needed to make.
Donna responded with a rant about how the body responds to good sex, both female and male, and how, as a nurse, she had been trained in this sort of behavioral science. She said it was a good thing she never grew “tired” of “making love” in the “morning, midday, evening, night, or whatever.” She wrote back in her e-mail: I just can’t get enough of you.
George sent Donna a card full of sexual references, letting her know once more that she was all he ever thought about and couldn’t wait to get back to Florida and do all the things he had talked about with her over the phone.
[George] Clooney has absolutely nothing on you, Donna wrote. She continued, saying how much more “sexy, exciting, and good-looking,” and how much of a “better butt” George had than the Hollywood actor.
The cards George sent hit Donna hard and heavy; she fell deeply for the man behind those funny and “cute” sayings. The cards told Donna, she admitted later, just how much George cared about her and how their relationship was now much more than an affair.
What’s strange about this correspondence—and maybe it offers some insight into the fate of Donna’s business—was how very little actual business was discussed. Donna went on and on for pages about how great it was to be in love, how wonderful a man George was, how “fine” and “sexy” parts of his anatomy were. Then, at the end, maybe a sentence or two, she’d casually mention work: Oh yeah, and what about those accounts? Have you gotten to them yet?
CCHH became an afterthought.
By the end of February, George was planning a Florida trip. They were anticipating this visit with as much energy as a soldier returning home from a tour of duty.
On February 25, 1998, George said some rather interesting things to Donna after she e-mailed and asked if something was wrong. She had sensed coldness on his part in a few recent exchanges. George wasn’t being his old self.
When one looks at the relationship over its course, one can see that, whenever George was back home and knew there would be a considerable amount of time between his visits to Donna, he poured on the sincerity, romance and charm. As the time grew closer to his visiting her, he began to pull back, becoming taciturn and withdrawn. This was, one can assume, a tactic, done subliminally or consciously. George had always wanted to keep Donna at bay, never making any promises he couldn’t deliver. After all, George was getting the best of both worlds: Gail and his family in one state, a mistress in another. In this letter where Donna felt a cold chill, George had told her when his flight would arrive that Thursday. He warned Donna not to think that what he had to say was “bad news.” It isn’t, he wrote. He said he felt “the same about you and us.” He didn’t want Donna to “jump to any conclusions,” adding how she and Gail were both “very perceptive and feeling women. What a pair!”
Then, with nerve, he concluded that he had the “utmost respect” for the both of them.
Here was a guy cheating on his ultra-conservative Catholic wife of a quarter century, playing his mistress for as much good times as he could get, then turning around and telling Donna how much he respected his wife!
The visit went off as expected: They frolicked and worked and had sex and went out to expensive dinners and acted like a couple. Afterward, George returned home and Donna went back to sending him e-mails, faxes, letters, and cards. In one letter she talked about a woman she knew who, she thought, had made a pass at her. This same woman had once “mooned” the Mayor of DeFuniak, Donna wrote. Donna had been doing some work for the woman, but she had since lost the job. She was trying to “win” her back, but she wasn’t getting anywhere. Since the woman had made the pass, Donna explained, she stopped going to see her. Sybil does say she is both ways, Donna wrote about the supposedly bisexual woman. There was also some question whether the woman was defrauding the hospital she worked for.
Two days later, George sent Donna several love quotes. As quick as George talked about how much he missed Donna and enjoyed the time they’d had together, he said how he and Gail and Andrew had gone out to run some errands.
After answering several questions that Donna had posed, George said he in no way wanted Donna to “go under” for “cosmetic reasons.” (Donna was planning on getting plastic surgery.)
He ended the letter by saying he was thinking about a lot of things and couldn’t wait to hear Donna’s voice when they spoke next, concluding, See you before you know it.
This banter between them, with short visits here and there, went on throughout the spring. George had not fully committed to working for Donna on a full-time basis. He had been subcontracting certain jobs. Furthermore, Donna began to put more pressure on George regarding his having it both ways. George wrote that he was pissed off because Donna had broken down and called his home number, not the business line downstairs. She said she was sorry, but she could not handle it anymore. The fact that she had to “share” George, as she put it, was too much. She pleaded with him, saying he had no idea how it felt because he did not have to share her with another man: You belong to someone else.... It hurts so much.... Donna said she went through periods where she was forced to walk around feeling like a “knife cutting my heart.” She would talk herself out of a rage by repeating, “Perhaps it won’t be long and you will be . . . mine.”
What upset Donna most was when George talked about Gail. He had a way of bringing up Gail as though she was part of their relationship. Donna despised Gail because of this. It was clear to Donna that Gail was the one who stood in their way of being together forever. George framed it to sound as if it was difficult for him to leave Gail. He could not just walk away.
Donna acknowledged that Gail had a “great hold” on George. She added that he was “having doubts” and really did not “want it to be over” with his wife.
The guy was sending mixed messages, according to Donna: You said you “guess” you could stay with her. . . .
According to Donna, George said that he did not want to “make her mad or hurt her.”
Donna was getting “mixed signals” and felt very confused. She reprimanded George, telling him that he could not love two women equally. It was impossible. She added, I guess I really don’t know where I fit into your life....
George told Donna that divorce was going to be tough because he would not know how to explain it to his brothers and sisters. He would be letting them down, as well as his kids, and he could never be with another woman in front of his family.
“Even though I take off my ring,” George once told Donna, “I still feel married.”
In no uncertain terms Donna was telling George that
she was tired of being the “other” woman. Even when in Florida, George was forever looking over his shoulder, wondering if they’d run into someone he and Gail knew. They hardly ever went out together any longer.
Donna demanded a time frame. She needed to know where they stood as a couple, and what George saw for the future. She was sick of crying all the time and wondering. Her stomach was in knots. She could never call George when she wanted. She could never see him when she wanted. She could never plan on anything because she didn’t know what the future held. One night she’d be “crying tears of joy” at something he had said and the next she’d be “crying tears of sadness.”
Now George needed to make a decision.
32
THAT LAST LETTER stirred George up. He realized he could no longer play both sides. He tried pacifying Donna by writing her another one of his “my love” letters. A little ditty ladled with love quotes he had copied and pasted from the Internet. He tried calming Donna with saccharine thoughts of “relax, my love,” it will all work out, just give him more time. “Yes, it is difficult” and how he felt he had lost her.
Donna wasn’t falling for it. She didn’t want anything to do with the spin George put on their lives. She didn’t want that pep talk he was so good at giving. She didn’t want broken promises, which he had parlayed in the past into another round with her in bed.
Firing back, she asked George if he had even read his previous e-mail. She said he had not come close to answering any of her questions. He had ignored her, saying he would talk to her about it all in person someday.
Donna begged for some “kind of answer.” She was not eating, not sleeping, and could not concentrate at work. She demanded to know where she “fit” into the plan. She asked George how he felt about Gail and if he was “being honest with her.” Had she been right in saying George decided not to “end things” with Gail? She wanted to know if he “still loved” Gail and if he still wanted to “be with” Donna.
A day later, Donna was again asking hard questions after not receiving any type of answer from her lover, telling George he had better get his “shit together.” She wasn’t about to play second fiddle any longer.
The plan was for them to get together in two weeks. But after those disparaging e-mails that Donna had sent, with little or no response from George, she wondered if he was ever coming back. After not hearing from George for a few days, Donna sent George a letter on April 6, 1998, opening it with that typical crass chat-room type of cheesy dialogue that is standard in these situations. She called him “lover boy.” She said he needed to be in Florida “tending to business” and that his “sugar mama needs some tending to.” She said she was “extremely horny,” and she was in need of “caressing, loving, and kissing” all over her body. She wanted “great pleasure,” which only George could deliver. She asked how his “sex life” had been while back home, warning that even if he “had it once,” it was “one more” than she had. Then she took a guess, saying George had had sex with Gail three to four times, demanding to know how close she was—all those “hand jobs” in between aside.
Donna then said she could not wait until he moved to Florida—so George must have promised what she wanted to hear. Then she “hoped” he was “excited about it,” concluding how “sorry” she was for the tiff they had gotten into the week before.
The next day George sent Donna a long, single-spaced letter—awkwardly and oddly written out like a business plan—detailing those “answers” she had been seeking. In numbered paragraphs George outlined where the relationship was headed, from his point of view, further telling Donna what she wanted to hear. The future had not changed. The “mixed signals” he had been sending were just emotions churning inside him. George was confused about some things, but it had nothing to do with loving Donna and being with her forever. The confusion was in dealing with the demise of the marriage and how to proceed with its dissolution.
He asked Donna if she could bear with him for an additional few months, because he needed to find the “right time to set” the end “in motion.” He warned that he did not have everything planned out. If he were able to see into a crystal ball, he would include hitting the lottery. He asked Donna to “calm down” and try to understand the predicament he was in with Gail. It wasn’t easy walking away from all those years—and kids. Such drastic change couldn’t happen overnight. But he wrote, I want out of the marriage. . . .
Donna was bowled over by the letter. She was ecstatic. He was clear about his feelings: They had a future. Together.
They were scheduled to meet in a week, and Donna’s e-mails and letters heading toward that period were full of schoolgirl lust and teenage nonsense, with which she had spoiled George.
George had Donna back where he wanted. Yet he knew that unless he made some sort of a move, Donna would go back to her old self.
By the time George returned from his most recent trip, he had decided to accept a full-time position within CCHH as its CFO. The first e-mail George sent to Donna after arriving home said it all—not so much in what George included, but rather in what he had not. First he applauded Donna for being a “good person.” He said he was “very fortunate” to know her and have her in his “life at the moment.” He said he “looked forward” to “working” with everyone at CCHH. At the end of the e-mail, George said he would “beep” Donna after he got things “settled down at home” with Andrew and Emily. Gail was out of the picture now, completely. He was not going to mention her anymore. When George spoke of being home, he meant with his kids.
It was near the middle of May. From his Michigan home George wrote: Be with you before you know it. Then he asked Donna where she was staying: The Comfort Inn, right? He wanted an address to make sure he went to the right one.
They had a plan.
Donna came up from Florida to meet George and pick up his things. He was finally moving to Florida and into Donna’s home.
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EMILY FULTON KNEW her parents were having problems. She also knew that they were centered on Donna and the affair her father was having. The talk Emily and her father had on that morning George dropped Emily off at school (“Take care of your mother”) told Emily he was leaving. She was sure of it. Why would he say such a thing otherwise?
By now, Donna was calling the upstairs home line when she couldn’t reach George downstairs.
“Is work so important that your boss has to call up here all the time?” Gail would ask.
George would shrug it off.
Emily was a senior in high school, just about to graduate. There was no love in the house. At least not the way there used to be. It was always so cold, lonely, and hollow.
“My dad,” Emily remarked, “had trouble showing love. A lot of people that are angry like that do not feel worthy. If you don’t know how to show love to other people, it means you do not love yourself. . . .I think my dad had self-esteem issues. He came across as cocky and arrogant, but I think it was a front because deep down my dad had feelings of not being worthy.”
It brought tears to Emily’s eyes; her voice would get choked up to talk about her father and relate this deeply personal part of her history.
“I know my dad loved me,” she said, “but he was not very expressive. . . .”
The situation inside the house became caustic as the month of May closed. Emily and her dad were at odds; Gail and George were not talking; and Andrew had withdrawn into himself, spending time with friends and his girlfriend. They were a family, but they were living separate lives. They passed one another inside the house, but little was ever said beyond the normal stuff that gets a family through their days. According to Emily, the root cause of it all was Donna.
“Donna would call and tell me that she had a hard childhood,” Emily remembered. “She told me her father had beat her. I don’t know that it’s true. But I know that this is one of the ways that she and my dad identified with each other—that they both had these hard childhoods. . . .”
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Justifiable adultery—the point of the relationship at which Donna and George could pivot the sneakiness and pain they were causing others. They made a connection through childhood trauma, Emily said. And as she further pointed out, her father’s dad had passed when he was young. This had caused a great hurt to grow inside George. Whether Donna was beaten as a kid, who knew? But the fact that the two of them felt this became some sort of bond.
After Gail was murdered, there was one day when George went to the kids, according to Emily’s recollection, and said, “You do not know what suffering is—I am the one who knows true suffering.”
Emily and Andrew looked at each other: Is he crazy? What the heck is he talking about?
With that one statement, Emily felt, her father had invalidated everything Emily and Andrew were going through as they mourned the loss of their mother.
By May 23, 1998, George was living in Florida with Donna. She had made the drive to Michigan in a U-Haul on May 20 to help George pick up his things. George drove the U-Haul trailer over to the house himself that day. Emily and her mother watched him pack.
“What is that? You’re packing and leaving us?” Emily asked.
“You have to stay,” Gail said.
“No . . . I don’t.”
George closed the back of the U-Haul. Andrew came out. Gail went back inside, crying. Emily and Andrew stood in the driveway.
“What are you doing?” Emily pleaded. She was bawling.
“Dad, come on,” Andrew said. “Let’s talk it over.”
“Please, please stay,” Emily said again and again and again. Then she begged. “Don’t leave us, Dad. What can we do? We’ll be better kids. What can we do to make you stay? What do you need us to do? Whatever it is, we’ll do it. Just please, please stay here.”
Kiss of the She-Devil Page 14