by Ann Rule
It was the perfect opportunity for him to attach his picture to an email, but he didn’t send one. And still Jenn accepted Christopher on faith because it didn’t really seem to matter what he looked like. By the end of the summer, the two strangers’ correspondence revealed that they had begun to think that one day they might actually have a future together.
In September 2004, Christopher confessed that he was falling in love with Jenn, and expressed some anxiety that Jenn might just be “putting him on.” She quickly wrote to reassure him that she was as serious as he was.
“Christopher, you don’t need to apologize to me again,” she wrote. “I’m just sorry you felt like I could maybe play you. It’s o.k. to be scared, Christopher. I’m scared. We are both gonna have to make big changes in our life if we want to be together, and that is never easy. I love how you make me feel. I love that there are no walls with you. I love that I feel I can tell you just what I feel at that moment…I know with you that my whole life is going to change, that our love is going to be so powerful that it’s going to be overwhelming.
“I don’t know why it is we feel like we do. How did I meet a man so far away from me that can affect me the way you do—a man I’ve never laid eyes on—I’ve never seen smile or heard laugh. A man that I can confess every thought I have or bad moment I have ever had, and I’m comfortable doing just that. I want you to feel comfortable doing just that.”
SOME MIGHT SAY that Jenn Corbin was an accident getting ready to happen. She was caught in a loveless marriage, starved for affection. Like most women in their mid-thirties, Jenn was at her sexual peak, but she had no outlet for her feelings. She confided in Kelly Comeau that she had not experienced an orgasm in years. She told her sister she had never had an orgasm with her husband.
Jenn had stayed on the computer all summer long. She told Kelly at the end of July that she had met some really interesting people on the computer, but she didn’t seem seriously interested in anyone. Still, things were different that summer, and Kelly couldn’t ignore that. She and Steve had always enjoyed going to the houseboat with Jenn and the Corbins, but that didn’t happen in the summer of 2004.
Worried, Kelly once asked Jenn if she was in love with the person she had met online.
“I haven’t even met this person online!” Jenn said, avoiding a direct answer.
Kelly knew that Jenn had never cheated on Bart. “We had a girls’ night out once,” Kelly recalled, “and some guy really, really wanted her, but Jenn wasn’t interested.”
By 2004, it was painfully obvious to Jenn that Bart didn’t love her, even though he expected her to be available to him whenever he wanted sex. And yet she was torn about Chris. Was she being fair to Dalton and Dillon? As hopeless as she felt about the likelihood that her marriage was salvageable, she wasn’t willing to deprive her sons of a two-parent home, or to yank them out of the elementary school they loved, not to mention away from their friends.
If she did leave Bart, could they make it on their own? Jenn scribbled out budgets, and they only showed her that it would be very difficult for her to earn enough money for herself and the boys. She had no savings of her own, and Bart was parsimonious enough when they were living together. She doubted that he would agree to pay her child support or alimony without a huge court battle. He would consider it as paying for a dead horse.
When Jenn finally told Heather about Christopher in the late summer of 2004, Heather was surprised and concerned.
“Jenn,” she said with exasperation, “you have no idea who this guy is! He could be anybody, and you can’t simply believe what he tells you. He might be married, for all you know—”
“Well, I’m married,” Jenn cut in, “and I know he’s divorced.”
“How do you know?” Heather said. “He may be some weirdo pervert who’s sneaking around on his wife. He may be sixty years old. Or an ex-convict. You don’t even know for sure where he lives. For all you know, he’s one of those Nigerian con men! You’re taking everything on faith, and that isn’t safe. Especially on the Internet!”
But Jenn would not be swayed. She was sure she knew who Christopher was through the emails he sent her every day now.
And now, several times a day.
Jenn made little pretense about how lonely she was in her marriage. And the gentleness and respect in Christopher’s emails made her more aware that Bart made an effort to be nice to her only when he wanted something. She had put on a brave and cheerful face for too long. She talked to her co-worker Jennifer Rupured at the Sugar Hill Church preschool about how empty her marriage was, how abusive Bart was emotionally, and how much she wanted to be free of him, if only she could figure a way out that wouldn’t hurt her boys. Her best friend, Juliet, knew too, as well as Kelly, and, of course, Heather. They were all pulling for Jenn to find happiness.
Sometimes, Jenn talked to her mother as well, although Narda was more likely to discourage her from making any sudden changes. She feared for Jenn if she stepped away from her marriage. It wouldn’t be easy for a woman in her mid-thirties with two small boys.
On the afternoons Jenn wasn’t teaching, she was usually in Lawrenceville, helping Narda with canvas orders at Lake Arts. Working for her mom, Jenn knew she could always be done in time to pick up Dalton and Dillon from school. And she liked being with Narda. But she still didn’t make nearly enough money to support a family. Sometimes Narda paid her a salary, and often she bought things for Jenn or the boys—things that Bart wouldn’t give her money for.
IT WAS PROBABLY INEVITABLE that the tone of the emails between Jenn and Christopher became a little more intimate each week until it was sometimes downright steamy. But they had never seen each other—not even a photograph, although Jenn continued to ask Christopher to send one. Finally, she sent him a picture of herself playing her guitar in a cowgirl costume she once wore in college, and a picture of Dalton and Dillon. She had gained some weight after Dillon’s birth, but with running and dieting, her figure was now as slender as it was when she was in college. Christopher kept making excuses about why he hadn’t gotten around to sending a photo of himself.
Couldn’t they at least talk on the phone, Jenn asked? He promised that they would—soon. Anxious for Christopher to be more real to her than merely someone who sent emails, Jenn tried sending him some semi-emergency messages so he would phone her. He didn’t call. And Jenn still didn’t even know Christopher’s last name. If he should ever disappear from her email inbox, she would probably lose him forever; she didn’t know exactly where he lived, or his phone number. In a way, the fact that their relationship was so ephemeral made it more exciting, but it also kept Jenn off balance, fearful that it could all vanish in an instant.
On occasion, they had misunderstandings and one or the other would apologize. Once, on October 15, when Christopher felt he had been too demanding about a commitment from Jenn, he wrote regretfully, “Jennifer, nothing I can say will excuse my behavior last night. I am sorry and I promise I will let you go whenever you need to. I don’t ever want to make you feel anything but good. I do know you love me and I know I am blessed for that.”
Jenn wrote on October 18: “I love that you take your job seriously. I love that they [your bosses] scare you. I love that you were strong enough to run when you needed to, then moved them [his extended family] when you were strong enough to get them on their feet again. I love that you can go a little crazy with me but yet stay strong enough for both of us. I love that you always question me, making me think through for the truth in my answers. The bottom line is, Christopher, I am in love with everything about you. I would love to be yours to keep, and one day I will be. I understand it can’t be now, but it’s so hard when you want it so much. So we will both have our strong moments and some weak ones, too…”
Every day, Christopher asked Jenn to tell him what she was wearing; it would make her seem closer to him. So she dutifully described her outfits every day, even though they were mostly bland, serviceable clothes sui
table for teaching preschoolers or cleaning her own house. Once, she told him about her short green nightgown, but more often she described jeans and sweaters.
On November 11, they exchanged numerous emails from morning to late at night. Christopher often sounded a bit like a character in a Harlequin novel as he declared his passion for Jenn, a man most women long to find—but suspect is not within the realm of possibility.
“Good morning, Sexy,” he began. “Jennifer, have I told you I can’t wait to make love to you? Damn, with every passing day, the growing sexual tension for you elevates to new levels I have never dreamed possible. You, my darling Jennifer, are a very amazing woman. I love you.”
She answered in kind. “Christopher, I am madly in love with you, and you have changed me forever. You have taught me more in these past months than I have experienced in my lifetime. I want a lifetime exploring these new places with you.”
Late in the afternoon, Jenn wrote to Chris that she was cleaning out closets, thinking of when she could walk out her front door, and be with him. It was understood that her sons would come with her, and Christopher often said he admired her for that.
Bart still wasn’t home by 7:21 P.M. It would have been a time when she and Chris could have talked on the phone, but Christopher kept finding excuses why they couldn’t do that. And he was still insisting that he wasn’t good enough for her.
“Chris,” Jenn wrote, “I hate that I can’t just talk to you. I want to hear your voice, Chris. I’m sorry to be saying what I said I wouldn’t do, [but] it just doesn’t change the fact that I want it every day. Damn, I sometimes don’t understand you. You have said a few times that you don’t deserve me or something to that effect. Why Chris? What makes you so bad or me so good? For me, I would love to be attracted to you, but looks aren’t everything. I want you to be attracted to me, but maybe you won’t be. I think I look a lot different than anyone you have dated before. I’m not someone you would have seen and said, ‘Damn! She’s hot!’ I’m not smart—not in the book sense, anyway. I struggled to get through high school. I did well in art school, but I didn’t graduate. I didn’t do so good in nursing school. By then, I had other things on my mind and I was tired of being in school. So, like you, I fell into the food service world. I loved my job—had lots of fun doing it. Not sure I want to go back into it though because of the long hours. And I’m selfish and want to be home with my children at night. I have decent street smarts, and a good sense of direction. I have lots of love in my heart, but so do you. So where is it that we are so different? I’m in love with you, Chris. And I already know who you are. Jenn.”
But did she know? Really?
HEATHER CONTINUED TO WORRY. She knew that Jenn was naïve, much less savvy about the world than she was, even though Jenn was the older sister. Heather was the realist who thought the whole EverQuest game idea was silly and perhaps dangerous.
Bart sensed that their marriage was deteriorating—that their relationship had grown flat and perfunctory. Where Jenn had always tried cheer him up or calm him down when he was in a rage, she no longer even attempted to placate him, much less please him. And she would not sleep with him. That distressed Bart the most; he had always prided himself on being a good lover.
As the Corbins become more estranged, they often confided in their neighbors. Sometimes it would be Jenn who came over to the Comeaus for coffee or a drink, but more often it was Bart. He seemed to Kelly to be in the most pain, extremely anxious over the possibility that his marriage might be headed for divorce.
He seemed very lost. Kelly had always respected Bart, and she called him “Dr. Bart,” rather than just plain “Bart.”
“He was trying to save his marriage,” she said. “It seemed as though he would do whatever it took to make it work.”
Bart cried as he asked Kelly’s advice, begging her to tell him what he should do “to make Jenn love me again.”
HE WAS BESIDE HIMSELF. He went to his in-laws for backing, first approaching Heather, even though he knew that she would probably stick with Jenn. Then Bart appealed to Doug Tierney on a man-to-man basis. Doug was embarrassed, but he liked Bart well enough to feel sorry for him, and he tried to be available to at least talk to his brother-in-law. Still, they had never been close friends, and like many men, Doug wasn’t comfortable listening to intimate details about someone else’s marriage. He nonetheless saw that both Jenn and Bart were, in his estimation, “acting weird.” They had both lost a lot of weight, particularly Bart. He said he’d lost sixty pounds, and it sure looked as if he had. Bart’s clothes hung on him, and the fullness had vanished from his face, leaving him with the gaunt look of a man suffering from some fatal disease.
Beginning in August or September of 2004, Bart had avoided spending time with Jenn’s family, and Doug found him quite distant.
Bart pulled out all the stops. He went to Narda, seeking her advice. He proposed taking Jenn on a trip in the hope that would help them reconcile, and find the love they’d once had. Narda agreed that might be a good idea, and suggested that Bart talk to Jenn about it.
“But she won’t have sex with me,” he complained.
“I’m not going to take her on a trip if she won’t sleep with me. Why would I waste my time and money? If I take her on vacation, she is going to have to have sex with me.”
Narda was not a judgmental woman, nor was she a prude. She could understand that Bart missed having a sex life with her daughter, and at his urging she promised to talk to Jenn. She did—the next time she and Jenn were working in her studio.
Choosing her words carefully, Narda said she felt Bart was basically a good man, and that maybe it was Jenn’s duty to stay with him. She had already told Bart he was putting too much pressure on Jenn, and asked him to lighten up, believing he would take her advice. Narda would regret her words later, but, at the time, she didn’t know how sad her daughter really was. She just didn’t want to see Jenn throw away the eight years she had invested in her marriage, especially when they had two wonderful little boys together. Narda asked Jenn if it was possible for her to work things out with Bart.
At this point, Narda knew that Jenn wrote regularly to Christopher, but she had no idea that their online relationship had progressed far beyond friendship. She gathered that Jenn was enjoying it a lot, but Jenn didn’t talk about Christopher much to her mother because every time she did, Narda would caution her about starting even a penpal correspondence with someone she didn’t know anything about.
“What is that guy’s name, again?” Narda asked her once.
“Mom—don’t worry about it,” Jenn said.
“His name’s Chris—that’s it, isn’t it?”
“You’re not gonna contact him, are you?” Jenn asked suspiciously.
“Just leave it alone, Mom,” Jenn said. “Don’t worry about it.”
NARDA DID WORRY ABOUT IT, and she felt Jenn would be a lot better off if she could just work things out with Bart. It was mid-November 2004, and the holidays were fast approaching when Narda tried once more to reason with Jenn about Bart. She urged her to at least try to work on her marriage. Bart might be a miser with his money, but she pointed out that he had increased Jenn’s household allowance by quite a bit over the years. He was, after all, the boys’ father. And even though he could be tough on them, Narda felt he loved them, and that he loved Jenn, too. Jenn acknowledged that part of her would always love Bart to some degree, because he was the father of her little boys. He had given her that much, “the most precious gifts of my life.”
“He really loves you,” Narda said, not totally believing her own words. “I think Bart really loves you.”
But when Narda looked in her daughter’s eyes, she saw no wavering there.
“He doesn’t love me, Mom. You have to understand,” Jenn said forcefully. “I just don’t want to be married—to be there anymore. He disgusts me. He gives me the creeps. He makes my skin crawl. I cannot bear to have a sexual relationship with him. I have tried so ha
rd—but I cannot do it. I cannot bear to have him touch me at all. I just can’t stand it.”
And Narda recognized that her daughter’s marriage was crumbling into so many pieces that it could never be mended.
“I don’t know what to say—or what to do,” Jenn told her. “You’re just going to have to understand the fact that I’m leaving Bart.”
It was obvious that Jenn was in the grip of major anxiety, and it wasn’t about making the decision to leave her marriage. She was far beyond that. But she didn’t know how she was going to make her life work with no financial support from Bart.
She wasn’t giving up, Jenn said. But she was determined that she could do it without him.
“I have one credit card that he doesn’t know about, but it has a pretty low limit. I know he won’t let me stay in the house, but the boys need to stay in their school. I can get a small place, and I’ve already begun to buy a few things that we’ll need.”
Jenn said she had managed to save enough to put $2,000 in her private checking account; that was meant for first and last month’s rent on an apartment. She knew she couldn’t afford to rent a whole house.
And Narda knew that Bart still monitored Jenn’s expenses. They still sat down every week and she had to explain how she had spent the money, so it hadn’t been easy for her build a nest egg.
No longer the self-assured husband who had spent nine years cheating on her with other women, Bart was now clinging tightly to Jenn. He was a desperate man, a dog in a manger with his paw clamped tightly over her—financially and emotionally, although not yet physically at least. He had never struck Jenn; he only demeaned her with words.
When Jenn tentatively brought up the subject of divorce, he seemed to have expected it. But he begged Jenn to stay in their house over Christmas. Couldn’t they have one more Christmas as a family—something they all could remember? He argued that there was no rush about leaving, not after all the years they had been together. After New Year’s, they could decide what they would do.