Masterpiece in Progress by Smith, TL (beginner reading books for adults .TXT) 📗

going to drive into Lake Stanley Draper, and she didn’t want her kids to not know where she was.

Of course, I immediately called Jerry and he said they had been at the bar with another couple (friend of ours) and that she got upset about something and took off.  Michael and Trish were going to take Jerry home.

I guess she went back home because she didn’t drive herself into the lake.

Then there was the time she literally chased Paige around the car at a wedding for my stepson, trying to get ahold of her to slap her?  Beat her?  Everyone at that reception (Jerry’s ex-wife and her family) were ready to throw her down.  E finally left and went to their hotel.  But it scarred Paige and reinforced to me that she really did have some issues.  I filed a restraining order.  Paige didn’t go around for a while after that.  In Jerry’s defense, he did come see Paige and take her to grab a quick dinner occasionally.

When the dust from that settled, she continued to call me to complain about him.  By now, Jerry and I were friends.  We had a life together once and that was over, and he was my friend.  He was also Paige’s dad.   And I owed him honesty and Paige was genuinely worried for him by now.

When I felt it was needed, I would tell him what she was saying.  He wrote it all off as her blowing smoke and talking crap.

I had done my part.

Another time, Michael and Trish had to help Jerry break into his own house because she threatened self-harm, only to find her drunk, and naked in the master bedroom closet.

When she called me to tell me she had checked herself into the mental ward at the hospital, I don’t think I was terribly surprised, but then she asked me to hide her car so Jerry wouldn’t take it.  That surprised me.

I told her I would just to keep her calm, but immediately called Jerry and tried to make him understand how serious this was.  She was there about 4 or 5 days. They even took her shoestrings out of her shoes.

I told him he had better hide his Nascar collection (it had been “ours”, but he got it in the divorce) because she was going to destroy or take it when she left him.

He finally believed me enough to slowly remove things and hide them at my work, locked up, where she couldn’t get to them.  This went on for a couple months.

For him the relationship was over when she physically attacked her own daughter, choked her up against the wall and threatened to kill her.  Jerry paid to put her daughter on a bus back to her dad.

A few days later, Jerry had to go to court for his back due (but current and he had to take pay stubs to prove that) child support on his son.  Paige went with him.  When he arrived home, she had cleaned him out.  Even took all his underwear.  An entire file cabinet full of important documents (like previous tax returns, etc.).  She had tried to take the bed but clearly ran out of time and left the entire kitchen pretty much untouched.

She had the utilities turned off as well.  He literally had the clothes on his back and his truck (which was tied to my car too, when he didn’t make his payment, the car lot would come get MY car) and the things she didn’t have time to get to.

And I felt AWFUL for him.  Paige and I stayed with him that night and slept on the floor.  I bought him new underwear and we brought some pillows and blankets from my house to sleep on.

He couldn’t afford that place on his own, so he found a smaller duplex, and we helped him get moved.  When we were packing up the kitchen, we had to move the refrigerator.  Under the refrigerator was TONS of broken glass.  He told us when she got mad at him, she threw things at him, specifically glass things.

We hung out a lot and had fun.  The way we used to.  He told me he knew he didn’t deserve me; he knew he didn’t have any right to come back in my life after all he’d put me (and Paige) through.  I believed him.

He kept his place and I had mine, but we did a lot together.  I had lost over 125 pounds by then and he loved that I looked “normal” again.

And I felt like I had finally WON.  He chose me.  But did he?

Chapter 24

Homeless Together

He got evicted from his place and by then I had found Paige and I a bigger place.  He moved in with us and things went back to our normal.

I tried to divide things financially, so that I wasn’t giving up my paycheck anymore.  That worked for a while, but not long.

We had friends over every weekend for poker day and Nascar or football.  We had a pool that we all enjoyed, and life seemed pretty good.

I was drinking with everyone, but it wasn’t an issue then.  I could take it or leave it then.  Paige turned 18 at that house and we had a huge party for her.

Once again, with Jerry in control of the money, we got behind on the rent.  And we got evicted.  We got an apartment.  I hated it.  I even got a job as the assistant manager for the complex.  Hated it too.

Drank more after work because I hated everything right then.  Mostly, I hated me.  How had I let myself get back here?  On my own, we had been doing so good, but every time I let my guard down where he was concerned things went to hell in a handbasket.  And somehow,