15,400 Miles

I am back in Atlanta again, after two more trips to Maine. The first was over Memorial Day and was nearly terrific--my new wife and her daughter finally came along, and for a few days we felt like a family. The two of us and our three children collectively got to spend good time together, with our daughters becoming instant friends and things generally feeling terrific. There was just one small problem--my daughter didn't much like the fact that, at the end of each day, she had to go back to her mother's house and not get to have a sleepover with her brother and her "new sister."

One night she decided that enough was enough and she wanted to stay over at my house. The decision came while sitting in the driveway at my ex's house. When my daughter said that she wanted to stay with me, I went inside to ask my ex if that was OK, and she reluctantly agreed. So we all went back to my apartment for our sleepover, and all was great. The girls got in their jammies and watched a Dora video together on the bed while my son played in the living room. We were all ready for bed, and I crowded onto the futon with my son to my left and my daughter to my right. She snuggled up against me, put her thumb in her mouth, and prepared to drift off to sleep. But then she sprang up and said, "one more thing," and went and got a toy to bring into bed. And then another "one more thing," and another, and another. Finally, she demanded to go into the bedroom with the girls to see if they were asleep. When she saw that they were still awake, she wanted to stay awake too. I said, "No, it's sleepy time now."

And then all hell broke loose.

My daughter started screaming, "I want Maaaaamaaaa. I want milk," over and over again. For 20 minutes I tried to calm her down, but she never did. Finally, I put her in the car, hoping that she would fall asleep, but she just kept on screaming and screaming, so I decided to head for her mother's house. Upon arriving, I handed her off to my ex, who flashed me a smug smile, and told her that she had two months to get our daughter emotionally prepared for staying at my house overnight, as she was bound by our divorce order to let her stay with me come her third birthday in August. My ex just stared at me as if I had just suggested that she put our daughter to bed with a drink of cyanide. I left in disgust.

During this trip I interviewed for and was offered a job in Rhode Island (2.5 hours from my kids), but had to turn in down, as it was only a short-term job, so my wife and stepdaughter couldn't move with me. Taking it would thus mean working in one place, and then "commuting" to both Maine and Atlanta--it just wasn't feasible.

Two weeks later, after returning to Atlanta, I was checking my email late at night when I got a Skype call from my ex-brother-in-law. He was calling me from Holland, where he was on tour with his theater company, and passed on the urgent news that my ex's fiance had been arrested...again. He had been hired by my ex's mother to do some yard work, but instead of working, he traipsed out to the barn behind her house and proceeded to down 1..2...3...4 full 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor. He was discovered with bottle #5 in hand by my ex's other brother, who told him to leave at once. He called up my ex to pick him up, and she arrived with my daughter in the car. Upon arriving she got out of her car and began screaming at her brother and his girlfriend. During this confrontation, my daughter was screaming “Mommy! Mommy!” from the car. Her brother's girlfriend suggested that she should attend to her crying child, to which my ex responded, “Shut the fuck up, you fat fucking warthog!” She then left the scene, and her brother called the cops, who came and arrested her fiance shortly thereafter for being drunk, in violation of the bail from his earlier arrest for DUI.

I then called the brother in Maine (who had been directly involved) and he further informed me that my ex continues to deny that her in fiance is drinking, in spite of the clear evidence. He also reports that the fiance has not worked since being fired following his DUI arrest in February, and that my ex continues to refuse to find a job. In the meantime, she has been receiving money from her parents, and that he believes that she has sold her food stamp credits in exchange for cash, which is a crime. His last word to me was that his sister was dead to him, and that even their mother no longer wanted to have anything to do with her.

I immediately decided that I needed to go up to Maine and sort things out, so I bought a plane ticket to come up for a whole week, figuring that my employer would understand. Instead, I was told to come back two days earlier than planned, or else, even though there was no work that really needed to get done. I was subsequently asked by my boss to resign, which I did on the spot. No part time job is worth that much.

So there I was, up in Maine for a whole week with my kids. It should have been great, right? Perfect weather, quality time, going to the beach, etc. Unfortunately, with the various clouds hanging over my world, it just didn't feel quite right. My little pseudo-apartment, which lacks TV, internet access, toys, books, and anything resembling a comfortable environment for kids, is simply a stressful place to have kids for day after day. Adding to the confusion was that my parents came up too--on the one hand, it was good to have them around, on the other hand, two more people in the house often created more stress than anything. On top of it, back in Atlanta, my wife was having chest pains and went to the ER one night where she was diagnosed with having a gall bladder issue (that remains unresolved).

In the midst of this, I went to see an expensive but highly recommended attorney to discuss what, if anything, I could do to get my wife and her alcoholic fiance in line before something happened to my kids. He told me flat out that the only way I stood a chance to get primary custody of the kids was to move back to Maine at once, and that even then, it would be a bruising and (naturally) expensive battle.

After meeting with him and realizing that the courts may not be the answer, I decided that it was time to appeal to whatever was left of my ex's conscience. I called her up to see if we could set up a time to meet to talk things over. She refused, and told me that I could say what I wanted over the phone. So I told her flat out that if she didn't rid herself of her fiance, I would have to take her back to court. We got into yet another argument, and she hung up on me. That evening, as I was on my way to drop off my daughter for the night, my ex called me and instructed me to park on the street, not the driveway. When I pulled up in front of my house, her fiance came out of the house, stood 2 feet behind me while I got my daughter out of her car seat, and all but snatched her from my arms when I turned around to face him. He told me to leave at once. I said that I needed to ask my ex something, and he said, "if you go to the door, I'm calling the cops." I told him that I still was co-owner of the house and he couldn't call the cops on me. My ex then came out and told me that she would call the cops, and refused to even answer my simple question regarding when she'd be dropping off my daughter in the morning.

For the last three days of my trip it went on like this--we exchanged the kids without words. I wonder what is going through their minds when they see their mother not even willing to say hello to their father. It can't be good for them.

Then came the final surprise.

Yesterday, as I dropped off the kids for the last time before heading to the airport, I noticed a police car parked down the block, and wondered what was up. After I let the kids out of my car and got back in, the police car pulled up next to me, and the officer asked to talk to me. She then served me with a Protection from Abuse petition that my ex had made--she apparently believes that my repeated entreaties to her to get rid of her drunken criminal of a fiance constitute emotional abuse.

Now my next trip to Maine will center on going to court to defend myself against charges that I am somehow abusing her--no matter that I have never threatened her or anyone else with any sort of violence, no matter that all I have done is to beg her to wake up and see what the rest of the world (especially her own family) sees. I am the one who was put out of his home, replaced by a worthless drunk. I am the one who has been threatened with violence. I am the one who is trying his best to get a job, be a good husband, and most of all, do everything I can to give my kids the lives the deserve. And now I'm the one being treated like the criminal.