Monday, July 26, 2010

17,600 Miles

In this edition: our hero fights for justice and then gets yet another unexpected surprise that may change everything.

Let me be straight--I don't like lawyers. I don't care for the way that they create strawmen just to destroy them, I don't like how they can twist words to convict the innocent or exonerate the guilty, I don't like how they can harbor secrets that can lead to justice all in the name of attorney-client privilege and, most of all, I really don't like how they can bill you for six minutes of their time when it took them 15 seconds to read your email. In this case, though, it was all worth it.

So I had my day in court. My attorney told me that he KNEW my ex would show up and burst out in tears after telling the judge what a horrible, horrible person I was and how terribly I was persecuting her. He was right. She painted a picture of me as a vicious monster threatening to steal her children away from her, the poor, innocent mommy. My attorney then got up and proceeded to blow holes in her story like a howitzer pulverizing a home made of balsa wood. He attacked with ferocity, asking "isn't it true that your fiance was arrested for drunk driving?" and "isn't it true that you and your children are living with a known domestic batterer?" Every time she would say, "Well he is innocent," or "That's not exactly right," he would cut her off and say, "Yes or no, ma'am. Is that true or not?" and she would have to admit that it was. The coup de grace came after he got her to admit that her fiance was a longtime alcoholic but that he couldn't have been drunk on the morning of his most recent arrest because she only bought him two beers. That's right, folks, she admitted in court that she bought beer to give to an alcoholic!

Needless to say, after her weepy display of victimhood and my attorney's subsequent bodyslamming, the judge swiftly dismissed her petition to slap me with a protection order. I walked out of the court a little bit lighter in the wallet, but confident that she would never again try to use the justice system to bring me down. Before I left, my attorney said to me, "It's clear that she just doesn't view reality the way the rest of the world does." So true.

That matter now settled, I got to enjoy some more time with my kids, going to the beach several times and generally enjoying the Maine summer. But, alas, it was just me and them, and my wife and her daughter were back in Atlanta. The whole trip I kept wishing that we could all be together.

Well, that brings us to part two of this posting. The very afternoon of my court date, I had a follow-up meeting with a small consulting firm in the Portland area with which I had tried for years to get a job. They had made me an offer months earlier, but the terms were not acceptable, so I dismissed it out of hand. Given my total unemployment and my newfound need to be in Maine for potential legal reasons (custody battles are far easier when you live nearby), this time when they made me an offer, I really seriously considered it.

I went back to Atlanta and talked it over with my wife. Since the job was not certain for the long term, we agreed that, if I took it, she would remain down south for the time being and we'd be in a long-distance relationship all over again. I gave myself a week to make a last-ditch effort to find a job in Atlanta. I called dozens of contacts to follow up on earlier discussions, but nobody had anything for me nor did anyone know of anything for me. So that was that--I needed a job, and I said yes.

And thus begins the next chapter. I start my job in Maine next week, and am about to head up there by myself. I won't need to pile up frequent father miles to see my own kids for now, but I'm still going to need to get on airplanes to see my wife and stepdaughter. I'll also still not be the primary caregiver so, at best, I'll see my kids once a week. It won't be as daunting as it has been, but I suppose that every non-custodial dad has some "frequent father" in him. We'll see how it goes.