It all happened on September 11, thirteen years to the day that shattered so many worlds and reshaped my own. I was awoken at 5:00 by my wife, who was six months pregnant and complaining of acute abdominal pain. We feared she may be going into (very) premature labor, so I got dressed and spirited her to the ER. It turned out to be a minor issue resulting from her fibroids, and all was OK. We got home by 9:00 AM and I was able to get some work done, but had to leave at 10:30 for an appointment. Soon after I left the house my wife, still woozy from not sleeping, slipped on our front walk and hit her head on the sidewalk. Fortunately she was OK and didn't have to go back to the ER, but the day was certainly not going well.
Around noontime I was having lunch with a business associate when my phone rang. The caller ID said it was my wife and, given the sort of day she'd been having, I excused myself to answer the phone and prepared for more bad news. It was quite the opposite: my attorney had received the judge's decision, and the children were awarded to me, effective immediately. And...BOOM...that was the moment when everything changed forever. I raced home after lunch, booked a flight to Boston and a rental car, and readied to leave for Maine early the next morning to retrieve my children. Everything was on track.
Unfortunately--and predictably--my ex-wife was not about to take this lying down. She obviously received the news around the same time and thus had several hours of a head start on breaking the news to the children. I had made a commitment to not say anything to the kids during the court case, as I didn't want them to be anxious about it, and their mother was certainly not ever going to give them the impression that they might have to move away, so they were blindsided. I will never know exactly what she said to them, but it's clear that she communicated at least the following: 1) Daddy lied to the judge, 2) Daddy is stealing you away from Mommy, and 3) Mommy is going to get you back very soon.
I got a taste of all of this well-poisoning that evening. I called my ex-wife's house to talk to her about the pickup arrangements the next day. I intended to keep everything perfectly civil and focus on the business at hand, but that was not to be. Instead my son answered the phone and he refused to give it to his mother. He then unleashed a stream of anger and hate at me, full of words and emotions that should never come out of the mouth of a 10-year old. He hung up on me. I called two more times, with the same result. My elation at the news instantly crumbled into guilt. While I knew that I was doing the right thing by getting my kids out of a toxic environment, I realized at that moment just how difficult this change would be for everyone.
The next day was fraught with fear and stupidity. My ex would not answer her phone, and I was unable to confirm with her exactly how and when the exchange would occur. I had to have my attorney communicate with her attorney and, even then, it wasn't clear how things would go. I worried about a violent scene, so I visited the police department when I got to town to explain the situation to them. An officer told me that he was sympathetic, but that he couldn't show up to escort the kids out--the best he could do was to wait around the corner in case of trouble, which he was kind enough to do.
The scene was set. I drove up to the house at 2:00 PM on a Friday afternoon. The kids had not been sent to school that day, so their mother had all day to get them riled up with sadness and hatred. My attorney pulled up 100 feet behind me, close enough to the corner that she could see the police officer and signal him if there was any trouble. The kids' bags were sitting on the sidewalk, but there was nobody in sight, and the shades in the house were pulled shut. I didn't quite know what to do. I then caught a glimpse of my beloved children hiding behind a bush and wasn't sure what to make of it. Were they hoping that I wouldn't see them and would drive away without them? Did their mother put them up to this? Were they just being silly?
I got out of the car and, making sure to not set foot on the property, I called out to them. My daughter peeked out her head and gave a little smile. She trudged over to the car and got in without any objection. My son remained behind the bush and refused to come out. I told him that he needed to come with me, but that he could take a minute if he needed it. After 10 minutes of waiting I was ready to go bang on the door but he eventually came out on his own and got in the car. He remained very angry and wouldn't talk at all during the ride to Boston. My daughter, meanwhile, was as sunny and happy as could be. I had always figured that, if this day ever came, she would be the one who would be crying and screaming. It was a fitting omen for just how unpredictable things have been since that day.
* * *
We are now seven weeks into our new reality. The fact that it has taken me this long to have the time and energy to sit down and write about it is a strong indicator of just how difficult the transition has been. The fact that the judge's order came down a week into the school year was a major contributor to the chaos. I had assumed all along that the decision would be made before Labor Day, so the kids could at least have a fresh start to the school year. Instead, they had the last two weeks of August and the first two weeks of September to start their Fall activities in Maine and start getting into the flow of the school year. And then, suddenly, they were ripped away from their lives and given two days to prepare to start from zero. It was totally unfair to them, and I will always be upset at the judge for dragging his feet for nearly a month before making a decision.
So the kids did start school here in Virginia on the following Monday, and I moved quickly to get my son on a football team and my daughter in a dance class. They needed to have at least some semblance of continuity to ease the transition, and those activities have definitely kept them occupied. Everything else has not been so easy. My son has continued to express anger at being here, though his resistance has waned in the past couple of weeks. His confusion is being fueled by his mother, who used her phone calls in the first few days to reiterate the three lies she told him before letting him go. This, of course, further upset him and led to oppositional behavior from him that I had never before experienced.
The bigger issue with my son is the fact that he is 10 years old, has Asperger's Syndrome, and has never received any support or counseling to help him with his special needs, as his mother is opposed to the mental health profession. Not a day has gone by since he's been here that he didn't have at least one angry--if not violent--outburst directed at me, my wife, my daughter, my stepsister, or another neighborhood kid. The outbursts are almost never justified: they are typically over being told to eat something, over someone not sharing with him, or over some perceived "unfairness" that is usually unfounded. I don't blame him for this, as he was made this way, but I am deeply concerned that it is too late to help him, as his bad habits and fatalism have been encouraged for so long. More troubling is that, like his mother, he is so far incapable of admitting that he has made a mistake or a bad decision. There have been times when multiple kids saw him do something wrong and, instead of admitting it, he claimed that they were all lying. We are trying to get extra services for him to help with his Asperger's issues, but that's not likely to begin for another month or two.
The end result is that the entire household has become captive to my son's explosiveness. My wife and I are always on edge with him. My daughter, who is used to his behaviors, often goes silent and withdraws. This behavior concerns me a great deal, as I behaved the same way as a child when my older brother went off the handle (he was a lot like my son is now). My stepdaughter, who had been an only child for nine years, had gotten resentful and moody, and keeps saying that nobody ever gives her any attention--I don't blame her for feeling that way. We started working with a family counselor soon after my kids arrived, but it will obviously take time for those efforts to bear fruit.
Meanwhile, my wife isn't getting any less pregnant, and the baby will be born in less than five weeks. We are already struggling to keep up with the practical and emotional aspects of having three kids in the house, and I am flipping out over the prospects of adding a newborn baby to this already volatile mix. We have figured out that we simply cannot have both of us working full-time with four kids, but we also can't afford to lose either person's income. I am actively looking for a higher-paying job, and will hopefully find one before my wife would have to go back to work in March, but there is no guarantee of this happening.
In brief, life is rough for everyone in our home these days. I try to comfort myself with the thought that, however things may be here, at least my children's lives are not endangered by living with a raging alcoholic stepfather and a delusional mother.
Things in Maine have actually gotten even worse since my kids left. My ex-mother-in-law's house caught on fire under mysterious circumstances a couple of weeks ago, and I strongly suspect that my ex-wife and her husband orchestrated the fire with the hope of collecting on an insurance settlement. I am thus very happy that my kids aren't living in that environment, but they aren't totally free of it. My ex is actually here in Virginia this weekend (she's a long distance parent now!) and I'm sure she is filling their heads with terrible things. Worse, the kids will be traveling to Maine for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, giving her (and her drunk husband) plenty of time to do their damage. It is terrible for me to say this, but I think the best thing that could happen for my kids would be for their mother to be convicted of arson and insurance fraud and go to jail for a while. They would be free of her influence, and they would learn an important lesson about the consequences of bad behavior.
* * *
The Frequent Father is dead. There will be no more nightly phone calls behind the Iron Curtain. There will be no more sleepless nights wondering what the screaming in the background of my phone call was about. There will be no more expensive travel itineraries booked for the sole purpose of watching my children grow up. There will be no more overnight bus rides, nights spent sleeping in rental cars, or long winter days holed up at the Howard Johnson's. There will be no more stares from people wondering why I lugging a car seat through the airport with no child in tow. If all goes as planned, I will never again set foot in the State of Maine. I know the scenery is beautiful and the lobster is delicious, but I do not need to be reminded of all of the years of pain and sadness that I endured in that place. I think I'll vacation elsewhere from now on.
Now I'm just plain Daddy, having to do all of the things that any other parent has to do every day to raise children. It isn't exactly normal, as I now have to deal with the long distance parent on the other end of the phone. But, assuming she doesn't go to jail, I have to believe that she will eventually accept reality and move here. When I first met her, she lived 15 minutes away from where I now live, so it's not exactly foreign territory, and she would have no trouble finding a good job here--that's something I never could do in Maine.
Seven weeks into this new reality it is very hard to imagine things ever settling down. But I feel a lot better knowing that we've all survived the hardest part. The initial shock has worn off, and each passing day makes things a little less strange for everyone. I am not sure if I will continue to write about my parenting experiences from here on out, as they really aren't going to be that much different from anyone else's. It has been a long journey to this point, and I am frankly amazed to have actually gotten to this point in one piece. The road ahead will not be easy, but it will be different. That alone is worth celebrating.
Long live The Frequent Father.
