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” WAIT I forgot to tell you I was so nervous”, I said to Sheriff Matson. The grifter was sleeping with all the Band members.  She was borrowing large amounts of money and had a routine moving into their houses and then convincing them to go bankrupt.

And today I got this:  I reached for my laptop on the kitchen table and open it to the treatening email. It said:  Email me the following:  All credit card accounts, house bills-every bill we have with account balances, ID’S and passwords, Social Security numbers and any secret codes like ‘Mother’s maiden names.”

I took a deep breath and said to the officer, “As if my husband doesn’t know my Mother’s maiden name.”  There’s faint bitterness in my voice.  And I regret it instantly.

“Ma’am,” he said, frowning, looking right into my eyes as he closed the lid to the laptop.  “Your husband is an adult.  He can give his email address to anyone he wants.  If his new girlfriend wrote this message, and…”

“But…I interrupted.  ”This new group of people that Nick hangs with now.  For all I know they could have him tied up in the basement.  It, uh, it….could be a meth lab.”

I wanted to drop through the kitchen floor.  I was as articulate as a prettified log.  But, unfortunately, my tongue is stumbling on words.  I’m too ashamed to say our loud and now forced too. I didn’t know what to do.  I didn’t know what to say.  I couldn’t stop the tears.

“He is in a bad part of town. He is living in her ex-husband’s house the three!! of them together.  They drink. I worry there are bad drugs there.”

Sheriff Matson cleared his throat.  “I can send an Officer over to their address. However, we have no reason to go to the door.  The best thing will be if they get caught drinking.  Then, we could take him in custody.  The problem here is even if you got him in re-hab, his new crowd of buddies would be standing at the exit door waiting for his release with beers and joints in both hands.”

The Sheriff shruggd his shoulders and gestured with both hands palms up as if saying, “What can you do?”   “Ma’am you are in trouble!  He is playing dirty. You need a lawyer.  I suggest you change the locks. But realize that he is still the owner of this house.  If he brakes a window to get in, he can do as he pleases because he owns the house too.

“Thank you.”  I lean back against the kitchen chair.  I appreciate that so much.” For a moment, the Sheriff hesitated, and then he continued. “And, well, I would consider moving fast in getting a lawyer and a restraining and financia order.  As you said, you told me your husband has a gun.  Also, because my thought is the girlfriend would much more like to live here.  It is a beautiful place.”

“One more thing,” he said as he leaped to his feet.  “I suggest you find a Divorce Recovery group.  They are in Churches mostly.  He nods his head. ‘Right. Well, I’ll leave you then.”  I walked him to the front door.  He let himself out then turned around.  He took a step back and looked at me, smiling.  Then, he said, heavily with much feeling. “It’s a shame that you will foreclose.

Have a good day, Ma’am.  As calm a voice as possible, I answered. “You too sir.”

Numb.  I closed the door.  I walked into the living room, looking at the floor-to-celiling windows that bring in abundant natural light.  I watched as Sheriff Matson’s police car went down the driveway and out of my sight.

I couldn’t move.  I stood still, staring out the living room window.

House eerily quiet.

 

“Call the Police, Mom.”  My daughter’s words are pounding in my ears.

Call the Police.  Call the Police.  I keep thinking of our business.  I don’t want to hurt my Husband or his reputation.  NO.  STOP IT.   Think.  Do it Now.  Deal with your fear later.  I hold my breath paralyzed with embarrassment spewing out tears and panic words to the Operator on the 911 Call.

Restless, waiting with no idea when the Police Officer would arrive.  I make coffee.  I pour myself a cup before it has finished brewing.  And sat at the kitchen table and worried.

The knock on the front door shook my thoughts away.  No one else was expected, so it must be the Police.

I push away from the table.  Put my coffee cup in the sink and walk to the front door.  I had never seen a Police Officer up close.  In the car many  times. Nick ceaselessly getting traffic tickets.  Nick pulled over and was given citations never tried to be polite.  No, he was nasty and always got the Ticket. I uses to say to Nick; you get more flies with sugar than vinegar.

I open the front door.  There stood a big life-size Officer in full uniform.  Acessorized with handcuffs, gun, badge and spit polish shoes.  He introduced himself as Sheriff Matson.  He handed me his card and shook my hand.  I noticed a bit of gray on the short side of his flat-top haircut.

I smiled and introduced myself.  He did  not return my smile.  ‘Follow me, please, and we will go into the kitchen.”  I said, wishing I was  doing the right thing.  We both sat down at the kitchen table at the same time.  I am tearing up and trying to hold it in.  I said quietly.  “I’ve never called the Police before.”

Sheriff Matson nodded.  ‘Would you like some coffee?  I asked.  “No , thank you, Ma’am.  But you go ahead if you’d like some.”  I shook my head no.

It’s okay Ma’am.  I’m here to help you. Now, tell me your situation.”  He pulled out a small notepad and pen from his uniform.

I turn my face away and say a High School friend of my husband (a Bass Player in a Band) asked him to help him get rid of a band groupie.  “She was a known Meth Addict, Alchoholic, and Gambler.”

I took a deep breath looking at the table, not the Officer.  “I woke up one day and my husband had moved in with the grifter in her ex-husband’s house. The three of them are living together.”

Two days later, I got this,”  Reaching for my laptop on the kitchen table.  I open it to the threatening email.

Without asking, I read it out loud to the Officer.

I can’t do what Nick does.  I’m not the personality.  He has the education.  I just booked the events.  The only real skill I have ever had seems to be talking on the phone.  I learned that my smile was my best asset a long time ago, and I guess the adage smile when you dial is me.  I look at the calender.  The March bills.  BILLS.  Oh my God, I have to get the money out of the bank account NOW before she does.

Where would I put the money?  I need to put it in a safe place.  PAIGE!  Our  college-age daughter Paige I had opened her a bank account. Nick never paid any attention to the bills; he would not even know where it is at.

I have to call Paige.  Our daughter away at college.  I have to call her now. The first thing she said after I stopped babbling and crying was.

“Who will walk me down the aisle.”

At that moment, It was like the World was Silenced.

“Mom?”

“Mom”, call the Police.  It is identity fraud, it is against the law.  Call them right now to see if they can help us.  Then run to your bank accounts, withdraw all the money, and put it into my account.”

“I will move the money out of your joint account and make you go bankrupt.”

For God’s sake, this woman she wants my life!  My house.  My husband.  My money.  My Jaguar.  It took me 38 years to get any of this.  I’ll be damn if she gets anything!

I feel panic and indignation.  Does she think I’m stupid and would send my family’s Social Security numbers over the internet in an e-mail?

Where the hell is Nick?  What has he done?  Why is he with these people?  For all I know he could be tied up in their basement while they make Meth.  This is nuts!

I look at the landline phone there are voice messages.  I play them.  There are two messages both inquiring about work for Nick.  It’s Wednesday, three days into the work week.  I can’t even look at our business emails.  What the hell would I say to clients on the phone?

How drunk can Nick be that he has forgotten about work?

“Let’s begin via email.  It avoids any unnecessary emotions.  I know financially we have much to talk about.”

Let’s start here.  Email me the following:  All credit card accounts, house bills-every bill we have with account balances.  ID’S and passwords, social security numbers, and any secret codes like “mother’s” maiden name.

Are you staying in the house? Your job search is important as well.  “Nick.”

WTF!  Social Security numbers?  Mother’s maiden name?  As if Nick wouldn’t know my mother’s maiden name. Jesus Christ this is the grifter writing on her computer for money!!

This is ridiculous.  Am I staying in the house?!  What does that mean?  Oh God, I know what that means…she wants in the house!!

My thoughts seem stuck, as if I was sucking on a straw, wanting that last drop stuck on empty.  I slam down the laptop’s lid, shove the chair into the desk, and walk outside and into the barn.

I go through Nick’s office drawers throwing paper everywhere.  Then I walk to the other side of the wall where all his tools are.  I pick up one.  I never use tools.  Nick is the handyman who can fix anything.  I’m the cook who saves us money shopping with coupons.

I look at it and throw it against the wall as hard as I can.  Then I pick up another and another until every tool is either stuck in the wall or has put a large hole in the wall.

Hmmm, my head feels much clearer now.  I take a deep breath! I look around me. I see a mixed match of nails, tools, and a lock on a table.

A LOCK!  luckly the key was in it with more tools and a lock, etc.  So when I left the barn I put the lock on the door.

It has only been four days…4 days since that Bastard moved to the shady part of town.  And now his girlfriend, grifter, drunk (whoever the hell she is) is demanding money!

That fucking bitch.  How much work and time can you put into husbands that want to be Bad.

I don’t go near the computer until the next day.

In the morning, I open the laptop.  I immediately go to the email and I can’t open it?

I then try all our personal emails. Then the business emails. They are all locked.

We never had passwords or security questions; it was just us. Now all our emails have been hacked???

My cell is flashing a text.

With a phone number. I do not know.

 

“Telling me what?”  What is it Eric?”

Talking to him was like pushing a door that says pull.

He shifted in his seat and looked over his shoulder.

“But…I knew they were together.”

“What do you mean…together?” “The three of you.”

“He drew himself up, took a deep breath, and said, “Back last summer, when you went out of town.  Stormy and I came over to your house.”

“Yeah.”

“And…well, we had been drinking for months.”

“You and Stormy had been drinking for months, so..?

“The three of us.”

“What do you mean? The three of you.”

“Nick and Me and Stormy.”

“No.  Nick doesn’t like beer.”

“No. We were drinking hard stuff.”

Trying to digest this news, I finally said, “What do you mean for months?”

“Well, Nick would come over late at night, and the three of us would get drunk.”

“Get drunk? Like in High School?”

“Wait!  Wait a minute.  Late at night ?  How late?  Where was I?” Almost screaming in a panic my voice.

“I don’t know.” Eric said with both of his hands in the air.

“So you’re saying he came over like once a week.”

“NO”

“WHAT?”

“EVERY NIGHT.”

“EVERY NIGHT!!!”

“WHAT?” I’m trying to wrap my head around this news.

We never had hard liquor in the house.

ALL Of A SUDDEN:   My wonderful luncheon with Cecelia appeared in my MOUTH!!!

And I threw up all over me, and the steering wheel, and the floor mat, etc.

“Oh, Shit, Jillie for God’s sake.

Eric, cried out.”

“I havent told you what happened.”

“WHAT! WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?” I screamed and burst into tears, trying to wipe the throw up off the dashboard with my hand.

“We had a three-way in the barn.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Eric.  Hi.”

“Jillie?”  He couldn’t keep the shock from his voice.

“Yeah, is Nick there?”   Silence.  Dead Silence.  “Eric?” “Yeah. No. No.”

“Eric, could you meet me for coffee?”

“My cars in the shop, the guys are coming to pick me up for band practice at 5pm.”  “Eric, how about I come now.  I will pick you up.”  “Ok. But I don’t have much time.  What’s going on Jillie?”

“I won’t take much of your time.  Just let me buy you a coffee, okay.  See you soon.’ I said, not realizing I had been holding my breath.

“Jillie, I …”   “Eric, I will tell you when I get there.  I’m heading your way now.”

Running the engine for a minute to warm up, I sat in the luxurious leather seats of my Jaquar.  What a car.  Just do it!  Nick and I shouted, looking at each other.  A total impulse buy. Sunroof, stereo to die for and the best part: Fast and Furious.  You could pass a semi in pounding, pouring rain with confidence.  It held twists and turns in the road that felt like you were still on the freeway.  It gave me I-have-everything -to-live -for feeling.

Usually, I take the longest route to my destination, but this time I went straight to Eric’s place and honked the horn.

He came out his front door.  Always the cool dude drummer.  I had seen him with long hair and bell bottoms to today’s short hair and jeans.  His style may have changed; he was heavier, older, and wore glasses despite that he never will lose his cool stagger, still attracting girls at every gig.

“Hey, Jillie,” he said as he slid into the passenger seat. “I was thinking let’s go through Starbucks drive-thru and go park in the park.”  “Okay.”

Except when we parked neither of us touched the coffee.  “I found a naked picture of Stormy today on Nicks computer.”  He looks at me like, What?  Are you kidding?

I turn and give Eric a careful look.  He was looking out the window.

“Eric.”  The silence stretched until I broke it with a slightly brittle laugh.  “Stormy was YOUR girlfriend?  Right.”  You were engaged to her.

Eric frowns at the question.  He gives me a tilted half smile, which I knew from experience  was not without its effect.

“I’m having a tough time telling you this,” Eric said

 

As a kid, my neighbor’s teenager threw a football at me.  It hit me like a bullet in the chest and knocked the wind out of me.  I fell to the ground, not able to catch my breath.  I was suffocating.

Only once again.  I was asphyxiated by my eyes.  By a picture worth a thousand words.  My husband Nick was naked!  His best friend Eric’s girlfriend, Stormy! Eric’s girlfriend the band groupie, Stormy? With a joint in her mouth, a beer in her hand, standing naked inside OUR tent.

Oh, my God.  Eric had told us that Stormy preys on older men.  She moves in with them to feed her gambling and booze addicition.

She owes IRS 25K  and goes under three different names!

After Eric told us that story, I remember asking “Why did you date her?’

He said, She’s a party girl. You know long legs..some hootchy-kootchy.    Hearing that from Eric is like chewing someone’s used gum found on the sidewalk.

I remember thinking what a dumb ass Eric was.  I went in one instant from being tolerant of Nick and his old high school friend to wondering what Nick saw in him as a Grown, Educated man.

I had known Eric, as long as I had know Nick.

The two of them were on the westling team together in High School.

On a Saturday, on a date with Nick the summer we met when I was 16, we went to see his best buddy, Eric.

Nick knocked on the door, and when Eric opened, he grabbed Nick and put him into a headlock.

The next thing I knew they knocked over the living room couch while I was still standing in the doorway.

Which I later learned was the Bell Clap, Body Blaster and Tilt A Whirl wrestling Cross-Body moves.

Eric has been in and out of our lives since the beginning.

39 years ago.

I called Eric.

 

 

 

Does he need another week?  I could feel my forehead wrinkling up, and a shiver went down my spine.  My mother used to say a shiver was when “someone walked over your grave.”

Nick said he had been depressed lately and in my best coach all-in-a-sincere voice I said, “Together we can do anything!  We are a team.  No worries.”  He kissed me, pulling me down and unzipping my jacket.  I was always surprised at how much he could do with one hand.

Without even thinking, I headed outside to the Barn where Nick kept his office.

Our small Gambreal-style Barn was built in the 1930’s.  You can see the Barn’s age when you go upstairs through an old door with a glass doorknob.  Upstairs in the Barn, dust was on everything.  Making it hard to see what was what.

Years ago, together , Nick and I grabbed brooms.  Then, we tried to sweep the dust out the hayloft door.  We ended up with dust all over us from head to toe.  We grinned at each other and started to do the Texas two-step since we were no longer city slickers.  That summer night, we had dust-free barn.  So, we laid a blanket down to look out the hayloft and the night of stars.

Nick explored the outline of my face.  A blond eyebrow arched playfully, “I love you,” he said. His strong arms embracing me as he took possession of my lips and heart.  Nick was not just my husband but also my “honey-do-weekend” handyman.  Nick helped his grandfather build a house in his teens and absorbed experience with hardware and electrical- you name it. I thought of us as I could cook anything and he could fix anything.

The best days of my life were not necessarily the days something tremendous or exciting happened, but the content I found in my home and family.

I saw his desktop computer in the barn office.  I sat at the desk and briefly looked at business papers, then turned on the computer.

We had no secrets. I knew all the passwords.  So first, I checked out our business email and then his personal email, which was always full of his main hobbies, karate and paragliding.

There is a new picture on his computer so I open it.

“Tout de suite”  Let me , let you know, that now and forever….I will never forget.

 

I drove home up to Two Pines and A Cone.  Our acre of land slopped and then went up a hill to our barn.  I  drove closer to our 2-story home with our wide expansive red deck.  My husband Nick chose the name, Two Pines and A Cone eighteen years ago,  for the two pines that loomed 50 feet on both ends of the house.

They represent Nick and me.  The cone was our 10-year-old-daughter, Paige.  I always smile so grateful to have property I love and can retire at. I parked my semi-new but nethertheless first sport’s car.  A Jaquar.  I never had so much fun driving.  I gave it a quick look then headed up the steps and into the French doors and yelled out, “Nick!”

Silence.

I dropped my purse onto the tiled hallway entry table and walked into the living room.  Our fabulous view of Mount Thomas from our floor-to-ceiling window was at its best on this sunny day with clear skies.

Nick had been traveling a lot lately.  I usually go with him.  I remembered the first time we entered a complimentary hotel suite during one of his speaking engagements.  The utermost beautiful fruit basket I had ever seen sat on the end of the table.  Overflowing with fresh fruit, expensive cheese, crackers, and gourmet chocolate truffles all wrapped up in a bright blue bow with a “Thank you note”.

There it was…Nick had reached the Top!  The star attraction in our business and my life.

“You made it, Nick.  You made it!”  I hollered, jumping up and down on the bed with my mouth full of grapes and throwing the rest at him.

Of late, he said he was too busy to sightsee (our favorite activity exploring new cities), and it is best that I stay home and make appointments on the phone for his subsequent speaking engagements.

Was that the office line ringing?  I ran down the hall to the study.  I grabbed the landline phone receiver.  Before I could say hello, I heard Nick’s voice say, “Jillie, Jillie.”

“Hey, Nick! Honey, how are you? I say softly as I pull out the office chair and sit down.  “Yeah, yeah, really busy.  I need another week here.”

“OH? “Well, we need to look at the calendar soon as I have booked many appointments for you.    You haven’t called me much, and I miss you.”

For the last couple of decades, the fellow called me more than once a day when we were not working in the office together.

“Jillie, um, yeah, the client is coming today. I could not make it yesterday, so I have got to go.    So, I’ll be back at the end of next week.

Dead Air.

I look at the receiver.   I put it back to my ear.

I looked at my watch and stood up  and out of the chair.

I call back on the landline.  A busy signal?

I hang up.