My Best Friends Have Hairy Legs (7 page)

My pug, Tink, was also a rescue and I got her when she was nine months old. Officially, she was “Tinkerbell,” however “Tink” seemed to fit her personality better and so it stuck. One Halloween she and Trooper dressed up as Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, but that was the only time she ever wore a costume or shirt other than a bandana after a grooming trip. Her extra “padding” made her overheat quickly and so keeping her in a shirt or costume for too long could be dangerous. Trooper on the other hand, loves to wear shirts. When Trooper arrived, Tink was three years old and had already had two major surgeries to remove bladder stones. She was diagnosed with liver shunts after her second surgery, and her health issues just seemed to grow each year. In spite of it all, Tink never seemed to be afraid of anything or anyone. She was a happy, carefree spirit who greeted everyone with a tail wag and a face full of pug snot if they got too close. We joked in my townhouse complex that she was the “official” greeter—she would wander into anyone’s open front door, or hop in their car for a ride if they left the door open. Everyone loved her, and she loved everyone. At the dog park when she felt that the dogs were being too rough with someone—even a dog ten times her size—she would 59 wade right in like a referee to break it up. Chasing the big dogs at the park was her favorite thing to do… barking like a squeaky toy as she ran. Someone once asked me if she was hurting because of how she barked when she ran, and I told them no, that was her happy bark. She was having the time of her life playing with the big dogs. She took care of everything with a big slobbery pug kiss. The only thing her kisses—or mine - couldn’t fix was her own health problems.

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HAPTER
6

Final Straws

My health issues caused me to need another surgery in early spring shortly after our first anniversary. Once again, Trooper refused to leave my side as soon as I was home from the hospital. It was also when I finally realized just where I stood in my marriage and began to accept that it could not be salvaged.

The morning after I got out of the hospital I awoke briefly to the delicious smell of French toast and sausage cooking. I remember thinking, “Wow. What a sweet thing for Marc to do,” before I fell back asleep in a comfortable drug induced fog. When I woke an hour later, he asked me whether or not I was ready for breakfast and I said that I was. But what he brought upstairs for me wasn’t French toast and sausage. It was cold cereal and coffee. Thinking maybe I had just imagined the smells earlier I asked him whether or not I had dreamed the French toast and sausage. “No,” he said, “I made them for myself.” I was too surprised to even respond as he turned and left the room.

Ryan arrived in early May for his summer visit, and tensions were high in the house. Marc had started to blatantly lie to me about money and issues with Ryan, and I suspected he was sending his ex-wife more money than just his child support payments. I learned he was borrowing money from his parents, and he never seemed to have any funds for when we would all go to dinner. Whenever we went shopping he would wander off when it was time to pay, and every month it was one excuse after another about why he didn’t have money for any of the utilities bills we had agreed to share.

Marie called several times a day to either talk to Ryan or yell at Marc. I found out that she had been unhappy Ryan had fun with me when he had visited during spring break. We had played imaginary spy missions and spent time working on craft project gifts for his mom and half-sister. Unfortunately as a result she felt threatened and had told him he couldn’t love her and like me at the same time, so he had to choose between us. Not wanting to choose, Ryan unhappily avoided me every chance he could, leaving the room when I came in and hiding out in his bedroom for almost the entire month of May. It was easier for him to do that than risk having fun and letting something slip to his mother. I loved Ryan, but knew that I had to be careful in what I said or did since he was so emotionally fragile at times because of his mother’s abuse and ultimatums. He was being used as a weapon against his father, a bargaining chip, and held “hostage” at times to get her demands met. Marc would use him as a weapon against his mother by spoiling him with gifts and trips that she could not provide. Even his paternal grandparents gave in to him and gave him anything he wanted. The first Christmas I spent with Marc and his family, his parents gave him almost $1,000 in gifts, including $150 cash. What eleven-year old boy needs $150 cash? He managed to lose almost half of it before we even got him back to his mother’s house after the holiday. The rest she stole from his wallet.

Marc had started being secretive as well. Whenever his cell phone would ring, he would look at the caller ID then take the call outside. Our home office had been set up originally with matching desks side by side on the same wall with our computer screens visible to each other. Now he wanted the office arranged so that our desks faced and his screen could not be seen unless I walked around behind him. There were times when I would walk into the office to pay bills and he would immediately shut down his computer and leave the room.

I decided to tell Marc I wanted to separate as soon as summer was over and Ryan went back to his mother’s house. It was apparent after more than a year in counseling that there was no love or affection for me on his part, and the agony I felt for Ryan’s situation was frustrating. My hands were tied and I was unable to convince his mother that I wasn’t a threat to her status as the sun Ryan’s world revolved around. Marc wasn’t paying me back for the funds I put out to pay off his collection accounts as he promised—his reenlistment bonus had gone quickly into a stereo and speakers for his car, and then mysteriously was gone. It was becoming more and more difficult for me to keep up with the bills to support the three of us. I was working two jobs just to try to keep the household afloat.

I wanted us to go back to square one and start “dating” again and work on our relationship. I imagined a small ceremony to renew our vows when we had pulled it all back together again—not the elaborate wedding I had paid for that Marc had insisted upon but just a small ceremony with us reconfirming our commitment to each other. I still believed that we could work things out because I really did not want to divorce again.

I know.

“Love” is blind.

Trooper continued to throw up and become even more fearful of things. I was taking him to day care now at least twice a week because it seemed to help him. He didn’t throw up while he was there, didn’t seem afraid of the men there, and came home so exhausted he usually fell right to sleep for the rest of the evening. When he didn’t go to day care, he spent most of his days sleeping unless I was home on the weekend and then I would often take him to the bay near our house to go swimming, or take him to the dog park to run.

Ryan spent most week days at the youth program on base, and when he wasn’t there because Marc couldn’t afford the full summer he wouldn’t walk or play with Trooper during the day. The most he would do was to open the back door for him to go outside to use the bathroom. Ryan’s days were spent playing video games or watching TV even if he had been told not to and was given chores to do. He would call us frequently during the day to try and figure out when we were going to be home so that he could try to get his chores done in the 15–20 minutes it would take for us to get home from the base.

We often played board games to determine who would do which chores for the coming week. Winner got to pick which chore the loser had to do for a week. One week Ryan was to hand wash all the dishes. Part of it was discipline—he had not done his chores the previous week, so Marc decided that the dishwasher was off limits for the week. When we realized early in the week that Ryan’s idea of washing the dishes didn’t include soap or hot water, he got the chore for two weeks. While he was now using soap and hot water, he wasn’t carefully cleaning all the food off the dishes or silverware, and would put them away with food still dried to them.

He was a good kid, smart, but lazy—a trait that his parents and grandparents had helped to develop since they never held him accountable for doing a good job and would always pay him his allowance whatever he did, regardless of whether or not it was done correctly. As a result, Ryan realized he didn’t have to try, didn’t have to work, and really didn’t have to take pride in anything he did in order to get his allowance. He told me once that his dream job was something that would pay him millions of dollars but not require him to do anything. When I realized that he wasn’t really washing the dishes but just swishing them in the water, I bought very inexpensive paper plates and plastic forks and knives to use for a week, putting away all the silverware.

While that sounds like I was also “enabling” him to be lazy, that week I cooked steaks, chicken, pork chops and other foods that were eaten easier with silverware rather than plastic. They complained because the forks and knives kept breaking. The paper plates would get soggy and they would wind up eating paper with their food. I told them I was tired of eating off of dirty dishes and silverware and if Ryan wasn’t going to take pride in his chores and do a good job then not only would he not get paid his allowance, but they could get used to eating with paper and plastic. Not surprisingly he then realized that there was a definite connection between just doing something to get by and doing a good job. After that there weren’t any other problems that summer with him doing his chores right the first time instead of taking short cuts.

The weekend in June that everything finally blew up, Marc had been evasive every time I asked him when he was leaving to take Ryan back to his mom. She had recently moved with a boyfriend to South Carolina and so they were going to meet half-way in Georgia over a weekend. Since I knew that it had been a stressful summer for all of us, I wanted to try to plan a fun trip to Valdosta and the Wild Adventures theme park for us as a family and mostly to try to cheer up Ryan since he was unhappy with having to move to South Carolina and leave all of his friends from school. Not knowing when exactly they were meeting, it was difficult for me to ask for time off from work or make hotel reservations. Finally he told me that they were not meeting in Georgia, she was in fact, going to be picking him up at the house because she wanted to “inspect” it.

Before Marc and I married, but after we were engaged, I had issued an invitation for her to come to see my house where her son would be staying during school breaks and summer vacations. I knew that if the situation was reversed I would want to know where my son would be staying when he was away from me for an extended period of time, and felt that it would also let her know that I was willing to be a cooperative part of their lives. The invitation was declined. Later, after we married whenever I made any home repairs, improvements, or got new furniture to make the house more comfortable for two more people living there, the subject of the house and the money I was spending became a topic for fights between her and Marc. Every time something was done or bought, he felt it necessary to brag to her how much it cost, especially when I had redecorated the spare bedroom to Ryan’s specifications so that he would feel like he had some-place of his own, even if just for two months a year. We had repainted the walls, replaced the light fixture with a new ceiling fan and light kit. Ryan had picked out a futon bunk bed combo that I hoped would encourage him to invite over some of his new friends from the summer day camp he attended while we were at work. He had become enamored with Samurai, and so the room had been decorated with themed posters and Oriental décor that he picked out, matching sheets and comforters. Each time Marc told Marie how much things had cost, or what had been done, she would insist that he wasn’t paying her enough child support and the fights would begin. Later, when she demanded her right to “inspect” the house, I told Marc that the invitation had been rescinded. I did not want her in the house where she could see with her own eyes the extent of my remodeling efforts or furniture purchases—things that were paid for with MY income alone. If she was truly concerned about the environment Ryan was living in, I was more than willing to have Florida’s Child Services come inspect the house, but she was not welcome.