Whoa! He'd been so busy thinking he'd missed half of what the girls were yammering about. He looked at Katy, "What did you say?"
"She'll have you arrested dad."
"No she won't."
Katy didn't retreat, "Yes she will."
He laughed, "No she won't"
Then Melanie laughed, "You're inimitable dad."
"Peerless," laughed Dorothy.
Melanie again, "One of a kind!"
Katy was confused, "Did I miss something?"
Melanie wrapped her arms around her younger sister, "Not a thing littlest munchkin."
Dorothy brought it all back to earth, "I'm hungry. Let's do Wild Wings?"
Gary said, "How about I-Hop?"
Katy clicked in, "Pancakes at I-Hop, but then I have to be back home. My boyfriend's picking me up.
Melanie said, "I've got a date too, but I'm making him stay at our house so we can swim some more."
Katy looked at Dorothy, "You should stay home too. Make your boyfriend stay with us.
Dorothy laughed, "You got it!"
Gary said, "OK, let's go!" He started the car, but stopped, he put it park and turned, "Wait a minute!" He scanned his girls, "We're all on the same page, right?"
A little scared they all three nodded.
"This is for your mother, right?"
They nodded again.
"We all love her, it's not us and her, or us against her; it's us for her. Do I make myself clear?"
They all nodded yet again. And off they went.
~~~V~~~
After I-Hop they went home. The older girls called their boyfriends about the new plan. He thought; Cell phones and school. It was a Monday, all these kids were supposed to be in school. He guessed wrong, it was the last week; teachers were reviewing for or giving finals so the kids were skipping out. Katy called a few of her friends. They'd stopped on the way so he could buy some more sodas and some beer. He wasn't a big beer drinker, but while in high school he'd found Rolling Rock quite tasty. He preferred the pony bottles. He couldn't recall but in the past year Jessie had decided Rolling Rock, especially in the smaller bottles, were unmanly. Every time he'd bought some she'd scowl and criticize. Eventually he gave up and stopped drinking any beer. Not anymore, he thought, she needed to start seeing Rolling Rock in the refrigerator.
By 3:00 that afternoon the house was a busy place; kids everywhere, the girls seemed happy. Jessie didn't come home that night.
Around 10:00 a.m. the following morning a registered letter came. Jessie knew Gary was back at their old home; he was supposed to be there only to work. She'd called her lawyer who'd wangled a special letter delivered. It was an order telling Gary to immediately leave the house and not come back. Gary read it and threw it out. He went back to work painting.
It was close to 6:00 that evening when Jessie pulled in the driveway. Gary was in the kitchen having a piece of pizza. The girls were all outside by the pool. Jessie came in, slamming doors, and went straight to the den. He was glad; all his stuff was upstairs in the old master bedroom. He heard her leave the den, storm through the dining room, and up the stairs. The master bedroom door slammed shut, it was quiet for a few minutes, then more slammed doors, and Jessie was downstairs in the kitchen. Arms akimbo she stood in the doorway and glared at her soon to be ex-husband. "I want you out of my house," she yelled!
He was drinking a beer, a Rolling Rock, He smiled, "Hungry?" Pointing to a half empty box he added, "There's some cold pizza, but I can heat it up for you."
To his surprise she slumped in a chair. She dropped her head on the back of her wrist and muttered, "Yesterday and Sunday were mistakes. Please leave."
Damn, he thought, the yelling had stopped, and he got a please. He said, "I thought Sunday's party went pretty well. Dorothy changed her mind again. She didn't like any of your lawyer friends and decided to major in English literature after all."
Jessie looked tired, not work tired, life tired, in a low tone she said, "That's not what I meant."
"I know. The girls drugged us."
She gazed out the window, then at her husband, her expression was hard to gauge, "If you won't leave you could at least tidy the place up."
Gary smiled, "Of course."
Jessie got up, looked in the refrigerator, looked outside where the girls were still sunning themselves, then looking at nothing in particular she said, "I'm tired. I'm going to lie down," surprisingly, she quietly took herself off to the den.
Gary put the beer bottle in the recyclable container and sat back down. What had he just seen? He wasn't sure. Sunday had been strange, she had gone to court Monday, and apparently stayed at her apartment Monday night. She was so unpredictable; she might just be lying low, she might explode? Who knew? He cleaned up the kitchen, called out to the girls that their mom was home and resting in the den; he then retreated to the living room to read. He was determined to finish "Vanity Fair".
The girls came in later, and drifted off to places where teenage girls usually go. He sat in the living room and read. Jessie came out around 10:00, took a shower and went back to the den. He turned out the lights and sat quietly in the dark. He heard her in the den, he went upstairs.
~~~V~~~
It was Friday, Flag Day; the day Jessie and Gary were supposed to meet with the lawyers and a representative from the court to sign the final papers. Gary didn't know how it worked in other states, but where they lived the whole thing was pretty cut and dried. A few months back he would have sworn Jessie wouldn't even be there, and though they were supposed to be officially apart they'd been living in the same house. It was all very disturbing.
A couple months back he was ready to end it all, but since Dorothy's party and their odd cohabitation he wasn't as sure. It had been their home, but she'd picked it and paid the mortgage so when the separation agreement was presented he'd moved out, but now he was back, and she'd become a phantom presence. He took care of the girls. He was repairing and repainting inside and cutting and cleaning everything outside. He did everything but pay the bills.
Meanwhile, Jessie's home life was empty. She was visibly lonely; she avoided everyone. Every day it was the same thing; she got home, went to the den, rested, and then went upstairs where she showered. Later she might slip in the kitchen to grab a bite of what they'd already had, and then retreat back to the den while he sat in the living room and listen to her quietly sob. She never went out; he'd checked and seen she'd closed up her downtown apartment.
The apartment didn't matter so much. When he went back that last time just before Memorial Day nothing much had changed. There had been some new drugs on the counter; some stuff called Serophone and Metformin, and a prescription for Folic Acid. He didn't know what they were for, when he checked the quantities he saw she had been taking them, but he figured they probably weren't addictive so he blew them off. When he talked to her mom and dad he found out she'd made no effort to contact them. This last, the parents' thing was especially disquieting since the girls had started going back and forth between her parents and his mom regularly. Everybody was in the loop but Jessie.
He'd gone ahead and hired a private detective, and two things immediately came out. First, within days he got another registered letter from Jessie's attorney informing him they knew he'd hired someone, and that he would be accused of stalking and be arrested if he didn't immediately stop. He called the lawyer and told her secretary they should go ahead and arrest him. Nothing came of it. Second, his detective's snooping didn't reveal much except Jessie's workload had been significantly lightened.
On the other hand Dorothy's contact, Gail Honeycutt, produced what he thought was a trove of very unpleasant information. Jessie had been working extremely long and grueling hours dealing with several very complicated corporate undertakings. The more she did the more tumbled down on her from the oldest partners, one partner in particular. Sometime in late May she'd reached her breaking point; several deals overlapped, and fatigue and probably drug induced misjudgments, she'd confused crucial competing arrangements. Everything had blown up in her face; she'd cost the firm hundreds of thousands of dollars. The result was a no-brainer; no one said anything, all the senior partners had been sympathetic, but the vote of no confidence, though never spoken, was there. Soon all Jessie's newer clients were second tier projects; her former competitors in the office, men she had long surpassed, saw her as failure, a comet, someone who briefly lit up the sky only to burn out. He thought that helped explain the dearth of lawyers at Dorothy's party.
Then another wrinkle interposed in what to him was Jessie's absurd professional world; he got a call from Ms. Honeycutt, she asked him to call Georgia Calligari, the other female partner. He did, and they set up a meeting at a small place called the West Congress Cafe in a quiet section of town. They met in the early afternoon, a time both were certain Jessie would be tied up in her office.
