30 Dec 2010. Email message from an unfamiliar hotmail account.
I’m done with this all. do what ever you want.i dont have much longer anyways.
1 Jan 2011. Kid exchange. To his face, once the kids are in the car and the doors are closed.
Me. What did you mean by the email you sent?
Him, snarly. Which one?
Me. “I don’t have much longer…” Are you sick?
Him. You could say something like that. (This confirms that he did send that email; I recognize the grammar and punctuation (lack of it), so I was fairly certain it was from him.)
Me. What is going on?
Him, agitated. I don’t want to talk about it. The family and everyone will know soon enough. Turns his back on me, walks away, gets in car, and leaves.
4 Jan 2011. Skype conversation with his sister. She agreed to check in on him and see if she could find out if he’s okay and what might be going on.
9 Jan 2011. Text messages received from his phone. Verbatim.
FYI? This is a friend and I think you will find out sometime if he wants you to know or not. Gadget is in the IC ward not doing well. I figured I would let you know since he didn’t want me to. His family does not know anything about this yet and wants to keep it that way. He will let you if he gets to go home by Friday if he will be able to pick up the kids. But right there watching him very close. From a friend of a dear friend.
I ponder the message for a while. Of course it elicits an immediate visceral reaction. I’ve not trained myself well enough for the vigilance necessary to bypass visceral reactions, or any immediate reactions, for that matter. Punctuation, spelling, and grammar support that it wasn’t him typing the message. I can think of only two people who it could be. I wait until the kids are in bed, then call his wife’s cell phone number from my land line, thinking that if she recognizes my cell phone, she might not answer. Moot, because I got a recording that the number is no longer in use.
I look for the number of the one real friend that I know of. In all our years together, there has been only one friend locally with whom he’s been involved. Luckily, his number was listed in the public white pages. I called him. He said he’d spoken with him recently, and he’d sounded groggy, but it was early morning. He said he’d try to contact him again and let me know if there is anything I need to know. An hour or so later he called and said he’d reached him, they’d conversed, he’d told him what I’d told him and that I was concerned… …Said he sounded okay and he’d not admitted to any kind of illness or being in IC or anything of that nature.
What can I make of this? What do I do with this? Are he and his wife playing some sick charade, for who knows what reason? Is he truly unwell?
I’m at a loss. I guess I will wait and see what comes up Friday. It’s a bit hard not to consider the boy who cried wolf and wonder if he is setting the stage for another botched visitation. If it’s real, however, why oh why does he not want to make the absolute most of his time with the boys?
