Our Life.......As It Was

I apologize for the long break between installments but internet access here is limited.

So after the first child was born, Melinda and I settled into a average, routine life. I worked and she stayed home and cared for the child. This went on for a couple of years during which time I moved through the ranks of restaurant management obtaining a position of a regional manager for a chain covering several locations including Tupelo, West Point and Starkville, MS. My income rose accordingly and I had bought a home in a nice, settled neighborhood and were enjoying some of the nicer things in life. New Years Eve at the Peabody in Memphis, a week in the NC mountains, birthday parties for Z with 100 people complete with train rides for the kids and character appearances, a new car for Melinda, we were doing well.

Melinda enjoyed this life and adapted well. New clothes always pressed and starched, she never left the house without looking like she had stepped from a band box. I was happy to provide her with this life and although I was rarely home to enjoy it with her, I thought we were happy.

In January 1994, on a Sunday afternoon, I was preparing to go to work when Melinda told me she needed to speak to me. I asked what was wrong and finally she told me "I want out."

When I asked her what she meant, she told me she had been having an affair with our insurance agent, had gotten pregnant and was leaving to be with him. I learned later that the two of them had planned to both tell their spouses on Friday night and while he had told his wife and left the house, Melinda had gotten cold feet and waited until she could wait no more. She would later tell me that it was because she really didn't want to leave but I suspect it was more about the money and life she would be leaving than anything else.

Just a little fact I found quite telling later, after they had planned to drop the bomb that Friday evening, Paul came by early that month to collect his payment from me so he could collect it before Melinda left me that month. LOL

Anyway, she left. She packed a suitcase and went to live with her sister in Alabama. The child stayed with me and a couple of weeks later she signed full custody of him over to me.

Apparently things didn't go for she and her insurance agent as they thought they would. His wife raised all kinds of hell and promised him he would leave with nothing and made good on her promise. Before long, Melinda found herself living in a cheap apartment in Tupelo with no car and having to go back to work. Her insurance agent, Paul Flatt, was living with his parents and they were not happy with the whole situation as I understood it. Their son leaving his wife and young son for Melinda was not something these social climbers approved of.

After 4 months of living this way, Melinda wanted to come back home. I couldn't believe it but she did! Being stupid as I was and feeling like Z needed both parents, I agreed to it and she moved back. All seemed well for a couple of weeks until one day while I was at work I was served with papers. Melinda was suing me!

I suppose Melinda looked around these weeks later and didn't like the life she saw for herself so she and her boyfriend decided to hire an attorney and try to sue me for my house, custody of Z and anything else she could get her hands on. She had come home to make a list of everything she could to make sure nothing was missed and while I was at work, she took Z and had the lawyer serve me. The lawyer was a friend of Paul Flatt's, her boyfriend the insurance agent, so they were all in on it. Can you say greed? He would send his pregnant girlfriend back to live, and sleep, with me for weeks just to get his hands on my things? And what kind of woman would agree to this?

Looking back, I should have known this would be her method of operation going forward but I ignored it.

What Melinda and Paul didn't know was that I had been talking to an agent about selling the house and selling was already in the works. I knew that we wouldn't be able to live in Tupelo anymore with all the crap that had gone on. Since this was already done, all I had to do was call the agent and sell and I did. Within a couple of weeks I had closed on the house and had the yard sale to end yard sales, selling everything I owned. Boat, appliances, everything. Why not, she had taken the child I had raised since he was born. The child I had watched take his first breath and without him or her, I had no reason to stay. She could have whatever was left that she could get.

I was a week from leaving town when I got the call from Melinda, she was staying in a safe house there in Tupelo. Apparently the attorney had gotten her in by saying she was in danger from me and hid her there while they were trying to sue me. Anyway, she had found out everything was gone I guess and wanted to come back home. Can you believe it? Can you believe I was once again, dumb enough to let her?

This story is longer than I realized.......

She came back. We moved into her apartment. She quit her job. All seemed well. I paid for her baby to be born and we moved to Memphis where I started another job. A new life.......for a while.