Anger Delayed

I was saved by a per-nuptial when I divorced Emily. I had to divorce her because she was sleeping regularly with her boss. Incidentally his name was also Mike. That didn't help but the pre-nuptial did. I was a rich guy after my father died suddenly, but I was also a very busy guy. My dad ran a huge construction company and I was a mid-level manager in his company - learning the tricks of the trade before taking things over from him. After his death I suddenly became the boss and had to learn everything quickly to ensure that the business did not suffer. I spent close to six months on the road meeting all the suppliers and clients so that I could become as familiar a face to them as my father was. In the whole deal my marriage suffered. We were married for about 12 years then and had a 10 year old daughter Teresa who was the centre of the universe for me. I found out about Emily's indiscretion in the most mundane manner - back home early without announcement.

The divorce was quick and I lost the custody of Teresa. It was long back and that is the reason why you find so little emotion in my narration. I never remarried because I knew I was going to work hard if I was to run the company properly and would not have much time for family life. Emily married Mike, the second and settled. They were not rich by my standards but did all right. They did all right by me too, till such time as Emily turned into a bitch and made my meetings with Teresa next to impossible. Teresa was enrolled in every kind of activity possible - Piano lessons on Monday, Softball practice on Tuesday and Thursday, Dancing lessons on Wednesday and Saturday, tennis lessons on Sunday and it was impossible to meet her without making her miss one thing or the other. Every time I made her miss something Emily went on and on about how selfish I was and how I was not thinking about Teresa's Future.

I backed out and distanced myself from Emily and Teresa. I sent her a letter through my attorney stating that in light of the fact that I was being painted as a villain for taking her away from her activities, I was leaving the matter of visitations totally in Emily's hand. I would be available for a visitation every time either Emily or Teresa called me, but would not make any plans on my own. I just wanted my four days in a month with Teresa. As time went by, my visitations with Teresa were down to one day a month and in the last four years I have seen her about 8 times in all. I stopped paying child support when Teresa turned 18. I did not have to stop it but I just knew that Teresa was interested in a relationship with me either. She was her mother's daughter and had clearly denounced me as her dad. None of her friends knew me and I certainly did not meet the young man she was going to marry before the cards were printed.

Yesterday Teresa turned up at my door step with a card in her hand inviting me to her marriage. I told her that I would be there and asked if I was supposed to walk her down the aisle. She told me in a quite matter-of-fact manner that she wanted her Pops to walk her down the aisle not her dad. Last night was not the most peaceful night I've had.

I got up in the morning and decided to do something that I never thought about in the last 10 years - turn into a vengeful bastard. I can tell you here that when a very rich man makes up his mind to fuck up the lives for a not so rich man - he can generally do it, especially if the very rich man has nothing to lose. I called in my lawyer and asked him to set up a company within the next week which would run a chain of flower shops (the business that Mike the 2nd was in) and open a flurry of shops right next to each and every shop he owned. I also instructed him to keep the prices of the flowers exactly half of what Mike's shop was offering. I told him that I wanted all the shops open by mid next week. Then I called my interior decoration department head and my PR division head and asked them to step up on this. I wanted the shops to look dazzling and I wanted the Media blitzkrieg to be unprecedented.

Then I called my security division chief and asked him to create a dossier on the groom-to-be in the next 24 hours. I asked my accountants for the name of the bank where the child support checks were deposited. It was likely that Mike had his business account with them too. A few phone calls later I knew that Mike had taken a large advance on his account just a few days prior. It was to facilitate the marriage of my former daughter, no doubt. That would mean that he would not be able to pump in any new cash into his business any time soon. I called my HR division and asked them to poach the best employees of Mike's shops at double their current salaries. Mike was going to be a very busy man in the next few days.

The new company was established in the name of a friend of mine from Nevada and its head quarter was registered in Nevada as well. No body would be able to tie the company with me without looking deep, something that Mike will be too busy to do. The groom-to-be was a nice young man with a huge student-loan on his head. He worked as a realtor and had, in the past, handled a few of my construction sites as well. I did not want to ruin the life of Teresa.

Mike was off balance the very first day of the opening of my new shops. He suddenly was short-staffed and more importantly short-customered. Openings of my shops with one major Hollywood star attending each opening was all over page 3 of all news papers. It was three days into the game that the shit hit the fan. I woke up in the morning to find my ex-wife and my former daughter at my doorsteps.

"What the fuck have you done?" shouted Emily as soon as she entered the house. I could see that Teresa was also looking very glum.

"What are you talking about? I said that I would come to the wedding, I did nothing to upset Teresa." I actually had no clue what she was talking about, so I played dumb.

"You know what I am talking about you bastard. Why did you open up a a chain of shops right next to Mike's? Why are you selling flowers at half the price of what it costs for you to buy them?"

"What shops are you talking about?"

"The shops that you opened in the name of that no-good pauper friend of yours - Steve. You did not think I would remember the bum? He is an orthodontist and at that too a bad one. Why are you doing this after 10 years of not caring at all?"

I knew the game was up but I had not done anything illegal yet. I decided to show my fangs.

"And why should that concern you? I have a right to open any business I feel like and see at any price as I feel like. In fact this company is one of my charity foundations where I am offering the public flowers at cheaper rates so that they can show love and respect for those they care about. If you can find anything illegal in this - sue me."

Teresa spoke for the first time - "Pops had a heart attack in the morning. The way things are moving, he would be out of business in the next one month. You have taken everything away from him because you have money. I hate you. How could you do this him? You know mom and I depend on him for support."

I turned to her spoke, I was not angry anymore. After all these years of silence and hurt I was feeling sad for the first time. "Truly spoken, I have money and I have taken away his business from him but tell me how is it any different from what he did. Why did you not grow up to hate him?"

"Pop has never done a bad thing in his whole life." She shot back.

"No, he has never done a bad thing in his whole life. When he slept with my wife - he was doing something every morally upright man does. You say that I have money and he does not and I am using it to take his business away. He had time and I did not and he used it to take my wife and my daughter away from me, how was that different? But of course, what I am doing is beyond disgust and what he did was the thing sainthood is made for. You say you and your mom depended on him and I took that away from you and you hate me for it, I depended on my wife at a time when my father had died and more than 1200 employees were looking at me and he took her away from me, why don't you hate your Pop for it?"

Teresa looked away.

"Why do you bring this up after 10 years?" Emily asked, more politely now.

"Because, I am fucking tired of being the bad guy for nothing. If I am going to be painted as a villain I bloody well will be one. I should have fought tooth and nail for Teresa instead of thinking that you would best by her. I should have raised hell when you denied me chances to meet and see my only reason to smile, my daughter. Instead I backed down and thought that it was best if I did not destroy her childhood by making life difficult for you. I should have ruined the bastard who cuckolded me so that he would be on the roads and you would have no choice but to stay with me and keep my Teresa with me. I should have filed for full custody when you refused to let me take Teresa with me on that holiday to France even though it was turn to spend summer holiday with her." I looked at her with the disgust I was feeling for her at this time.

Teresa spoke up, "You never had the time for me. I was starved for affection, after a while it became clear to me that you had divorced me as well, along with mom and it was only then I took Pop as a father and pushed you out of my mind. I met you at times because mom told me that if I refused to meet you there would be legal repercussions. She said you would file a case against her. I only met you out of fear not out of love."

"Wait a minute." I asked her to hold on while I called up my attorney. I asked him to fax me the letter that I had sent to Emily so many years ago. Within the next 15 minutes I had a faxed copy of the letter and also the receipt with Emily's signature on it.

"Read this and tell me if I did not have the time for you. I also have recording of the phone calls that made to your mom to request time to meet with you and being brushed off. I must have hundreds of such call and a few calls where you have rudely asked me not to call you about fixing up time, rather you mom and that hurt. What was my mistake in all this? My only mistake was that my father died and then I had to run a company which I had no clue how to do. I was inexperienced and I did it because 1200 people worked in that company and they depended on me to keep the company afloat. I did spend a lot of time away from the two of you but it was to bring home the money that we needed to live. You of all people, Teresa, have no reason to be bitter about it. In the last 10 years I have not paid any alimony to your mom but I have made you go to the best school, the best collage and have all the best amenities that you could think of. Do you think I was unaware that you were spending a lot of your money on you mom and Pops? You stole money fro me and gave it to them. That is correct, it was stealing. The credit card I gave you was for your expenditure on the campus and you regularly bought flight tickets for your mom and Pops to visit you on that card and you refused to see me the one time I was in town. How do you think I felt at that time? I was pissed off ... bloody pissed off but I kept quite because I gave you the card to keep you happy. If being near your mom and pops made you happy, so be it." I was seething with anger now. After reading the letter Teresa was looking at her mother with the same anger that was directed to me sometime ago.

"I should not ruin your Pops maybe, but I will. I will bring him down with one thing that I have and he does not, after all, he brought my world crashing down with what he had. If now, your mom wants to have husband who has money she is most welcome to marry me after divorcing the asshole. She will not be loved but she will have time and money from me. I do need companionship."

"What kind of person do you think I am?" snapped Emily.

"The kind of person who deserts her husband and sleeps around with another man because one facet of her life is unfulfilled. It is a man's job to bring two things to his wife - money and his time. I was bringing money and not my time and you deserted me. Now, in coming days he will be so poor that he will be looking for money to buy a pot to piss in. So, he will neither give you money nor time. Will you be able to live with it? Is your love for a cuckolding bastard who slept with a married woman greater than the love you had for a hard working man who fathered your child?"

Emily finally lost and there was no fight left in her. Just then Teresa spoke up.

"Dad do you have it in you to let me move in with you? I cannot go back to live with people who took my dad away from me. If you do not agree to let me move in, I will move into a motel and then find a place to stay. I guess my marriage is not going to go through. I will not walk down the aisle in a marriage ceremony paid for by two lying individuals. I do not know if my relation with Jake will survive after this but I hope he loves me enough to look past this."

Emily was openly crying now. Teresa was looking at me with tears in her eyes, not sure of what my decision would be.

"Teresa, you can move in right now, if you feel like. I am sure that you have things at your moms that you would like to bring. Go and bring them now, while I talk to your mom."

After Teresa left I turned towards Emily. She had calmed down by now and was looking clueless. She finally spoke up.

"Have you hated me so much?"

"Did you give me a reason not to?"

"I only wanted to have a normal life for me and my daughter."

"Our daughter, ' I corrected her."You forgot in your quest for normalcy that it is not normal for a father to cry himself to sleep at night because his daughter thinks he is a heartless bastard. You forgot it is not normal for a husband to go to sleep thinking that he has failed his wife. It is not normal for a husband to walk in on his naked wife getting fucked by her boss. Where was anything normal in your so called normal life for me? You screwed me up so bad that that I have not had a single meaningful relationship in 10 years."

"I guess I was being so selfish that I did not see how much hurt I was causing you."

"You are still being selfish letting yourself off so easily. The equation had 4 people - Me, You, Teresa and Mike. Mike has had a heart attack, Teresa has just lost all that she has believed in for the last 10 years, I have been reduced to a sadist and you are stuck with a husband with no health, no wealth and no time for you. I see that you have successfully destroyed four lives." I looked hard at her. "But, now you have one chance to make things right for Teresa, provided you can think of someone beside yourself."

"Anything to make my baby happy."

"I will take over all the expenses for the marriage so that Teresa so that she goes ahead with the marriage. My only condition is that on the day of her marriage you will not be in town. If you can do it, I will make things right for Teresa."

She started crying and nodded her head. "I am ready to do anything for Teresa."

I should have felt lousy for being such an asshole but I was just happy. I could see that the rest of her life was going to be miserable. I had always wanted to start a European branch and there was a construction company in Germany up for sale. I was sure that Jake would be an ideal candidate for being my eyes and ears there.

Epilogue

Teresa did get married and neither Mike nor Emily attended. Before Emily could come back to town, Jake and Emily were in Switzerland on honeymoon. From there they went to Germany to start their new life. The next time Emily saw Teresa was when my grandson was 12 years old. Every time Mike tried to get back on his feet I would destroy him. It was five years after Teresa's marriage that he took his life. I felt bad but my grief was less than when I lost a goldfish. Emily was reduced to living on food stamps after I got her fired from three successive jobs. She knew that I was too far gone in revenge to let her live peacefully. I am not sure when she is going to put a gun to her head ... Pretty soon I guess because from what I can see she has saved enough to buy a gun all she needs is a few more to buy a bullet. What do you say - Should I be charitable now?