February Sucks Redux

And then the karma train pulled into the station.

When I didn't have the kids, my life was only about working, eating and sleeping. I didn't date, didn't go out with the guys after work. My right hand got a good workout, but that was it for my social life. I wasn't looking for anything, and I certainly wasn't finding anything. My co-workers knew about my divorce, but didn't know about the details. A couple of the women expressed an interest, but my heart wasn't into it.

I never really had any contact with our city's newspaper outside of having a subscription when I got a call out of the blue one day. Shelby Bradson, the paper's investigative reporter, was doing an article about how most custody battles were won by wives. She had contacted several family law attorneys in the city, and my attorney thought I would be a good source with whom to talk. Shelby noted that there would be about a dozen divorced parents talking on both sides of the issue. Although I was reluctant to participate, my lawyer assured me that I would want to be in on this article.

Telling my story to an outsider was incredibly embarrassing, especially the part where I had to admit that I could see my ex-wife falling under Marc's spell but not doing anything to stop it. I felt like a failure as a man, and maybe that was one reason why I could never forgive Linda. I'll admit that may have been part of it, but in truth I still knew in my heart that she knew what she was doing was wrong, and it shouldn't have taken my intervention to stop her.

Shelby wasn't much of a football fan, but she certainly knew who Marc LaValliere was. Shelby was a single 20-something, and when I first mentioned his name, she perked right up in her chair, and I'm pretty sure her breathing pattern picked up. She followed my narrative with a keen interest, and I got the uncomfortable feeling that she was living vicariously through Linda when I related my story. Just as I was starting to feel really uncomfortable, however, it was like someone flipped a switch and Shelby became like a combination of Woodward and Bernstein, and she had her teeth into this.

"She just left with him to go have sex for the night, and maybe more, and expected you to just accept it because he's a big-time NFL star? Like he was a god on high and she was his prize? And he just expected her to do it... and she did? Holy shit, Mr. Ganderson!

"So Mr. Wonderful steals your wife with her full cooperation, and you wind up losing your kids. Did the judge know about this?" Shelby asked.

"He was just as shocked as you, but said since Linda wasn't otherwise a bad mother, he wasn't going against the tide. So she got fucked by Mr. NFL Stud, and I got fucked by the courts."

The reporter had several more interviews left before she put the article together, but a month later the feature was on the bottom half of the front page. Due to Marc LaValliere's prominence, my story was played at the front of the article. The subhead read, "NFL star steals wife, court steals kids."

The article broke to a cacophony of outrage from several quarters, including several city fathers, advertisers, the NFL itself and the community. Seems that everybody's favorite tight end was previously thought of as a pillar of the community, and the claim of LaValliere leaving a restaurant with another man's wife was going to create problems for several city organizations and non-profits. Within hours, three of the four endorsement deals LaValliere had were cancelled due to morals clauses, and the fourth was probably going away soon after. Finally, to make matters worse, officials from NFL headquarters requested the player's presence to discuss another black eye for the league.

"Oh, my God, Jim, I can't believe you went public with that!" Linda shouted through the phone at me. "I'm going to look like the biggest slut on the planet. This will be all over the internet in hours. My parents are going to see this, everybody I know is going to see this. I'm going to get smoked in public.

"I can't believe you would do that to me!"

"And I couldn't believe you did what you did to me. Hurts, doesn't it?" I snapped.

After three days, the outrage from the public over Linda getting primary custody of the children was at a fever pitch, and the judge in our divorce case apparently couldn't take any more heat. He called my attorney and said that upon a judicial review brought about by new evidence in the case, he was reversing himself and awarding me primary custody. When my attorney reminded him that he heard this evidence more than two years ago, he hesitated, then told my attorney that the decision wasn't made by him alone, and he shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. My attorney wisely just said, "Thank you, your honor."

Since I was now primary custodian, child support was switched to Linda, which gave me enough money to rent a decent apartment. It worked out much better for the kids and I. We went on with our lives. Occasionally they would express some regret that the four of us were no longer together, but they completely understood the reason. It amazed me that they could get it, but the reason still seemed to escape their mother. More than two years later, she still hadn't apologized. While I certainly wasn't expecting an apology, it sure would have been nice.

I didn't follow Linda's life at all. The kids and I didn't talk about her at any length, but they would occasionally mention her in passing. She was their mother, after all. I guess things weren't exactly rosy in her world after the newspaper article broke. The kids mentioned that Mommy seemed upset many days. I was of two minds over that, I have to admit. Even after two years, I still loved the woman to some extent.

I went out on like three dates for the first two years after the divorce. Then, after I got custody and things settled down, I eventually started going out on a regular basis when Linda had the kids. I wasn't looking for Linda's replacement, but it was nice to have female companionship again. A few years later, I found a woman with whom I thought I might want to get closer. She was a divorcee with one child, a son the same age as Tommy. Her husband had cheated on her several times until she finally decided she had enough and divorced him.

Sammy Jo and I married in a small evening ceremony in early fall, attended by our children, her widowed mother and her sister's family. We are hoping to grow old together someday, but first we've got a lot of living to do. We recently bought a house big enough to fit the five of us.

Tommy and Sammy Jo's son, Danny, hit it off like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Of course, Emma isn't always thrilled about having two pesky little brothers around, but she handles it with the grace of any older sister and really lets them know who is boss.

I understand from my kids that Linda has a steady boyfriend now. The only thing I know about him is that he's not Marc LaValliere. Seems that asswipe got traded to a team halfway across the country two weeks after the article came out. Not my worry, but I'm sure husbands all over northern California might be a little worried.