Getting Burned Ch. 01

Tricia sat down at the far end and I dropped a copy of our assets and debts in front of her. I gave her a few minutes to see what we had then I started a summery.

"House can go on the market for $210,000 and should net out after paying the realtor about $202,000." Tricia gasped. It was obvious that she never knew what my efforts were worth. "With taxes, give backs and other selling costs, we should net $194,000.

"You keep your car and payments and I keep my car and payments. You keep your 401K with the balance of $65,000 and I keep mine at $60,000. We split the emergency fund of $8,000 and use the remaining of the checking account to pay off the bills. I've already paid off our credit cards and cancelled them." She winced when I said that.

"If you agree, we can file immediately and with luck, we can move on in 60 days." At that point, I clenched my teeth. Billy and I talked several times that emotions were no place to be in a money negotiation. I remember that from last time. I may have been a lot younger and immature then. I don't have that excuse now.

"I'm sorry Glen. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you..."

"Tricia, just don't go there. The problems with this marriage started a year in and that was two years ago. You wanted a beautiful house and because we couldn't afford it, I had to rehab this fixer-upper. That's where my time, our money and my energy went." I exhaled, I exhaled frustration and pain. "And you didn't help much at all. You've been stepping out for what...how long?" I closed my eyes. "Actually, it really doesn't matter how long you've been getting strange. Does it?"

She shook her head no as I continued. "We both were cheated on in our first marriages. We both knew what that felt like. Tell me, if you caught me with another woman or even another guy. What would you have done? Tell me everything would work out and be OK? Tell me that you'd forgive me." Turning away, she started crying. I didn't bother to pass her the tissues. She was going to be on her own and that was going to be starting right now.

"The wanna-be mechanic," I said as I looked out the window to the garage. "I'm guessing it started before we rented out the garage to the wanna-be. That's when you were starting to get some strange." Still looking away, I could see her face in a reflection on a storm window. She was showed her nodding yes and looking at the carpet.

"Tired of living in a construction zone for the big projects, the kitchen and the main bath. For three fuckin' years we tried to make it financially, to get a good home. It took all of my vacation those three years. The main bathroom took six weeks as bigger problems were discovered that added weeks to the completion. We wanted it.

"WE WANTED IT. I WANTED IT BECAUSE YOU WANTED IT." I closed my eyes and interlocked my fingers. I did not want to lose control of my hands.

"Working like dogs on OUR DREAM HOME" he snorted in disgust "Or should I say YOUR DREAM HOME for the past three years has increased in value."

"Honey, I.."

"Stop it right now. I'm no longer your honey. This marriage died and it died when you chose to get some extra. You can't take it back. I can never trust you again, so don't even try." She hung her head and looked away.

"You came in this marriage after you were burned from your last one. You had to punish somebody for that. Somebody is always wrong, somebody always has to be made to pay." She started to object when I silenced her with a stare. "To make your ex pay, you've burned me. When anything goes wrong in your life, somebody has to pay. That's what you do. So don't give me any shit about this." She shuddered. I know that I hit home with that.

"That's the thing about people, they do dumbshit things for stupid reasons. I've seen your do stupid stuff before. Not anywhere near as bad as this, but dumbshit stuff anyway. But it was early in our relationship and we were able to work it out. I did my own dumbshit stuff too, and we worked that out too." I paused.

"This was the atomic bomb of mistakes. There is no way you could tell me that we'd be able to pick up the pieces from this nuclear blast of betrayal." I paced back and forth in the kitchen.

"We got two choices. Fight it out and watch whatever money we have be spent on lawyers, or we agree to something and get out quickly. What do you want to do?" I was holding another envelope.

Tricia nodded, she knew that it could just get into a pissing match. She knew all about lawyers and divorces. Her first marriage ended because she and her husband were young and immature. They spent their time arguing and fighting instead of trying to figure out how to make things work out. Whenever there was a problem, he would find somebody to hook up with. It was 18 months in the marriage, over 3 years of being together when he gave her a case of the crabs. What was anger before turned into rage. Against his advice, she directed her lawyer to make her husband pay. At the end, they both had to borrow money to pay off their lawyers. That self-righteous anger didn't keep anyone but their lawyers warm at night.

Tricia nodded to me to continue. I opened the envelope and pulled out a couple of sheets of paper. He then spread them across the table so they both could read them clearly. "To get a divorce in this state, all our assets have to be declared. I've recorded all that I could find. That's what that first document was about."

This next document was a spreadsheet with three columns. Pointing to the columns he said "The property, then who owns it and then it's value. We both came into this marriage with minor assets. We were both broke with a shit-ass credit score. When our jobs became steady, we saved, lived on the cheap and paid $50,000 cash for this bank repo."

"I propose that we sell this house and split whatever we get down the middle. We also split the little bit of emergency fund we made down the middle, and what's left of the checking account down the middle. You keep your 401Ks and I'll keep my 401Ks. We have no debt except for the cars. You take yours and I'll take mine. No income maintenance for either of us."

I could see that Tricia was still in shock and the dollar figures were not helping. She was more than broke 5 years ago at 24 and now at 29, she could walk away with over $100,000? and her 401K.

"Why don't you think about it overnight. Just make sure that overnight is not in this house." This shocked her. I think that there was a part of her that thought that she could salvage the marriage. She never was one to fully think things out, and now she realized that not only was her marriage over, the only place to sleep was with Eric, in his shit-hole of a studio apartment.

"What...how..."

"Go with lover boy. He's been so good for you. He should gladly take you in now. All I know is not this house, not this bedroom, not this bed. Understand?"

Tricia started crying and at this point and I laughed. "Great try. Ain't gonna work this time. Go out to the garage. You're very familiar with the futon, aren't you? You could sleep there if you really need a place."

She start to mouth something as I continued, "Cut the shit, there's a bunch of stains on the pad and why don't you count up all the condom wrappers in the trash bin while you're at it?"

Downcast, she got up and left. At the street, she texted something and Eric picked her up in a minute. I closed my eyes when Billy handed me a tumbler filled with ice and Jim Beam. "Glen, you didn't do half bad. Not half bad." He picked up his glass and we went over everything that happened. He left around midnight.

Tricia hadn't figured out that I was still tracking her by the phone locator app. I wanted to know where she was at, and it told me a whole lot. She was only at work or at the 'wanna-be's' apartment since I caught them. That building was a dive and cockroach infested. Somehow that gave me pleasure.

I spent my evenings cleaning up the garage from being a superfund site. There was no way I'd be able to show the house with it looking like this. Work allowed me to bring the chemicals and other hydrocarbon waste to their EPA approved waste removal contractor. That saved me at least a thousand dollars in costs.

I packaged the remaining tools, parts and parts scrap on pallets and had it delivered to the 'wanna-be's' apartment complex. I'm sure he was thrilled. The delivery guy was a buddy of mine and did it for cheap. He got the apt super to sign for it too. It was over 1,6oo lbs. with at least 1,000 lbs. of shear scrap metal. With pennies on the pound, it'll cost him more to get it hauled away than he could ever get for it. I wrapped it in plastic with his name and address in large letters so the rain didn't damage anything.

I would occasionally look to see where her phone said she was. For the next two days, she never left the 'wanna-be's' apartment, even when I knew she was at work. Then her phone disappeared. I thought that was strange.

It was over a week after I delivered the crap back to the 'wanna-be', I got a text from Tricia to meet. I suggested we meet at the firehouse on Tuesday at 8. There are meeting rooms available that Billy told me the we could use. I'd also wouldn't have to worry about 'wanna-be' and Billy would be in the background. I knew that it would make it safer for her and me.

I arrived at 7:30 and hung out with Billy until Tricia arrived in her car. There was no sign of 'wanna-be'. Two friendly and burly firefighters met her at the car and escorted her to the firehouse and Billy. He brought her to meet me in the back conference room.

Walking in, she sat down at the opposite end of the table. Knowing someone that well, I...I realized that I really didn't know her all that well. I didn't greet her. I only just looked at her, not saying a thing. She was looking uncomfortable but I really didn't give a shit. At the least, I'd hear what she had to say.

Clearing her throat she said, "Glen, I'm sorry.." then I cut her off with a "STOP THAT SHIT RIGHT NOW." That's when Billy put his hand on my shoulder to calm me down. It worked. Quietly he told me ,"Glen, she's got the floor. Let her say what she has to say. OK?" I heard my friend. Closing my eyes, it took me a minute of silence to calm myself. I finally nodded yes, opened my eyes and waited.

"I'm sorry Glen, getting involved with Eric just kind of happened. I didn't mean for it to happen, but it did." She wiped some tears from her eyes and continued. "You were partially right. I knew him from after my first divorce. He always paid attention to me when I hung out at the bars with my friends. I didn't think anything was going to develop when he wanted to rent the garage. But spending some time ...things changed." She choked a sob and looked directly into my eyes.

"I WAS WRONG. OK. I WAS GOD DAMN WRONG. There is no excuse for that. AND THERE IS NO WAY TO TAKE IT BACK." I saw Tricia's tears flow for the next 5 minutes. "You were right. Once it happened, there was no excuse. Your wife became a cunt." I knew that she hated that word. She was not pretending with me. I didn't expect this.

It was then she closed her eyes for a minute to steady herself. "I know that you'll never trust me again. I don't even know if I could ever trust me again. We need to end this marriage as quick and as painless as possible. It's the least I could do for you. I'm moving to Denver to be near my sister Nicole's and her husband Ben and their kids. I found out that I could transfer there from my work. You said to split everything down the middle. I'm ok with that unless you have something else in mind."

She was giving me the end of the marriage. No fight? No anger? Just dare I think it, two hurt people? "Tricia, we can sell the house and each of us pull out half and then we're done and gone. You keep your assets, I keep mine. I don't want the house or want to buy you out of it."

"Glen, that was going to be our house until I did something criminal to you. I believed that asshole. He kept telling me that a wife of his would never have to work that hard, give up so much. A real man would pamper his wife and do all the good things for her." She picked up a tissue and wiped her eyes.

"I was played." She wiped her eyes again and took a deep breath. "There are people in this world that are evil. I fell for his lies about you, about me. I stopped believing in us when I listened to him." At that, the tears rained out of her and she was sobbing uncontrollably.

What the fuck do I do now?