No One Won

"Nothing that I can think of right now, but I'll probably come up with a couple of things in the next week or so. I think you have covered all the bases."

"Steve, that's what you're paying me for." God, I think Robert would eat his first born, that is if he could ever find someone dumb enough to marry him.

"Steve, what the hell are you doing?" a frantic Jean asked. I told her that she could talk to my attorney, before hanging up on her. She called twice more and I hung up on her both times. Next my mother started in on me.

"Steve, I just got off the phone with David and Connie. Are you trying to annul your marriage?"

"What marriage? Jean was pregnant with someone else's kid when she suckered me into marrying her. April isn't mine. I guess I'm not the only asshole here and besides why do you care? Aren't you the one who said that you didn't want to have anything more to do with me?"

"Steve, honey, that was before when you were drinking all the time."

"And don't forget when I was a cheating bastard."

"Let's not do this now," my mother requested.

"I cheated on Jean, I apologized, begged her to forgive me, she told me to go fuck myself and did everything in her power to make my life a living hell. And you, my precious mother, sided with her. Now, it comes out that Jean wasn't as lily white as everyone thought. She was a fucking slut who pawned someone else's bastard kid off on me and let me think it was my own all these years. Am I angry? Hell, yes! So please stay the hell out of my life and let me fuck it up on my own if I want to," I hung up on my own mother. Damn, that felt good.

There hadn't been an annulment in the diocese ever but even the bishop couldn't dispute the facts. Jean had lied and entered into the marriage fully knowing that the child she was carrying wasn't her finance's. He recommended to the cardinal that it be granted and in a little more than a month the Catholic Church awarded me my annulment, which signified there was never was a marriage in the eyes of God.

"Steve, with that out of the way, we can proceed with the second step which is to overturn your divorce and make you whole again.

"Robert, no matter how this ends up, I'll never be whole again," I was sure of that.

With all the documentation a suit was filed with the court to overturn the divorce, stop and reclaim the alimony and child support monies, and in addition seek compensation from the biological father for all the years of financial support I had given to April. I was also charging Jean with willfully entering into a fraudulent contract. It was going to get ugly all over again but this time I wasn't the emotional cripple I was the last time.

I was happy that Jean chose the same lawyer she had used last time. I had a score to settle with him also.

Robert and I were having a drink after everything had been filed with the court.

"Steve, you seem to be a nice guy who got taken for a ride last time, but if you go through this, you're probably going to hate yourself down the road."

"I hate myself now, so what's the big deal. I cheated, admitted it, and paid the price ten fold. That bitch of a wife knew April wasn't mine and if she had just come clean at that point we probably could have worked it out. I'm not saying it would have been easy, but the way I was feeling at the time, I would have forgiven anything to get her back. Do you know what it's like to have everything one minute and nothing the next? I drank to kill the pain but no matter how much I drank it was still there. So, now I'm sober and the pain is still there and it's time to make it go away. It may cost me everything to get rid of it, but I can't go on the way I am. Does that make any sense to you?"

"I guess in a weird way it does but you know you're never going to be able to undo this once it starts." I knew that but it was a lot better than my dad's shotgun.

***********************

"He can't be serious, look at all these charges," Jean said talking to her lawyer. Her father looked over her shoulder at the legal document his distraught daughter held in her shaking hands.

"I hate to say this, he's got a very strong case and will probably win. Have you tried to talk to him about this? You know, reason with him?"

"He just says to talk to his lawyer and keeps hanging up on me. I can't believe he's being so vindictive."

"I can," her dad spoke up. "You did everything you could to bring him down short of cutting his nuts off and you probably would have gone for those if you could have."

"That bastard cheated on me!" she screamed.

"And what the fuck did you do to him? You got knocked up and stuck him with someone else's kid to raise. What the hell do you think he's was going to do when he found out? He's going to come at you with everything and try to take you down the way you took him down. But, you've got more to loose than he does this time. You were the poor little wife and mother last time. This time you'll be the deceitful cheating slut."

"Jean, listen to your father, he knows what he's talking about."

"I may lose, but he's never going to see April again. Never do you hear me?" she screamed at the two of them.

"And who is that going to hurt, Steve? April is not his biological child but April loves him to death. He's the only father she's ever known. Jean you were wrong before and you're wrong now, you just can't see it through all your hate."

'*********************

Overturning the divorce was a slam-dunk. With the annulment there was no marriage. The alimony was immediately set aside. With the DNA report the child support was suspended and I was given back the rights to my own house. The next couple of points got a little more involved.

I wasn't able to recover the child support from Jean, but her ex-boyfriend Dennis was tested and proven to be April's biological father. He wasn't happy about it, neither was his wife. Dennis said that he never had a clue that he'd gotten Jean pregnant. He told the court it happened the night of her bachelorette party. She was drunk, he was drunk and although he didn't totally remember what happened, they must have done it in the back seat of his car. Jean swore and called Dennis a bastard in open court. She was told one more outburst and she would be held in contempt. Dennis was ordered to pay full restitution to me and child support to Jean in the future for April. Fraudulently entering into a contract, namely our marriage contract, was going to be sticky to prove. It could mean jail time for Jean if she was convicted.

When the judge asked for a meeting in his chambers I wasn't sure what to expect.

"Look, we're all adults here. Steve, you've gotten everything up to this point that you wanted. Why don't we dismiss this last charge and put this case to bed? Because of April, there is no way I'm going to let Jean do any real jail time even if she's convicted," he said looking at everyone in his chamber. I whispered something to my lawyer.

"We are willing to drop this charge under certain conditions," my attorney said. "All Jean has to do is call everyone she bad mouthed my client to and tell them that she cheated on him, got pregnant, and passed off someone else's child as his. That's all we're asking in addition to Steve moving back into his home."

"I'd sooner rot in hell before I did that," Jean shouted at me while her lawyer tried to calm her down.

"Well, Your Honor, than I see no other option other than to proceed with the charges." Jean was seething and ripping me apart piece by piece with her eyes.

"It's Thursday, I think we all need a little cooling off period. We'll reconvene back here on Tuesday morning at nine o'clock. I hope all parties' use this time to work out an equitable compromise or I am going to be forced to proceed and I don't think anyone will gain from my ultimate decision. However, until that time I do not want Mr. Moore moving back into his prior residence. Is that understood?" I nodded. Jean smiled for the first time. With that we filed out of his chambers.

"We will get back with you on our list of compromises," my attorney told Jean's attorney. "However, if she's not willing to bend, we are going to go for the maximum sentence and I don't think either of us wants that." That afternoon Robert and I made our lists of demands.

"I want her to call my twelve ex-friends and the three top administrators at my school," I told him. "And also I want to see April every other weekend."

"That is going to be a tough one after all that's happened."

"I still care for her even though I hate her mother."

"She will try to block that one and we may have to get a child psychologist in to prove to the court the strength of the bond the two of you have established. Up until recently, you were the only father she has ever know and I don't think Dennis is going to bend over backwards to establish a relationship with her." He was right about that. "And why do you want to move back into the house anyway?"

"I guess for no other reason than to piss off Jean, but at this point I think I just want it gone. Put in that the house is to be sold and the proceeds to be split fifty/fifty even though I've been making the payments on it for the last two and a half years. This way it will show I'm giving in somewhat." That was about everything I wanted. Robert e-mailed them over to Jean's attorney and I spent the weekend relaxing and healing and doing both sober.

It was somewhere around two in the morning on Monday and I should have been asleep. For the last two hours or so I had been lying on my bed staring at my laptop. More than once over the last two years I had thought about stomping it into oblivion, but I was usually too drunk to stand much less do any damage to anything but myself.

If I'd never written that book, I would have never have met Rhonda and I would have never cheated, I told myself over and over. But sober, in the dark, I knew that wasn't entirely true. I had done it because I could. She never forced herself on me. I was willingly led to slaughter by my own weakness. Jean was everything I had ever wanted and forgetting about what she did with April, she was a great wife and mother. If it wasn't for that freak accident and me being there, I never would have know about April and none of this would be happening. I had no one to blame but myself. Both books were still selling and all the royalties were being put into an escrow account. I still owed them one more book on my contract, but I hadn't heard from them in over a year, after we had a couple of drunken conversations.

I flipped up the lid on my Apple laptop, turned it on and looked at the backlit keyboard. I typed for about two to three hours before stopping. I showered, shaved, grabbed a cab, and went to work.

"Drop everything but the sale of the house and me being able to see April. Tell them they can stay there until it sells and I'll still pay the mortgage."

"You sure about this?"

"I just want it over and done with. I don't have the stomach for it any longer."

I never showed up for court on Tuesday. The last charge was dropped, the judge gave his final ruling—case closed. My family tried to call but I wasn't quite ready for them. Through my attorney, Jean sent me a message thanking me for finally being human. I guess that was her way of saying thanks. I never responded, what was the point.

I bought a ten-year-old Chevy. When the house sold I purchased a small condo and for once life was looking up again. Jean let me see April every week and I spent the next six months trying to undo the damage I had done to our relationship. It wasn't easy and we're not quite there yet but at least I'm trying.

I'm staying busy and drinking way too much coffee, well that's what my dentist is telling me anyway. One night out of the blue Rhonda texted me that she was sorry. I just replied back that I was too and let it go at that. But I stayed busy—it was the only way I could heal.

***************

It was just after six before Jean got home from work. It had been a miserable day and all she wanted to do was take her shoes off and relax. She waved to a neighbor as she walked down the driveway to the mailbox wondering what new bill she'd find in there today. It was full, not with bills or junk mail but a large brown package crammed inside, taking up about seventy- five percent of the available room. With no return address visible, Jean stuck it under her arm and continued to look at the rest of the mail while slowly walking back up to the house.

She threw everything on the counter, went over to the refrigerator and got out the cold bottle of white wine. After pouring a glass she sat down at the counter and put her feet up on one of the other chairs. After a sip or two of the wine she continued looking at the mail. Junk, junk, junk, a bill, and a political advertisement, that was about it. Grabbing the package she looked again for some type of address before pulling the nylon tab to open it.

She was standing, leaning up against the counter when April barged in through the front door asking when dinner was going to be ready. Jean never heard her then nor when April walked up and pulled on her dress asking her mom what she was doing. She could see the small wet spots on what her mom was reading and looking up saw that her mom was crying. Tears were flowing down her cheeks and dropping onto the pages from her chin and the tip of her nose.

"Mom, are you all right?" April asked more than a little concerned. Jean said nothing to her for a couple more minutes.

Jean looked up from what she'd been reading, wiped away what was left of her tears, and gave her daughter a hug.

"You know I love you, don't you?" she said kissing her on the cheek.

"Mom, you're getting lipstick all over me," April said hugging her back.

"And you know your daddy loves you too, don't you?" she nodded and asked again what was for dinner. Right now she had a one-track mind. "Go get washed up and then set the table while I heat up what we had last night," Jean said taking a large gulp of wine and removing from the refrigerator the leftovers of last night's dinner.

She must have glanced back at it on the counter ten times before dinner was ready and while they both ate. Jean was quiet only half listening to April's non-stop talking. A little television, a quick bath, and being a school night April was in bed by eight o'clock.

Jean took it off the counter, changed into an old pair of pajamas, and with another glass of wine she turned on her bedside light. Arranging two extra pillows behind her head and one under her knees she started again. Like before, tears stained the pages, and she had to stop reading several times to dry her eyes. She had to take a few deep breaths each time before she could continue.

It took four more hours and a total of three glasses of wine before she finished it. She made a mental note to call in sick after getting April on the school bus tomorrow morning. With the light still on she finally dozed off and if it weren't for April making as much noise as she did, Jean probably would have slept for another couple of hours.

April was already dressed and jumping on her mother's bed asking about breakfast when she noticed it on the bed next to her mom.

"What's this," she asked holding it up.

"Just a book."

"I want eggs and bacon and toast and jelly," April said pulling on her mother's tired body. Within thirty-five minutes she had eaten and was out the door waving back at her mother. With a cup of coffee Jean headed back up to her bedroom.

"Carol, I can't make it in this morning. I'm not feeling too well. I think I'll just spend the day in bed. See you tomorrow," she said hanging up. With the cup of coffee on the night table she picked it back up and read the cover to herself. "No One Won." On the inside cover flap all it said was, " This book is dedicated to the beautiful family I once had and lost." This brought another tear to her eye as she read the first paragraph for the second time.

"It was no ones fault but my own. Maybe if I'd been a better man I wouldn't have done what I did. I had it all, a loving wife, a daughter who thought the world of me, and a marriage made in heaven. But then I threw it all away because I was a weak and stupid man. I'm a lot stronger now, but all alone typing on this damn keyboard hoping to touch at least one man out there so he doesn't make the same mistake I did.

It all started with my book 'The Man in the Tree.' I suppose that if I hadn't written it, I still might be married, but I did and I'm not.

I knew as soon as I met her, that she was someone special and after our first date we would be together forever....

She read it again, not crying as much this time, and agreed with the author— No One Won.