The Perils of Love Ch. 05

I stumbled to a chair at the kitchen table.

"What? What are you saying? Where are you? Who is with you?"

"I'm with Mama," was all she said.

The next voice I heard was Janette's. She tried to tell me what had happened, but I could barely understand the words behind the ringing in my ears and her sobs. She said Jerry was driving into town and a semi-truck jack-knifed on the highway and his car collided with the side of the trailer.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

A sheriff's deputy who was at the house gave me more details than I ever wanted to hear. He was the man who responded to the scene, and the one who brought the horrible news to the family. Someone was apparently attempting to pass Jerry on the two-lane highway, and an oncoming truck tried to prevent an imminent head-on with it.

I hung up the phone and paged Sunny with the code 911*911*911 . It took almost twenty minutes before she finally called.

"I just got out of class. What's wrong? What's the emergency?" she asked.

"Samantha, you need to come home right now."

"Why? Why is your voice shaking?"

"I won't discuss this over the phone. Don't go to your next class. Come home. Now."

I was nauseated the entire thirty-minute wait for her to drive from her campus. I was pacing up and down the driveway waiting for her. I hated the universe for forcing me to tell her what I knew, and her eyes hated me for saying it.

"We have to go right now !" Sunny demanded.

"I know," was all I could say.

We hurriedly packed bags.

We arrived at her family home at about five o'clock the next morning. We went into the house and found Janette, JJ, Suzie, and Martin all in the living room. The three kids were asleep in bundles of blankets on the floor. Janette was awake but looked like a zombie. She was dead-to-the-world drunk.

I stayed with Sunny and her family for a week and left two days after the funeral. I had exhausted my vacation time, and bereavement leave was all I had, so I was forced to return home without her. Sunny flew back two weeks later.

If the bad news had ended there, it'd have been one thing. But it didn't. It didn't stop there. Hardly.

When Sunny had returned home, she was worn to a frazzle. She told me her mother wasn't coping with the tragedy and was turning herself inside out. She told me her mother was so exhausted she'd almost set the kitchen on fire trying to cook dinner one night. After that incident, an aunt and uncle came to stay to try to help her out.

Sunny forced her mom to see a doctor who prescribed her Valium so she could at least get some sort of rest.

Barely one week after my wife returned home, we received a phone call in the middle of the night. It was probably 2:00am. It was the kind of phone call which still makes my skin crawl if the phone rings in the middle of the night even to this day. The voice on the end of the line was unintelligible, unidentifiable. All I could make out was, "I need to talk to Sunny!"

I turned on the bedside light and woke her up.

"Sunny, something's wrong."

"Who is it?" she asked blearily.

"I have no idea. I don't recognize the voice."

I handed her the phone and turned on the room light. Not ten seconds later, Sunny was screaming in anguish.

She'd been told by an aunt that her uncle had found Janette in the unused hay loft of the barn. They'd taken all three kids for the day to give Janette a respite. When they were brought back home, the house was empty, but their van was still parked. Her uncle started looking all over the property for Janette, and it took him hours to find her lifeless, pale body.

We were devastated and dismayed to learn there was an empty prescription bottle of diazepam in Janette's pocket and a half-full bottle of vodka on the floor next to her.

We drove back to the farm for the second time that month. On the way there, Sunny broke down into tears again.

"Gary, I'm bringing my brothers and sister back to live with us. I can't leave them there! I don't trust anyone there! They have to come back with us! Do you understand me ?"

She was frantic. I had to pull over to the side of the interstate because the distraction was so intense. The urgency she had in her voice compelled me to agree with her without any thought or deliberation. My objective brain knew she was absolutely right. Not a single member of Sunny's extended family would be able to provide for three children. Most of them could barely provide for themselves and their own.

The subjective side of my brain knew the lives we had planned together had just ended.

I don't remember much about planning for the funeral other than we had to have done it. My mother and father had come, and they gave me gentle nudges concerning which things needed tending to.

I teared up at our second funeral of the month watching my wife sobbing while holding Martin. He wasn't even three years old. He, of course, had no understanding of what was going on around him. He struggled against Sunny's embracing arms. He wanted "down" so he could play with his toy cars in the corner of the chapel.

I watched the kids and was suddenly overwhelmed with the magnitude of the responsibility which had been foisted into our laps. Into their laps. Their lives had been devastated, and Sunny and I were left to pick up the pieces.

I had no fucking clue what to do next. My wife was in such a state of grief and shock, and I had no instincts to guide me in how to console her.

"Look!" I cried to my parents. "What the hell do I do? What are we supposed to do now?"

My mother gripped my arms fiercely and stared through my eyes to the back of my skull.

"Gary, listen to me, Son. You are Samantha's husband. You. You .

"You are all she has now, and she needs you to be exactly that. You can't make her feel better, so don't even try. You can't make all of this go away. All you can do … what you must do is stay by her side and be her rock. Be her beacon, Son. Be her lighthouse . The strength she needs right now can only come from you."

I felt like I'd been thrown out of the back of an airplane with no parachute. I was husband to a woman who'd just endured unspeakable tragedies. I was husband to a woman who was about to take on the challenge of caring for and continuing the upbringing of three children who'd endured the same. I was a sidelong member of a twice-destroyed family, and it was suddenly my job to make sure all four siblings came out the other end of an incredibly long, dark tunnel.

My mother became my wife's overnight. She took over various duties at the Keller's house for the several days required for things to at least begin to settle down. My father was my guide into unknown legal territory. He had some experiences of his own, as my own grandfather had passed away four years prior, a few months before Sunny and I were married. My father was the executor of his father's estate, and he helped us navigate the initial processes.

He and I met with several attorneys and found a gem who would handle the probate of the estate. Since there was no will, Sunny was the de facto executrix, but, because she wasn't a resident of the state any longer, she couldn't act as administrator.

Sunny met with and hired him to handle the probate process and also named him to be the administrator. She signed all the contracts and legal motions in front of a bank clerk who signed as witness. A second clerk notarized all the papers.

Sunny's attorney turned out to be worth his weight in gold. His fee to act as probate attorney was fixed. To act as the administrator, the arrangement with Sunny was to be paid based on a percentage of the value of the estate. As such, he was well-motivated to find value under every rock.

He and his staff very much excelled at the task. They sorted through cartons upon cartons of receipts, bills, and papers. He found life insurance policies no one else was aware of. He negotiated with several creditors to reduce or eliminate debts, even before going to probate. He explored the farmstead several times and had appraisers come out when he saw things of particular interest and value which would be highlighted during an upcoming auction.

He also found an individual who was willing to tend to the flourishing herd of cattle on the farm, as well as maintenance of the property itself.

I'd always thought of barter as an ancient concept until I'd begun visiting Sunny's former home, and all the gentleman asked for in payment for his services of managing the farm were two average steers per year he could market or butcher for himself, as well as coverage of any maintenance expenses.

The county's district attorney, after hearing of the tragedy, agreed to act as guardian ad litem for the three children instead of letting the "next up" rotation assign some random low-rate lawyer, and he worked with Sunny's attorney to establish her as the guardian and conservator of the three children.

We drove home with her brothers and sister the week after the funeral. Two of Sunny's more eccentric aunts followed us in one of the farm trucks, towing a cattle trailer loaded-for-bear with the kids' belongings, including their furniture, clothing, et cetera.

Sunny and I had developed good relationships with our neighbors, and I could only imagine what they thought when they saw a beaten-up, rusted-out Ford F350, complete with a fifth-wheel cattle trailer parked in front of our house, and two older ladies dressed in muumuus going back and forth carrying boxes and furnishings.

We gave Sunny's aunts the master bedroom of the house for the two nights they were there. Before we'd arrived home, I'd had plans of Sunny and I staying in the guest room and putting the kids on couches or whatever, but the kids wouldn't stand for it. They had already been all but abandoned, and we all wound up sleeping on the floor in the living room to give them a sense of security and unity.

We needed several days to get the house in order. The office transformed into JJ's room after all the office stuff was moved to the living area. The hobby room became Martin's. The guest bedroom became Suzie's, and the garage didn't see a car parked in it again for a very, very long time because it became a storage area of sorts.

Sunny drove back and forth to the farm almost every other weekend as I was thrust into fatherhood faster than ice cream melts in Hell.

We enrolled Suzie and JJ into the local public schools. Suzie started eighth grade and JJ was in the third. We placed Martin into daycare.

We needed months longer to figure out Social Security survivors' benefits which barely covered the basics of the kid's expenses. Since the guardianship was established, the children were covered under my medical insurance, and we used the hell out of it. None of the kids had previously benefited from regular checkups, and none had ever visited a dentist or optometrist.

We made sure Suzie and JJ received counseling from a child trauma specialist.

During the probate process, Sunny almost had a nervous breakdown when we were paid a visit at our house by a county constable. We were presented two sets of summonses to appear in court in the county in which the farm was located. We were both named as defendants in a lawsuit brought by two of Sunny's mother's siblings. They claimed their sister had borrowed trailers and farm equipment, and that we were claiming it as our own, attaching it to the estate.

We called Sunny's attorney to seek his advice on what to do about it.

"Samantha, with all due respect, your relatives aren't the brightest bulbs in the box. They've sued you in small claims court. All you have to do is respond to the summons, in writing, and explain to the court that you and your husband are residents of another state , for crying out loud, and are out of their jurisdiction. Attach copies of your driver's licenses and your voter registration cards. But, until you get dismissal notices, do not come into this county or you will be under the court's jurisdiction and could be compelled to appear on a warrant. If something here needs to be done, let me know and I'll make sure it's taken care of.

"I happen to have all the registrations and papers for those items which is enough to prove they're your property. Let those folks spin their wheels because they're only grabbing for money."

Sunny followed his advice, and a little over a week later, we received mail notifying us the cases were dismissed.

The same thing happened frequently enough we came to be on a first-name basis with our constable. He'd call and say, "I've got more papers to serve. Meet y'all at the coffee shop?"

I know, it sounds comical. Most process servers you see on TV shows have to chase and trick their targets into taking hold of the papers, whereas we'd meet ours at the shop every month or so. I couldn't get Sunny to see the humor of the whole situation. I felt content letting her moronic family chase their tails and spend their own money filing challenges only to have them dismissed.

But I'll tell you this. I didn't understand why they kept naming me in the lawsuits. I suspected it was because I'd taken Sunny into a decidedly middle-class standard of living, and they thought it meant I was soaking in cash.

After all, two of Sunny's aunts had spent several days in our new, comparatively enormous and modern house. Our baths and showers were nice. They didn't require baling twine or painters' tarps, or oven mitts to turn the hot water valve off.

As funny as I found it, Sunny became more devastated as she discovered how greedy her own "family" was.

Only one time did we have to appear in court. One "smarter" uncle filed a suit in one which could compel us to appear. Sunny's attorney told us he was suing for the very trailer used to bring the kids' stuff to our house. He had the sales order and the registration for it, but discovered the serial number on the trailer's chassis had very recently been ground off with a sanding drum and the license plates had been removed when he went to go take photographs.

The "trial," such as it was, lasted barely fifteen minutes. Neither Sunny nor I spoke much from the stand because our attorney successfully objected to almost every question asked by the unrepresented relative. We walked out of the courthouse and treated our attorney and his spouse to dinner. Since the suit was related to the estate, he wasn't technically entitled to any additional pay for the work, other than his commission on the value of the trailer to the estate, so a nice dinner was certainly appropriate.

All in all, it took over a year to settle the probate.

The entire herd of ninety-plus head was sold at auction. We weren't there to observe the event, but we were told it was an exciting affair. The livestock fetched a tidy sum and provided a decent inheritance for the kids, Sunny included.

A few years later, Sunny sold the farm, which up to that point, she'd leased to the same man who'd tended it before. It added a nice chunk to the heirs' balances.

About a year later, we enrolled Martin in Kindergarten. After we spent several days discussing the options, Sunny decided to leave her job and be a "stay at home mom." We considered the financial ramifications and determined we could afford it as long as she was prepared to draw from her inheritance, when needed, to cover any shortfalls. She agreed, then turned in her notice the following week.

As the years marched on, our lives never returned to where we'd left off. Instead, we had settled into a new "normal." The children adjusted to their new surroundings. Life was certainly different for the older two, as switching from living on a farm to having "parents" with white collar jobs and a house in the suburbs of a large city was quite a change. Martin, however, had no problems adjusting. After maybe two years, his memories of his former lifestyle had faded.

Almost immediately after the kids came to live with us, Sunny went back on the pill. We'd stopped all talk about having our own children. We were both uncertain what our futures would hold.

We knew we were sacrificing, but tending to three children was difficult enough. I was sure I couldn't care for more. I harbored a shit-ton of resentment against a certain deceased woman as a result, but that was the way it was.

Remember, prior to "the event," Sunny and I were trying to conceive. We had an incredible amount of enjoyable intimacy. Once or twice, because we were so exhausted from work, it did feel like a chore, but, much more often than not, Sunny and I would fall asleep together, wearing nothing but our skin, wrapped in gentle arms and light embraces, always anticipating the month Sunny would miss her period.

Beginning the night of that horrendous phone call, those nights didn't happen again. We went from sleeping together to simply sleeping in the same bed. Those are two very different things. From then on, when we went to bed, we were dressed in more clothes than we usually wore when we shared sheets before we were married in case we had a kid-crisis which needed immediate attention. Heck, for me, it was invariably shorts or sweats and a tee-shirt. Some might call them pajamas, but I could wear my bedclothes in public and not draw a single sideways glance.

Many couples will agree how having children puts a cloud in the bedroom. Now imagine having three, ranging in age from three to teen, appear overnight with no warning.

I'll advance the clock to the point where Sunny and I had been married over eight years. I wished I could collect on all the bets my friends or coworkers had made that we wouldn't last long. Most were genuinely curious why I didn't simply file for a divorce and get out of the mess when it first started.

"You're still young. You don't have a lot of assets to divide. You have no children of your own. You didn't sign up for that kind of shit!" was a common refrain, and an observation made by both men and women.

I won’t lie. The thought crossed my mind. They were correct, I didn’t sign up for it, but it was the hand we were dealt. I had made a vow to my wife and another to her late father, and, as difficult as it was, I had every intention of keeping them. It was also partly because I was raised in the belief how marriage is for life. In my view, people shouldn’t stay married only as long as it remains convenient. I loved my wife, and I know she loved me. To have walked away from her during such a trauma would have not only added to Sunny's devastation, but would have been a cowardly act on my part. It would have been cruel and inhumane. My parents were married almost fifty years before they passed.

Our sex lives did slowly return from the dead as we began to figure out how, even though there were children in the house, we could still have intimate moments. We had to work at keeping our voices down. We would usually turn up the volume on the bedroom TV to mask any grunts or moans. An agreement might be made well in advance, with a coded statement like, "When was the last time we rolled the pennies?" or, "What's airing on WBTM tonight?"

It matched the circumstances. WBTM stood for "Wham, bam, thank-you Ma'am or Mister" in reference to how much time we'd have to do our thing, hoping the whole time we wouldn't have a kid banging on the locked bedroom door because a nightlight bulb burned out, or the lullaby CD started skipping, or they'd had a bad dream.

There's nothing more frustrating than getting so close to the peak only to hear a kid screaming from across the house because they puked in their bed.

Sunny and I enjoyed occasional date nights out as Suzie became older and responsible enough to babysit her younger siblings. Such relaxing evenings often ended in a pleasurable way.