2003-02-17 A Story of Sorts to Sort out a Story

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Book: Castle View

 

Conversations in my mind with the woman from, "He Tells Me Its Over"

 

She calls to take his youngest child sledding with her even younger child.  She has not dated the man for over 7 months. They only dated for 6 months before that, yet she still calls to take the kids here or there or to allow an "ill" I-want-to-stay-home-from-school child that has be locked out of the TV and computer to come over and entertain her own sniffly coughing daughter.  Four months after breaking up because he didnt want to get married and she decided to look around again, she paints a sign on the local hiway saying "marry me Dec 8".

 

This is how I would like a conversation to go,

 

"Do you think this is a good idea?"
"The roads are fine," she says to me from the seat of her car.
"No, I mean calling Laura all the time to be with you."
"This is none of your business," she might reply.  "That's up to Dwight."
"Well, it is my business if the only reason you call Laura is to see Dwight. It's not fair to the children yours or his to keep up the realtionship if it is only to prepetuate the hope in your daughter of having Dwight as a Daddy someday."
"That is up to Dwight still again."
"Well," I say, "Dwight is too nice and doesn't want to hurt your feelings because he doesn't dislike you.  He has the utmost respect for you, however every time you call, every time you intrude on our lives brings us closer together and further from you. He reaffirms his commitment to me and reminds me he loves me not you."
"I like the kids company, we do things they like together like camping and going to the beach for a week. Things that Dwight doesn't do for them."
"Because Dwight has to work to support three daughters on a single paycheck and be one of a few people in America who doesn't have a credit card debt. And by the way, I want to thank you for having Laura overnight, that just gives Dwight and I more time alone.  They only time the children are encouraged to be away from the house is when they should be with their mother so they can bond with her.  Laura was welcome at the house even on Valentine's Day.  We had a steak for her and Anna but they chose to leave.

 

"And when you called Dwight, 'You son of a bitch' when you saw my Valentine's Day flowers.  Is that becasue he did not give you any?  Were there no Christmas presents?  Did you ask him for flowers or like most women hope for flowers.  Dwight and I decided honesty was important in the relationship. If you have something to hide then you need go on down the road.  I told Dwight I wanted flowers I didnt want roses becasue they are too expensive. I DID want them delivered to the shop where I work and I wanted them on Valentine's Day. I gave him phone numbers and web addresses so he wouldn't even have to leave the seat of his desk.  But in his strive for economy and simplity, he did it himself.  He went to Walmart and bought the vases (3 additional for his 3 daughters)  Then, went to the grocery store and bought enough for all 4 and stuffed them in as only a man could have done.  His middle child pushed him aside and finished the task, but she couldn't remove the tell tell sign of unarranged flowers. And, he delivered them Valentine's Day morning, on a day when I was running late and gumpy from anticipation of the outcome of Valentine's Day, the Super Bowl Sunday to every woman in the Western world.  His smiling face beaming as he presented his bursting bouguet in a vase the color my ex-husband couldn't remember as my favorite.  He didn't get just one kiss like the man at the florist shop hoped for when he paid for his arranged bouquet that evening as I picked up my three roses. I gave my lover as many as he could take under the watchful eyes of my fellow co-workers.  They smiling and happy in my joy, seeing me come out of my dark days into this mans light."
"And yes I asked him to marry me as well because he is just the sort you want to marry.  (But mostly in response to your Dec 8th proposal) And he said he didn't want to go there at least not now.  But it didn't keep him from making a commitment to me.  And he also said living together is just convience, not a commitment, just helping a friend who needed a hand up. I said its a dangerous trap of mixing commitment and furniture, dosed with pride and fear of abandonment and not belonging.  I have said since my own failed marriage I would never live with a man again unless I was willing to marry him. I never thought it could be me who wanted to get married.  I shiver at the thought.  But I don't want to be without him day to day."

I realise by now this is just a solilique and the lady in question has since driven away with the coveted child. And Dwight and I have walked back to the house under pretext of collecting my things from the weekend I might have forgotten.  I had planned to leave when she drove up in the drive for the third time that day.  I was going to kiss him and return to my home 20 miles away and to my almost grown daughter. But I stay a few minutes till the icy driveway was empty and I buried my face in his warm shoulder and told him over and over again I don't like it when she comes over but I won't stand in Laura's way.  And I apologise for my feelings and he stops me and reminds me that it should be him that should be apologising for putting me in the middle.  And I agree and he does and his kisses are more passionate as he tries to reasure me it is me not her he desires and hungers for.  It is me he looks for throughout the day to talk to to share.

I just want her to know that he's not going to change his mind and marry her for the benefit of one daughter's feelings (or love of her cable TV) or to provide her with medical insurance and a stay at home mommy (albeit on disablity). She needs to stop using the girls to put herself in his line of sight whenever possible.  Because what we have is healthy and growing and moderatly benefiting from her intervention.  But the cost to the child is the question at hand.  The motivation of the former lover is highly questioned.

And if she insists that it is none of my business and especially none of my business what goes on between her, the kids, and Dwight...I will just say,
"Well...It is...because Dwight gives ME flowers."
And ya gotta know, flowers are the language of love.

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