THE CHRISTMAS FORGIVENESS WAS WRAPPED(Susan Joyner-Stumpf) THE CHRISTMAS
FORGIVENESS WAS WRAPPED


There was a time I found snow magical and romantic, but I gazed upon it now as I did my frozen loneliness – an icy intrusion that slowly seeped into my vulnerable life, leaving behind little to no warmth to blanket out Arctic despair. One December 24th found me alone, a single woman again, after twelve years of marriage. Just last week the divorce had been finalized after months of Terrance’s stubborn efforts to overturn court actions. He tried piteously to claim false accusations of abandonment and infidelity, when, in essence, it was he that did the abandoning. And, in the beginning, I wasn’t able to prove infidelity, but it didn’t take long to become evident that he was up to something with my best friend, Char. He also developed a Cocaine habit and was now facing five years in the Penitentiary for sale and possession. The Judge finally accelerated these labyrinth proceedings, dismissing Terrance’s abundant Motions to Delay. At long last, the Fourth Judicial District Court granted severance to all Inglewood ties. At least that’s what it said on a notarized, official document, that I was now recognized as a single entity, a lone statistic up at the top of the page across in big numbers, in unmistakable bold font. I didn’t know whether I should be elated or suicidal. I assumed I could now revert back to my maiden name, DuBois. Heather Leigh DuBois. Oh boy. Merry Christmas.

I will never forget Terrance’s appearance the last time I saw him in the court room. It’s embedded in my memory like the dead puppy I saw off the side of a road on a trip across the country. I couldn’t remember the name of a particular mountain range, or coming into some nameless town at night with all its twinkling lights. But I would never forget a puppy’s dead eyes, staring into a blank world that would never see him run as a happy dog. So, this was similar to Terrance’s face in the hall outside the court room; it appeared aged, tormented, despondent. I forced my mind to try to remember and hold onto the man I fell in love with all those many years ago, but he was a far cry from that chivalrous romantic that swept me off my feet. Like any new relationship, it was all champagne and roses in the beginning. Two years passed before I realized the honeymoon was over, yet still tried to keep the threads from unraveling our newlywed bliss. Things didn’t start to really go downhill until we moved from our hometown, New Orleans, to Woodland Park, Colorado five years ago. My best friend Char and her husband Brett moved to the Rockies with us. The first year was exhilarating as we all adjusted to snow chains and the loss of real Po-boys and Shrimp Gumbo.

In the year that followed as Coloradians, Brett was killed in a machine accident at the warehouse where he was employed as a Superintendent. Char wept everyday for the first three years and suddenly, just abruptly stopped, out of the blue, as though there were no more tears to be wept after being bone-dry. She had lost about fifteen pounds and leaned on me heavily during that mourning period, and being her best friend, I insisted she come live with us so she would not be alone. I think I was not the only one “comforting” her, after a while. Terrance and Char’s relationship transformed miraculously overnight. I think initially it was the way they stared at one another across my kitchen counter, over my Ravioli left-overs, that gave me the first clue that the “soothing” crossed a few boundaries, and not on the way to granny’s house, either.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Terrance began digging dirty fingers into our Savings Account for monies ill-spent. His nose became red and bulbous, tell-tale signs of a Coke addiction, and I don’t mean Coca-Cola. I mean straight, hard-ass Cocaine because he went about the house sniffling and wild-eyed and spending long minutes locked in the basement powder room, so I knew something was terribly amiss. When I would ask him, he’d act like it was the worst thing in the world that I could do was question his motives. When Char would come out of the bathroom in the same condition, I threw up my heart and hands and realized I was on the losing end of a battle I could never win. And I wondered how I would lose them first: from love or drugs. I had to stand back and watch the two people I loved most in this world die small deaths each day, in front of me. It was very hard.

Sitting both of them down and spilling my fears and concerns proved to be an exercise in futility. Of course they denied everything. “How could we afford the shit even if we wanted to?” they both explained to me, sniffling simultaneously. Rubbing their raw noses, looking around the room expecting something to crawl out of the walls after them. The look of paranoia – I learned to recognize it instantly. And when I tentatively brought up the fact that I thought something was “going on” between them, they both could have won Academy Awards. Char ~ “Now Heather, how dare you! I’m your best friend honey. And what kind of rat’s ass would I be to come in-between you and Terrance after all you’ve done for me?” Terrance ~ “Now Heather, I love Char as a friend. But she’s your friend, after all. She’s been through heck. But you’re my wife and I love you and only you, in that way. Don’t be silly.”

Oh ~ how charming and spit-shiny clean they both were! Sitting there together like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, still not admitting that they were committedly involved in an “intimate relationship” and yet couldn’t take their hands off one another. When one was doing the talking, the other was looking on, with fiery desire and admiration. I was neither stupid nor blind and I guess they didn’t think a whole hell of a lot of me to think I couldn’t see through them. It became ridiculous to try to even ignore it as they both would get stupid and careless right under my nose. I mean, c’mon, you get caught with your hands in the cookie jar, what you gonna say? They ain’t my hands? That’s about what they said, really. And I just plain gave up. And gave in, realizing how sick they both really were.

So just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, well, then, it did. Char lost her job at the post office. Guess too many nights staying up late snorting had nothing to do with it. Terrance, again, had dug into our savings and finally, I came home one night from work and both of them were gone. This was their note dated June 23rd:

Dear Heather:

I know this letter will come as a shock. I swear we didn’t plan it this way. Char and I realized we was more than jus friends. And we both didn’t want to hurt you anymore. I know things have been rough. We’re living in a half-way house. I left enough money to pay the mortgage for five months. Will send more as I get it.

Please save yourself the trouble and don’t come looking for us and don’t blame either one of us. Shit happens. We both still love you if you can believe that. Try to have a Merry Christmas. We send our love.

Despite the misspellings, it was scribbled in Terrance’s handwriting. He signed off for Char, too. I guess he also became, amongst other things, her Sexual Proxy. And he was wrong about leaving enough funds to cover the mortgage for five months – he left me just enough for only two. But he was right about one thing – not to bother to go looking for them. I didn’t. My heart had given up on both of them months before when I knew the odds were against me to fight them. It wasn’t easy, and I won’t say there weren’t tears shed over the entire situation. I lost many a night’s sleep and considered getting wasted myself, but I stopped myself, thank goodness. I don’t know what I was more angry at – the fact that I lost my husband or my best friend or both. It was a double whammy, for sure, but they were very sick people right now and I hoped they would seek some treatment. I didn’t want to read about their deaths in the paper. That’s what I feared the most.

Then things started to get really nasty after I retained a divorce lawyer, who knew my financial situation. The lawyer didn’t ask for any up front fees until the end, when I would get compensation back because Terrance was a highly paid Computer Software Programmer and made an excellent salary while he worked and had insurance, Bonds and CD’s. I would get a fraction of monies from the sale of three vehicles, a motorcycle, a four-wheeler, his gun collection, Cabin Cruiser and Jet Ski, Stocks, Bonds, his horses (I kept mine) and so I was set, in the end. But once Terrance realized this was for real and I was going through the divorce, he was a changed man on a hostile mission. I don’t know what he thought – did he actually think he could continue to string us both along, indefinitely? Where in the vows does it say non-monogamy would ever be acceptable by either spouse? For though I never saw him again except in court after he and Char left together, he would call from time to time and sounded loaded and confused, crying for help in a small way. But that all ended once he was subpoenaed to appear in court to not contest the Motion to Separate. He contested one Motion after the other. He tried, again, to claim that I abandoned him. That I was unfaithful. I tried to ask him who in the world did I know to even cheat on him; I tried to make him realize how ridiculous that sounded when the evidence was quite clear that he and Char were a couple and I had the smoking-gun letter to prove it.

But I had no fight left in me. It was over ~ the party was over. It lasted twelve years. Time to take the toys and go home. Except, I ended up with all the expensive toys we had accumulated during our marriage. I sold his Corvette, the Hummer and the Subaru and kept my cheap, paid-in-full Jeep Wrangler. I sold his Cabin Cruiser and Jet Ski and gun collection because he wasn’t allowed to have it now, being a convicted drug felon. I sold his three horses: two mares and a stallion, and kept my two mares and stallion. So there was nothing left to tie us together – except memories. And the latest ones were miserable enough to help start erasing the ones that once made me a happy woman.

Then there was Char to contend with. Forced now to live on the streets of Colorado Springs unless she found another roommate; but that would mean she would have gotten her shit together, right? And I don’t think she did because I heard from her not long ago. She called the day Terrance was sentenced and carted off to prison; crying for an hour on the phone to me, like I was supposed to muster some grains of sympathy for her. What nerve, I thought to myself as I laid the receiver down, still listening to her wail like a forlorn kitten. She’s crying because the husband she stole from me is gone now, and I’m supposed to feel an ounce of sorry for her? Why? Go to hell, I wanted to say, biting my tongue instead. I remembered the good times we had once, in the old days, that will never come back. I think that’s the only reason I listened to her.

“What am I gonna do, Heather?” she moaned. “No more Brett. I screwed up with you by getting involved with Ter. A no-no. A friendship killer, I know, my actions. I’m clean and sober, though. Really. I attend AA.” How was I supposed to respond? Be happy for her? What did she expect? To come live with me in this empty 5,000 square foot mansion on ten acres in the Colorado mountains? From the funds of selling things and percentages from the Stocks, I was able to reap enough to survive financially for the next two years but, after that, my little secretarial job was not going to keep me above water for very much longer. Terrance had always been the major breadwinner in the family. Surely I couldn’t afford to pay the $2700 monthly mortgage note after the money ran out. After two years, I would be probably forced to sell this place and downsize to something more affordable. Until then, I was alone in this castle with much to think of, and a future as bleak as the winter storm outside my leaded-glass windows.

I hung up the phone. Three months later, sure enough as I predicted, there it was on the front page cover of the Springs Gazette: young woman found slain behind Lacy’s Bar and Grill. It was Char. Despite all that happened, it hurt me. Slowly, I was losing everything I ever loved, watching it crumble before my very tired eyes. I was sorry Char was dead. Our friendship may never have returned to the status that it once was, but I never would have wished my former best friend to die. And her last moments on this earth were horrific. She had obviously been in the wrong place and was raped and murdered. She didn’t deserve that; no woman did. I mourned her loss for a long time to come.

I received a letter in the mail from Terrance from his prison cell. He had read it too, as inmates are allowed newspapers. In the letter, for the first time, he told me how sorry he was that all this happened, and that he felt responsible for Char’s death because, had he not fallen for her and left me, or started using drugs, all this never would have happened. We would still be going about our happy lives. Other than that, he asked about some of the animals. He missed the dogs. He missed me. The life we had.

That was the last letter I ever got from Terrance. Somehow he was involved in a rec yard brawl with a dangerous gang member and was stabbed repeatedly, and died instantly. By the time the Correctional Officers even knew what was going on, it was already too late. He laid there in a pool of blood while the gang member was hauled off to Solitary Confinement, another twenty years taxed to his already hefty sentence. He would never again see the light of day outside steel prison walls. But even that was fractional at best when it came to emotional compensation. The gang leader’s fate would never bring Terrance back, despite the fact I had no longer wanted him as a husband. I never desired his death on my watch, either. The Penitentiary informed me by official notice of his death. I sat by a window with a glass of wine and wondered if now he and Char were together, where ever they went, in the afterlife. I hoped they were finding more happiness than they found here in their last horrific moments on Earth. For both of them to have died so violently only made the situation worse. I toasted them both with tears and heavy heart. If I felt alone before, it was nothing compared to the void and emptiness I was experiencing now. At least when both were still alive, I knew time would heal and I would get over my pain and hurt. But now with both of them gone, I was left with that same unfinished pain and hurt that now had no place to go, nothing to heal, merely exist like a wandering vaporous cloud left over from a terrible storm.

In the two years that followed, a landfall inheritance from my parents’ death allowed me to pay for the house in full, and I was able to stay and maintain my current, however lonely, lifestyle. Why I stayed, I don’t know. It held a lot of memories, both good and bad. But now I was at a point in my life when I had nothing left but this house, and my animals that still shared it with me. I outlived everyone that ever meant anything to me, or that was significant in my life. Sure, I was still young and attractive enough to someday perhaps meet another man, fall in love, re-marry. But right now, at the present time, that was the furthest thing from my mind.

So here it was, another Christmas Eve, snowing. For some reason, to try to get myself in the “spirit,” I had even bought a small tree and decorated with a few things I found stored in the attic in a box labeled, “1998 Christmas Ornaments.” Had it really been that long, I thought, since I celebrated the birth of Christ? I guess so.

Underneath the tree were gifts for the animals, some small gifts for a few friends that I would give out later this evening when they dropped by to see how I was. Another gift that was under the tree, back behind all the others, was something that I had wanted and bought for myself and wrapped so it would be like there were most gifts under there than there really were. I had some lights strung around some of the front windows, and a garland going up the banister. A few crystal angels and other seasonal figurines were scattered about on tables and tucked predominantly on shelves to help bring in the spirit that was weak, but still breathing.

Alas the doorbell rang and the few close friends I had came, one by one, bearing gifts and smiles and the Fruit Cakes we all get around this time of year, but never really want. We exchanged presents and small conversation and clashed antique glasses filled to the golden brim with imported Champagne. When they left, and the clock struck twelve, it was officially Christmas Day. I went underneath the tree and gave the expectant animals their anticipated gifts; rawhide bones and other stuffed toys for the dogs. Stuffed mice with bells and Catnip for the cats. The horses would have to wait till morning to get their new halters, saddle blankets, Caramel Apples and Alfalfa Cubes.

For me, I saw my present under the tree but did not open it. For, I knew what it was. It was a picture of Terrance and Char in happier days, back in New Orleans, before Colorado was even so much as a thought. I had been the one taking the picture with a new digital camera while Brett, who hated to be in pictures, anyway, was off in another part of the house mixing up Margaritas. So it was just a snap shot of Terrance and Char smiling, eyes shining, teeth bright, their arms draped around each other, never realizing those same arms would do a heck of a lot of damage one day. But that’s not the point. The picture was in a very expensive frame and I planned to display it on the Mantel.

Displaying it was a symbolic gift to me, as well as to them both. It was my way of saying: I forgive you.


© Copyright 2011 Susan Joyner-Stumpf

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