The Past

           Now that it has all been said and done, where is there to go from here? She has all of the information she needs to finally make the right choice for herself but can she? It’s one against one, two if you count his other side. He is all denial, all rage, filled with grief that fuels his selfish ways. She knows better, he has brought her here before. She is stuck yet again at this fateful corner of lies and the truth, needing someone to help her, she turns to you.

            You’ve seen her go through so much here- the games and the lies and the tears- experiences enough to span decades for most in just 3 short years. You know she is strong enough to move on for her daughter. She always loved him, believing he could, that he would, change. Even near the end when he lied directly into her eyes and she knew it, she still tried so desperately to hold on. As her Mother, you understood her need for that family, to be a part of one unit. Everyone can relate to that need, it is only human nature to seek comfort in the familiar.

            I tried to make everything seem okay. I put a smile on my face every day for you. I didn’t want you to see me breaking inside, the person I was dying a little more with each of his lies. I did everything he wanted me to, even when I didn’t. Oh I cooked and cleaned like every good little house wife should but his wants were purely sexual. Now I can see how dangerously close to sadistic he really was. He liked to tie me to the bed, each wrist bound to the corners of the bed frame and my legs kept down by his weight as he straddled me at the hips. He would lean down and with his green eyes burning with excitement, he would grab my throat while he whispered in my ear.

“Act like you don’t want it, like you’re afraid for your life. Fight me, tell me no, beg me to stop.”

And he would choke me to the brink of passing out, he knew when to stop, he learned that the first time I blacked out. It scared the shit out of him, he told me I wouldn’t wake up and I was out for 10 minutes.

You still don’t know about that stuff- no one really does. It’s something I’m not sure I have really dealt with, it’s hidden away inside the part of my soul I try my best not to see. More like a nightmare than a memory, I’m just waiting for it to fade away with time.

 

He seemed so excited when our daughter was born, he seemed sure to change for her, yearning to show her what a good man should look like. And he did for a while, he cuddled her, he cared for her, he showed her off with pride. But honesty bores him and commitment tortures him. The lies came back like they always did and the denial hit full swing, there were so many words coming from his mouth but I knew to trust nothing.

            My little girl, my angel, my baby- innocent and loving and sweet.  Her father, lying and manipulative and forceful. She cannot idolize him as a good man. He is retched and toxic, a coward and a cheat.

            Amazing green eyes, the kind you stop to look at twice- deep emerald and flecked with gold. At second glance you see they are empty, hollow, lost in his fictional world. I see his eyes caught up in the lie, the brilliant green dulls for his stories and brightens with slivers of gold in his anger for my doubt. His bottom lip pouts ever so slightly as his anger spirals into a defensive deniability of the proof I have against him. The emails, the secret accounts, his own friend siding against him when he told me about the dates he had lied to go on. But he could lie to anyone, he has a snake’s way of making you believe him. He could convince you it was cold on a hot summer’s day. If you still weren’t on his side, he knew what to say in such a way that would leave you unable to find the words to stand your ground, no matter how right you knew you were.

            I finally left him. I did my best to co-parent with him, even after he moved back to Montana (from which we had both come). We had agreed that the car would go with the little girl- whoever had her would have the car. Come August 2011, he came back to Lewiston, ID to pick up the child and the car for their arranged visit of four weeks. But he had had our little girl less than three weeks when he was caught in yet another lie. Claiming to have been working several extra shifts he left the little girl with her maternal grandfather for nearly a week straight, seeing her only to take her to a different babysitter. Rather than spend the little time he had with his daughter, he chose to spend it with not only another woman but with her small daughter too. Despite the facebook posts and the fact that an old friend of mine was his manager, he tried in vain to cover up his lie. His tone was so hard, so steady, you would think he believed it himself. A friend was so kind as to drive me to Montana to pick up my daughter. He was angry. He wanted to keep the car. Instead of meeting as agreed, he dropped the little girl off at her grandfather’s with less than half of what she had come with and refused to return anything else or the vehicle.

            You watched all of this happen, hurting for your daughter and her little girl, hoping something good would come. You were shocked when she accepted his apology and agreed with his request to take their daughter again in November. It was set, in a few weeks time he would come and pick her up. He continued daily contact with their daughter during October. He even sent them pictures of the bedroom he and his girlfriend had set up in his apartment for her. He seemed so proud of it! In the corner near the window was a beautiful wooden crib adorned with a pink and white bed set, a large fuzzy pink rug in the center, on the opposite wall stood a dresser and next to it, a toddler sized rocking horse with a purple saddle and white reins just waiting to be ridden. The effort was unexpected to say the least.

            I could not believe the bedroom they had set up for our daughter, with the things left over from her older daughter no doubt, but sweet none-the-less. He had never really shown much interest in those things and it was so sad that she never even got the chance to go see her new room. All I had asked of him was that if he wanted his girlfriend around our daughter, she come with him for pick up. Just days before he was to come get her he disappeared. I had felt something was not right and when, after 3-4 days of no contact, I received a message from him via text. I knew our daughter was going to be let down yet again.

I quit my job. I moved to Arizona. I needed to do something for myself,
I wasn’t happy there, I needed to leave. You are the worst thing that
 has ever happened to me.
Sent 11/06/2011

            Our daughter hasn’t seen him since the last visit in August 2011. August 2012 I filed for full custody and that was the last time we heard from him, contact ceased completely. He has not attempted any contact with his daughter in over a year. I was granted full custody in court, the Judge sided quickly with me as her “father” had made no move nor attempt to contact the courts in regards to the custody arrangement. If he ever wants to see her, he has to go to court. Parenting classes, getting his driver’s license back, paying off his fines, and holding a job for 6 months are all stipulations on the custody order.

            My heart broke for Samantha. Who should have been the most important man in her life chose to walk away from her. He said he wanted to be better. He said he wanted to show her the world and all its good. He said he was going to be her everything, that he would turn her into a daddy’s girl. I remember that she was sad for a month or so, she would tear up in confusion when she saw his picture. “Da-da?” was all she could say. Being 14 months old at the time, I think he faded from her quickly.

I wish I could say the same for myself. I hurt for her for some time, I held a nasty feeling deep down in my soul for him. How dare he do this to my daughter- to someone so innocent and so trusting. How dare he betray her like that, leave her in the dark without her protector. It is a hate many single parents dwell on, it is pain and loss and fear and rage and the deepest sadness for another anyone could know. I would like to tell you that I am free of it all, that I have forgiven him and let it all go. That would only be half true, I am well on my way there but there is the very rare occasion in which I remember what he did. I think about the day I will have to explain this all to my baby girl, she won’t be a baby when the day comes but the truth has a way of getting to the childish part of your soul and that is where she will hurt. So I suppose in present I have nearly forgiven him, it is the future consequences of his actions I have yet to forgive as they have not yet come to be. I can only hope to raise her to be strong enough to know that what he did was of his own accord and no blame is to burden her shoulders.

            Sometimes I worry that he will try to just waltz back in to her life, afraid of what I would say to her if he did. Sadly, I am well aware that he is not likely to put forth the effort that would be required to do so. I know that he will probably never see that he gave her his awful front cowlick, which makes her hair go every single way but down. He won’t ever get to take credit for the adorable right-side-only dimple on her cheek when she smiles, Lord knows it didn’t come from me. The awe of looking into her stunning eyes; ice blue in the center with a steel grey ring around the outer edge of the iris, will never be his to appreciate. She will never be his to claim, she is mine, she is her daddy’s.

            In September 2011 I met a man with beautiful hazel eyes, eyes that leaned just a little more to the green side than brown. He was in town for work, a planned three months at the time. One date led to another, and another, and several more after that. Soon he was asked to stay for another job and following the termination of the leading project manager, he was promoted and officially relocated to Lewiston, ID.

            One weekend, shortly after the first time my daughter and he had met, the three of us went to Spokane, WA to look at a few snowmobiles. Upon arriving to town we stopped at a gas station where I needed to use the restroom. This was the first time he ever held Samantha and I wish I had a picture! I handed her to him and he took her like one with short arms would hold an awkwardly shaped box, one hand here and an arm around there completely unsure of what to do with the other hand. Samantha hung at an angle one would not expect to see a child being held at and both of them had the most entertaining look in their eyes- mass confusion and shock in her eyes- mild terror and dis-coordination in his- in that moment they were priceless. I laughed the whole time I was in the restroom and again when I walked out to see him attempting to continue holding her while getting a hot dog. He didn’t know what to do with her and she didn’t know what to do with him and I couldn’t help but just leave them there like that and enjoy it. I’m glad I did because he never held her in that way again, it was like everything clicked and the awkwardness between them was broken that day.

            Samantha met the man she calls Daddy at 17 months old. Not being familiar with kids, it took them a bit of time to really become attached- probably more so him than her. She adored him, she called him “My Andy” for the longest time. He cuddled with her, he played with her, he even watched her a few times, two of which she pooped on the floor (and he cleaned up, something she only ever did to him). Earlier this year, he asked me if I was okay with her calling him Daddy. It was his call in my eyes, I think the change was elating for her. She now had a daddy, her own daddy, like all her friends in daycare did. He is daddy, he is all she has ever known in her memory.

            He gave her the one gift that I alone could have never given her. He gave her a father, a good man, he stepped up for her when her own father chose to walk away. He is her idol of the perfect man because in her eyes he is just that, perfect.