During all this, I was calling our family and close friends to tell them what had happened. It was emotionally nerve-racking to tell the series of events over and over again to each person, but it had to be done. I was completely drained and had little physical strength.
The weight of all this in my life happening at once was crushing, and I was an emotional mess. My thoughts of Jess were only, That lying, psycho bitch. I hated her and had nothing but contempt for her. As a Christian man, I knew I had to forgive, but I was not capable of giving her any forgiveness at this point. Fueling my contempt was the knowledge that Jess had created Mom’s stress by getting me arrested. It was very possible that this stress had contributed to Mom’s complications with the surgery. One of the last memories I have of Mom alive is her crying at my arraignment after seeing me in chains. All because of that lying psycho.
I have been a Christian all my life, have regularly gone to church, and have heard countless people giving their testimonies of miracles, being brought to faith in Christ, being relieved of addictions, and having no more desire to commit previous wicked acts. I lived a pretty decent life and had no great testimonies to give, as I didn’t have any great tales of misery or being lost. I am far from perfect and have had my fair share of moments and mistakes, but I never had any relapses with my faith. Christ was always in my heart, and this was partly due to my being incredibly blessed with wonderful, loving parents who had a deep faith in God.
For the past few days, I had been praying to be helped with this burden of the DV charge and for Mom’s healing. I wondered if my inability to forgive Jess would affect any of my prayers for Mom’s healing and for help with these charges. Countless other friends and family told me they had been praying too. They were shocked at all these events and were extremely concerned about my welfare and whether I could handle all this stress without self-destructing. Many of them also expressed their hatred of Jess for all the problems she had caused the family over the years and especially my arrest. I had to tell them not to say anything to Jess—I needed her on my side until I could beat these charges.
Friday night I couldn’t go to sleep and was curled up in a fetal position. My heart was racing, and my breathing was labored and erratic. I was nauseated, and it felt like a huge weight was pressing down on my lungs. I dozed off around 1:00 a.m. but woke up an hour later crying uncontrollably.
All of a sudden, I started to feel joy. I couldn’t understand why. Then I felt the presence of Christ. It was a very real, tangible, physical presence that I felt, and it was pure love. I felt all the hate, pain, and fear literally being pulled out of me. It was an incredible experience I couldn’t fully comprehend, but I was at complete peace. The tears of pain were replaced by tears of joy. I didn’t understand why at first, but then it was clear. I was loved and was given grace and peace. I gave thanks to God for this miraculous gift. This heavy burden was lifted, and I forgave Jess. It wasn’t just lip service; it was a genuine forgiveness I felt, and there was no more anger for her. Forgiving Jess was not my doing, and I could not forgive her by myself. Only through the grace of Christ was I able to do this.
Even though I forgave her, I knew there was no future for us unless there was a radical shift in her actions. Still, there was a huge difference between forgiveness and trust, and I knew a massive shift in her personality probably would never happen.
I had another revelation that night. I was able to spend five days with Mom before she went to be with the Lord. I gave thanks for this also. Somehow, in all these twisted events, time was given to me to spend with her. I was amazed by what had happened, but I didn’t realize it before, due to my all-consuming contempt for Jess. I didn’t know if this really was Mom’s time to be with the Lord or was just another accident due to our imperfections; all I knew was that being able to spend this time with her was an incredible gift. I slept soundly through the rest of the night and woke up Saturday completely refreshed.
Jane, Dad, and I talked and laughed on Saturday, recounting all the good times and love we’d had with Mom. I recalled and told the story about a really crude joke I had told Dad twenty years ago. Mom had overheard this joke, given us a condescending look, and said, “That’s bad.” A month later, a high-school friend of mine, Liz, was over at the house after she, Mom, and a few other women had gone bowling.
Liz said, “I couldn’t believe the dirty joke your mom told us at the bowling alley!”
I asked Liz what was it about, and when she told me, I said, “That was my joke I told Dad!” We looked over at Mom. This extremely pious and reserved woman had a little grin on her face, knowing she was so busted.
When Dad heard this story in the hospital room, he started laughing. It was a deep belly laugh. It was a truly joyful moment seeing Dad laugh after all the sadness we had experienced. We also cried. But those were tears of love for her, and we were secure in our faith that Mom was with the Lord. Her unwavering faith throughout her entire life assured her of salvation. There was no doubt that she was with the Lord now. It made the decisions we had to make over the next few days much easier.
I went to church Sunday to help clear my mind and saw Jess in church by the coffee station. We met briefly. I told her that by meeting her, I was in violation of the no-contact order, but I wanted to give her comfort and had to tell her about my experience with God the past Friday and the way He had taken all the pain, sorrow, and hurt I felt and given me joy. I told her I felt no anger toward her and forgave her. I also told her that somehow, through this horrible situation with the DV charge, I had been able to spend the last few days with my mom while she was alive, and I gave thanks to God for this. To be clear, I forgave her, but there was no way I trusted her. It wasn’t if Jess would flip out again; it was when and how bad it would be.
Jess stared at me with a blank look on her face and could not understand what I’d said. Her eyes were empty, and she seemed to be just a shell of a person with no depth or soul. She replied only that she was still angry about being committed in the psych hospital. She was completely incapable of letting go of all the past hurt in her life, and that was all she saw and felt. She couldn’t recognize her own horrible actions, accept forgiveness, or forgive herself. I walked away from her without saying anything more and left church for the hospital to see Mom.
The neurologist performed some tests on Mom. There were no signs of any higher brain function, and she was still completely unresponsive. He said that in his experience, people never recovered from this when higher brain function was not detected. He also said that after watching for brain function to improve for a couple of days, there was no progress, nothing had improved, and there was little hope that any recovery would be possible.
Dad, Jane, and I made the decision to stop life support. We knew Mom was gone. This was not hard to do, because we all knew that her salvation was assured and that Mom never would have wanted to be kept alive with machines. There were no second thoughts on this. We even said we all felt the same and didn’t want to be kept alive by machines. We talked about this decision later on and all expressed how easy it was. It was only our faith and knowing the love of Christ that made the decision easy.
I called our close friends and family to come to the hospital and said the ventilator was going to be stopped after her pastor, Pastor Chris Tomah, read her the last rites. Mom went to Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hartland, Michigan, and it was also the church I had gone to as a child. We were all there during the reading of the rites, and she was given to the Lord. All of us were crying. The nurses disconnected the ventilator at 6:25 p.m., but she kept breathing on her own. The nurses told us she could stop breathing then or it could take a few days. Jane, Dad, and I stayed in Mom’s hospital room for a while, and after everyone left, Jane and I went back up to Mom and Dad’s house. Dad continued to stay by Mom’s side at the hospital.
The next morning was my first hearing for the DV charge. With all these events happening at once, I couldn’t think straight, w
ondering what would happen.
The pretrial hearing for the DV charge started at nine on Monday morning. Jess had been talking with Dad the last few days and wanted to be there to tell the judge this had been a mistake and there had been no violence in order to help get this dismissed. She called Dad at eight thirty that morning and told him he had to pick her up and take her to the pretrial because the Focus was not working. Dad was very irritated at this last-minute request and then told her it was too late and there was not enough time to come get her. Jess drove up anyway in the Focus. What the hell was this latest game she was playing? I fully expected and knew she would pull more nonsense, and I had to be prepared to do what it took to protect myself from more damage from her.
When Dad and I were waiting at the courthouse, he told me he hated Jess for everything she had done to our family. He called her evil and said all his neighbors also said Jess was evil. He wanted only to get these false charges dismissed and would not say anything bad to her until after this mess was over. He would just pretend to be nice to her. He also told me to hide any anger I may have toward her, because she would turn in an instant to get revenge. This shows what a caring man my dad is. Even with Mom’s death and all the pain and loss he was feeling, he still put me first, ahead of his own feelings. My welfare was the most important thing for him, and he would help to ensure I was cleared of these charges. I’m a blessed man to have him and my mom as parents.
Stan was out of town, so another associate of his, Marsha, served as my attorney. When I first saw Marsha, I didn’t get a good feeling about her. She looked like she hadn’t washed her hair in weeks, and she was generally unkempt in a wrinkled pantsuit. Her slovenly appearance did not give the look of a competent professional. She met with the prosecutor alone before the hearing in a small room.
During the hearing, Marsha asked the judge to lift the no-contact order due to my mom’s condition and the hardship the order was putting on the entire family. The judge asked Jess if she had any objections, and she said no. The judge lifted the no-contact order, and I was free to go home. The pretrial hearing was rescheduled to September 8, when Stan was available to give proper representation. Jess tried to speak to the judge and prosecutor to argue that she hadn’t said what was on the police report and the police had lied, but they would not listen to her. Jess even marked up the initial incident report with notes to say what was wrong with it. I hadn’t seen the police report yet due to all the issues going on with Mom.
When we left the courtroom, Marsha told me that even though it was clear I was innocent, the prosecutor had offered a deal for me to plead guilty, and Marsha said I should take the plea deal. I would have to pay the county to take classes on anger management and conflict resolution, and then I would be put on probation for two years. The charge would be dropped after the two years. Marsha’s reasoning was that going to trial on this would be very stressful and cost a lot of money.
I couldn’t believe what she was advising and felt that this woman had no concept of honor. There was no way I would plead guilty to something I hadn’t done, especially with the overwhelming amount of evidence I had on Jess’s behavior. I knew full well the implications a DV conviction might have on my job, civil rights, firearm ownership, my concealed pistol license, and other issues. This conviction would be on my record forever. I intended to tell Stan that Marsha was to have no part of my defense and that I felt she was a reprehensible human being for not wanting to stand on the truth to save an innocent man.
Jess and I left the courthouse together to go home. When we got home, I asked her what was wrong with the Focus. She told me that nothing was wrong with it and that she had only said that in the hope that the prosecutor would feel more sympathy for our family situation and drop the charges. What the hell? This would not even be an issue for the prosecutor, and I had no idea what she was really thinking. I told her she had to be truthful and not play games, due to how serious this charge was, but she defended her actions and said she would do whatever it took. Not only did I have to defend myself against a prosecutor who wanted to destroy my life; I had to protect myself against Jess, who would unwittingly sabotage my defense with her lies and manipulations.
When we arrived home, it was a mess. The kitchen counters were covered in junk; the sink and dishwasher were full; and the living room was trashed with all sorts of stuff scattered on the floor. Jess left to go shopping, and I spent the entire afternoon cleaning and putting her shit away. I was not happy at this mess, but it was typical behavior of hers. When she got home from shopping, she said she was going to clean it up, but I had heard this excuse too many times. There was no fresh food left in the house, and I didn’t see any new food bought.
A few days earlier, Jess had told Dad that the air conditioning in the Focus had stopped working and she’d taken it to a shop to get it repaired. When Jess got back from shopping, I asked where she took the Focus to get it repaired. She would not give me a straight answer and said only that it was a “couple hundred dollars.”
I asked, “What did they do? Was it a Freon recharge, or was there a repair?”
She replied that it was only a recharge and cost about $200. I thought she was not telling the truth, so I pressed for more info. I said a recharge should be no more than seventy dollars and asked for the name of the shop that had done it and if she had a receipt. I said I was going to the shop to demand a refund and to pay only a fair price for what they had done. She still would not give me the name of the shop and said there was no receipt.
Later in the evening, I saw a DIY can of Freon in the trunk of the car. It was clear she had lied about taking the car to the shop. Who knew what really had happened? I would never find out. It was more of the same pattern of deceit on her part. When she told Dad about the air conditioning, she also said she was out of cash. That couldn’t be right—I had given her $1,000 in cash three weeks earlier, and there had been no major expenses. The money had gone somewhere else, which she wouldn’t tell me about. I wondered if Jess had started hoarding cash because she suspected I was going to file for divorce. Anyone would have to realize that getting his or her spouse arrested spelled certain doom for a marriage. In just the few hours since the no-contact order had been lifted, Jess had spun multiple lies and justified them all.
I told Jess about the situation with Elizabeth and that I had arranged and paid for her flight here to see Mom. Jess was glad she came but got very angry with me for paying and demanded Jane pay me back. I told Jess this was a gift to Elizabeth so that she could see her grandmother for the last time while she was still alive; it was the right thing to do, and Jess needed to accept this. Jess would not relent and stayed mad, so, not wanting to argue, I walked away from her. Walking away again and again from her control and freakish behavior was common now.
During the next few days after I got back home, I found out what Jess had done that led to my arrest. On that day when I had gone upstairs to get away from her rage, Jess had gone over to the neighbors’ house and spoken to Laura. Jess had recently befriended Laura and frequently spent time with her. Jess now claimed that Laura had told her to call the police. Laura’s husband, Travis, was the Washtenaw County deputy who had talked with the cops who arrested me. The facts slowly trickled in, and Jess’s actions and manipulations became clear. It began to make sense now why I was arrested.
Jess was apparently telling Laura stories of how horrible and controlling I was just so she could get sympathy. All these false stories of my abuse were her deepening victim mentality and need for sympathy and pity run wild. Her getting pity was usually at my expense.
Jess told me the police had stopped at Laura’s house first and talked with both of them. She claimed that Laura lied to the police about what had happened that night. Jess told me that she was afraid to say anything because the police would not contradict another cop’s wife and make Travis look bad. Jess also claimed she only wanted the police to talk to me, but because of Laura, I was arrested.
&nbs
p; Jess also claimed she never said anything bad about me. She said that Laura made all this up because Laura wants revenge for domestic abuse that had happened to her mother. I didn’t believe a word Jess said. Much of what she said was a convoluted mess that contradicted her previous statements.
The next day Jess and I were in the hospital room with Dad and Jane, waiting for Mom’s body to stop breathing. I said a prayer to Mom and told her that it was OK to let go and that I would always take care of Dad and Jane. Jess immediately blurted out, “What about me?” That pissed me off, but I didn’t say anything. It was another example of her wanting to be the center of attention while completely ignoring the pain others were in. I knew she felt left out and isolated, but at this point, I didn’t care.
At 10:35 p.m. on August 12, Mom’s body stopped breathing. The doctor officially called the time of death. Dad had stayed by her side all this time.
I went back to work the next day. People were surprised to see me, and even my boss asked if I should be there. I was tired and emotionally drained, but I didn’t want to sit around the house and think about everything that had happened. I didn’t want to be around Jess in the house all day. I needed to get my mind clear and try to resume my life. It was hard, but I pushed through the day at work. It was a good decision, and not dealing with Jess really helped put my mind at ease.
After I got home from work, I went to make something to eat, and Jess said she would make me something. I asked if we had any more pork loin left. We did, so she asked me how I wanted it. She wanted to make it spicy with Cajun seasoning, but I just wanted simple salt and pepper and not spicy. She really pushed for more spice and stuff, but I had to say multiple times, “Just simple. I only want salt and a little bit of pepper.”
Tales of the Crazy Page 14
