I now know this was not rational thinking for a loving relationship, but back then I had let my idea of a loving relationship slip into an addictive one without noticing the warning signs. This was the beginning of becoming so absorbed in John’s needs and trying to fix them that I forgot about my own. I felt compelled—almost forced—to help John solve his financial problems with my unwanted advice and series of suggestions. I just knew I could change him. I would get him to control his spending so our lives would be stable. What I didn’t realize then was that, one by one, as I let my boundaries slip, John was gaining more and more control of me—subversive control that made it seem like I was still in control, when I definitely was not. I was being manipulated by a psychopath who knew what he wanted and how to get it out of me. I entered the crazymaking world of the psychopathic verbal abuser. Looking back now, I can see that the pattern became entrenched that night. I continued to unwittingly play my role in the repetitive sordid drama for many years to come.
Just then my kittens, Peaches and Patches, skittered down the stairs. Peaches crossed John’s path, and tripped him. “Goddamn cat,” he hissed, picking himself up. He grabbed the kitten, raged down the stairs with her, and headed for the back door. Before I could get to him, he hurled Peaches outside. She landed hard, on her head, in the dirt, and began to convulse.
“You son of a bitch!” I screamed, as I tried to push John aside. I rescued Peaches and cradled her to my chest, rocking back and forth. As John came toward me, I shrank away from him.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Cats are supposed to land on all fours.”
“Obviously,” I managed while weeping, “they don’t.”
“Here, let me take her,” he said. He held out his hands. I stepped back. Things had gotten so horribly out of control I was afraid of what he might do next.
“Please,” he said, “let me have the kitten. I’ve treated convulsions on the battlefield. I have. Honest. I can help Peaches. Let me have her.”
We stared at each other for a long time before I relinquished my sweet pet back into his hands. But the hands that had moments ago abused Peaches were now gentle and caring. When we were inside, I watched as John sat in the rocker with Peaches on his chest. “Please, Barb, get me a blanket,” he said, “I’ll spend the night with her here.” I covered the two of them and left them there, listening as John called up to me, apologizing over and over, saying that his temper came from being half Irish and half Latin American. He called it a deadly combination.
I looked again at Peaches. She had calmed down. John had calmed down, as well, and so had I. At the middle landing, I turned around and called down, “John, so help me, if you ever lay a hand on her again, or me, you’re out. Out! No second chance.”
He didn’t reply. I went to bed, but was too uneasy to stay there. I needed to explore this violent side of John, so I returned downstairs and questioned him. He resisted. I probed some more. He finally acknowledged that he had been violent before, when he was a child and he had tied firecrackers to a cat’s tail and lit them. He said he’d laughed. While I silently wondered how he could do such a thing, I acknowledged this was only a boyish childhood prank, no different than a scene from an Our Gang or Three Stooges comedy. Even my father had admitted to me many years earlier that he and his brothers had tormented their pet cat by pushing her through tunnels they had dug in their backyard. But at least they hadn’t killed her. When I mentioned that I didn’t think it was funny, John quickly added that he had felt bad when his father caught him.
Then he told me that he had also been violent as an adult, but only twice, and both times had occurred with his first wife. She’d asked for sex when he was busy doing the taxes. He shouldn’t have, he said, but he did lose his temper with her. The other time was when she woke him from one of his nightmares. “Can you really fault me for that one?” he asked.
I didn’t answer, but I stored his words as good counsel as I decided I would try my best not to provoke his hidden anger that could so quickly and violently explode at me. I vowed never to wake him from one of his nightmares. As for the sex, our lovemaking amounted to nothing after our first month together because of John’s health problems. If it wasn’t his headaches, it was his back; if not his back, his neck. I’d already sworn to him that it didn’t matter, not when two people loved each other. I knew he needed me to take care of him, and by this time in the relationship I was willing to give up anything, even sex, to keep John in my life.
By now I was tired, worn down. Ready to close my eyes and put the past behind me. As I locked the front door, John called out. “I have an important lunch tomorrow. Can I use one of your other credit cards? I know what you’re thinking, but I promise I’ll get after Vestico to give me the commission check that’s due.”
I looked back at him, sitting in the rocker, serenely stroking my kitten. How could I turn him down?
“I’ll leave it on the kitchen counter in the morning,” I heard myself say. On the stairs I stopped midway and turned back to John. “I noticed on the phone bill that there were no charges for those calls to your family.”
“Oh, that. It’s because I charge all the calls to Grandmother Dannigan’s phone number.”
“How come you never mentioned it before?”
“Didn’t think it mattered. Grandmother insisted. See, this way she knows I keep in touch with the family, no matter where I am in the world.”
“Oh,” I said wearily. “That makes sense.”
Later, in bed, I again wondered why it was that John never kept in touch with the family when I was at home. I’d have to find out about that, I thought, but another time. I was beat.
The next six months were good, and not so good. Good: I was very happy to have an attentive, loving man in my life. Not so good: the man was incredibly irresponsible. My peace of mind had long ago abandoned me. Despite his promises, John’s misuse of my credit continued.
John’s evasiveness about his family continued as well. One day he presented me with a gift he said had arrived for me from Grandmother Dannigan. I discovered that it had arrived without a card or the brown mailing wrap. When I opened the gift—a sterling silver brush, comb, and mirror set—John told me proudly it had been his grandmother’s. I could see from his expression that I was supposed to feel deeply honored, but I felt only confused. Not that I’d say so and risk insulting him, but if it had been his grandmother’s personal set, why were
my
initials engraved into each piece? Was I expected to believe she’d had an engraver change them for me?
Most troubling of all were the finances. Just as they were about to cripple me, John presented me with his commission check. It was large and made up for the three months he’d been in arrears. It was a happy surprise, and so was what he did next . . . fly me again to Mexico City, this time to meet him for a long weekend. It seemed again that life was mostly good.
John’s health worried me. One minute he seemed fine; the next, his leg would give out and he’d be on the floor in pain. I recall that one afternoon while he was on the stairs, his leg gave out, he tumbled down, and we spent the night at the hospital. After that, I watched him carefully. If he started to fall, I wanted to be around to catch him.
One day in spring, John and I set out for a picnic he’d planned as a surprise. I love surprises and enjoy driving, so I started out in a wonderful mood as I sat at the wheel of John’s huge sixteen-passenger van.
The van came into my life not too long after John moved in. John said he’d gotten it for his school for schizophrenics, to help while he was gathering material for his thesis. He had turned control of the school over to someone else, but he would still pick students up and deliver them for their training program. I knew it was important to him . . . so important that I had agreed to finance it despite my better judgment. I knew my finances were already in trouble, but John pleaded that the lease was up and he couldn’t afford to buy it. In a flood of words he talked me into buying the van for him, saying it could be in my name, and he’d make the payments on my credit union loan.
As much as I enjoyed the van for outings like this, the refinancing was a sore subject. I hadn’t discussed it with anyone, and I didn’t care to think about it now. Gobi, in the backseat beside the picnic basket, let out a bark, and John directed me west on the Delta Highway.
I had been taught at an early age that it is shameful to share feelings. In our family we didn’t discuss personal problems. Our mantra was “Keep it to yourself,” so this secret had to be mine alone. I also learned that love was rewarded only if I was a perfect little girl. Now I was that perfect little girl for John. I got him the van he wanted, and for that, he rewarded me with his love. For his love I was willing to stuff my apprehensions about the refinancing into my sack of secrets. It was what I had been trained to do, and I did it well. I would do whatever was necessary to make our relationship work.
“The van is great,” I said, smiling, wanting to convince John, and trying to convince myself. “It’s an adventure just driving this thing, and you know how much I love adventures. Like our last Caribbean trip.”
He grinned and directed me north on I-680, across the Benicia Bridge, to a scenic overlook of the Suisun Bay. “I want to show you something special,” he said, leading me up the path to the picnic table. “Look . . . out there.”
He pointed to the Mothball Fleet, the floating graveyard of World War II ships tethered together, waiting their turn to become scrap iron.
“I’ve seen them all my life, John.”
“Not the big one, out front. That’s the
Glomar Explorer
.”
“The big boat? The one all by itself?”
“It’s not a boat, Barb, it’s a ship. How many times do I have to tell you they’re ships?”
Flipping the red-checkered tablecloth out over the table, I said, “All right, all right. I stand corrected.” We laughed.
As I set up our first course of chilled Chardonnay, Sonoma Jack cheese, and fresh strawberries, I could see by the gleam in John’s eye that he was off in another world, reliving his own adventures. He began to share them with me as he opened the wine and poured it into the Austrian crystal wineglasses. He told me the CIA had asked him to command that ship back in the seventies, when they wanted to recover the Russian nuclear submarine that had sunk seven hundred miles off the coast of Hawaii.
“Did you?”
He shook his head. “Told them no. After my experience in Panama, I wasn’t up for any more dangerous assignments.”
I remembered the gory Panama story from the night we first met. The retelling of his exploits never ceased to amaze me. His financial irresponsibility never ceased to amaze me either. Although I knew this was hardly the time, and as much as I hated having to do it, I realized I had to get him back to the present and our financial situation. I couldn’t handle this problem alone. I needed his help.
He poured me another glass of wine. I took a sip, and casually asked, “Any word about your latest commission check?” I paused before going on. “They’ve put you off for five months now, and things are getting pretty tight.”
“I know. I know,” he said, hanging his head. “I’m sorry. Just can’t get Vestico to break loose. But I started looking around for some other funds. You know, like you suggested.”
My ears perked up. Maybe I had finally gotten through to him and he was going to come through soon after all. “And?”
“And my cousin, Jason Green, is going to buy my Danville house for two hundred thousand dollars.”
I jumped to my feet. “That’s great! When do you get the money?” I didn’t want to sound like a gold digger, but the bills were beginning to resemble the listing
Titanic.
I was desperate to straighten out the mess, to keep us afloat, to get us back on an even keel.
“In seven years.”
“Excuse me? What was that?” I slumped back on the picnic bench, shocked.
How could you sell a house and not get any money for seven years?
John explained that Jason couldn’t afford to get a loan, couldn’t make payments. In seven years he’d pay the money in one lump sum. John was not going to charge Jason interest, only taxes and upkeep. Unbelievable! My body tensed and my head pounded as I watched my hopes drift out with the breeze across the bay. We both fell silent.
John eventually spoke. “You sure know how to ruin my surprises, don’t you?”
Surprises? More? I held my breath. John fumbled around in his billfold, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and handed it to me.
“Grandmother Dannigan came through,” he said. “Take a look. It’s a five-thousand-dollar cashier’s check.” Before I could wonder why she hadn’t sent a personal check, he continued. “She gave one to each of my cousins as well.” He waited until I read the check. “But you’re right. We need a long-range plan. So I put one together.”
Almost afraid to hear it, I asked softly, “What is the plan?”
He told me we could rent the Antioch house where we were now living and move over the hill to my larger home in Concord, which was in a better neighborhood. The Concord house, for which I was still paying my share of the mortgage payments, wasn’t selling. Until it did, I wouldn’t get my portion of the sale. Unfortunately, it didn’t show well because my ex-husband, Bryan, was camping out in it like a squatter. “A little paint, better furniture, and it should sell right away,” John pointed out. “That would remove a large financial drain on you, don’t you see?”
I did see, and the more John talked, the more it made sense, except for one thing. “Why is it always me who bails us out?” I asked.
“Because you’re so good at it.”
Despite his teasing, I felt my despair lift. I relaxed and began to set out the fried chicken and potato salad. “I’ll call Bryan tomorrow.”