Saturday, December 8, 2012
I was up pretty late Friday night writing. I slept until about 9 A.M. When I got up I was wrestling with whether I should go out to the house to see him today. After the fiasco of last night I wasn't sure I wanted to put myself through that. I thought about it for awhile. Finally the guilt took over. I had made a promise. I had told him I would be there by noon and we could go to lunch. If I didn't keep my promise I knew he would call me a liar. I am pretty used to being called that now.
About 10:00 A.M. I called our house. I got no answer. I left a message and told him I would call back in an hour. At 11:00 A.M. I tried again. The call went to voice mail once again. I left another message and told him that I was assuming he was sleeping. I also told him if I didn't hear from him I would be going out with the kids. I also left him a post on Facebook. At 11:30 A.M. I tried again. No answer. The kids went ahead and left. 12:30 came and went, nothing. 1:00 P.M rolled around, then 1:30. The kids came home.
Kristin knew I was worried. I had these visions of him at the bottom of the pool. I kept trying to tell myself that i was just overreacting. Just because he knew I was supposed to be there perhaps he really did take the new meds and was finally sleeping peacefully. I struggled over what to do. I finally broke down and jumped in my car and drove out there. Big mistake.
While I was driving over to the house I kept thinking all of these horrible thoughts. I kept repeating to myself, "He's just sleeping." At one point I even considered calling the Sheriff to meet me to come in my house just in case... I ditched that idea, because I thought if he IS sleeping and he woke up to a Sheriff standing there he would most definitely freak out. I mean, I couldn't really blame him. So, I just went back to repeating, "He's fine. He's just sleeping."
When I got close to the house I could see our driveway. Our gate was open. There were two trucks in the driveway, which turned out to be the painters trucks. The garage door was wide open, as well as the front door. I thought to myself, "Well, he sure can't be sleeping with all of this going on." Then I felt a bit stupid for worrying so much.
I parked outside the gate in case I needed to leave quickly. When I walked in to the house, Mark was standing there in a tank top. When he saw me he rushed over and gave me a hug. I hugged him, but also pulled back a little, because his tank top was totally soaked. It wasn't clear to me if he had been swimming or just covered in sweat. I didn't feel the need to ask. I guess I really didn't want to know. He did notice I pulled back. He said, "Sorry, this is what happens when you work hard."
He grabbed my hand and said, "Come see all of the work that has been done." The only room that had been painted in the past week and a half was my office. As we walked through the house I was full of disbelief. It was as if a bomb went off in our house. All of the furniture had "stuff" piled on top of it. There was bits and pieces of paper everywhere throughout the house. There was junk everywhere. The kitchen sink was pilled full of dishes, bottles, cans, towels, paper, water and Lord knows what else. And, the smell....
It seems his comment to me last night, "The house is becoming immaculate" was all in his mind. Either that, or he truly didn't think I'd show up to witness the mess.
Before he took me to another room he said, "I didn't know you were coming today." I said, "But, you left me a Facebook post after midnight stating you would see me at noon?" He said, "I thought you were coming on Sunday."
Break in story for sanity check time:
- Friday
Phew! OK, I knew I wasn't losing my mind. As a matter of a fact, he had reminded me several times about coming over on Saturday, because I screwed up our 17 year anniversary by not coming over. I did mention to him again that I had driven all of the way out here because he asked me to be here to go to lunch. He started to get perturbed. I shut up about it.
Mark asked me, "I got my pills. Do you want to see them?" I was delighted he had and said, "Sure." He told me to follow him. We went to the other side of the house. He went in the bathroom and opened up the bottom door under the sink and pulled out a bag. He pulled out the prescription and said, "Here. I already took one. Do you want to count them too?" I looked at the bottle then at him. I said, "The prescription says to 'take at bedtime.' Why did you take one this morning?" He did not like that. He reminded me he could read, was an adult and that it wasn't my concern. I tried again to explain that the prescription stated not to... He walked out. I shut up again.
Next, we walked outside to the patio because he wanted to show me the $3,800 pool heater he had installed and charged to our credit card. I haven't spoken about this yet, but I was adamant that we did not buy this. We cannot afford it. He wanted it. He is manic. He got it. As we were walking by the Jacuzzi I noticed it was running. I stuck my finger in and it was so very hot! I asked him how long this had been running. He told me not to worry about it. We hadn't used the Jacuzzi in years because it was so very expense to heat up. Now, it seems it had been running for over a week. My heart was pounding. I was trying to figure out how to turn it off. He got mad.
I went in the house to try to find the Jacuzzi manual. Mark walked by me. I stopped him and whispered, "How do you expect to pay for this work they are doing?" He angrily replied, "Don't worry about it." I sighed, shook my head, and continued to look for the manual. He asked what I was looking for. I told him. He got even angrier. He rushed off in the other room. He came back in holding a week and a half's worth of mail. He said, "You might want to go through this." I reached out to get it and he turned quickly and rushed back off into the other room." When he walked back in he said loudly, "I just got our electric bill! It was only $200 dollars!" I tried, in vain, to explain to him that was for the month before. The non-stop Jacuzzi usage and the heated pool bill couldn't possibly be reflected in the bill yet. If this usage continued our bill would be $1000. He didn't want to hear that, of course. He told me to stop worrying about it. I was just trying to cause problems.
He stated, "Stop trying to do things to provoke me. You are always trying to say and do things to set me off. You didn't even bother to come over on our 17th wedding anniversary. You just don't like me anymore. You are mean to me." He left the room again and disappeared.
At that point I had just had it. I grabbed my purse and started walking to my car. I was holding back tears. Rick, one of the painters - who is also one of our customers for work - was standing by his truck. He said, "Is everything OK?" I said, "No. He is an asshole." I got in my car and drove home.
I started crying as I drove home. Then my daughter Megan called. She was at work. I kept it short with her. I just told her, "No, things are not better." After we hung up I saw I had a voice mail. It was our security company. The alarm had gone off at our shop. Just dandy. Fortunately, nothing was taken. It seemed to just be a false alarm, but just another worry to rattle my nerves.
When I pulled in to Kristin's driveway I was thankful. I knew I would be able to walk in a door to sanity and people who loved me.
I didn't receive a single phone call from Mark from the moment I left the house.. I also didn't receive a single Facebook message all night. I figured he was just angry. The quiet was nice.
The rest of my night was with family. It was nice, it was happy, it was quiet and I was happy, yet sad all at the same time.
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