I moved in with Kristie again. It was quite a place to find myself in after all I’d been through the past couple of months. Kristie was glad to have me and very accommodating to my fragile state. I tried to resume a somewhat normal college life, even though I had many loose ends to deal with.

A couple of days after I moved into the dorm Don showed up at the door. I really can’t remember how he found me. Maybe I told him where I was staying. Anyway, he was huffing and puffing because he had run the two miles from the apartment to the dorm. He wanted to tell me he had a job. He was going to be detailing cars for an auto dealership in town. He was serious about it and he was going to win me back. I told him I couldn’t trust him anymore and it would take a lot to win me over.

He continued pursuing me. I went on several “dates” with him over a period of weeks. It turned out he was actually employed. He brought me his first paycheck and told me to do whatever I needed to with it. He said he’d hand all his paychecks over to me. I used it to pay the bills on the apartment. My name was still on the lease, after all.

I was weak. I still had feelings for Don and weeks later I ended up moving back into my apartment. I may have been with Kristie for three weeks to a month. I’m sure everybody I knew was sad and disappointed to see me go back.

I was looking forward to going home for Thanksgiving and Don had agreed to let me use the car. I was figuring on going home alone. I didn’t really want him to come. I figured it would be very uncomfortable after all that had just happened. When school break came and I was ready to go he told me he wanted to come too. Argh! So it was indeed an uncomfortable Thanksgiving. My family is very forgiving, but believe me, both of my parents took the opportunity to have a talk with Don.

Don continued to work and I finished up the first semester at school. We struggled financially. All of the shenanigans on his part had put us behind on our bills. While I was staying in the dorm we’d had an eviction notice posted on the door. We were overdue on everything and my small income couldn’t cover it. His income was so new (and small) that we’d never catch up. Noni and Popi loaned us $750 that time, but made it clear that there would be no more bailouts.

That year I endured my worst Christmas ever. Bea Bea had a heart attack and was hospitalized for Christmas. Don and I spent Christmas Eve at Don’s parents’ new house. While they had awesome accommodations, it was a sparse Christmas and lacking spirit, compared to what I was used to. They’d drawn names and I received one (count ‘em one) present. Don’s sister gave me a pair of slippers designed to look like sneakers. They were two sizes too small. No one had even asked my shoe size. Late Don’s mom gave me a ceramic Christmas tree. Since we had no money I’d cross-stitched most of the presents we gave that year. When it came time for us to head to my parent’s to celebrate, Don’s family was just sitting down to their Christmas meal. Of course I was late to see my family and their patience was stretched pretty thin. Basically, the whole thing sucked.

On a side note, by then I had learned that Don had been stealing from his parents when he was living with them, prior to our wedding. His parents had spent their summer doing home improvements and preparing their house for sale. They had already found a new home and were ready to close on it. Their check at closing bounced. Don had stolen at least $1500 from them. His theft nearly cost them the new house they wanted. They found out about the bounced check the day of the wedding. They never mentioned it to anyone until much later.

In January school started again. Shortly afterward Don and I did that thing that many couples whose marriage is on the rocks do. No, we didn’t have a kid. We did the next best thing. We got a dog. That turned out to be an epic disaster. We got some kind of terrier from the SPCA. It was a mature machine of destruction. It barked during the day, disturbing our neighbor, who was a sheriff’s deputy. It could get out of any kind of secure area we made for it. It could jump over obstacles five feet high. It was incorrigible. We ended up having to take it back to the SPCA when the destruction got out of control. Shortly after that we bought a border collie puppy.

As the winter wore on the weight of all our baggage was building up on me. Don seemed to lie about almost everything. He was a pathological liar. He had an uncanny ability to believe his own bullshit. When I lie my conscience works me over and I’m sure I give myself away with “tells.” That was never a problem for Don, his conscience never interfered. So much of what I knew about him turned out to be untrue that I didn’t really know who he was. I couldn’t rely on him to set the record straight. I became so oppressed by the lies that I began to fear for my own sanity. It came to a point where I felt I didn’t know up from down. I was going through life very disoriented, my internal compass spinning in circles. I was so miserable that for a fleeting moment I thought about how easy it would be to end it, and do myself in. Then I was struck by a moment of clarity. “Screw that! There’s the bastard who’s making me miserable. I should kill him!”

I started missing items that belonged to me. My clarinet was gone. My camera that I’d been given for graduation was gone. Don couldn’t speculate where I’d lost those things. I knew that he had pawned them. Sometime before Christmas I discovered that every picture of him that was in our collection was gone. I also discovered an old Navy handbook that he’d been using to copy exercises from when he was faking training for his “first job.” In a bizarre twist I found a note on the floor in our storage room amongst the boxes. It was a “to do” list. Second on the list was “Bury Alex’s watch.” Serious Twilight Zone shit.

One of Don’s pastimes was to go into the woods adjoining the apartment property and explore. I had done it with him several times early on. Then it got colder and I wasn’t so interested. One Sunday Don wanted me to go into the woods with him. He had something he wanted to show me. I didn’t really want to go but I didn’t want to disappoint him either. I remember as I stepped into the woods thinking, “I wonder if he’s going to kill me up here.” I walked right on into the woods with him anyway. Now, can someone please explain that to me? I can hardly understand it now. I know it’s not unique because people come to their end that way all too often. Maybe it was some sort of crazy Stockholm syndrome. I don’t know. But at that point it was easier for me to take my chances and follow him than to resist. It turned out that he’d found the back property of a landscaping business and he wanted to show me the collection of discarded terracotta pots.

One quiet evening there was a knock on the door. A deputy, our next door neighbor, handed Don a summons…

Labels: college years