Chapter 81

It was soon apparent that Mama had either been appointed or had appointed herself as the referee, head mediator, and intermediary of the struggle taking place between my wives and myself. I first became aware of the role she had chosen to play when she called me at my Birmingham home early on the first Monday morning after I had abruptly left Ridgeline.

When she first called, she started speaking to me only as a concerned mother and grandmother would. She wanted to know when I was going to return to Ridgeline and try to reach some accommodation with Brenda and Emily.

"There is no longer any reason for me to do so, Mama. Brenda has made her choice. I accept her choice."

"I hope you aren't serious, Kenny? What Brenda chose was a way to get additional time for all of you to work out a better arrangement than you were offering. Your father and I both thought this was a good solution. We believe you needed a cooling off period, so that all of you could talk things over and explore some less extreme possibilities. I was the one who asked Brenda to come live here during this period. I thought you'd be able to realize she hadn't chosen Emily over you."

"Mama, you might as well save your breath. I already figured out what's going on. Everyone thinks they know better than I do exactly how I should be living my life. I'm getting tired of that. I told Joyce, and all the others, that I was going to decide what I could live with. She knew I was trying to find the best way for our family to be together again. I expected Joyce to realize that she needed to go along with me on that. I'm the best judge of what I can and can't live with, not her."

"You can't expect these women to allow you to impose your will on them like this, Kenny. Marriage is a partnership, it requires give and take. I'm happy to see you taking a more active role in guiding your family's direction, Kenny, but you can't go around making purely arbitrary decisions without even consulting people."

"Actually, I can expect that. In fact, I do expect it. More than that, I'm going to insist on it. I told Brenda she had to make a choice, and, no matter how you try to sugarcoat it, she has made one. Joyce and Shirley both made their own choices too. I have no plans to try to negotiate further with any of them. I respect their rights to make their own choices, but I refuse to allow them to continue trying to impose these choices on me."

"You've imposed yours on them, Kenny. All anyone wants is for you to consult with people before you take any actions. All the wives are worried you might decide to do the same thing to them that you're doing to Emily."

"I certainly don't look at it like that, Mama. I've only made a decision about Emily and me. After deciding that I wasn't going to take her back, I gave Brenda the opportunity to choose who she wanted to stay with. She, instead, appears to have chosen to continue her life with neither of us. So be it. I need no further discussion with her about her choice. Given her choice, my own choice is to sever our relationship. As for the other wives, their actions have already indicated where they stand, and I've accepted their right to make their own choices as well."

"This isn't funny, Kenny. This isn't a situation that lends itself to levity. This is very serious. You can't just refuse to negotiate with your whole family."

"I'm not refusing. I've made my best offer and they've all rejected it. I can't live with what they want, and I've explained that to them. In one way or another, each of them have decided they can't accept what I told them I needed. I've thought about this, and worried about it just about all I'm going to. From now on, they can do whatever they choose to. I consider myself to be free of all of them. I'll be seeing a lawyer to arrange for a divorce from Joyce, and to sue her and the other three for shared custody of my children."

"Kenny, with your long previous history of emotional difficulties, do you really think any court is going to allow you to be a custodial parent to those children?"

"I'm really not sure, Mama. I have undergone several professional and fully detailed clinical evaluations, and all the resulting written reports attest to my present good mental health. None of these evaluations indicate that I am any more at risk for further emotional problems than Joyce or my other wives are. I've never taken a single action that anyone can point at to show that I would present any danger at all to any of my children. I certainly possess more than adequate means to be able to provide for their health, safety, and welfare while they are in my care. In addition to all that, and more importantly, when it comes to answering your question, I also have the means to retain the best attorneys to argue this case on my behalf. I'll have them working on it for as long as I need to. I think I have an excellent chance of prevailing. I'll use the same lawyers that Uncle Bunny used when you and Dad adopted me."

"You could end all of this by making the one simple concession they're asking for. Give Emily another chance."

"What is happening now just proves how dangerous and disruptive Emily is to our family. She's been back in Kansas for only two weeks, and she already has all the other wives lined up to fight me on this. She even has you arguing on her behalf. I'm sick of always having to deal with the messes she makes. She brings this type of discord wherever she happens to be. I've made my decision, Mama, I no longer want to have anything more to do with Emily. In the future, I will have nothing further to do with anyone who tries to get me to change my mind about this."

"You'll end up all by yourself then, Kenny. This attitude of yours doesn't seem rational to me. You know what's the saddest part in all this? You have no possible hope of making your decision stick. It is very wrongheaded of you to even attempt to."

"We'll just have to see. Goodbye Mama. I need to get dressed for work. If you need to talk to me about anything else, please communicate that information through Frank Clooney."

"I'll do no such thing, Kenny! I hate seeing you be so stubborn, and so wrong as well."

I hung up the telephone. I felt like I had just thrown away my last life preserver. I had planned on always keeping Mama as a last, desperate, negotiating tool with Joyce. Now, all I could do was wait and see what the wives planned to do next.

At no point did I ever plan on taking this fight to the stage where it now was. I had wanted all the wives to band together, but in support of Emily, not in revolt against what I was doing. They needed a common cause to bring them all together. I had hoped I was providing that cause. I felt bad about how the conversation had gone with Mama, but she had chosen which side she would support already. In some ways, I was okay with the idea she had chosen to be on the side of my wives. There was still a part of me that wished she'd decided that I needed her support in this more than the wives did.

I knew I needed to find some way to be completely detached from the emotions of the fight that was now looming. I wasn't really angry with any of them. In many ways, it was unfortunate that I couldn't give in to their demands. I knew it would have to play itself out in order for there to be even the slightest chance for any agreement we made to work. We now needed an agreement that the wives could live with too, if there was going to be any possibility of finding a true long term solution to the problems we'd been having with Emily. Either Emily had to realize and accept all facets of our chosen lifestyle, or else we'd need to alter that lifestyle and make it something she could agree to. I needed Emily to feel like whatever agreement we made was one that she was primarily responsible for crafting together. Looking back on what was happening, I wouldn't have chosen to stir all the other women up to the point where they'd take this mutinous action.

As that first full week passed by, I really wasn't expecting to see any movement from the wives. I thought it possible that either Joyce or Brenda might phone me, but expected nothing more than that.

At work, I saw Cindy every day. We discussed business topics only. Other than avoiding personal conversations, I treated her just like I'd treat any other valued employee. All the Macklinsons were watching and waiting to see what would happen next. They were probably afraid I would hold Cindy's actions against the entire Macklinson family. Instead of doing that, I continued on as though there were nothing going on outside of my business life.

I can't say I lost myself in work though. I continued trading, but I wasn't spending any increased amount of time or putting any additional effort in on it. I kept in touch with all my managers, attending to any matters requiring my personal attention.

I was also calling my Dad every work day. Right from the beginning, I'd told him that I didn't want to discuss any of my problems with my wives. I stayed sharp and well focused during our conversations, letting him know by doing this that none of my personal problems were affecting my ability to function, or to perform any of my business responsibilities.

As the days passed by, some of the anxiety and the tension people were having about what was going on started receding. They weren't seeing any changes in me that they thought were creating any danger for them, so they began to be less apprehensive about what was going on. Business was stable. In fact, it was better than stable, because the Quick Snacks roll out was at the point where it was really starting to pile up some very impressive sales numbers.

We were now training new salespeople at three separate company training locations. Almost all of our newly hired delivery drivers were reporting great repeat sales. The products going on the retailers shelves were attracting new buyers as well as a high percentage of repeat buyers. We had also added four new items to our product line. All four of these new items were being well received, by the store owners themselves, and by their customer base.

I had been in the office every week day for the past two consecutive weeks, and, other than the trading I was doing, I really had very little else I needed to do. Both of the operations I was responsible for were doing extremely well. All our plants were now producing either at, or very near, their full capacity, and our sales were still brisk enough that our people were starting to complain of not having enough product to cover their existing demand. A very good situation for us to be in.

Billy Ray had taken over all functions dealing with the order processing and the delivery of grains to our grain brokerage customers. I was receiving daily numbers from him showing our current trading positions and the amounts and delivery dates for each grain contract I needed to fill. It had all been set up on a computer program which fed itself on my trading screens and operated in the background for when I needed to call it up. Billy Ray had set up a routine that left nothing to chance.

I was getting bored. I didn't feel like taking on any new projects, not with the family situation like it was, but I knew I needed something else to keep me occupied while I waited. Waiting around for something to happen with the women wasn't something I was enjoying.

On the Friday ending the second week since Brenda's decision, I told my father, Larry, and Gene that I wouldn't be in the office during the next two weeks. I told them I'd keep in phone contact with them, but I said I was going to Hawaii to play some golf. My father made a comment that let me know he was worried that I was going off like I had done before. I quickly assured him that I was feeling fine, and I simply wanted to get away for awhile to play some golf, and relax. I told him that I believed everything in Birmingham was operating as smoothly as it could be, and that all my people were more than capable of continuing to insure it would remain like that during my absence.

I had Billy Ray book me a commercial flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles, and from there, directly to Oahu. I would be golfing for two days on Oahu before flying to Maui and spending another two days golfing there. From there I'd be going to the big island of Hawaii for three days of play. I was leaving the whole second week free, so I could either replay the same courses, or go to other ones that people, who were more familiar with the area, might recommend. I was only booking myself into resorts that had their own golf courses.

I hadn't been playing much golf, not since before I got sick. I had spent quite a bit of time hitting balls at various country club driving ranges though. I was anxious to resume regular play again. I missed the inner peace that I got when surrounded by the beautiful greenery of a well maintained golf course. I'd seen a program showing some of the lush tropical Hawaiian golf courses on television. I thought it would be wonderful to spend some time alone while playing some of them.

It didn't take very long after telling my Dad my plans before I started seeing some activity from the wives. I had anticipated that my father would tell Mama my announced plans, and that she would then get the word spread quickly from there. Friday night I heard from Joyce for the first time since our big fight at the house in Ridgeline.

She tried to make it seem like the argument she and Shirley had with me was nothing more than a disagreement, one that she had expected we'd work out during the course of our evening phone calls.

"Don't even try it, Joyce. I'm not going for it. You're all in this together, every one of you. I was surprised by Brenda's decision, but not by this little revolt you've got going on. I can tell you this much though, what you're doing isn't going to work. I'm leaving tomorrow for a little golf vacation. When I return, if I haven't had any change in how I feel right now, you'll be hearing from my lawyers about a divorce."

"Are you divorcing all of us, or just me?"

"I haven't made up my mind yet about that. Legally, you're the only one I need to file a petition against. As far as the way we're all separated right now, I'm not going to do anything on my own to try to change that. You have your plans and I have mine. Mine call for two weeks of playing golf in Hawaii. I'll have plenty of time, while I'm there, to decide what I want to be doing with the rest of my life. By the time I come back here, I'll have decided who I want to be doing it with."

"This didn't have to happen, Kenny. You should have listened to what we all tried to tell you."

"I listened. I told you all along I understood what you wanted. I tried to tell you why it wouldn't work your way. You want to control how things happen, Joyce. I told you that I'd try to get Brenda and Emily back, but I also said it needed to be on my terms. That wasn't good enough for you. I'm not going to let any of you force me to do anything different than what I've already decided about Emily and Brenda. You probably lost Emily by interfering before, and now it looks like you've lost Brenda too by starting up this little revolt of yours. When I get back from my vacation, you might find out you've lost me too. Right now, if I had to decide, I'd have to say you probably will. This latest stunt of yours might have taken all the other wives down with you also. I hope, after this is over, you understand that people have limits to what they are going to tolerate. You've already exceeded those limits with me."

"I didn't do anything except try to help get our family back together. You agreed with me that we needed to do that. I only stepped in after it became obvious that you weren't going to follow through with honoring the promises you made to me."

"Joyce, I'm through arguing with you about any of this. I told you before I wasn't going to try to prevent you from doing whatever you wanted to. I told you I wasn't going to let you make my decisions for me though. Right now, you've got everybody siding with you, even Mama. You are forcing all of them to have to make a new choice. Brenda had to choose between Emily and me. Now, all the other wives have to choose between you and me. I'll probably make it easier for you by telling them I don't want them to choose me. You can have them all, but I'm going to get joint custody of all the children. You can bet on that."