Note: All references to medicines are figments of my imagination. A drug for cancer that worked without harming the patient would be wonderful.

My name is Matt Coffman. I am 6’ 1” tall, 195 lbs. I have blonde (going to gray) hair and pale blue to steel gray eyes that change color with my mood. Carrie called them my mood rings. I am 45 now, but when I discovered her cheating, I was 41 and a highly successful stock trader. I also write fiction novels, mostly western post-Civil War ‘shoot em ups’. I had a high seven-figure yearly income and thought I was in a perfect marriage. My wife Carrie was 39, and a successful real estate broker. We had been married for 15 years and have two kids Cathy was 12, and Jerry was 10. We lived, and I and the kids, still live in an upscale, gated community on Reed’s Lake in East Grand Rapids MI. That is an expensive suburb of Grand Rapids.

As I said, I was and still am a highly successful stock trader. I have a surprisingly good ability to pick stocks that have a short-term gain. I am right about 35% of the time. I started with penny stocks and found out that it was a head rush to take a stock whose price could be less than $5.00 and watch it explode upward in price. When you were buying at that price even one winner out of four was profitable. I was much better than that.

Just one example; I bought 500 shares of a small pharmaceutical company that discovered a possible breakthrough cancer drug. I paid $2.45 per share for a total investment of a little over $1200 and the company was bought out by one of the big Pharma corporations at $52.00 a share. I held it for an additional year, and the stock split 3 for 1 at $52.37 a share. I sold out and made a profit of over $77,000. Not all of the stocks did that well, but I made profits of over five thousand dollars on most of the successful stocks I traded. I seldom held a stock for more than 18 months, but I held most for six months minimum for tax reasons.

My writing had started to be very profitable also; I was offered big bucks for the movie rights to three of my novels. I would get the money even if the movies were never made. The contract was for an eight-year period.

I had enlisted in the army after high school and was medically discharged after 15 months of a four-year enlistment. I was a training accident statistic. I lost my left leg below the knee in training when a new recruit driving a Humvee plowed into the training company I was in as we were marching to a training class. I was lucky, three of the company died, and two more were paralyzed from the waist down. The rehab was well over a year long. One bad, or touchy, thing is I am very sensitive about being called or classed a cripple.

After I finished my rehab, I took my disability pension and my GI Bill benefits and enrolled in college. I didn’t have a clear goal, but I wanted to learn. I discovered that I loved the intricacies of the stock market, and of writing. My degree major turned out to be Finance with a minor in creative writing. I did not wish to stay in the dorms, so I bought a nice three-bedroom house just off-campus. It was priced right, as it was in a changing neighborhood that was undergoing gentrification. I figured to live in it until I graduated and then sell it. I figured that even if I only got 90% back, it would be cheaper than the dorm costs or renting a house or apartment. When I sold it I broke even, and a nice young couple with a new baby had a good, inexpensive home.

I met Carrie Nation Darwin named that by her mother who was a staunch was a member of the WCTU*; when we were seniors in college. I was taking an elective in Real Estate Sales, and she was in the class to finish her major requirements for a degree in Real Estate Management. She sat next to me on the first day of the class, and after we introduced ourselves and talked some, we decided to create a study group to work together in the class.

We posted a notice on the ‘study group wanted’ board, and when we finally pulled it down, we had a group that besides the two of us included three men and two women. We met two nights a week at my house. The women were serious and two of the men were too. One man, Gary Raddabough was of the opinion that the rest of us should do the work and give him the notes, He also decided that all three of the ladies and they were ladies, were conquest material. He lasted about two weeks before he got slapped by Carrie for putting his hand on her crotch when she was sitting next to him.

I ordered him out of my house and told him he was not welcome here again. He did not take it well and threatened to “beat the cripple with his fake leg.”

About a week before midterms, the group and I were walking out of class when someone called my name. I turned and was hit in the face by something heavy. I was down and out for the count.

I woke up in a hospital room, Carrie was in the chair in my room. She looked like she hadn’t slept or changed clothes since the class. She had my prosthetic in her hand, and I could see it was damaged. It seems that Gary decided after he knocked me out that my fake leg was a good weapon and tried to take it and beat me with it. Carrie told me that she and a professor grabbed him and forced him to drop the leg. Martha, one of our study partners, picked it up and wailed on Gary with it.

It turned out I had a broken cheekbone and additionally, two broken ribs from Gary kicking me before he could be restrained. Gary ended up with a concussion, was expelled from the college, and arrested for his assault on me. His parents were very rich and tried to make it all go away by hiring a legal team the rivaled O. J. Simpson’s. Then the family tried to throw money at all of the witnesses. Then they tried to buy me. No one took the money. Gary was not well-liked.

Gary came up for the trial, and pled guilty to felony assault, as he thought he had a plea deal in place. However, in our state, we have a victim statement phase of the sentencing portion of any violent crime trial.

I made my statement while still in a clear facial mask to protect my reconstructed cheek (think of the pro basketball players and their protective masks for broken noses), and I detailed what had made Gary seek to hurt me and asked for at least some jail time. I told them how he had taken my prosthetic and was going to use it as a weapon while I was on the ground. Then I played the school security camera footage that showed Gary striking me with what appeared to be an axe handle.

He got 24 months in jail.

I filed suit against his trust fund and they threw a wheelbarrow full of hundred dollar bills at me. I got several million dollars and all legal and medical expenses. Just to rub it in, I made sure that the fund replaced my damaged fake leg with a new state of the art one. The new one even had distinct toes.

As I was healing, Carrie was right beside me through all of the pain. With the study group keeping me up to date on my classes, I graduated on time.

After graduation, I bought an apartment building in the downtown business district. After I bought it, several tenants expressed a desire to have the building go condominium. I filed the papers, and when the smoke cleared, I made another bundle and had the penthouse condo for myself.

Cary got her real estate sales license and I got a job in a brokerage house. We dated for six months, and I asked her to marry me; she said yes.

We decided to have the wedding planned for the next spring, and we did the meet and greets of parents and siblings. My family was impressed with Carrie. Her parents were a problem, at least one of them was a problem.

Her father shook my hand with a smile on his face. Her mother was a pinched faced, angry woman who said that she had big plans for her daughter. She told both of us that those plans did not include being married to a ‘cripple’. Carrie did not make any protest about her calling me a cripple. I left and did not wait for her.

The following weekend, Carrie came to my condo and asked me if we were still engaged. I hotly responded; “I don’t know; can you stand to be married to a cripple that you chose not to defend when your mother insulted him.”

She teared up, and not saying anything, handed me the engagement ring and left. The next Monday she was sitting in the reception area of my office when I came in. I looked at her, and because I was still hurt and angry told the receptionist; “I am not taking any visitors or appointments today.” I went into my office and closed the door.

Carrie called me, I told her I thought she had made herself clear at the condo, and so we had nothing to talk about. Then I hung up the phone.

When I got to my condo that evening, I could smell something cooking before I got in the door. Carrie was in the kitchen and she was slamming pots and pans around as if she had a ‘really good mad’ on. I went into my bedroom and changed clothes, took off my ‘company’ leg, and put on the repaired plain one. I went back out and Carrie was sitting at the kitchen table crying, the stuff on the stove was burning, and the smoke alarm chose that moment to go off.

I turned off the burners, turned on the exhaust fan and pulled the battery out of the smoke detector. I turned as Carrie put the condo key on the kitchen table, got up, and headed for the door.

I intercepted her and sat her back down at the kitchen table. “You are not going anyplace until you get yourself calmed down. I am sorry for the way I was mean to you this morning at the office, and when you called me, but you never tried to defend me when your mother spouted her anger and venom. I was hurt. I was also very angry, and if your mother had been a man, I would have punched her.”

She sat there for a good five minutes still sobbing. Finally, she said, “Matt, I was shocked and didn’t say anything because I couldn’t believe my mother would say that. I knew she had a rich second cousin she wanted me to marry, and I had told her I detested the slimebucket. After you left, my dad came over and slapped my mother and called her a harridan and he packed up and left. I went back to my apartment, and I cried for a couple of days and made myself sick. It took two more days before I could go to work.

I came to talk to you this past weekend and in my mind assumed that you had decided you did not want me anymore. Then this morning I was going to ask if we could start over. When you went into your office and closed the door I was not surprised, and then you showed me how I hurt you when you hung up on me, I knew I was going to have to work very hard to try to win you back. You know I don’t think of you as a cripple, don’t you?”

I responded, “I know you never said anything about my leg, but when you didn’t say anything when your mother called me a cripple I jumped to the conclusion that if you didn’t agree, at least you were embarrassed to have it pointed out so you couldn’t ignore it. I will not be the cause of your embarrassment over my injury, and if it embarrasses you, we should end everything right now.”

I continued, “I was hurt, then you showed up almost a week later without a word in between and gave me the ring back without me asking for it. I knew we were done then and I was hurt again.”

That started the tears again. I finally picked her up and took her into the bedroom covered her up and went and laid down on the couch. The next morning, Carrie woke me up and told me to call the office and take a day off.

I called work and was told to solve the problem and hurry back. I was also told to do as much as I could from home through the office intranet connection using my sign-on and password.

Carrie left to get some clothes for the day saying she would bring back breakfast. About an hour later she returned with two covered plates from the local diner that we both liked.

She handed me a plate that had the biggest Denver omelet I had ever seen. She must have had the restaurant make it up special. Hers was the same on a much smaller scale.

After breakfast, we talked for almost two hours. Carrie apologized again for not standing up for me against her mother. I waved it off and we decided that we did not need to “start over” but to restart. I gave her the ring back.

We still had some problems, Marie, Carrie’s mother kept trying to throw roadblocks into our plans. She told Carrie to insist on a prenup. I agreed. Then she insisted on an abuse or adultery clause to the prenup. I agreed. She finally told Carrie to have the prenup say all pre-marital assets would remain the property of the originating person and that all assets earned in the marriage would be split 50-50 if divorced, except if the adultery or abuse clause is the reason. In that case, all marriage assets would go to the injured party. We signed.

Then she wanted an accounting of my assets. I said sure, as soon as I get an accounting of Carrie’s assets. That shot that down. I had told Carrie, before her mom made the demand, that I was rich, but not how much I had. She had told me she had a trust fund that gave her a stipend monthly. She did not tell me how big the fund was or how much the stipend was and I never asked.

Then dear old mom tried to shove different guys at Carrie. It got so bad that Carrie stopped accepting invites if I wasn’t included. We never went over there.

The final attempt was Marie told Carrie she would not be at the wedding.

Carrie said, “That is your choice, my father has agreed to walk me down the aisle, and his new lady can stand in for you.”

Marie said OK she would come.

Just when I thought the roadblocks were over, Carrie informed me that her mother claimed that I was seen in a motel with another woman. I asked if she believed that. She said she didn’t know. I took off the engagement ring and showed her the door. I decided I did not need the drama and definitely did not need the distrust.

A week later I got a letter from Carrie.

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