Chapter 4

It was two days before I turned my phone back on. As expected it was full of messages and missed calls from Anna, Dana, and Lauren’s parents.

I listened to the last voicemail from Dana.

She said, “Well, Dad, you went for maximum hurt and destruction and you got it. Mom’s in the hospital under a suicide watch. She’s devastated. She won’t stop crying. She just says, “I’m sorry” over and over. Please come home. I’m mad at you for the way you handled it but I understand. Anna is staying with Jack and is barely holding on as we speak. I’m glad she has him to cling too. She is confused and hurt. She doesn’t know if she needs to be mad at you or Mom. She told Mathews that she never wanted to see or hear of him again. She wanted nothing to do with him. He said he understood and went to the ER for a broken nose and jaw. Again, come home, Dad. I love you.”

I listened to Anna’s voicemail.

It just said, “Dad, please. I need to talk to you. Please.”

Tears rolled down my face. It was killing me knowing it wasn’t my blood in her veins. Then to make it worse, Lauren kept it from me all these years. Am I overreacting? Damn right I am. Lauren needs to feel the pain I’m feeling.

I responded to Dana’s voicemail by text.

Dana, I got your voicemail. I’m sorry that your mother is in the hospital. She should have known what her betrayal even though it was years ago would do to me and us. I can’t come back right now, maybe never. I hope Anna can have some type of relationship with her father since I’m not him. I love you both and no, I can’t just turn off twenty-five years of loving your mother either. That’s why this hurts so bad. I need some time to get my head straight. Please tell your mom I said to just sign the papers and let me move on.

Love, Dad.

I wound up in the ER in some little town where they found I had two fractured bones in my hand. So now I was sporting a nice fiberglass cast too.

I turned my phone back off knowing it would be filled back up again in a few days. I just drove some more winding up somewhere in the mountains of Colorado. I went to a branch of our local bank and withdrew enough money to get me by for a month. I knew Lauren would see it on the bank statement and know where I was. I wasn’t hiding, just moving around. After a few weeks, the loneliness crept in. I missed my girls terribly ... all of them. I was still furious at Lauren. She had been my rock for so long, I didn’t know how to live without her.

After a month, I called my attorney who told me that Lauren had signed the paperwork and we were just waiting on a hearing date and property split.

I listened to one of Anna’s latest voicemails. It didn’t sound like Anna.

She said, “Ok, Jason, the harlot, tramp, whore, whatever you want to call her signed the divorce papers. She’s walking around so full of antidepressants that she’s no more than a zombie. You got your revenge. I hope it gives you peace of mind knowing that you destroyed her. Yes, she was and is wrong. She knows it and can’t change it. She cheated on you with another man and got pregnant by him in an ongoing sexual affair. You have every right to be furious and divorce her but If she had been faithful I wouldn’t be here. Maybe some other version of me would be but it wouldn’t be me. I have to live with the fact that I’m a product of infidelity. That means I can’t and don’t want a relationship with the asshole that filled Mom with his sperm and MY Dad, the man I’ve adored for twenty-one years, no longer wants me. I’m sorry ... I love you.

Wow, Anna is hurting. I knew she would but I hoped she would deal with it. I guess I’ll be single soon.

I hadn’t checked my email in awhile so I did and saw one from Lauren.

“Jason, my loving husband, I’m sorry I haven’t tried to contact you. I’ve been under a doctor’s care since that day. Jesus, Jason, I’m a Pharmacist, I know what these drugs do. I’m so blitzed most of the time now that I don’t even know what day it is. Right now, they are the only way I’m coping with losing you. The girls made me listen to the recording you made of your conversation with Todd at the bar. I’m so ashamed. Ashamed because his version was pretty much the way it was.”

“I know the news about Anna killed you inside. I want you to know that I couldn’t be more sorry regarding my behavior during that time. There’s no adequate excuse. I was a horny, newly married young woman who was not ready to be a wife. The excitement of a man other than my husband giving me mind blowing orgasms and filling me with his semen a couple of times a day was overwhelming. It’s not that he was better than you sexually. To put it crudely, he was just a different dick for my oversexed pussy to enjoy. I never even considered I might get pregnant by him til I missed my period.”