Chapter 82

Hawaii was all that I'd hoped it would be, but it didn't help me with any of my personal problems. When it rained out on the golf course, it wasn't a cold rain, and it never lasted too long either. The winds picked up at different times during the day, but they helped some of the time, and the rest of the time, they offered a new challenge for me. I had bought a pretty good set of used golf clubs at the pro shop in Oahu. I hadn't wanted to bring either of the sets I had at the country club, or the spare set I kept in my home in Birmingham.

When I was finished with my golfing vacation, I donated the clubs to a junior golf program set up for island children. I hit a full driver once into the wind on a par three hole on the South course at Mauna Lani. I didn't make it on the green, but that was only because I hooked the ball. I didn't score particularly well while I was over in the islands. My best score was a seventy seven, but every course I played was absolutely, breathtakingly, beautiful.

I did have several episodes with my hand tremors, both out on the golf courses, and in other places as well. The tremors varied in their intensity. Once, I started getting the tremor when I was bringing my driver forward, towards my ball. I ended up pushing my drive into the second cut of rough, and made myself wait until the tremor had subsided before hitting out from there. The worst of the tremors always seemed to occur when the ball was above my feet on a side hill lie. I usually had my arms extended out from my body more when I was trying to hit a side hill shot like that.

I hit my ball into the ocean several times, and out among the lava beds on a couple of other occasions. Once, I hit my drive into an old man's back yard. When I went to see if the ball was playable, we got to talking and he ended up pouring me a nice glass of iced tea, and we stood around and chatted for about ten minutes before I left to resume my play. He had been a merchant sailor when he was younger, and had only moved to Hawaii after he was retired. His wife had left him two years before, after thirty seven years of them being married. He didn't say why she'd left him, only that she had dropped dead from a stroke at her sister's house, on the mainland, less than a month after leaving him. I got the feeling that he felt very bad about not being with her when she died. He seemed very lonely to me. I wondered how often he got visits from errant golfers. He had seemed to really welcome my company.

I played a lot of golf, enjoying all the scenery surrounding these great golf courses. While I played, I also gave a lot of thought to what had happened, and what might be going to happen with my life. It shouldn't have been possible for me to feel bad while on vacation in such a beautiful setting. It was possible, and I spent many hours formulating and then discarding ideas. No matter how bad I felt though, I was still just as convinced as ever that many things needed to change before our family could be restored to something like it had been.

Joyce had said, from the very beginning, that she wanted everything to be put back to the way it used to be. I no longer believed it would be possible for this to happen. If we all wanted our lives to be stable and comfortable, we had to make changes. I knew this, for a certainty, just like I knew that Joyce didn't want any changes from how it used to be. It kept coming back to one indisputable fact, what Joyce wanted wasn't compatible with what Emily needed.

I could probably convince the other wives to forego having any further sex with either Brenda or Emily. I knew Joyce would resent me for doing so. She would complain that I had taken something away from her and the other wives, but hadn't given up anything myself. I would be dealing with her resentment for years, and that was if my best case scenario took place. Worst case scenario, Joyce and the other wives would rebel against me changing the rules on them and try to revert back to their former behavior with Brenda and Emily.

I didn't think Shirley would mind if things changed that way, or that Dale would object to it either. Joyce and Eddie definitely would object though, and I wasn't that sure that either Cindy or Brenda would be in favor of changing how things were being done. For all that Brenda might protest about having no interest in having sex with other girls, she would always need to be wanted and admired by all those around her. It wouldn't be that surprising to me if she were to begin teasing and enticing some of the other wives once the rules had been changed.

What I was absolutely sure all the wives would object to was Emily receiving any kind of special treatment. They might be united in wanting her allowed back in the family, but not with extra consideration being given to her. Emily couldn't help but see this as a victory for herself. In addition to my other concerns, I was also going to have to consider what this would mean to my special place as the only male within the family.

If I wanted to have sex with Emily and Brenda, Joyce was going to want something for herself too. Something that I didn't have. I had a pretty good idea what that something was liable to be. Even if I told her she couldn't have what she'd be asking me for, Joyce's nature wouldn't let her rest until she got what she would consider fair and equal treatment. If I had two extra women, she would say, then she should be allowed to have something extra as well. I could almost hear her making that argument to me.

I believed there was a possibility that Joyce would turn on both Emily and Brenda later, if we ever did enact what I was thinking of asking for. No matter how I pictured it, every choice seemed doomed to end in some kind of disaster. Of course, all of these scenarios required some level of agreement from one or more of the wives. I had no assurances at all that I could get any of them to go along with me.

All these thoughts were still running loose in my head when I boarded the plane at the airport outside Honolulu for the trip back to Los Angeles. In the two weeks I'd been away, I'd called and spoken with my father on four occasions. I'd spoken with either Larry, Gene, or Billy Ray on another four or five occasions. Each time I called anyone, they all assured me they had everything under control.

I hadn't been able to do much grain trading while I was gone. I had my trading program set on automatic trading, but the programmed version had such narrowed parameters controlling its trading criteria, that the number of contracts being traded was well below what I would average when I was sitting in front of my computer monitors trading the markets myself. Still, it had managed to make me some money, and it also had kept us fully hedged against any sudden movements in the spot market prices for the number of contracts we needed to take delivery on. It kept us in position to be able to fulfill our grain brokerage commitments. I wasn't too concerned with the small overall loss I was expecting to take in the grain brokerage accounts while I was gone. I knew I could make it back once I was once again in my office overseeing the grain trading.

I was mildly discouraged that all my thinking while on my vacation had led only to me uncovering more potential problems to be concerned about. My best hope was the time I'd been away had produced a change in the wives attitudes, and a newly acquired desire to attempt to be reasonable.

The flight back to Atlanta went well, and my car started right up at the long term airport parking lot. I drove back to Birmingham with no better plan than the one I'd had when I left.

In spite of my inability to solve any of the problems I was having with the wives, I returned feeling the time away had been beneficial to me. I hadn't felt like I was running away to avoid anything. On the contrary, I still believed my absence would force the wives to reconsider their position. I was anticipating that they each had given as much thought to our situation as I had.

Back at work, I immediately fell back into my usual routine. Cindy was happy to see me back, and she made several comments about how I looked better with my new tan.

Larry and Gene were having some problem with each other, but when I tried to inquire about what it was, they both told me it was personal, not business related. I found out later, from their sister, Pattie, that Larry resented the fact that both Kyle and Cindy seemed to be getting preferential treatment in the new company. Billy Ray was doing as well as either of Gene's children, but, for some reason, Larry chose not to count him. I told them both what my Dad had told me, that their personal problems with each other were going to concern me as soon as it started having an impact on how the companies were doing.

While I'd been gone, I'd mailed out plenty of postcards. I'd written to both Mama and Gerta, letting them know that this was simply a vacation for me, and that I planned on returning when I'd said I would. I tried to patch things up with Mama in those notes I'd written on the cards.

I had sent at least five cards to each of my children. They had short notes on them, mostly having to do with things I'd seen and done in Hawaii. One of the first things I'd thought of when I arrived in Hawaii, was how much all the children would have enjoyed the beaches and the water.

Right before I left to return home, I had written a long letter to Dr. Fellows. In it, I detailed all the happenings since my last visit to the clinic, and shared with her the logic I'd used for each decision I'd made. It helped to write it out in detail. It clarified some of the thinking I'd had to do on the fly when actual events had been unfolding.

Time had helped me as well. It gave me a chance to put some things into perspective. I had given myself an opportunity to experience three of the possibilities my recent decisions had brought into play; Life without Joyce, life without Brenda and Emily, and life without any of the wives. By the time I returned to Birmingham, even though I hadn't found any solutions to the problems I'd left with, I now had a better idea of the stakes we were all playing for. The one determination I had made was that I didn't want to end up without at least two of the women who were mothers to my children. I would prefer all four women, but, if that wasn't possible, then I was willing to settle for Joyce and Shirley. Cindy, Dale, and Eddie were all somewhat important to me, and I wanted them too, but Joyce and Shirley were my first choices.

I had been surprised to find that Emily and Brenda were my second choices. None of the other combinations of two women came close, not even Joyce and Brenda or Shirley and Brenda. I knew that Emily would require Brenda, if she and I were to make any future arrangement.

I was still convinced that I needed to wait to see how the wives worked things out among themselves. I knew they would have all been playing with their own personal list of names too. Joyce had steadfastly said that she needed all six of the other wives in order to be happy again. I was certain all the other wives were ready to accept a lesser number than all the wives being back together.

I had only been back for about a week by the time Shirley contacted me. She told me that she had moved back to her own house, with the children, and invited me to come see them on the following weekend. I told her I would give her invitation some thought, but I didn't think it would be an appropriate way for me to restart any negotiations with her, or with any of the other wives.

"We don't have to negotiate anything, Kenny. Come up here and spend some time with the children. We don't even have to speak to each other, not if you don't want to. They miss seeing you. All the children are missing their daddy, Kenny. They shouldn't have to be worried about you again."

"Why would they be worried? They wouldn't be worried if you guys hadn't said anything to them about any of this."

"We didn't have to say anything, Kenny. They knew something was wrong the last time you were up here. They all go to school together, and they share what they know with each other. I'm telling you it would be a good thing if you came up here and spent some time, so they could see you for themselves again."

"Is Brenda still living with my mother?"

"She still sleeps there. She goes to work with Joyce, and then she goes over to her house to cook for Emily and the kids after work. Emily takes care of her own kids, and Brenda's, after school, during the day. Phil and Hans do all the driving back and forth from school. Did you decide anything while you were gone, Kenny?"

"I decided before I left. I thought about a lot of things while I was gone, but I didn't come up with anything new to make me change what I had already decided."

"Joyce told us that you would change your mind if we all stuck together. I think I was already pretty sure you wouldn't change your mind. What I can't figure out is why all of us being mad at you was supposed to make you want to take Emily back. Joyce says it will happen, but only if we all stick together. Is Joyce right, Kenny?"

"I really don't know whether she is or she isn't. I hope she isn't right. I don't want her to be right about that. Joyce really wants all the wives back together again. I told her it won't work if we go back to exactly how things were before. It didn't work before, and it's even less likely to work now. For something like we had to work, everyone needs to want to live like we were living. Emily didn't like it, and if we go back to living like we did before, she's going to like it even less now. Joyce and Eddie wouldn't like it if we changed the rules so that Emily would like how we'd be living."

"Changed them so that you and her were the only ones sleeping with Brenda?"

"It might come down to that. If it did, I don't think that would work either."

"Joyce might be willing to give up Emily now, but not Brenda too. If she told you she was willing to let Emily go, would that be enough for you to let things get back like before?"

"It would have been before, but it might not be enough anymore. You saw how hard it was for Brenda to choose before. When she made her choice and moved over to my mother's house, she did that because it was too hard for her to choose. Brenda doesn't want to give up Emily, and Emily doesn't want to share Brenda with any other women."

"None of us like to share, but we accept that we have to. Emily and Brenda can't just decide they want things to change. That isn't fair."

"I'm afraid it never has been fair. Not for Emily. She always hated to share Brenda with the other wives. We shouldn't have brought her into this group of ours. I should have made Brenda make her choice years ago. It isn't fair to force her to do it now."

"It sounds like Joyce was right, Kenny. You've decided to give Brenda to Emily."

"Not give her to Emily, Shirley. I can't make Brenda's decision for her. What I've said is I won't take Emily back unless she makes some changes. I don't believe she can make those changes. I'm not going to punish her for not being able to do something. If I tell Brenda she can't be a part of the family, that would be punishing Brenda."

"All these choices are going to hurt Joyce."

"I told Joyce I'm only deciding for me, not for any of the wives. Brenda can do whatever she decides she wants to do. All of you can. Joyce will have to accept my decision about what I'm going to do."

"If you leave it like that, none of us are going to be together again."

"I've thought about that. It might be like that in the beginning. A lot of what we used to have was very good. I miss having that too. I think people will end up wanting to get some of that back again. In the end, I'm hoping everyone will see things were better when we were together. I'm not going to use Brenda to get Emily to come back. If she wants to come back, she'll have to find some way to accept whatever lifestyle we all agree on. She'll have to make the offer, because I'm not going to ask her to do anything."

By the time we finally got off the phone, Shirley knew as much as I'd been able to figure out myself. I didn't agree to come visit her and the children on the following Friday like she had requested. I told her I wanted to wait for awhile to find out how things would change without me attempting to impose my will on anything.

I had turned Cindy down before, and now I was doing the same with Shirley. I wondered what my reaction would be if Joyce called me and invited me to come visit with her and the children? I really didn't know. Nothing had changed as far as my believing that Joyce was the key. There was a time, earlier, when Emily was the key to solving our problem. Now, I needed to get things worked out with Joyce before I could make any new decisions about Emily.

After another week had gone by, Dale called me. She wanted to know if I thought anything was going to get settled any time soon. I told her that it really wasn't up to me any more. I'd already decided what I could live with, and now it was up to all of them to decide for themselves. Dale told me she would either come stay with me, or else she was going back to Chickasaw to stay with Eddie and her mother. She wanted to know if she were welcome to come stay with me or not.

"I'd like you to be here, but this isn't a good time for that. I don't see any big problems you and I are having, but I don't want to do anything to make things worse for Joyce right now either. I told Cindy and Shirley pretty much the same thing I'm telling you now."

"Will you call me and let me know how things are doing, Kenny? I'm hoping we can get everything worked out again. We were getting really close this last time. If you had let Emily come back, things might have worked out for everyone."

"That's what people keep telling me. If I had believed it back then, I'd have let her come back. If I believed it now, and if Joyce and I were getting along better, I'd tell her she's welcome to come back. I wish I could believe it, but I don't. Joyce needs to let me make my own decisions, and she needs to start accepting that I have a right to decide things for myself. Once she does that, then I can start thinking about something that might work for all of us with Emily and Brenda. Until then, getting things straightened out with Joyce is all I'm able to focus my attention on."

"How do you think hearing you tell me that makes me feel, Kenny? I feel like I'm not very important to you at all."

"I'm sorry you look at it that way, Dale. This whole thing with all the wives is something that first started with Joyce. She wanted the lifestyle we chose to live more than I did. That isn't to say I didn't like it, because I did. I just don't like it enough to keep trying to make it work when I know that's impossible without some changes being made. Joyce and I need to decide some things with each other first. If we do, then the situation with Emily and Brenda will get itself sorted out. If we don't get those things decided, then there won't be a family for all of us to decide to go back to. Joyce is the foundation of our family. Without her, everything will need to be different."

"When will you decide about that?"

"I won't be the one deciding about that. Joyce will make that decision. She knows what needs to change if we're going to be together again. Right now, she doesn't accept it, but she knows."

Two nights later, Joyce called me. She was crying. Dale had gone back to Oklahoma. Shirley had moved out, and Brenda was thinking about moving back to her own house instead of staying over at Mama's. Joyce believed I'd been the one who was operating, behind the scenes, to undermine her position.

"Listen to what you're saying, Joyce. How is any of that benefitting me? Don't you think I wanted this to just be as simple as it started out being? Remember, we had everything going pretty well until this situation came up with Emily. All you had to do then was sit back and let me try to get Emily to accept the need for her to change. I can't be sure she would have agreed to it before, but there was no way she was going to agree, not after you, Mama, and Brenda got done promising her things you couldn't deliver."

"You want to blame me for what happened? I'm not the one who pushed anyone away, Kenny. You did that all by yourself."

"I guess nothing's changed then, Joyce. Like I told you before, you're welcome to make any decision you want for yourself. We only have a problem when you insist on making decisions for me, or when you do things to undermine and undercut my decisions like you've been doing."

"Are you still planning on divorcing me?"

"I haven't made any decision about that yet. I still hope you'll figure out your way isn't going to get you what you want."

"Your way wasn't getting it for me either."

"We aren't accomplishing anything by telling each other the same things over and over. I won't let you make my decisions, and I won't support you when you try to countermand my decisions. Right now, I've got three wives who I know would probably be willing to come live with me in Birmingham. You can have Brenda, Emily, and Eddie."

"Shirley wouldn't move to Birmingham. She'd never do that." Joyce didn't sound too convinced of the accuracy of her statement though.

"You might be right, but I doubt it. One of these days, if we're not both careful, we're going to find out if I'm right or not for sure."

"If I had it to do over again, I'd have let you handle things with Emily, Kenny. If I'd done that though, you'd still have sent Brenda back to her."

"You've got everyone convinced that's true now, even me. I sure wasn't thinking about doing that before though. The biggest reason why I'd probably do that now is because you showed me how wrong it was to impose what you want on someone who doesn't want the same things you do. Emily never wanted to share Brenda with all the other wives. She never is going to want to do it either."

"Do you think Shirley wanted to share you with the other wives? Neither did Emily or Brenda. You worry about what Emily wanted, but you don't seem concerned that none of the other wives got everything they wanted. Why is Emily such a special case with you? She'd live like the rest of us if you told her she had to."

"Except you, Joyce. You were the only one who got everything you wanted."

"I got exactly as much as you did, Kenny. What did you want that you didn't have?"

"Okay. I can buy that. I had it just as good as you did. That doesn't change anything about Emily or Brenda. Emily only joined us because we had Brenda already. As soon as we added Eddie, Dale, and Cindy to our family, Emily was as good as gone. When she tried to fight us on adding the other wives, we went ahead and did what we wanted to do. Emily only went along with it because she knew she wasn't in any position to do anything to stop us."

"Emily went along though. You said it yourself. She went along, and she enjoyed it just like the rest of us did. Except for the part where she had to share Brenda with all of us. She wanted to be like you are. She wanted Brenda all for herself, but she also enjoyed doing girl stuff with all of us."

"It doesn't matter now. What matters now is us getting a definite understanding about me needing to be able to make my own decisions without worrying about you trying to impose your wishes over mine."

"Why is this important to you now? You never minded that much when I did things like that with the family before. I never did it with business."

"I did mind before. I just used to let it slide. I'm not letting it slide anymore. You don't get to decide important things for me anymore, Joyce. I'm not going to allow that. To me, this is more important than Emily or Brenda are. More important than staying married to you is."

"Are you going to tell Brenda she needs to stay with Emily?"

"Brenda has already made that decision."

"You just plan on doing nothing then?"

"That's right. That's all I can do now. Brenda will change Emily's mind, just like she changed my mind this time. Brenda's almost as stubborn as you are. Emily is the one who doesn't want Brenda being passed around to all the other wives. Brenda doesn't mind it though. When she finds out this means I won't be with her either, she'll do something to make Emily realize she can't have what she really wants. She'd been doing that to Emily for more than ten years. I won't use Brenda to bring Emily over to us again, but I'm not going to try to stop Brenda from doing it herself."

"Emily won't let Brenda talk her into accepting that."

"We won't know as long as Emily has everything she wants. We both left Brenda no other real choice other than going back to Emily. She won't have any other choice as long as you and I are still fighting with each other."

"I never wanted to fight, Kenny."

"That's probably true. On the other hand, you wanted to do things your way. I told you I couldn't let you do that. I told you what I was willing to do to prevent you from doing that, but you went ahead and did it anyway. You might not have wanted to fight, Joyce, but your actions produced the situation that has led to the two of us fighting."

"Suppose I agree to try things your way from now on? Will you take Brenda back, even if Emily decides she doesn't want to come back to us?"

"Probably not. I might have done that before, but now I know more about what Brenda wants and needs. Now it will have to be either both of them, or neither of them."

"Can't you just go see them and talk them both into coming back to exactly how it was before?"

"I probably could, but I won't. If they come back, I want it to be their own decision. Both of their decisions."

While speaking with Joyce, I was trying my hardest not to let myself get off on yet another unproductive tangent with her. Even though she wasn't telling me what to do, she was still attempting to put her own agenda forward. She still hadn't learned that it wasn't going to work.

I was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that Joyce wasn't going to change the way she always needed to have what she wanted. I'd put up with that before, although it was difficult for me to remember why I'd accepted that. I knew I couldn't put up with it anymore.

"Kenny, there has to be a way we can do this. You need to do something to make them both want to come back again."

Why couldn't she see that her wheedling tone of voice and her constant need to have her own way wasn't working on me like it used to? I knew Joyce was very intelligent. She had to know I was no longer responding to her in the way she was used to. It began to seem both pathetic and desperate to me.

"Joyce, listen to me. If Brenda and Emily are ever going to come back, it will be because they've decided that's the best thing for them, and for the children. I have conditions I'd need satisfied before that happens. They have to find a way to satisfy all my conditions before I'd even consider allowing them to return. The most important condition would be my knowing that Emily could really live with and accept whatever lifestyle we'd agreed to. There just isn't any way that you can get around me on this. They have to deal directly with me. One of my other conditions is waiting for them to come to me. I won't go to them. If I find out that you or Mama talked them into approaching me, I won't meet with them. Do you understand?"

"You already said it yourself, Kenny. Emily already has what she wants. As long as she has Brenda, she won't agree to any other solution."

"I agree. Brenda needs to decide for herself that living with Emily, without the rest of us, isn't what she wants. If you leave the two of them alone long enough, Brenda will decide that on her own. This isn't something you or Mama interfering in will help. Every time you do interfere, you push back whatever chance there is for having all of us be together again."

Joyce was quiet for many seconds after I stopped speaking. When she started speaking herself, her voice sounded as though she were resigned to not having any control over what was going to happen.

"You need to come back home, Kenny. I can't keep on trying to make everything work anymore. If you come back, I promise I'll stay out of everything having to do with any of the other wives. All I want is to have our old life back. That's all I ever wanted. You come back home and I'll do whatever you tell me to."

"If I do come back, I'm going to hold you to that promise, Joyce. I'm not going to ask any of the other wives to come back, and you can't ask them either. We're going to let each of them decide their futures for themselves."

"I can't be happy if it ends up being just you and me, Kenny. I'm sorry, but that's the honest truth. You should know that before you decide about me."

"Did you really think I didn't understand that already, Joyce? I've seen what it takes to make you happy. I know what you're going to need, what you've always wanted and needed. I want that for you too, but not the way you were trying to go about making it happen. I'm pretty sure we can have enough to make things good for you again. You need to let me be comfortable with whatever it is we end up with. If it were just for me, I think I could be happy with you and all the children. I know you need more than that. I want you to be happy too. I'm not saying its any sacrifice for me having other women in our marriage, because it isn't. I need to arrange it differently than it was though. I don't want us taking unfair advantage of any of the others. That might mean we have to make some changes in how we do things, or with who we do them with."