Chapter 8

I dropped Sherry off at her parent's house. She'd been fearful about what she could tell Tina the next time the two of them spoke. When I saw that she was getting very anxious about it, I told her that I'd talk to Tina and fill her in on the fact that I'd more or less forced her sister to do whatever I'd demanded.

"Don't worry about it, Sherry. Tina knows now that she won't be able to use her supposed control over you against me in our little struggle. She told me that you'd leave me, and never look back, if she ever told you that was what she'd decided needed to be done."

"She can do things to make me feel bad. She will too, if I don't do whatever she wants."

"She needs you just as much as you need her. Don't let her fool you about that. You might have to wait her out, but she'll get over herself when you don't just cave in to whatever she demands.

After I'd dropped Sherry off, I drove back to my house. When I got there, Tina was gone. Not just out of the house for awhile, really gone. As in moved out. Everything of hers was missing, and she hadn't been neat about it when she was packing up either. Drawers were left open, my bed was unmade. Anything of hers she'd decided she no longer wanted, whether books, magazines, old clothing, it was all left scattered around on the floor. There was no note or explanation about where she was going.

I spent at least three hours putting all my stuff back into my bedroom, straightening everything up, just the way I liked it. When that was done, I took my own advice, the advice I'd just given to Sherry. I would try to wait Tina out. If she loved me anywhere near as much as I did her, she wouldn't want us to stay separated for very long. I could take some comfort in knowing that I'd already given her my deadline before she took off.

I phoned over to the Axelbland's house to speak with Sherry. The maid that answered the phone informed me that Sherry was on another call just then, and I could either leave my name and number, or else try her again, later. I left my name and number. I was nearly certain that Tina was the one on the phone with Sherry.

Forty minutes after leaving my name and number, Sherry returned my call.

"Tina's staying over at our cousin's house, in Mystic. She said she's moved there for good. She told me not to tell you where she was."

"I'm going to wait for her for one week. If she hasn't come back by then, or been over to visit with your parents, I'm calling Delilah and inviting her to fly out here for an extended visit. You can move in here with me in the meantime, if you want to. Otherwise, you can stay where you are, until Delilah gets here. When she does, you'll need to come here, so the three of us can find out how we'd all fit in together."

"I can't."

"That's all you're going to say? You can't?"

"She told me if I don't do what she tells me, then she won't let me come live with you guys, after you make up again. She means it too, so I can't chance it. Don't be mad at me, please?"

"This will mean she was right, Sherry. Right when she told me that she'd leave me forever, and take you along with her. If you let her win again this time, there won't be any marriage, and you'll be right back to how things were when I first met Tina. At some point, I'll have to throw in the towel and admit she won."

"She promised me she'd work it all out, but only if I do what she tells me to."

"She's wrong, and I can prove it to you. I told you that I'd give Tina one week, and I will. At the end of that week, either she does what I told you I needed, or else you need to come over here, to take her place. If you come, I'll bring Delilah here too. If Tina doesn't come, and if you don't come, to take her place, then I have no reason to stay here in Connecticut anymore. I'll put the house up for sale, then I'll move back to California."

"She could still work it out before then."

"If she does, then you don't have anything to decide. If she doesn't though, you need to decide what's best for you. If I were you, I'd try to have my mind made up before next Friday at noon. On Thursday, I'll be booking my flight and calling a real estate broker about selling the house. I'll box up all your things and deliver them over to your house before I leave."

After the phone call, I went back to doing what I usually did. The only thing I did that was different was me making a few phone calls to California. I told Delilah that she might need to be ready to make a quick trip out to Connecticut soon, and to be sure she was ready to leave on very short notice. I called Danny and Kaitlyn and let them know that there could be a drastic change in my marital plans, and that it might mean me coming back out to California to live.

On Thursday, after not hearing from either sister, I went online and made my reservation to fly to California on the early flight on Saturday. That done, I decided it wasn't yet necessary to put my house up for sale. I could do that at anytime. I knew I'd need to fly back anyway, to get my car out of long term parking at the airport, and to pack up all the stuff I'd be taking with me when I moved. I found some boxes up in my attic and began packing up all Sherry's things, everything that I'd promised to take over to her house for her.

Thursday night, I went to bed at eleven. For the first time I started believing that Tina was really going to let me go. I admitted, also, that, to Tina, it would mean that I was going to be letting her and Sherry go too. This had happened to me before, and I knew this time would be much harder on me than all the other times had been. I knew I always had the option of backing down, of retreating from carrying out what I'd threatened doing.

Friday came, and I was on edge all morning. By eleven thirty that morning, I was finding it extremely difficult to even breathe. The enormity of what I had put into motion was overwhelming me. I felt like I was being forced to detonate my whole life, to blow up myself, and everyone I loved, and for what? For a deadline that I'd set myself. I could just as easily have made it two weeks, or even two months.

I was sitting in my great chair, looking deeply into my empty fireplace, struggling with myself about my commitment for following through with what I'd threatened. Time was running out for me, and for all the happiness that I'd so recently been anticipating the three of us having. It came to me that I'd always been better at giving advice than I was at taking it.

I looked at my wrist, turning it enough to be able to see the hands on my watch face. It was 12:05. My absolute deadline had already passed. There had been no phone calls, and no one had come knocking at my door. My ultimatum hadn't been complied with.

I went to my laptop and fired it up, moving over to the site where I needed to confirm the flight reservation I'd earlier made. I was one click away from keeping to what I'd promised Sherry I'd do if neither of my demands were met. I spent fifteen minutes arguing with myself about whether I should confirm my flight for the following morning or not.

I couldn't make the decision. Too much of what I wanted would be given up forever if I stubbornly continued on this path I'd set for myself. I've always found that when I had this much indecision in my business, the best thing to do was to do nothing. It occurred to me that this option was open to me now. I clicked off the site and shut down my notebook. As I did this, I felt a definite easing of the stress I was feeling. It wasn't gone, but it was certainly more manageable that it had been before I'd decided not to decide.

I went out to the Navigator and climbed in. I then drove straight to the Axelbland's home and started unloading all the boxes of Sherry's stuff that I'd brought over. I piled it all up in their outside entrance way, then just left it there, unwilling to ring the bell, not wanting to speak with anyone.

I drove back to my house and packed my own bag, wanting to go somewhere, away from all the reminders of what I probably was losing. I ended up in Rhode Island, in Providence. I spent a week there, walking around, driving around, buying and selling other people's things, wherever I happened to stop.

It was a whole week of me going back to my earliest business beginning. I had my laptop, and I continued tending to my main business interests, everyday, for an hour or so, in the mornings, but I still managed to spend eleven or twelve hours a day, out and about, pursuing my hobby. It relaxed me, getting back to doing something I was so comfortable with. It was profitable too, but that was just a pleasant by-product, not my real reason for doing it.

I was thinking too for that whole week. My dilemma was eating away at me, in the forefront of my thoughts the entire time. I couldn't find any solution that was anything more than me capitulating to Tina completely. I wasn't sure that even this would lead to me getting the three of us back together again. It was the only plan I could come up with that offered me any hope at all though, so I was slowly coming to terms with it being what I'd need to do.

After my week long retreat was over, I still hadn't gotten myself to the point where I could go find Tina and tell her I'd given up on setting any conditions for marrying her. Somehow, it had been important to me that she get past this long running separation from her parents. Important, but now it was turning out that it might not be more important than the very real possibility of my losing her and her sister over it was.

I even started drawing parallel's between my separation from Tina, and hers from her parents. In some ways, both were similar. She hadn't been able to tolerate what she saw as their cold indifference, while I found myself unable to tolerate her inability to forgive them, to move on with her life.

It was a test of tolerance for both of us, and it immediately became obvious to me that I was asking her to do something I wasn't willing to do myself. As soon as I saw it, I realized I could yield to her now, even grovel a little bit, if she insisted that it was necessary. Perhaps, seeing that I was willing to do it, she'd understand that it was the right thing for her to do as well. If not, hopefully I'd succeed in regaining what I now believed I'd foolishly thrown away.

I drove home, really believing I was ready to tell Tina she'd won. On the drive, I'd even practiced how I was going to say the words to her. When I got to my house though, all that suddenly changed. Both Tina and Sherry were industriously painting away in my side yard. Seeing me drive up in the Navigator, both stopped what they'd been doing and ran over to greet me. I climbed out from behind the steering wheel of my car and accepted and returned all their excited hugs and kisses, trying to answer all their questions, while still letting them know how much I loved them, and how badly I'd missed being with the pair of them.

"We couldn't get here in time, and none of them thought to bring their cell phones along, so we could call you. That Evelyn is such a bitch too. I wouldn't put it past her to have deliberately run over that metal thing in the road that made her tire go flat. The other one was no help at all either, insisting that we all had to stay together, by Evelyn's car, so we wouldn't get raped or killed like we could have if we were walking back to get some help. By the time someone stopped and let us use his phone to call for a tow truck, it was noon already. We called you from the repair shop, but there was no answer. We got here a little after three, but you were already gone when we did.