It's been a while since I mentioned my ex. We've visited him several times this past year, which the kids have enjoyed. He looks profoundly unhealthy and still tries to tell his imaginary stories. This coming July is the earliest he'd be eligible for parole, and I have been hoping that he would stay on his medication and off the narcotics long enough to have at least a few months of normal interaction with them.
Yesterday, I lost that hope.
The last weekend in December, he called me on a Friday evening and told me that I needed to keep the Princess out of school for a few more days when the winter break ended. He told a wild story about some other inmate from a previous prison having stolen her picture from him, and how he'd put the guy in the infirmary for weeks needing reconstructive facial surgery, and now the guy was out and had sent him a letter telling him that she would be disappearing from school one of these days.
I suspected he was mostly or all inventing this, but it was far too serious a threat to blow off. My greatest concern wasn't for the Princess, who gets dropped off and picked up at school by me, where all the staff know me and our routine well, after having two previous kids go through. A stranger showing up unannounced to take her home would definitely set off red flags and would be against policy anyway. I was more concerned about the boys, who ride the buses and get home before I do. So I talked to my parents, who promised to be home at dropoff time every afternoon for the coming week and let the boys in downstairs through their house. I planned to give the school a heads-up, and my Dad said I should file a police report.
When my ex called the next evening "to check on us," I tried to get some more information about this mysterious person. Then I told him I was going to file a police report. He immediately became irritated and said, "I'm just asking you to keep our daughter safe while I deal with this! This guy's a dead man, he's never gonna know what happened..." blah blah blah. I knew then for sure that he was lying, but without proof I couldn't afford to operate on that assumption.
The next morning (Sunday) he called to say that everything was fine, he'd "taken care of it," we had nothing to worry about.
Note here: I wrote up to this point back in January, never finished it, and am just now returning to it. A lot has happened since then, but that will fill another post. Suffice it to say that in the end, Little Bear ended up with some pretty severe anxiety and increased depression over the whole thing; and after a trip in March to see their dad again, where he confronted his dad about lying and scaring everyone (which actually resulted in a real apology!!), he had a bit of a breakdown when he realized that I still wasn't getting back together with their dad no matter what. This led to spending a day at the pediatric hospital talking to the crisis team, and another day doing an intake at the child guidance center to be set up with a psychiatrist. They still haven't called me and it's been a month. Ugh. However, he is doing much better. Don't worry, I'm still going to follow up with them and he still sees his regular counselor weekly.
And then there's the other stuff... (to be continued)
No comments:
Post a Comment