“Is this the curse of
modernity, to live in a world without judgment, without perspective, no context
for understanding or distinguishing what is real and what is imagined, what is
manipulated and what is by chance beautiful, what is shadow and what is flesh?”
~Terry Tempest Williams~
~Terry Tempest Williams~
Peggy is Marcelle’s
mother. She comes from a wealthy West
End family. She has a successful
business in landscape architecture and is a woman who has full control over everything
surrounding her life……..including her husband.
I am not sure when she moved from the West End to Charlottesville, or
why. I always assumed it was because she
met her first husband, a prominent attorney in the 70’s and 80’s named Eaton. I know that Eaton came from an extremely
wealthy New England family (I have actually visited his family farm for a
weekend………I felt like a Kennedy while there) and he was a very prominent figure
in his community. There is a bench in
front of the Charlottesville courthouse honoring him for his duties to the
city. They were married young and had
children young. Peggy was very
beautiful, and I say this because when you look at pictures of her in her 20’s
she looks EXACTLY like Marcelle, and I do mean exactly like her. Eaton is not Marcelle’s father. In fact Marcelle has never even met Eaton
because he passed away years before she was born, however, we will come back to
that. Marcelle has an older half brother
and an older half sister, both of whom are about fifteen years older than she
is. Peggy inherited a 200 acre family
farm in Earlysville, Virginia, and she raised her family there when she was
young. Peggy was given everything she
ever wanted in life……..education, career, family, home, wealth, prestige,
everything……….and it shows in her attitude towards the world. Eaton was apparently an extremely charismatic
person, and was the center of the world to everyone he met. At some point in their young marriage things
started heading south. Apparently
Eaton’s charisma attracted other women, and apparently Eaton liked the
diversity of those women, so there was a certain amount of extra-curricular
activity in their marriage. Peggy did
not seem to appreciate this (rightfully so) and bailed on the marriage, taking
the two children with her. (does this sound familiar?) The part of the story to this point that I
will never understand is why Eaton felt the need to do this if he had a
beautiful, young, wealthy wife and a promising career, probably because I will
never understand why I did what I did.
Peggy painted the picture of a very amicable divorce and was,
apparently, according to her, open minded about Eaton being a part of their
children’s lives, without any fight at all.
Eaton continued his promising career, but apparently also dove deeply
into a career of alcoholism as well.
Peggy moved out of the farmhouse with the children, and was a single
mother for almost ten years.
Marcelle used to
tell me throughout the course of our marriage that she always held her mom on a
pedestal for being such a strong, independent single mother. The way Marcelle always explained this to me
made it very clear that this was not a description of how she viewed her
mother, but instead a warning to me…………………….she was saying, “if you ever fuck
up I have no problem filling the shoes of my own mother, because it is the only
way I will ever be able to live up to her.”
I have noticed that in my thirty five years of existence on this earth
that daughters have this stigma as mothers of needing to live up to whom their
own mothers were. I took this warning
very seriously. In fact, it always
scared the shit out of me and I subconsciously knew that my path was going to
be similar to Eaton’s…………….minus the wealth and successful career.
Eventually Peggy
met Mike while in grad school at UVA, and they were married and started a small
architecture firm. Today it is very large and makes the family a
shitload of money. Marcelle came a short
time later, followed by her little brother.
At some point during the early years of Peggy’s second marriage, Eaton
sat in his office in his farmhouse, put a gun in his mouth, and blew his head
off………………..I do not know why. Maybe it
was regret, maybe alcoholism, maybe depression.
He was successful, well liked, had two beautiful children, and would
never need to worry about anything in life.
Some things we are never meant to understand.
I have spoken to
Peggy on a few occasions about her marriage to Eaton and his death, and there
was one thing that stood out in my mind………………….she had no remorse what-so-ever
for Eaton’s death and came across as very cold and very calculated in what she
said. It gave me chills. My instincts told me that something just
didn't add up. I have learned in the
last two years that instincts are very important, and when it comes to bad
things such as this, people usually ignore those instincts. But something about the entire story just
seemed wrong.
“What everybody echoes
or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow.”
~Henry
David Thoreau~
After Marcelle and
I split up I started researching Peggy’s past, and found that I knew someone
who was friends with Eaton, and who knew the family during the time of their
marriage. I must protect that person’s
anonymity in this writing, but what they told me scared the ever living shit
out of me. In short, he felt Peggy was
exactly what my instincts had told me……..a cold, calculated, highly intelligent, dangerous woman. Funny thing is during my marriage
to Marcelle I always loved Peggy. She
was the only one in the family who ever told me I was a good father. She was the only one I ever felt believed in
me……………which is why writing this post breaks my heart, because I truly loved
Peggy very much and fully trusted her……………………….that trust was one of the
biggest mistakes I have ever made in my life.
The first time I
met Mike I thought he was a complete prick…………my viewpoint of him never changed,
but unlike him, I always made an attempt to develop a relationship. He never even gave me a chance. When Marcelle and I moved away to WNC
together, he and Peggy came to visit.
Mike refused to come in the house because Marcelle and I were living together
and we were not married. This made no
sense to me. It went against everything
he claimed to stand for. Mike’s father
was a very well known politician. His
name was Mitch and he was one of the longest running representatives
in The House of Delegates. He was well
liked, well respected, and had an impact on VA Laws for almost four
decades……………he was also extremely left wing.
If you think about it, that is amazing, considering he rose to
popularity in the 70’s and 80’s in an extremely conservative state. If Mike truly believed in what his family
stood for, then why the fuck would he have a problem with Marcelle and I living
together out of wedlock?..........I will tell you why, because she was living
with me. Mike never once gave me a chance. After all, I did come from the other side of
the tracks. I did not come from wealth,
and I did not come from prestige. Marcelle's family has a very strong social circle around them…………and it is also
very small. They do not like outsiders,
and are very careful about who they let come into their circle. I assume that his distaste for me came from
the fact that he had no choice but to let me in. Marcelle decided to go slummin’ during
college, and ended up falling in love with a dirt bag kayaker. This drove Mike crazy. He had no control over my presence in his, or my presence in his family’s life.
Here is where
things get strange. Marcelle’s older
brother and sister are married to a brother and sister…………………take a minute to
put that together because I know it is confusing. Even more, the brother and sister they
married come from an even wealthier Charlottesville family than theirs. Mike loved the son-in-law and daughter-in-law
he had gained from that end. Holiday
after holiday, vacation after vacation, I watched him develop a relationship
with them, all the while casting me aside as a nobody. He knew what he was doing, and I think Peggy
did too. It is why she went out of her
way to be nice to me. She could see that
I did not enjoy the time I spent with their family, even though I tried
endlessly for Marcelle, because I truly did love Marcelle with all my heart. I just hated a lot of what surrounded her life.…………….I mean who would enjoy family time in my position. Every time we drove to C'Ville I needed to
prepare myself to be belittled, ignored, and made to feel like the black
sheep. After all, I came from very normal
financial means, and I had very little to add to their family dynamic. By the final years of my
marriage/relationship, I hated visiting CVille, but I did it every time with a
smile on my face because I loved Marcelle, and Marcelle’s family meant everything
to her. In 2009 we visited or went on
vacation with her family 21 times. I
seriously feel that is way too much. (That
doesn't even include the times they came to visit us)
Mike is a scary
dude. He owns one of the world’s largest
antique chainsaw collections, which is actually pretty fuckin’ cool. I tried to relate to him through
this……….nothing. He lived in a tee pee
for two years when he was young. I tried
to relate to him through this……………….nothing.
He traveled through the Stikine Wilderness as a lumberjack in his early
twenties. I tried to relate to him
through this…………………nothing. I tried
everything, and the only conclusion I came away with in the end was this………………..if
he could have killed me with his chainsaw and gotten away with it, he would
have. Mike hated me from Day 1, and
never gave me a chance. Remember earlier
in the story when I said that Marcelle was going to C'Ville a lot in
the final year of our marriage and it was causing a problem…………well, now you
know why.
Our marriage began
to unravel in the summer of 2010 due to one particular conversation I had with
Marcelle about her father, however that atomic bomb will have to wait for a
later post, because it is exactly that…….an Atomic Bomb. But after that conversation, weird things
started happening that made me realize one thing………………wealthy people don’t deal
with their problems. They brush them
under the rug, ignore them, tune out the people involved, and pretend that
everything is normal. When you do this
again and again, year after year, you eventually end up having your past come
back to haunt you.
In the Fall of 2010
I was at a wedding for one of Marcelle’s best friends. Weddings were a normal occurrence for us, and
they were always done up to the full extent.
I mean, we are talking six figures here.
It never impressed me. I never
understood it, but then again, I truly hate wealth, money, and
materialism. It makes people be people
that they truly are not. It takes away
the realism from this world. I was
standing on my own watching Marcelle dance with her friends at the wedding,
when all of a sudden a woman whom I had never spoken to approached me from
behind. The conversation that followed
went like this……….
Woman: “Are you
having a nice time.”
Me: “Why yes, thank
you.”
Woman: “Well, that’s
good." (then a long, uncomfortable pause.)
Woman: “There is
something you need to know.”
Me: “Oh, what’s that?”
Woman: “Your wife’s
family hurts people. They have done it
their entire life. They do bad things
and then ignore the outcome of their actions.”
Me: “ummmmm” (I was thinking “what the fuck is happening
here. I must be drunk.”)
Me (trying to figure out what to say): “That’s my wife you are speaking about.”
Woman: “I just need
you to know that your wife and her family hurt people. They always have.”
Then she walked
away, leaving me standing there alone, uncomfortable, stunned, and wondering
what the fuck just happened. I couldn't
figure out why it bothered me, but it did.
There was truth in her voice, and she seemed genuinely concerned about
me. I am not going to sugar coat things
here…………I went to the bar, took a shot, then went outside to the car and talked about rivah safety with one of Marcelle’s friends.
Whatever that woman had done fucked my head up. I just couldn't figure it out, but it was
bizarre, and I was determined to find out the truth of why she did what she
did.
At the end of the
night Marcelle, myself, Peggy, and Marcelle’s best friend all drove home in the
same car. Now, I am not one to handle
situations like this well, so I did the one thing I shouldn't have done. I told Marcelle about the incident in front
of her mother and best friend. The look
on Peggy’s face when I asked about it was sheer terror. I thought she was going to throw up right
there in the car. I knew something was
up, and I knew it wasn't good. The
family had secrets, and they were deep and dark, but Peggy played it off like
she had no idea why I was told what I was told.
A few weeks later
Marcelle and I sat down in the privacy of our own home and talked about what
had happened. She could tell that I was
bothered and she needed to clear some things up. She told me that the woman, who I knew to be
the mother of one of Marcelle’s close friends, had been Mike’s best friend
growing up. Mike married Peggy, and the
woman married another man. The four of
them were best friends and were always together. According to Marcelle, one day the four were
no longer best friends, and the other man divorced his wife and moved
away. The four never spoke again.
It doesn't take a
rocket scientist to figure out what went down between them. I couldn't believe it, until I started to
look at everything involving the situation……………..Mike and Peggy never touched
each other, at least from what I saw.
They never showed intimacy, or love, or anything else. It was always like watching two business
partners work together, which, ironically, they were. The family was close, and on the surface it
looked like everything was perfect, but something always seemed strange. Now, I have a theory, and before I tell it,
it is important to remember that this is my theory, and nothing else……………
Peggy fully
controls everyone in her life, especially Mike.
Mike knows this and seems to accept it without any questions. It is what makes Marcelle so
controlling. It is not her fault; it is
just the example that was set for her. I never blamed Marcelle for the way she was.
Peggy most likely had the same control over Eaton, especially after they
had children. Eaton eventually had enough
and strayed from his wife. (I theorize
this because I relate to it perfectly………..at this point you all know what I
did, so this shouldn't come as a surprise)
Peggy was cheated on and left Eaton, like any controlling woman
would. (as opposed to communicating, talking about things, and sometimes realizing that the children should have an impact on her decisions) When she married Mike the same
control came into play. Well, eventually
Mike became tired of the control and sought refuge in the arms of his best
friend, which is understandable. Either
Peggy found out, or the other party found out, but Mike was busted. Once this happened, Peggy was stuck between a
rock and a hard place………..cheated on once and everyone points the finger at the
man, but cheated on twice and people may start to question what the woman is
doing to cause this re-occurring problem.
Peggy is smart, and she was smart enough to understand that. So if you can’t leave him what do you
do…………………………you own and operate him for the rest of his life!!!!, and that is
EXACTLY what she did. Yep, told ya this
situation was FUBAR!
After Marcelle and
I were separated, I came to the house one day to see the boys and Mike sat down
with me on the back deck to talk about the situation. During the conversation he said to me that I
needed to realize that I had married a woman who was going to be in charge of
me no matter what, just like the woman he had married. I couldn't believe it. He was admitting to me that he had given up
long ago. I asked him if he had ever
been in the position I was in, and he responded yes, and said that when he was
he had a decision to make………. go at it on his own, or accept who his wife
was. Then I asked him a question that I
wish I had never asked…………I asked him if he was happy. His response dictated so many choices over
the next four months of my life, choices that set the course of our
divorce. Mike responded,
“Sometimes.” Then there was a long
pause. He looked at me, saw the look on
my face, and said, “actually, most of the time.” I knew he was covering his tracks. I couldn't believe it. This man who had everything was admitting to
me that he spent his entire life owned and operated, and in the end he was
happy “sometimes.” The conversation
scared the shit out of me. Had it not
been for that conversation I would have run right back to Marcelle, because I
had missed her since the day we separated. (The Fourteenth Street Whore was an overwhelming disappointment by then, and I realized she was not even a shadow of Marcelle, but we will come back to that.) I don’t know why I even listened to him.
I never trusted him, but I was so lost I didn't know what to do, or who
to turn to. I wish I had never had that
conversation.
Mike and Peggy
unfortunately play a bigger part in the story than they should, and I truly am
heartbroken at how my relationship with them ended. They hate me, and they will do anything to
keep their grandchildren away from me.
They have convinced themselves and their daughter that I am not fit to
be around the boys. This just isn't
true. I am a good father, and during the
short time I was “allowed” to be a single father, I was damn good at it. But that wasn't enough for them. You take kids away from their fathers when
the fathers are a danger to the children, not as revenge for betraying your
family. I hurt their daughter, and I
will live with that regret for the rest of my life, every moment of every
day. It was the worst mistake I ever
made. But my boys didn't do anything
wrong, and they shouldn't have to suffer.
Please, please don’t ever keep children from a father who wants to be
there. It just isn't right. It destroys people, and it hurts the
children. I miss my boys so much it
physically hurts, and I know they miss me.
I have to get back to them………somehow, I have to make this right.
I wonder what you're doing
and how you're living life
what new things did you learn today
and how did you sleep last night
did you feel raindrops on your face
or sunshine in your eye
of all the questions left unknown
the biggest one is why
why can't we be together
why can't I watch you grow
why can't I guide you through this world
this I just don’t know
but I promise we'll be together
no matter how long it seems
just know your always in my heart
and always in my dreams~Garrett Wheeler~
See ya on the rivah.......................hopefully livin' life to the fullest. PEACE
