We came back to our house the next day after all the weekday duties, pickups, drop offs, classes taught, etc., and I prayed for a bit of normalcy. Over the next week, the business partner (who met the girl back in October 2022 and covered for him to me multiple times), reached out to request that any checks that may come in for their business be held so he could pick them up from me at my house or my studio.
Absolutely not. I was not about to have him step foot anywhere near me, my kids, or places of residence or business.
The business partner's responses were predictably defensive, angry, and incredibly contradictory. He defended him, claimed no knowledge of wrongdoing, yet was quick to tell me they were together in Texas when neither of them were in the same state. Did he not find it odd when I reached out for an event that didn't exist? I would later come to find that an event they DID actually have not long after this exchange was spent bashing me to my stepson, but more on that later.
Two days later, my phone rang early in the morning & it was one of my teachers for the studio. She had arrived to open up & teach the 5:45am class, but when she entered she saw that our water fountains in the back had malfunctioned and were gushing water into our carpeted studio. I walked her through where to locate our water valve to shut it off, and she said she was going to stay there and try to get things situated to minimize the damage. I got the kids to school as quickly as I could, SF was on her way as well, and I got on the phone with ServPro. They would be there shortly.
ServPro did a great job pulling up the carpet and LVT flooring, and we began discussing how long we would have to be closed, etc. I remember at one point apologizing to the manager on site because I felt the expression on my face at the moment was probably less than friendly. I explained what I was currently dealing with, and the nice guys ripping up our flooring had their jaws on the floor listening to everything. Once they were finished with the demo, I looked at my studio, my space that had given me so much peace so many times when things felt heavy. It looked how I felt. Raw, ripped apart, and in need of help.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world was moving at the speed of light (or at least it felt that way). We had dance recital pictures and a to-do list a million miles long that had items I would have never guessed I would need to check off.
Our amazing friends & family, knowing varying degrees of the situation (because how do you summarize the previous year in a single conversation?!?), began dropping off cans of formula, groceries, and gift cards so I could keep the kids fed and put gas in my car.
One of my most memorable moments of generosity was one rainy afternoon a few days after the studio flood disaster when a friend (one of the ones from the intervention) reached out to ask what time I would be picking the girls up from daycare. She said she had something to drop off with me; we met in the daycare parking lot in the pouring rain. She hopped out of her car, rain jacket on, and popped open her trunk. Inside, she began to pull out Target bags with cans of formula and boxes of the fruit snacks I usually got for my kids (dye-free since my middle does not handle food dyes well). It was so thoughtful - she knew it was something I felt strongly about for my kids' health but also was something I would likely have to adjust considering I had no sign of any financial support from him anytime soon. She then reached back into her trunk and started to tell me how much she hated the thought of me having to continue to sleep in the same bed I had shared with him for so long. (I would have loved to light the whole thing on fire, but dang mattresses are expensive!) She agreed that while a new bed would be lovely, at the very least she wanted me to feel a little bit of a fresh start and pulled out a brand new king-size bedding set - sheets, comforter, everything. I have never been so excited to wash sheets and make up a bed.
The clean, crisp white was perfect and exactly the visual reminder I needed that I was going to build something new if I could just get through this.
Clearly going for a different aesthetic of frat house chic, I was sent pictures of the trap house from the moms (I was at this point in communication with both girls' moms and stepmom as we tried to piece together the actual timeline of what was going on). I would later find out from them that he brought our middle daughter by the house at least once. He denies it, but the girls confirm that they met her & played hide 'n seek with her to get her to stop crying. My daughter later told me she went to a house with "two moms & two dads" (how she identified adult men & women at 2.5 years old) and told me she was sorry that she fussed & screamed when she was there but that she was scared. I would have been, too.
I've chosen to not share the fully incriminating photos.
One morning on my way to daycare, I received a phone call from the stepmom, almost hysterical and asking me what I thought he was truly capable of. Confused, I tried to get more information out of her. She began explaining that the girl had just been backed into her senior parking spot at the high school by the restaurant manager who tried to convince her to get into the jeep he was driving (that belonged to my ex) and "come home". Petrified, she managed to drive around him, escape the parking lot, and drove home. The stepmom continued to tell me that he had been stalking her on TikTok - tagging her in countless posts about true love, marriage, and devotion. He sent a package to her mom's house with explicit cards (the messages, not necessarily pictures) that also featured pictures of the two of them. They called the local authorities since at this point, he also had an order of protection filed against him by both girls' families.
Trying to focus potty training and a three-year-old birthday party in addition to the Lifetime movie my life had become, I continued to stay afloat through the generosity of my family, our church, and friends. Thank goodness I had reserved a birthday party location so my middle would have a celebration. I briefly considered canceling for budget reasons, but my steadfast mom did not miss a beat and assured me that my daughter would have a celebration despite whatever nightmare we were in. For anyone wondering, at this point, anytime the kids would ask when they would see their dad I would say he was out of town. He was as far as I was concerned (since who knew if any travel dates were ever truthful anymore), and they never once questioned it as it had been my usual response for over a year.
Her party was scheduled a few days after her actual birthday, but SF and her daughter made sure she was well celebrated on her birthday. She received her family gifts that morning, and I brought cupcakes to her school. We then had the best birthday dinner at Waffle House, in which SF & her daughter arrived early to decorate & hand out party hats to the staff. It was perfect.
Her party a few days later could not have been better. It was held at a local kids' play place that has tons of different types of sensory play, books, toys - the kids had a blast. The owner was unbelievable and didn't even know what we were going through but still facilitated a party with small children, and I was able to play with my kids the entire time. Needless to say, we booked it again for this year's party.
Never a dull moment to be found, a few nights later I received a text from the moms' group text. It was the girl's mom who had checked the girl's confiscated phone before she went to bed (in case he was still trying to contact her) and noticed the "Find My" app was pinging an AirTag registered as him at our house. She wasn't sure if this was a recent thing or if maybe it had been there a while, but it was easily the last thing I wanted to see right then.
I wanted to vomit. It was just after 7:30pm, so I was typically in the throes of baths, bedtime, and general bedlam. The kids were in the room, and I certainly didn't want them out of my sightline given what I just saw. I tried to call the non-emergent line as quickly and calmly as I could. I provided the information needed and they quickly dispatched officers to our house. Before they arrived, I saw no point in trying to get the kids down until I knew what was going on. The officers arrived, and when I answered the door they asked me to step outside. Baby on one hip, I walked out of our front door and began explaining that I recently found out that my husband of nearly 14 years had been cheating on me and living a double life for nearly a year with a high school student. The male officer nodded along as I spoke and then asked, "Oh - is he one if the {restaurant name} managers? Yeah I responded to the call at the high school last week involving him, so I'm familiar with what's going on."
As we were speaking, the older two kids had managed to open the window of the playroom that faced the front yard and began climbing out of the window like clowns out of a clown car and then running back in the house to do it again. At one point, the male officer introduced himself to my daughter, who promptly stuck her tongue out, blew a raspberry, and ran off. We continued to talk quietly for a bit. They covered the neighborhood but didn't see anything. I didn't sleep much that night but a day or two later found this in his nightstand.
Got an iPhone just because, huh? Was right about this and a lot of other things.
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