Changing the Locks

You treated this order to move out like it was a picnic. You sat. You chatted. You let Oliver do most of the work. Lots of guns and ammunition left the premises. Geez, how many of those things did you have? And WHY? At one point the pastor came out to the front porch to talk to me about something. You decided to come out and join us. REALLY??? You stretched out in one of the porch chairs like we were all going to have a friendly 'chat'. You asked the pastor if he did mediation. He said he didn't do the kind of mediation we needed, only the spiritual kind. You said that's what you wanted. You wanted to go to mediation with him with me. Are you on CRACK??? We have restraining orders and you think I'm going to sit in the same room with you and talk? You also told the pastor that I had a boyfriend and that you had copies of emails where you said I had written 'I love you. I love you' to my boyfriend. Let me just say that I am very, very interested in seeing these emails because I don't have a boyfriend and I haven't told any of my male correspondents that I love them. I might have said I 'love' receiving emails from them. I might have said I 'love' being in touch with them. I might have said I 'love' one thing or another. But I am not IN LOVE with anyone so therefore I have not said "I love you" to anyone. I sign all my emails, "Love, Cindy". I am changing that now but maybe I shouldn't. I don't have to prove anything to you. I don't have to change my behavior if I am not doing anything wrong. My phone rang just then and it was my attorney. He wanted to know how things were going. He told me he doesn't care what you say. It has become apparent that if your lips are moving, you are lying. I'll add something to that: If your lips are moving or your fingers are on a keyboard, you're lying.

Dad woke up from his nap and was sitting in his lift chair as you were making your final trip to the van. You said goodbye and that it might be the last time he ever would see you. Dad was confused. He had known nothing about me being locked out of the house. Carmi and I had made up stories, and it worked for two days. It wouldn't have worked much longer. He didn't even know we were getting divorced. I sat down next to Dad and explained that we were getting a divorce, that you had locked me out of the house, and that a judge had ordered you out. What a relief to finally fill him in! I felt I had made the house safe for the two of us. He looked at the pastor and asked him if he had known about it. Yes, he did. I had gone to him for pastoral counseling right after I filed for dissolution. I had told him everything. He said that technically Christians can only get divorced in cases of adultery, but that you had been breaking our marriage vows for years. I told him he could brief Dad on what had happened. He was gracious. He said you had put me in a position where I had been backed into a corner and this was the only way I could protect myself, Laura, him and everything I had spent my life working for. Well put. And true.

The judge had said I could change the locks on the house. That took some time. The elder had figured out how to change the master fingerprint on the keypad lock.