There are less than two months left of this school year. After helping my husband raise four kids for so long, it seems unreal that monitoring grades, asking about missed assignments, emailing teachers, and following school calendars are rapidly drawing to a close.
My youngest stepchild is a senior this year. The kids have always been my husband’s ex-wife’s built-in mechanism for forcing contact with him, and she seems to be acutely aware that the sun is setting on her long-trusted gimmick.
Recently, out of the blue, my husband was invited to dinner with my youngest stepchild, and oddly, with Psycho. Mind you, for 17 years, Psycho has made a career out of militantly withholding information from my husband, coercing the kids to lie to him and hide things from him, requiring an act of Congress for the kids to spend any time with him, and badmouthing us like she gets paid for each ridiculous, jealous rumor she concocts, yet now we are to believe she has spontaneously sprouted basic thoughtfulness and manners…yeah, nope.
Could it be any more obvious? Her days of extorting contact by using the kids are dwindling, and she is desperately flinging out anything she can to beg for scraps of attention before that window slams shut.
I know my husband. He will go, to be with his daughter. He will joke around, put everyone at ease, make everyone laugh, include everyone, so no one feels left out.
And I know Psycho. If he smiles, laughs, or casts even one casual comment in her general direction, she will greedily lap it up like a stray dog slobbering over wayward crumbs. Her narcissistic delusions will ratchet up to full blast, convincing herself of covert meaning where there is none.
My husband is nice to everyone. But after being disappointed and disgusted by Psycho for so long, he interacts with her much the same way he does a stranger in a store or someone randomly passing by on the sidewalk: generic politeness. That is all she warrants (and more than she deserves), by her own choices and actions.
As the final day of the school year approaches, I anticipate there will be even more of these calculated and hopeful invitations, strategically presented as can’t-miss father-daughter moments, with Psycho just coincidentally and inexplicably tagging along, tail and tongue wagging with eager delight. She knows my husband will do anything for his kids, and she will shamelessly milk that dry to her own advantage.
My youngest stepdaughter was quite little when I first met my husband. Here she is, ready to graduate high school, and Psycho obstinately, absolutely refuses to move on and get a life.
The fact is, I realized, Psycho can’t move on. All these years later, and she has nothing to show for it but a string of annihilated relationships, a ratty borrowed trailer, even more desiccated furrows in her moth-eaten leather-flesh, and a pitiable existence, clinging to the kids’ achievements for attention because she doesn’t have any accomplishments of her own. Every breathing creature in the tri-state area is comically aware of her pestiferous reputation, her classlessness, and her attention-whoring instability, so she needs airfare and chloroform to rustle up any semblance of a viable dating pool. Where can she possibly sink from there, besides the grave or an asylum?
I can’t fault her for clinging to my husband, actually. He loves his children and is a tremendous father. He’s an adoring husband. For all of our many and indisputable differences, this is one thing that Psycho, despite herself, and I apparently agree upon: my husband is a damn good guy.
I suppose I can charitably spare a dinner or two. Let Psycho pretend what she pleases. I can graciously indulge her puerile games and adolescent fantasies. It’s sad that she still uses the kids this way, but let’s get real, she was never in danger of being mistaken for even a passably decent mother, and this is obviously the only way she can con anyone into passing time with her. Maybe she can manage to corral her crazy just enough for my husband and stepdaughter to at least enjoy some time together. While Psycho’s ego, delusions, and selfishness leave no room for consideration of anyone else, least of all the kids, my husband never forgets what truly matters. Can I blame her, then, for desperately–yet so futilely–missing him?
Stained Glass Butterfly 