GEM Explodes

After seven months of living out of the RV at the horse farm we were ready for change. We looked at our options. We thought about living across the river in rural Clark County; we looked all around Western Washington County; we considered Spokane; and even a commute from out in the gorge.

Then I started getting calls from Hawaii.

Kris and I were married in Hawaii and the kids came along for the wedding. I lived here in 2004 for a few months while working on a project for the Hawaiian Islands Blue Cross/Blue Shield organization. I love it here and Kris always wanted to live on an island.

Why did we consider moving away? The kids were at a different place developmentally than they had been when we put this parenting plan into place. That coupled with the GEM's worsening personality disorder led the three counselors we worked with--Kris's, mine, and the children's--to  the conclusion that the best thing for us to do would be to withdraw from the fifty-fifty arrangement and try and stay in the kids' lives from a distance.

In early April of last year (2012), we missed a payment at the kids after-school program. They sent a note home to Sarah's house saying that A couldn't come back until the payment was made. I went and got A from school the next day and took her over to the after-school location. In the meantime, the GEM rushed early from work, grabbed M from downstairs in the building I was in and raced home and called the police telling them that A was missing.

The cops called me. The weird thing is, the year before, in the summer, the GEM decided she wanted the girls for a particular weekend. Rather than work it out with me, she just didn't return the kids to me on Tuesday and kept them for an extra week.

When I called and asked her to return the kids, she refused and when I asked what I should do; should I call the cops? She told me that I could go ahead and call the cops, but this was a civil matter and they wouldn't do anything about it.

Now here she was trying to get the police to arrest me for custodial interference. I told the cop that called me that this was a civil matter, as I'd learned from her the previous summer. He called back a half-hour later and said the GEM was on the phone with his sergeant trying to get him written up.

By the time we got over to the GEM's house to drop A off, she must have been in a frenzy. She came stomping down the middle of the street, straight at our pickup and grabbed Kris's door handle, opening the door as we slowly drove past. She did the same with the back door, where A was sitting, and then punched the side of the pickup bed.

We drove up to the top of the cul-de-sac and A jumped out, saying, "I'm outta here!" She ran past her mom who was headed straight for Kris.

Screaming yelling threatening nonsense ensued. We handled well and left.