I’m skipping through time with these little stories. Today, we are going back to right after dad married the abusive mail order bride from the Ukraine. I received a call from the neighbors, Richard, the neighbor and lawyer, not my brother. We have a lot of duplicate names in my world. Anyway I was at work. It was Thursday afternoon and Lawyer Richard calls and says I have to come immediately, that we have to get my dad out of this marriage. She was abusing him, isolating him. The marriage was still new. It would be relatively easily to end it now.

I had almost no contact with my brother Richard but the other Richard was worried about my being alone and assumed, as one might, that dad would respond better to a united front. I called my brother, my first mistake. Perhaps, the second was listening to Lawyer Richard and not calling dad. I should have hung up at my brother’s message “If you don’t call French fries freedom fries don’t bother leaving a message. It was back in the early Iraq war days. I was actually torn – what should I do – I figured we wouldn’t talk about it. I wasn’t expecting him to call me back, was surprised when he did, wish he hadn’t. My brother didn’t really follow what was happening. He didn’t get the plan. Get dad to meet with a divorce attorney. Talk with  him gently, full stop. Oh, what a mistake I made.

My brother, full of fear, showed up with his security guard brother-in-law in uniform. He wanted to, planned to, scare Yuliya. I went to lawyer Richard’s house first, got a “briefing” on the situation and found out dad wasn’t home’ So I couldn’t get him to the appointment, which was close. I met my brother, and his “back up” there without dad. It was tough. With my business background I was going for details, we didn’t have much time; especially with a lawyer. Sparing you all of the legal details, we needed to find dad fast. It was Friday afternoon. My brother was not helping and dad would flip with a “uniformed” guard there. So we split up to look for dad. Santa Fe isn’t large if you know his usual haunts. It was really a ploy on my part. I told Richard to search a few places and then go home if neither of us found him. He lived in Albuquerque. I really did want to find dad away from home but I finally went to the house. I was trusting myself now. I wasn’t afraid of Yuliya, but I was afraid of what she would do to dad so no uniforms.

My dad was home and so was Yuliya. I was pleasant. I said I had made a spur of the moment trip from Boulder. How were things, etc. Yuliya wasn’t happy I was there that was clear. It blew up though when I asked if I could steal my dad away for dinner because I hadn’t seen him for so long and I couldn’t stay for long. She slammed away, retreating to the back bedroom. Dad was more distraught them I’d ever seen my rageaholic father. He motioned for me to stay and followed her. There was yelling, more slamming. Finally, dad came back. I started to apologize. He shushed me, with looks toward the bedroom. Then he literally wrote me a note. I wish I had kept it. He asked me to meet him at Santa Fe Community College before the class he taught. She was in the back of the house and he wrote a note. That’s how scared he was.

To not make this post to long I’ll talk about the meeting and the aftermath in my next post.