Fate and Destiny Pt. 02

The bluntness of her question hit me between the eyes. It was the last question I would have expected from her. My silence to her was my answer to the challenge. There was no doubt to her what my inability to answer meant. I couldn't lie to her at this point.

"Dr. Craig, I can't work for you any more." A further slap from her was the use of my surname and the term doctor; she'd always called me 'Jon' – something I'd encouraged keeping the office atmosphere light and informal.

June walked forward and handed me the new copy of the Chashin River Weekly. She whispered, "Goodbye Jon." I knew in that instant I'd never see her again.

The paper was folded to reveal a full-page, large-type, editorial by Gary Wayne. I read the whole text as I listened June gather her things and leave. She was crying.

Editorial: A Violation of Trust and Duty

A personal transgression that would horrify any of you recently beset my family, caused by and aggravated by an individual in whom I placed my trust, faith, and reliance – Rev. Dr. Jon Craig, marriage counselor and senior minister of Dillon's largest church.

A year ago my wife and I sought Dr. Craig's counseling help with our marriage and soon joined his church as well. Like many couples, our relationship suffered from my workaholic nature, uneven expectations, and inadequate two-way communication. We were not facing divorce, but my wife and I both wanted our relationship to be stronger and more loving. When we started we both realized we would have to change some bad habits we'd each developed.

Soon after we started our counseling, my wife and Dr. Craig commenced a love affair that has now gone on for over a year. By this editorial I announce to them that their trysts are no longer a secret. My wife, Laura, is being served divorce papers today, and Dr. Craig will be cited soon in a lawsuit for alienation of affection – my pity for Dr. Craig's wife and family, particularly if he leaves their sanity for the insanity of my soon to be ex-wife.

My discovery of the affair a few months ago prompted me to renew my efforts to rescue my marriage. I won't go into the details, however, I believe I went way beyond what a reasonable man would do to rekindle my wife's love and regain her full affection. After I realized that salvage was impossible, I turned to an outside agency to collect the information I would need in the forthcoming legal proceedings.

I struggled with forgiveness for Laura, but realize that it is her nature to lie, cheat and violate the vows of our marriage. Her behavior goes beyond the carnal affair, and is rooted deep in her personality. I have come to realize that it was her repugnant behavior that started the liaison, and her vile and base behavior that sustained the illicit affair. While she might feign innocence, she used her sex, her sexuality and her vile creativity to sustain the illicit relationship. She is evil and has a dark side that I will never be able to live with.

The scandal here goes beyond the clandestine love affair between the couple, to the outrageous conduct of Dr. Craig. Learning of the affair I reviewed every detail of our counseling sessions with him including the suggestions and recommendations he gave to us. I am aided by a detailed personal journal I kept about our counseling. In my review, I find his advice wanting. He acted with malice and bias. His advice was contrary to our well being as a couple paying him from our own pockets for sage advice about how to sustain our relationship, and certainly against my best interests as a husband seeking a stronger relationship with his wife. I recently verified his bad counsel to me with two other well-known marriage counselors.

Dr. Craig acted unethically. He stood in a position of trust from which he should have acted impartially and in good faith. The least he could have done was recuse himself from working with us, passing us to his colleague and partner – a reputable therapist now tarnished by association with Craig. Dr. Craig had a fiduciary relation to my wife and I – one of confidence, faith, reliance, and trust. He was to have given his best effort to help us achieve our explicit goals, and not his own lustful and ultimately destructive ends. Rather he pursued a course of action, together with my wife, that brought out the worst in both of them.

Dr. Craig should withdraw for the remainder of his life from counseling work. The professional and licensing organizations should revoke his credentials. An affair with a married patient is verboten in the counseling field, and the grounds for license revocation.

Dr. Craig also should resign as a minister, having disgraced pulpit and congregation by his actions. If you believe, as I do, that a minister must be the moral compass of the community, then this community has been led seriously in the wrong direction by this ego-driven personality. The Dillon Free Church can do better than to have such a glaring example of bad behavior as their senior minister.

The corporate boards Dr. Craig serves on (e.g., Triax, Menthen Oil, Biodon, and others) would do well to evaluate his performance and ethics in the face of his behavior; any board retaining his services signals its approval and acceptance such actions as lying, cheating, stealing another man's wife and family hopes, and infidelity. What values do you want from your corporation and your employees? If he remains, all your business dealings become suspect in the global marketplace.

Lastly, if any of you have a personal relationship with Dr. Craig, you might want to rethink your friendships. After all, a person is known by the company they keep.

Respectfully,

Gary Wayne, Editor, Owner, Husband

As I finished I felt like a truck had hit me. My stomach suddenly felt hallowed out and empty. I'd gotten the kick in gut that I'd somehow expected all these months. It was worse than expected.

I reached for the phone, thinking I'd call someone – Gary? Laura? Margaret? My children? Dean? It rang before I got to it.

"Hello"

"Jon, this is Brent Winters from the Church. The Board of Trustees is having an emergency meeting this evening at seven o'clock. You have to be there. No excuses." His voice was clipped and brusque; there was no doubt this was a command performance.

I mumbled something about canceling my travel plans for the evening and being there. I knew immediately what the fallout would be: in four hours I would cease to be a senior minister or have any affiliation with the Dillon Free Church. I guessed that my actions would also be reported to the Synod that oversaw the doings of the sect. I would shortly be defrocked. I'd seen it happen to other ministers, yet I'd always thought I was above all that – it'd never happen to me.

I posted a handwritten sign on the office door that said the office was closed due to an emergency, turned out the lights, and sat for a while staring into space. I tried to call Laura, however, she didn't answer her phone. I decided that the time for apologies to her husband had long since past. As I sat thinking, the phone range incessantly, so much so that I finally turned the ringer off. My cell phone rang once; I could see the call was from Margaret, but I wasn't ready to talk to her yet.

I decided to go home in the late afternoon. In all my thinking I only arrived at one conclusion: I needed a stiff drink.

Margaret was sitting in the living room when I came in. She was in a straight chair, her back ramrod straight. She looked at me, but didn't say anything. She didn't have to. On the coffee table beside her was the local paper open to Gary's diatribe against Laura and me.

"Margaret, I'm sorry – so sorry that it went this way. I still love you, but I ... well, I guess you think I don't – that I didn't." She nodded. Her face was ashen.

"Do you want me to leave?" I asked, hopeful that I might get a reprieve in this theater of my life.

"Yes," She said instantly and firmly, looking at me with an almost angelic appearance and the trace of smile on her lips. After a long hesitation she added in a polite tone, "Don't come back." In that instant I realized that she'd had far more power and influence in my life than I had ever given her credit for.

I nodded and went to pack. I stopped in the kitchen and poured myself a tall straight shot of Kentucky bourbon.

A half-hour later I lugged two large suitcases downstairs and put them in the trunk of my car. I tossed a few other things from my closet into the backseat.

I went to find Margaret again, to let her know I was leaving. She was sitting in the dim light in the same chair. She hadn't moved.

"I'm going now. I can't take everything. I'll have to come back some time. I'll call." I paused and added, "Tonight I'll probably lose the minister's job. We'll have to move, but they'll give us some time to get out."

She nodded slowly, accepting the edict. She locked eyes with me and whispered, "You bastard!" She paused and reiterated, "You stupid, stupid bastard!"

I accepted her edict, nodded "Goodbye," and walked out the front door of the parsonage.

The meeting with the Dillon Church trustees went about as I had expected. They asked if the allegations in the paper were true. I told them that for the most part they were. I didn't try to make up excuses or rationalizations. I didn't prevaricate.

It was a short meeting. They asked for my resignation. I'd already prepared a handwritten letter to them resigning immediately for personal reasons. They were subdued, didn't rub in the anger they probably felt, and gave us sixty days to vacate the parsonage. I asked if one of the women would call Margaret and inform her of the sixty-day window; I explained that she knew we'd have to leave quickly.

I tried to call Laura again that evening, several times. Again there was no answer.

I went to a Motel 6 that Laura and I had frequented, checking in with no clear departure date. I left a message for Laura telling her where I was, hoping that she might join me. I called and left a message for Pearl, my assistant, to let her know where I was and that I was only available on my cell phone. By that hour she'd be home with her family, and I didn't want to disturb her.

That night I didn't sleep. I lay awake stewing about the mess my life had suddenly become. I couldn't be angry with Gary, after all it was his life we'd messed with – his family that had been torn apart – and now my family. I wondered what I would have done in the same circumstances.

Ashes

"I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays,
nor just for tomorrow, but in the here and now. Keep moving and
forget post mortems; and remember, no one can get a jump on the future."
Carl Sandburg

Gary Wayne's editorial was picked up by the Boston Globe in a story they wrote about the meteoric rise and fall of the famous Dillon Church minister. The article, including an inset repeating the entire editorial, headlined the first page of Section B of popular area newspaper. My cropped image from the photo that had appeared with Dean only days earlier also appeared on the page; fortunately, they'd excised Dean from the photo. Things like this sold newspapers, and gave the public a lurid love affair to discuss over their breakfasts. Later I'd find that some of the out-of-town papers also carried their 'scoop.'

I found out about the Globe article from Pearl who called my cell phone first thing in the morning. She resigned, and not without giving me a piece of her mind for what I'd done to my family. Before she hung up she told me I had calls from Dean, Marsha, and Joy. I wondered why none of them had called my cell phone.

I tried to call Laura, but again there was no answer on her cell phone. I was now worried about her. We'd hadn't gone this long without talking for months, usually talking two or three times a day. I needed her.

My next call was to Lee Reynolds, my lawyer. Lee had read the article. He recommended I start making telephone calls to everyone with whom I had a business connection, explaining how the article was way over the top by a vindictive husband. He wanted to know if I wanted to pursue any legal action against Wayne or his newspaper. I told him I'd think about it, but for now the answer was 'no'.

I called Dean next. He acknowledged the article, flatly telling me what a stupid ass I was. He also told me I'd pushed our friendship to the limit, but that he'd probably cool down but that our relationship would never be the same. He also politely demanded my resignation from the Triax board. He suggested I resign from all the other boards I was on too, since I was now a colossal source of embarrassment to each. I accepted his advice, spending the rest of the morning on the phone doing mea culpas and promising to follow up my verbal resignations with letters.

My call to Marsha also yielded predictable results. I was no longer a TV personality. She commiserated with me about the situation and how public it had become. I wasn't reassured when she told me to check back with her in six months. "People have a short memory. They'll remember your name but forget why they know it, and even if they do remember, you'll have media draw." She recalled the episode with Ted Turner to me, and how Jane Fonda has roasted him to a crisp in the press over his marital transgressions. She, at least, seemed sincere when she asked me to stay in touch.

My daughter Joy was pissed. She tore into me more than any of the others had, even screaming my demise into the phone. I took it. I'd earned it. I wasn't sure we'd ever talk again when I hung up. Neither Heather nor Patrick answered my calls; I left messages.

Lee caught me between calls at that point to suggest some action with my banks and credit cards. "If Margaret takes legal action, you may suddenly find your joint accounts frozen or empty. You'd better do something fast." Pearl and I had handled all the family finances, so I doubted Margaret would know what to do, however, I took Lee's advice.

An hour later, I'd taken half the cash from our various accounts, leaving the rest for Margaret to use as she saw fit. Our equities and other holdings were wrapped up in estate trusts that would require our lawyers to untangle and divide up if things got that far.

I thought about eating lunch while I was out, however, I still felt like I was ill. The extent of my physical reaction to Gary's article and the fallout amazed me. I went back to the motel and started to make a 'to do' list. I wasn't operating on all cylinders; I needed more personal organization that I was used to. I was also partially hung-over from drinking the night before.

To my surprise, Pearl called me in mid-afternoon. Her initial 'hello' was very subdued, almost somber. She slowly said, "Jon, I had to call ... there's news you should know ... no one else would probably tell you and it's not public yet ... it's about Laura Wayne." In that instant tears welled up in my eyes, and I knew she was gone.

Pearl continued in a sympathetic tone, "I'm so sorry to have to tell you ... Laura was in a fatal car accident in the early morning hours – really late last night. From what I was told she hit an abutment on the Interstate up in New Hampshire. She was going very fast – the police said over a hundred miles an hour. There was nothing left of the car. She died instantly." She paused and her voice cracked, "Jon, The police think it was a suicide." I sobbed.

There was a long silence then Pearl added, "I'm so sorry all this has come into your life. I don't condone what you did, but you're really getting a heavy dose of payback. Don't you do anything like that." She sounded sincere, and I guess there was still some currency there. My voice was raw as I choked back tears when I thanked her for letting me know.

I was numb. I looked at my cell phone. Yesterday morning I'd called Laura while I was driving to work. She was so happy to hear from me. We didn't talk long, just a few words about our plans for the day, and then our 'I love you's to each other. I had the urge to call her, just to be sure. What if she answered – was alive – could be with me again – could leave and go away with me somewhere far away to some place where we could start again, just the two of us. I sat a long time with my denial.

I'd preached about facing reality and moving out of denial as fast as possible. I walked outside my motel room into the afternoon air. Traffic roared past on Route 1, oblivious to the passing of the person I'd come to love the most.

A wave of self-pity swept over me too. In the span of twenty-four hours I'd lost it all. I shook my head in disbelief. I'd lost my dear friend and lover. I would have never guessed that Laura was suicidal. I'd never seen the signals. We'd never talked about something like that. Were the symptoms there in her wild emotions around our passion?

Dean thought I was an ass – and he was right. Margaret and the kids might never talk to me again. Every part of my career had shattered like a crystal goblet dropped on a stone floor: the ministry, the boards, the counseling, and the television show. I was a pariah.

I went back into my motel room and threw myself on the bed. I sobbed for hours. I rethought my whole relationship with Laura, revisiting all the times we'd been together. I imagined there was some huge scale in the sky that was balancing all the good times we had with Laura's death and the terrible things that had just happened in my life. Karma – that's what I'd created, and now it was all coming back to my doorstep.

Night had fallen when I finally arose from wallowing in my grief. I walked the rundown neighborhood behind the motel just to get out of the motel room. I needed fresh air and a lot of time to think, but I couldn't go a hundred feet without sobbing and tears blocking my vision. I bought a bottle and drank. It was a rough night.

"Healing is about letting go of everything that isn't you –

all the expectations, all of the beliefs –

and becoming who you are."

Rachel Naomi Remen

The sloop had keeled over to almost thirty degrees in the strong wind. We raced with the wind at our backs, now drawing us towards the southwest. In the hazy distance was the Maine coast, almost a memory through the wind swept foam of the white caps around us.

Margaret gave up reading when the boat came about and keeled over to the steep angle. She'd tucked the book below where it would stay dry. Now and then on this tack an occasional wave swept over the bow and sent spray to her reading alcove. She smiled across at me. The wind whipped through the rigging; the halyards occasionally moaned. Patrick, my son, was at the wheel, now playing captain – a determined look on his face, his yellow slicker wet with the sea. His sisters had passed up the windy afternoon cruise.

I sat to Patrick's side opposite Margaret with rivulets of the Atlantic running down my back from the last wave. We laughed. I checked the new GPS receiver to see where we were relative to the safety of the port. As I did, I noticed the date – my own personal day of infamy. Three years earlier was the day of Gary Wayne's editorial – and the night of Laura's death. I'd grieved for months, as much for Laura as for the person I'd once been – the person I'd really wanted to become.

After a month of depression in that motel in Revere, I was a wreck and was well on my way to a new career as a hopeless alcoholic. That was when Dean had found me: drunk, unshaven for days, incoherent, and melancholy beyond description. He talked to me about reform. I came out of my fog a little with his help, enough to begin healing. He told me he didn't know what reform would mean for me, but he knew that was what I needed. Dean thought I was redeemable. At the time I was almost ready to follow Laura into that unknown darkness.