The Shooting at Our Merciful Lord

"Have a good day, Karen Ann," I replied. She shook her head and left. The very last day must be hard, I thought.

It was about 10:15 a.m. that the doorbell chimed. I was dressed and presentable when I opened it. There stood a very young, smiley, high-school-senior-type girl with a ponytail, in shorts and a sleeveless shirt. She wore sunglasses and smiled brightly. "John Buck?"

"Yes?"

"Oh, you hurt your hand?" she said. "Here—you are served," she said, putting a manila envelope in my left hand. I almost swooned. I saw the word divorce among others on the envelope. Me? I asked the little girl if she had the right address, the right name, the right me.

"Yes sir, you are John Buck at this address, sued by Karen Ann Prynne Buck. I see this a lot," she said in a perky, what-can-you-do voice. "Well, sorry, gotta go," and she hopped off the steps and out to her dinky car. She pulled away. I guess you're older than you look, I thought.

I had a large envelope of papers in my hand, but I couldn't think of what to do. I stood there for some time.

I went inside finally, where it was cool. I sat at the kitchen table and thought, but my mind was completely blank. I searched for my cell phone and finally found it, but Karen Ann didn't pick up. I left a message: "Karen, what's this all about? Divorce? Please, explain what's happening."

Next, I called her school. The school secretary said, "She took today off, Mr. Buck. She said she had a lot of things to clear up and needed to go out of town. She promised to finish up here next week or so."

I called her parents, Rose and Bob Prynne, never great fans of mine but not bad people.

"Hello, Rose? This is John. Do you know what's going on with Karen Ann? I was just served with divorce papers. I can't reach her, and the school says she's out of town. Do you know?"

"Oh, John," said Rose, with sympathy in her tone, but then I heard her give the phone to Bob.

"Yeah John, she told us about it yesterday when she picked up the kids," he said. "You should look carefully at the papers, John, especially about the kids, okay? She had to make a move to be sure they get what's coming to them."

"What do you mean, the kids? What..."

"They're not yours, John. She had a long affair with a doctor named Dunston. They're his kids, and she's going to make sure they get their inheritance. He said he'd take care of them. She was planning on marrying him in six months anyway, so this was ready to go."

I felt a weight of emotion in my chest. I was quiet awhile, unable to talk and thinking of what I wanted to know.

"Did you know of the affair, sir? Before last night?" I asked.

He said nothing, but I heard him breathing so I knew the answer.

I hung up.

I had never felt this way. Heartbreak was devastating. It crushed. I thought, is this survivable? It was so overwhelming. How many suffering this sudden desolation would stop their heart by force of will alone if they could? I didn't understand why my heart kept beating. Who wanted to live at this price? I felt the thump of my heart. I stood outside myself and was enlightened: I understood so much better some of the passionate and heart-rending passages in literature and Bible. Doctor Zhivago, Anna Karenina... I understood a woman swooning at such a moment, or a man descending into his cups, perhaps never again to emerge. I understood the old laws allowing an outraged husband to murder adulteress and paramour. I understood countless songs of betrayal and loss and disappointment.

Karen Ann. I shook my head. I cried out. Me.

Chapter 5: Original Sins

I remembered a professor of philosophy who once told our freshman class, "You want to get what you deserve in life? What you DESERVE? What the hell do you deserve in life? What is promised you out of the womb? Hobbes says one thing, Locke another, Kant, Nietzsche. What you DESERVE? Hasn't the idea of Original Sin made any impression on you Christians? Most of us are hoping we DON'T get what we deserve!"

He was a Catholic philosopher. Wore no socks.

Karen Ann called about 11:30 that long Tuesday, in the evening.

"John, how's the hand?" she asked. Now she noticed. She was probably very concerned.

"Fine. The kids are NOT MINE?"

"No. Shawn knocked me up the first time he fucked me. It was... wonderful. I have those two little angels to remind me of him."

Was I already dead? I descended emotionally into petulance, whining, and outrage. I saw it in myself, knew it was pitiable—but I was unable to stop the sinking.

"Are you trying to hurt me?" I asked.

"No, of course not," she replied breezily, affectedly, "It's just that you, someone like you, will never understand what we had. Shawn and I. It was transcendent. Beyond normal love. He was a man such as women dream to love them. I count my time with him as the best of my life, the best it could be."

I felt something in her words contradictory to the reality of a years-long affair, but I couldn't identify it yet. It was fantastic, unrealistic, and rationalizing. She had lived with this explanation for some time, I thought, and believed it now. I'd always considered her mature and down-to-earth. I hadn't perceived this part of her personality.

"I thought you loved me. Were those words meaningless?" I was building my pain, hurting myself, wanting more of it. I needed the pain to hurt as much as possible. I wanted to never have been born.

"Oh, no, not meaningless. Perhaps I misinterpreted my feelings as love." She sounded tired... or bored. "It's hard to explain. What Shawn and I had was special. We were about to tell you, by the way, but... the shooting ended that. He was not like you, he was first rank. He won at life. He was respected, admired, so famous. Talented. Shawn said after I became pregnant with Dylan—Dylan was Shawn's middle name, by the way—that he would provide for his son in his will. Later he said the same for Hanley. It will be read after the funeral Thursday. Hanley was his mother's maiden name. I notified the lawyer I'd be there tomorrow to meet the family—there's some sort of pre-funeral gathering for those in the will. I know nothing about them, either. Shawn never once mentioned them. Anyway, they'll probably be thrilled to find he has two kids." Her disjointed, breathless explanation seemed too breezy, too much an attempt to sophisticate a tawdry choice.

I assumed he was probably too busy screwing her to talk about mundane things like responsibility and family. A man like that did first things first. I felt myself descending further emotionally.

"How do you know they're his?" I asked, afraid I knew.

"I used a diaphragm with you. You never noticed it, did you? Then I did DNA tests. Right after each was born. You never suspected, did you?" She laughed a little but then must have realized how it would seem to me. "Mrs. Grigsby across the street said she wondered if I had a different husband in the summer, Shawn was over so much during the days. I had to beg her not to tell you."

Oh my God. So the neighbors knew? Her parents knew. Terry Marks's voice was more understandable now. Was I last to know? Did they all cover for her? The kids were not mine and about to inherit probably a bundle, Karen Ann had become hateful, and they did it here?

"In our bed?" I asked.

I heard her sigh. "Yes. Many times. He wanted the firmer mattress, by the way. I'd have to change the sheets right as you got home. Shawn made me overflow," she said, obviously to diminish me, as if copious semen were a sign of character. "I've come to terms with his death. At first I couldn't..."

I hung up, thinking some grief is beyond words. I wondered but knew in my heart that the second miscarriage was Shawn's child. The mattress, the children, the wanton acts, the disrespect, the glossing, the contraception without my knowledge, the insults, the whole affair... That was the first night I drank too much over Karen Ann, Dylan and Hanley. I didn't take any of my pain pills, but I considered taking them all. I stared at that little bottle for a minute, maybe two.

I awoke the next day around noon. It was a hangover like other hangovers, only more so, I thought, remembering that wonderful, sleepless but now meaningless night that we cuddled watching "Casablanca." Only a month ago?

I cleaned up, dressed and found a divorce lawyer recommended by someone's friend. I took all the papers over to him about three that Wednesday afternoon. He was a heavy guy, about 50, with a moustache and longer hair than a man that age should have. In any event, he seemed sharp and successful.

"How'd you hurt your hand?" he asked after I came in the office. I sat and he took the papers behind the desk. He started scanning

"Got shot at the hospital," I said. He stopped looking at the papers and looked at me.

"And she served you yesterday?" he said, at that point shaking his head and whistling. He looked back at the papers. "Oh, I see. The father, Dunston, killed at the hospital?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You never knew?"

"No."

He read everything with me there, an hour's worth. Then he sat back and blew out a long breath.

"Mr. Buck, this is one of the most heartless, evil things I've ever seen a woman do. Craven. The callousness... You go through something like that and it turns out to be the catalyst for your own divorce," he said and shook his head.

"Her parents said she intended to divorce me and marry him," I said.

"Likely story," he harrumphed, skeptical. "Guys string these gals along with promises and usually there's nothing there but a roll in the hay. You say she's at a meeting about his will, and the reading is later?"

"That's what I was told."

"I'd like to be a fly on the wall at that meeting," he said. Then he lowered the boom.

He said I had little recourse legally or practically. I had been a caretaking father, but he said she threatened to claim abuse and other things if I didn't agree to the terms offered. "It's in lawyer language so there is no implied coercion. But it is there and every lawyer in the country would recognize it." No shared custody, no visitation, clear out of the house by Friday night, no contact with the kids, but also, no alimony or child support.

"Obviously she expects a bundle in the will and does not want you to have a claim to her money or the kids'. The kids are so young she's claiming you and they are not bonded yet, and since no biological connection exists she wants complete authority, period. The court is likely to agree, as that would prevent years of haggling over visitation and custody, alimony, child support, cut the bond before it's strong, especially since your job does not provide enough means for their support."

He looked at me, steepled his fingers. "I'll do anything you want, Mr. Buck, but you cannot afford and would probably lose any demand for shared custody or frequent visitation. You might get some once a week visits, maybe with a chaperone, especially if she claims abuse. It could be dirty, and some people never recover from even unfounded charges." He stopped talking and a few seconds of silence followed with him looking at me.

"So?" I asked.

"What do you want, Mr. Buck?"

"My kids. My wife," I pleaded. My life back. I couldn't go on for a second, realizing I was begging. "But I have no means to raise them on my own. My life is falling apart, I'm recently crippled. I need to think." I sat for a minute, eyes closed, still hungover and feeling my heartbeat behind my eyes.

I said, "I need a few days. I'll contact you by Friday, okay?"

"I'll check with you Friday morning if you don't come in by 11," he said. I wondered at that. Concern? He saw the sunken eyes, the half-shaved face, the rumpled clothes.

I stood. I held out my left hand and we shook.

He asked, "How'd you get hit?"

"Shot my own damn hand." We laughed.

"Not the first to do that."

That meeting in Connecticut was probably over by the time I left my lawyer and walked out into the sunshine of a late afternoon. As it turned out, there was a fly on the wall in that room in Connecticut. He wore a clerical collar.

Early that evening, the phone rang. It was the fly.

"John? This is Mike." Father Michales, pronounced mike-uh-lus, would call himself "Mike" in private conversation, but it was the first time he'd done it with me that I could remember.

"Yes, sir, I didn't expect a call."

"I'm in Connecticut, and I wanted to check up on you to see if you were alright. I'm caught up in the estate distribution for Dr. Dunston; we have some insurance and investment involvement with him. The man left a lot, I mean a LOT—of loose ends. I saw your wife here, but we were in different parts of the room. She saw me but didn't come over."

"Yes, sir, she sued me for divorce. She contended our children were Dunston's and she believes she has some claim on his property," I explained.

There was a long pause not as if the man was shocked but as if the statement deserved consideration.

"Yes, I figured a lot of that out. Your wife was under the impression that Dr. Dunston was not married," he said. "Or at least I believe so. However, all his insurance papers listed a spouse still married to him. Mrs. Dunston is here with their two kids living in the Dunston family house; the family's been here since the early 1800s. Karen Ann introduced herself as Dr. Dunston's fiancée, which brought a hush to the room of perhaps 40 people. His wife walked up to her and smacked her across the face. That's how she found out about the wife. Karen Ann's staying in the same motel I am."

Karen Ann must have felt humiliated. I felt like laughing, but suddenly her humiliation swept over me. Her humiliation was also mine.

He went on. "Anyway, all were given copies of his will. Nothing was stipulated as confidential. The official reading is after the funeral. I will be there, but the lawyers for family and various investments and businesses are much in agreement. The insurance money goes to his wife, per the contract. His private investments will be split among his children, now totaling four, with your two. Investments were a little over a million bucks, so not inconsequential. The surviving parent is trustee of the children's money; the lawyers agree it does not mean the wife has control of Dylan's and Hanley's shares, but that Karen Ann would fulfill that role for them. There is no provision in the will for Karen Ann, by either name or implication. The wife inherits the house and a special fund to pay its taxes for probably ten years, our lawyer says. Also, two companies will be sold and the proceeds go to the family, with his wife getting his share. Oh, she gets the joint checking account."

He allowed me a moment to feel smug. I squelched the urge to exult. None of this was good. There was nothing good in finding out you've been manipulated deviously and considered contemptible. There was no joy in discovering your wife and your marriage were ruined by lies.

"I'm sorry Karen Ann didn't realize... Perhaps," I said, "it would have had a different outcome if she'd known more about him."

I almost felt that Father Michales was nodding. He sounded sorry for her. "My experience with adulterers is that the longer they deceive, the more disdainful they become of the ignorant husband or wife. They see trust as stupidity. They give credence to their new lovers."

"I agree, Father." I think analyzing it was a way to distance myself from the devastation of the situation.

"In the end, they're... pitiful," he said. "Always." He paused a moment. "She expected a bigger payout from Dunston; that was obvious to everyone at the meeting. What if she withdraws the suit, or asks for alimony or whatever? What will you do?" He wanted to know if the marriage could be salvaged.

To live with Karen Ann again, to wonder for life if it was marriage or if the cuckolding continued? To fulfill not the role of consummate lover but at best, acceptable substitute? I said, "I think it's too late for us. She was hateful, almost gloating telling me about her affair with him, as if her affair made her more important. She was ashamed of me. I don't know, Father. I'll talk to my lawyer first. It's hard when your wife... turns away. I always expected to turn to her in times of trouble."

Calmly, he said, "I'll see you in a few days or next week. We have some important things to discuss about changing your job. I think you'll like them. I hope so, anyway. I'll see you when you're able to come by."

"Thanks, Father."

He was leaving me with something positive to anticipate; perhaps he had a psychology degree among all his others. I felt like a great evil had settled into me. I understood the idea of possession by the devil: It suddenly didn't seem so ridiculous.

How was it possible to feel such pain, and such pain without physical injury? My hand was as nothing. I lay dying emotionally, and it was my body doing it to itself, creating pain out of the strength of love that was betrayed, unrequited, blind, spousal, and paternal. It was in my chest, solid and tangible, and if Shawn Dunston were alive, he could have opened me up and found it there, a mass of solid pain the size of a softball.

I beseeched a God I hardly admitted, but it was really a wallow: Could I die now? Please? What more could You want? She loved me never, gave herself to another from the second month we were living together, disdained me, took my family, and threatened to allege evil and unfounded abuse. My children were not mine; a wave like nausea passed through me. How would I tell Mom? Dad? Such anguish cannot be borne—I wanted to smash my one good fist into a bookcase.

I poured the first of two doubles then. I brooded of Shawn Dunston. Had he ever seen his children? Held them? Kissed them? Had he tickled Dylan or smiled into Hanley's eyes? Did Dylan run to him for a hug? Had he felt jealous of my time with them? Of my time with Karen Ann? I fell asleep from too much liquor and too much anguish, with one thought bouncing about my mind: all affairs were fantasies.

*

The day of Shawn Dunston's funeral, I woke on the couch about 4:30 a.m., unable to sleep and thinking I would have to leave my house after one more night. I packed my things, preparing them for removal. It didn't take long. It was surprising how little I owned. Lots of books were disposable, a few not. Clothes I threw in boxes or bins, but really, our lack of great means resulted in a frugality that was quite efficient. I filled some boxes and stacked clothes on hangers on the back seat of my car. I had a football, a ball glove, and a basketball in a box I forced into the trunk. Some tools I stacked on the passenger seat and floor. All of my possessions were in one used Ford.

I could no longer avoid a certain moment. I drove over to my parents' house about 10.

"Mom, Dad, we need to sit. Please," I said, holding it together. I told them everything: that the children were not mine, that I did not see a way out, that Karen Ann was angry and hateful to me, and that she was now disappointed in Dunston. My dad nodded with his head down and jowls hanging.

My mom looked as if the whole world were crumbling. We were in adjacent seats and she clasped her hands behind my neck, and tears ran down her face. She was silent. Dad suggested coffee, understanding the bleary eyes and disheveled appearance I presented as soon as I started talking. I told them that Karen Ann had an order forcing me from the house, that the lawyer said she was prepared to allege emotional and maybe other abuse if I did not comply with her request and sign the papers. Mom cried out at that, realizing the grandchildren were never more her grandchildren. She understood completely; Mom was the smartest of us. There was little chance she could maintain a relationship with them if Karen Ann and I were at odds. I thought we would always be at odds now.