The Fourteen Years War - 1999 - Volume II

A month after I moved in, you’ll never guess who moved in with me. No, not AZ or Jeff, but Lo and Danlel, Jeff’s wife and daughter. The rent on their apartment had raised and Lo was unwilling to move back in with her parents. So, they stayed with me for a month. In that month, I went for my first psychic reading and Jeff tried some shitty custody thing with Danlel, saying Lo wasn’t providing a home for her. Bullshit. Kind of hard to say she isn’t providing a home when I had a roof and four walls. It may have been my roof and walls but what was the difference in that and living with Lo’s parents, the same exact place they went every time they had separated. Pffft! We got Danlel back. This would be a good time to mention that Jeff didn’t officially become Nate’s father until July 7th, 1998. The day before Nate’s second birthday. Jeff had refused to sign the custody papers in the hospital because he didn’t want his name published along with mine and Nate’s in the newspaper. And, for the record, Nate has MY last name, even though we could have changed it. Jeff didn’t push it and I left it. As for my reading, besides picking up on Jeff, the psychic asked to see something that belonged to me, so I gave her the key to my house. What she said blew me away. She said (paraphrasing) - The dark eyed, dark haired man has this same key and he’s used it to enter your home. Whoa. Years later... AZ and I were talking and he told me, “You know, I think I have a key to your house on this old key ring of mine. I’m positive this your key.” By then, I had already changed the locks but it didn’t matter. So long after the fact, the little voice in my head and the psychic were confirmed to be correct. Jeff and I had met an uneasy truce and he started seeing Nate regularly, and helped with child care and pre-school, although he whined about me buying the house, saying he had always hoped that he and I would buy a house together. Whatever. At the very end of 1999, AZ came to my house and basically, we had a moment. I won’t relate what happened, only that it lead to more questions about his relationship with Jean and his own happiness. It would take another 10 months to find out the answers I wanted.