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It didn’t matter what they thought, though, once I won. It doesn’t matter how much they prefer that bitch Gigi; I was still the one who got to go places with her husband that I took. It didn’t even matter that he himself hated me; he couldn’t do shit about it because he knew what would happen if I didn’t get my way.
All I wanted was a better life for my child. His kids still had their mother and his family and hers; why is it so wrong that I wanted something for myself? The only thing I regret is not having a child with him; that would’ve solidified my place.
But he couldn’t even get it up after we got married. In fact, long before that, he’d started acting like I had the plague. He didn’t even want to get married, and if I hadn’t held threats over his head, he probably wouldn’t have.
I’ve had to live with these things for the past fifteen years. Only I knew what I’d had to endure. He may not have raised his hands to me and Mitzie, but if I didn’t fight him tooth and nail, he would’ve left us behind long ago; try living with that shit.
That’s why I’d made Alyssa’s life a living hell once the last of Corbin’s sons went off to college. I knew he loved the little bitch more than my kid, no matter how I pushed her in front of him.
The two girls are the same age, and I pushed for my Mitzie to go to the same private school as his little princess, but that little bitch had to outshine her there too. It wasn’t enough that my child knew her new father loved his biological daughter more than her or that he got to spend time with Alyssa alone, something I put a stop to as soon as his sons were out of my way.
But even then it was plain to see that he hated it, hated spending time with my kid. Hated having to include her in things that he did with Alyssa. No one understands why I stood in the way and made him cancel everything that my daughter wasn’t included in.
At least there I had won. Every father and daughter celebration, he was made to take Mitzie and leave Alyssa to one of her brothers or uncles, even her grandpas had stepped in a time or two. What woman in my place wouldn’t have done the same?
I’d gone through hell to prove to the courts that Charles was unfit, but even after that, after I had his custody denied, he refused to sign over his rights so that Corbin could adopt my girl and make her a real part of the Archer family.
That’s the only place I had failed, that and giving her a little brother or sister that would’ve sealed our place in this family that had been part of this town for generations.
But everything else I had done and done to the best of my ability. I’d won on the outside at least, even though behind closed doors, things looked different; none of these snobby bitches knew that, so I could still hold my head up in the community I had made my home.
Even if my husband was pining for his ex-wife and her kids, there wasn’t shit he could do about it because he knew what would happen if he even looked at her. The only thing I could never get away with was keeping him from his family. The threat of him being cut off and losing all of that money once his parents were gone made me give in time and again.
If we got cut off, things would be different, and I’m no fool. I hated that Gigi was still allowed even though they were divorced, and had it not been for her kids, she would’ve been long out of the picture. I sometimes regret not having them killed when I had the chance, but it would’ve been too messy, and I wouldn’t have been able to get them all at the same time because the oldest had already gone away to college by then.
I have a lot of regrets about things I let slide back in the day, but there was no point in looking back. No matter how trying these last few days had been, I knew that this, too, I would get through. Hadn’t I always proved that I could get through anything?
But now this man is telling me I have to get out of my home or I will be removed. To top it off, I still haven’t been able to reach my husband, and he’s not due back until later this evening. I have to wait until another half hour before the bank opens to find out why there is no money in my account and why I can’t transfer funds from my husband’s account like I used to.
“Okay, fine, let me grab some stuff.”
“I’m afraid you can’t take anything from the establishment, ma’am, without an authorized exterminator from the city clearing it first.”
“How long is that going to take?”
“It’s hard to say, and you’ll have to pay for his services.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to curse at him but I bit back my words. “Well, what do you expect me to do?”
“I suggest you find somewhere to go, ma’am, but you can’t stay here.” I scratched my arm, and it felt like something was crawling under my skin.
I walked back inside after he left to look for my car keys. I couldn’t think of where I could go. I don’t really have any friends around here, not without Corbin, anyway. All the women were friends of his first wife and never really took to me, though they pretended very well.
I’ve always known that, but because my husband is in good standing and better than most, I’m sure their husbands forced them to be kind. That’s of no help to me now, though, because he’s not here as a buffer. It’s funny how, after all these years, I’m now dealing with these things.
I had to stand next to my car and shake myself like a dog to get the fleas off of me, and I wasn’t even sure I’d gotten rid of them all. It was hard sitting because I had bites in unmentionable places, which made it very uncomfortable.
I felt tears run down my face as I turned the key in the ignition. I have never felt so alone. I couldn’t even go beg Charles for help. That’s my ex. He’d moved on a few years ago with one bitch of a woman who didn’t want anything to do with me and our child. I don’t understand how a man could allow someone to come between him and his blood.
It's true that I had done my best to cut ties between him and Mitzie because I wanted her to see Corbin as her Daddy instead of the minimum-wage earner who couldn’t help her get anywhere in life. What was so wrong with wanting better for my daughter and myself? Isn’t that what anybody with sense would do?
I pulled into the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly and parked as far away from the entrance as I could this early in the morning. My phone had been going off since the day before with notifications, which I had been ignoring because it wasn’t Corbin or anyone I was interested in talking to. I wasn’t in the mood for the latest gossip on the Topix forum, but since I had nothing better to do than sit here and it would at least look like I was busy and not just stranded here if somebody important happened by, I decided to take a look.
“What am I looking at here?” I couldn’t make sense of the jumble of texts. Something big must’ve happened because all of the notifications seemed to have come from the same place.
I read through the first few and started to get a sick feeling in my stomach. Who the hell is Rhoda Penmark? I was almost certain this person was talking about me. What’s worse, others seemed to be putting two and two together.
Then I got to the latest post and knew for sure they were referencing me again. They had the name of my first affair partner from about ten years ago. So far, no one seemed to have put it together, but how long will that take seeing as how it was the same Rhoda person who had made both posts back-to-back only days apart.
