My wife’s parents divorced when she was 6 years old. Her dad, a dentist in a small Tennessee town North of Chattanooga, was banging a 22-year-old LPN named Kristen. When my wife’s mother found out, she took her daughter and left. Eventually, she remarried. Her new husband turned out to be a perfectly nice guy, but he has nonetheless never made much of a living. My wife’s dad was married to Kristen before the ink was dry on the divorce, and she soon thereafter became the office manager of his thriving little dental practice. The next few years saw a flurry of legal activity between the two former spouses, mostly regarding my father-in-law’s repeated failure to pay child support. After a while, my mother-in-law got tired of having to fight for every last scrap, and just kind of threw up her hands. All told, he wound up not having to pay around 25 grand.

My wife didn’t see a whole lot of him growing up, or even after we got married. He’d invite us over, or we’d go out to eat with him here and there, but eventually, my wife just couldn’t take that. See, he had two more daughters with Kristen, and those two got everything. We’re talking horses, fancy vacations, and expensive private schooling. The older one got a spanking new Volvo when she was in high school, and the younger one a Jeep Cherokee. And shit like that. Meanwhile, the wife and I struggled with our young family, and it upset her that he didn’t even seem to care. He never asked her if she needed anything.

My father-in-law is one of the strangest individuals I have ever known, and that’s saying something. He actually comes across as a very friendly guy—and he’s an excellent dentist. He pulled my wisdom teeth for free, and I’ve had no complications at all. He’s never been one to be physically or verbally abusive. I’ve never even heard him raise his voice. But he’s always seemed to be very emotionally fragile. He knows he fucked up with my wife—knows he neglected her financially and emotionally—but he cannot bring himself to talk about it. His thing is, the more uncomfortable he is in a situation, the more uncomfortable he tries to make everyone else, and if he can avoid talking about something he doesn’t want to talk about in the process, hey, bonus. So, he’ll interrupt conversations by making cat noises, or by putting in a pair of fake teeth, or singing Elvis songs. It’s indescribably bizarre, and sometimes, I honestly didn’t know whether to cry or hit him in the head with a fuckin’ hammer. Still, at work, he’s all business. It’s weird.

Anyway, Kristen had him by the balls, both personally and financially. It was fairly obvious—even to their employees—that she was spending money as fast as she got it (at least in part) so she wouldn’t have to give any to my wife. She had evidently said as much, and it got back to my mother-in-law. Kristen was the kind of person I despise. She would look you in the face, smile the sweetest smile, and say something completely bitchy and tactless. Her older daughter is the exact same way. I don’t know anyone who likes either of them.

Look, I don’t want to belabor the point, or speak ill of the dead, but she was a mean, spiteful bitch. I could give you specific instances of said bitchiness if you want, but for now, just trust me.

In the past few years, my wife and I (what the hell, her name’s Meredith) noticed that Meredith’s dad and Kristen never seemed to be together (more on this later). They would show up at family functions separately, always separately. Also, (and I’m jumping around a bit in time—it’s hard not to) their daughters went to a rather expensive private school in Chattanooga, and Kristen lived with them in an apartment there, while Meredith’s dad stayed at their house, more than an hour away. Once this arrangement started, we started seeing a lot more of him.

When we lived in Mississippi he came down to see us, and when we moved to Chattanooga, he used to drop by all the time (and again, always alone). It wasn’t too bad. Meredith even decided to let go of the child support thing. She was willing to take what he would give. And to be fair, he did spend a good deal of money on us while we lived there—nowhere near what he owed, but he appeared to be making an effort.

It was also around this time that Meredith’s dad and Kristen began raising miniature donkeys to sell. I haven’t the faintest idea why, as they serve no purpose that I’m aware of. They’re cute, and they like to be petted. If you were out in the field, they’d come up and push their heads up against you until you started petting them. But they (Kristen and Meredith’s dad) seemed to enjoy it, and they apparently turned a small profit doing it.

Now the story starts to get good. Remember, Meredith’s dad does not acknowledge the unpleasant if it’s at all avoidable. So, we moved to Alaska in the fall of ’04. Meredith and her dad kept in touch (not like she kept in touch with her mom, but about every couple of months). Anyway, around Christmas that year, we heard from Meredith’s aunt that Kristen had breast cancer. She had a double mastectomy, and was undergoing chemotherapy, and all that it entails. We both felt horrible. It’s eerie when something horrible and catastrophic happens to someone you hate. We felt guilty, like we had wished it on her or something (which, of course, we hadn’t). The aunt had said that this had been going on for a couple of months, and Meredith had talked to her dad a time or two while this was supposedly going on. So, she called, and didn’t let on that she knew anything. Her dad said nothing. Not one word about it. “Everything is fine,” I believe were his exact words.

So, Meredith let that simmer for about a day or so, then she called him back and told him that she knew. “Oh that…” was his attitude. “Everything’s fine. I didn’t want to worry you with it. They caught it early, and she says she’s doing well.” Meredith’s a nurse, and she asked him several questions that you’d think a guy would know about his own wife if she had breast cancer. “Oh, I don’t know,” was his answer to every one. She asked him what his doctor had said about something, and he finally admitted that he hadn’t even met her doctor.

This, of course, sounded to us like he was just being himself. The breast cancer thing is something he doesn’t want to deal with, so he’s just going to ignore it. We were positive that was what it was, and we were once again appalled at his avoidance behavior. But we were wrong this time.

This went on until around May. Meredith would call her dad, and he’d act like everything was fine, but would again offer no details, and would again claim to be ignorant about even the most basic aspects of his wife’s treatment. So, at around the end of May, we were packing up to move from our rental house into a house we had just bought, when Meredith’s aunt calls. Kristen’s in the hospital, and it’s really, really bad. They don’t expect her to survive the week. Meredith’s dad and half sisters are there with her, and they all seem oblivious to what’s going on. By Wednesday, Kristen is so gorked up on medication that she’s lost all meaningful consciousness. She’s pretty in and out at that point, so her doctor thinks this is as good a time as any to let the family in on Kristen’s little secret, so he tells them: Kristen’s prognosis was lousy from the start, and she had always known this. She had known she was dying since around Christmastime, and had told no one, and had forbidden her doctor from telling anyone. All this time, everybody—not just us—had thought Meredith’s dad was the biggest shitbird on the planet for not going with her to the doctor. Turns out she wasn’t letting him. They were woefully underinsured (plus, extremely short on cash because she spent it as fast as it came in, plus, she didn’t want him to know how bad things were), so she kept telling him that he needed to be at work as much as possible, so that they could keep their billing up. She told him that he didn’t need to worry about her at all. Two days after her husband and daughters were told this, Kristen was dead.

Meredith flew down for the funeral, and that’s when the shit hit the fan. We still don’t know about the state of their marriage before all this, but, as you know, they had been living mostly apart for years. And again, Meredith’s dad is kind of emotionally distant, so he left most of the nurturing and child-rearing to Kristen, and God knows what she told her kids about him. She had quite obviously told them some patent untruths about Meredith. I think there may have been some simmering anger boiling up. And when you add that to the shock that their mom had been lying to them for months—telling them that she was going to get better when she knew she wasn’t—they ended up blaming everything on their father.

So, while they’re driving from the funeral home to the graveside service, Meredith’s dad—rather uncharacteristically candid—fills her in on the previous few days’ events. Kristen had never admitted that she was dying, so she had not specified where she wanted to be buried. They have an old cemetery on their farm, with graves dating back to the 1850’s. Every so often, families who had relatives buried back there would contact Meredith’s dad about burying another family member out there, and he always said yes. In fact, he’s said more than once that he wants to be buried back there, and that’s where he planned to put Kristen. Well, Kristen’s parents wanted her buried in her hometown, about 50 or 60 miles away. Meredith’s dad was not unsympathetic, but he reminded them that they weren’t going to live forever, and once they were gone, Kristen’s daughters wouldn’t have much reason to drive all the way out there. If she was buried on the farm, they’d be able to see her whenever they wanted. Well, unbeknownst to him, they’d already gotten the kids on their side, and they were furious that he would even consider burying her on the farm.

Meredith’s dad, true to his principles of avoiding conflict whenever possible, was more than willing to bend, and agreed to having his wife buried in her hometown. Until, however, it got back to him that Kristen’s parents had been trashing him to anyone who would listen, saying that he had turned his back on their daughter in her hour of need, refused to go with her to the doctor, etc., etc. Well, everybody has their line, and my father-in-law had finally found his. “And that’s when I put my foot down,” he told Meredith.

Again, they’re driving to the graveside service as he’s telling her this, and they’re clearly headed for his farm, so Meredith naturally thinks that he’s having her buried in the old cemetery—until, that is, they turn into his driveway, and she sees the funeral home’s tent and chairs set up in the front yard.

Horrified, my wife asked, “Are you sure you can do this?”

“Sure I can,” he says.

I remember thinking, “Maybe this won’t be too bad. Maybe he’ll put an understated sunken headstone out there or something.” Nope. Silly of me to think that a guy who would bury his wife in the front yard would be worried about calling attention to it. He eventually put a big heart-shaped tombstone on it.

Only the older half sister—who is married and in dental school herself—showed up for the graveside service. The younger one, at the time 17 years old (18 now) boycotted it. Neither of them spoke to him at the funeral home, and at the graveside service the other one just stood there glaring at him.

I should point out that the younger daughter—while furious at her dad and claiming that she never wanted to speak with him again—was not so furious at him that she couldn’t call him a few days later and ask for a new car. The 2002 Jeep Cherokee just wasn’t doing it for her anymore, I guess.

Okay, so anyway, after the funeral, the two sisters decide to go to Florida together. They had apparently planned it with their mom for months. The three of them were gonna go, so they had already reserved a condo and everything, and they weren’t gonna let a little thing like their dad suddenly being stuck with a nearly six-figure medical bill stop them.

But they still needed a way to pay for their trip. It turns out that Kristen had an arrangement with another donkey breeder to loan one of Kristen’s male donkeys as a stud. Well, the female donkey never got pregnant, so Kristen had agreed not to deposit the check. The other breeder was told that they were going to work something out after she felt better.

Well, when the girls were going through Kristen’s things after the funeral they found the check, cashed it, and used it to finance their vacation. The breeder called my father-in-law after the check cleared and was all pissed off. He had to pay her back out of his pocket.

So, it was kind of quiet for the next few months. She died at the end of May, so both girls were out of school, and the younger one stayed with the older one in Memphis. The older one wouldn’t speak to her father at all, and the younger one would only call his office to talk to the new office manager when she needed or wanted something. Finally, father-in-law put his foot down, and had his office manager tell her that he wouldn’t be giving her another dime if she wasn’t going to talk to him. That meant no more private school tuition, no car. Nothing. If she didn’t want to live with him, she could live with her sister and go to public school in Memphis.

So, near the end of the summer, he called us. One day, while he was at work, the girls pulled up with a couple of trucks and trailers, and took every single donkey. He went out to the pen after work to check on them, and they were gone. My wife said that was the closest to pissed off he’s ever sounded, but he still didn’t raise his voice.

It wasn’t until then that he told us that the little herd was worth more than a hundred grand. And they also took one of his cars—the Jeep Cherokee that the younger one drove, but that was in his name.

So the father-in-law asked me what he should do. I told him to call the sheriff’s office, and make sure he gave them the daughter’s address in Memphis, the grandparent’s address, and the older daughter’s in-laws address in Franklin, TN. Well, the crafty bitches anticipated this, and were holed up in a motel somewhere. They called to taunt him, saying, “I hear you’re trying to have us arrested” and shit like that.

Poor guy, he was really in a pickle here. See, the older sister had always been a carbon copy of her mother. She was bitchy when she was 5 years old. But the younger one had always been really sweet, up until her mother died. Always had a hug for everybody. He—and we, too—had held out hope that her behavior was born mostly out of shock, misplaced anger (wouldn’t you be a little pissed at your mom if she lied to you about dying?), grief, and the influence of her sister. We still held out hope back then that she’d cool off at some point, and he was worried that theft charges might just be throwing gasoline on the fire.

So, in the end, he only went after the older sister. Even went ahead and paid the younger one’s tuition, and gave his permission to let her be a boarding student.

So, it wasn’t long after this that he gets served with papers. They were suing him for the donkeys! The theory being that the donkeys were their moms, and that she would have wanted her daughters to have them. Apparently, they had found something she had written to that effect in her things (not an actual will).

Of course, my father-in-law’s position was that he had paid for the donkeys, he had fed them, and that they were kept on his property, and were registered to him and his wife. At a bare minimum, they were marital property, and she did not have the right to give what was not entirely hers.

Well, after several months of wrangling and legal fees, they finally had their trial in chancery court. The judge, like I expected, decided that it would piss everybody off the least if he just split everything down the middle, and gave them half the donkeys, and my father-in-law half the donkeys (and also gave him his Jeep back).

The daughters are appealing the decision.

So, after all of the trouble they caused him, the father-in-law decided to remove them from his will, and is leaving everything to Meredith. That’s a farm in a really pretty area in the Sequatchie Valley, and some commercial property in the town he lives in (he owns the building his office is housed in, and a few others that he rents out). Plus, now that his wife and kids aren’t siphoning off every dime, he’s climbing out of his debt at a pretty steady clip (he also has my wife as the named beneficiary of a life insurance policy, to pay everything off if he dies suddenly).

And when he goes, we’ll bury him in the little cemetery in the back of the property like he wants us to. And the next fucking day, we’re digging up Kristen and moving her somewhere—anywhere. We’ll probably let her daughters decide where she goes.

The irony here, is, to us, the best part. Kristen spent the last 25+ years trying to make sure that Meredith got nothing, you’ll recall.

Anyways, my father-in-law started dating again, discovered Viagra, and nearly fucked himself to death.

credit: doogiedoo @ fazed.net

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