My Bully's Father

The woman I hated more than death itself had taken up residence there, or more to the point, I’d let my daughter guilt me into letting her mother back into the house after her accident. As luck would have it, our divorce had only been final a couple of weeks before the accident, so I was off the hook.

We live in an All-fault state where adultery is heavily frowned upon; there was no alimony. She got nothing thanks to the prenup every male in my family has had on file for generations. It’s a stone-cold edict that says adultery is grounds for annihilation.

I got everything I wanted and then some since I sued her for destruction of marriage, and her lover got caught up in that one as well. Now the bastard has to pay me for sleeping with her, and I hadn’t even touched her in years.

Susan and I were one of those couples that should’ve never been. You know, the type that gets married to please mom and dad on both sides. The type that pushes out a kid or two in the first three years because it’s the thing to do.

I wanted to make it work, especially after my daughter was born, and it did for a while. I overlooked Susan’s shortcomings, guilt, I guess, for having to take over the company my grandfather built when my dad got a heart attack at fifty-five. I’d spent the next few years trying to drag the company into the twenty-first century with the idea that once things were going well, I would devote more time with my wife and kid.

It was eye-opening. Within weeks I learned what monsters they were. My sweet little girl who used to toddle over to me when I walked through the door had turned into a bitter, self-centered harridan, and the woman I’d made excuses over the years had seemingly given up all pretense at humanity.

It wasn’t long before I was looking for excuses to get out of the house. I figured I had a life of work and making money for those two to spend on shit that allowed them to look down on others. I don’t think I ever heard a positive word come out of their mouths that whole time.

In the end, Darla-Sue is my daughter, my flesh and blood, so I couldn’t just give up on her like that. So I tried, I dug my heels in and tried, but by then, it was too late. She was entrenched in it now, becoming a shadow of her mother. I got her into therapy as a last resort when there was a big hurrah about something when she was about sixteen. Some kid had been traumatized at a party or something that Darla-Sue had invited her to, and there was talk of getting the law involved.

To this day, I still don’t know what happened with that since I was out of the country and Susan took care of the matter. By the time I reached home, the dust had settled, and there was no more to be done. I’m not sure what therapy had done, but I’d noticed very little change in her behavior. That only came after the affair was made public.

I’m still not sure who did it or how they got the pictures. They were nothing like the ones the PI I’d hired had caught, but not much less racy may be taken on another day. However, where I would’ve kept the pictures behind closed doors and gone for an amicable divorce where she got nothing, and I got not to destroy her reputation. But it appears whoever he or she is, wasn’t playing nice.

There was no contesting the divorce, no matter how much my daughter cried and pleaded. I’d been waiting for her to age out so I could move on with the rest of my life, was even willing to pay my hated wife alimony just to see the back of her, but the trash had taken itself out.

Things were going very well until Susan got ran off the road in her car and lost the use of her arms and legs. In her vegetative state, I understood my daughter’s fears that she would be taken advantage of if sent away to a home, so I agreed to have her stay here while my daughter was away at college, as long as I wasn’t the one taking care of her.

I’d hired a service that sends out nurses and therapists, and they handle all of her medical situations out of her pocket. That’s where I drew the line. I know she should be running out of savings just about now, which is perfect because our daughter just finished her master’s degree and was coming home to look for a job.