Where are you, Drew? And Why? Part 2

Part 2

I prayed for Drew constantly and hoped for any way that I could offer him little snippets of truth and expose him to spiritually enlightening experiences. The more I did this, the more he actually backed away. It started to dawn on me that this guy had to be an anti-missionary, because why else would he pretend to be a Believer, get involved with me, and then retreat from the faith, apparently trying to pull me away along with him? Again, I could not bring myself to simply abandon a lost soul, even if that soul was obviously a deceiver and no real friend of mine?

In the meantime, my parents did all they could to promote the relationship. They refrained from putting in their two cents' worth, which was very unusual for them. They didn't praise me for it in so many words, but they didn't criticize me, either, so that was sort of like getting praise. They were incessant pickers and meddlers, always ready with a sharp comment on things, but they seemed to tiptoe around me and around this relationship. They even babysat my son for me way more than usual, just to give me more time to spend with Drew when Drew and I weren't spending time together with my son. It was as though they were waiting for some kind of effort or plan to pay off, breathlessly. I knew they wanted me to get remarried and get on with my life, but I did not understand how desperately they wanted this -- not for MY benefit, or even their grandson's, but for their own selfish, controlling desires. In retrospect, they were being quite covert and manipulative during those months, but I was glad for the peace and quiet, the respite from their sniping at me. I guess this was a kind of reward for me, for being involved with Drew. I so rarely got any praise from them or any sense that I could do anything right, and now that I was finally doing something right in their eyes, I knew I had to stop doing it for my own good and for the well-being of my son.

Finally, Drew's thin veneer began to crack in several places. I realized he had anger management problems when he tore apart a business phone at a mechanic's shop after his insurance company refused to pay for damages to his motorcycle from some kind of accident. He bludgeoned the base of the phone with the handset until the base broke apart, and then he flung the handset across the table, leaving the shop's business phone in pieces and off the hook. Then he punched the wall, walked away and left the room. I was frightened by this display, embarassed, too, but I quickly put the pieces of the phone back together as best I could and tried to make sure it still worked. I followed after him and tried to make light of the episode, but then I caught myself and realized that battered women did that sort of thing, too, making light of their bruises and the broken furniture and the holes in the walls. That was not the woman that God wanted me to become; I was very sure of that.

I knew I had to extricate myself from this relationship. First he had revealed himself to be a fraud, and then he emerged as a rage-a-holic vandal without remorse for the damage he had caused. It was so easy for him to smash up that phone and walk away, almost as though he assumed I would clean up his mess unquestioningly. What would he do next? I didn't want to find out. I prayed for a way to get out of this relationship without becoming a living victim of his anger or exposing my family to danger.

The relationship actually began to cool off somewhat at this point. I made sure I was busier with housework, church, and taking care of my son. Meanwhile, he told me that he had gotten a job as a pizza delivery driver, so he worked nights and weekends, leaving little time for dating or even chatting on the phone after I got off of work at my 9-to-5 temp jobs. This was also his excuse to stop going to church altogether on Sunday mornings, and then to quit Bible study meetings as well. I was a bit relieved that this distance was occuring in a natural way, but sad that he was cutting himself off from the Messiah, and also sad that this relationship which began with such promise had to fizzle out this way. Perhaps we would just fade away from each other, and breaking up would happen naturally...but that was not to be, either.

A month or so into his new job, after not speaking to me for more than a week, he called me on the phone to tell me that his car was in the shop and he needed to borrow a car in order to work. Could he borrow mine?

Oh, no. No, no. He was not trustworthy on so many levels; how could I jeopardize my only transportation to work, to pick up my son, to get to church? How could I trust him not to have an episode of road rage, which I began to suspect is what had happened to his motorcycle? I didn't want to have anything else to do with this man; I was unwilling to deliberately hurt him, but I was also afraid of what he would do if I broke up with him. My mother thought I was insane for not letting him borrow the car, but I had to quietly tell him no. I'm sorry, but no. The insurance wouldn't cover him using the car alone, and I was not about to ride around with him all night delivering pizzas when I had to work the next day. He said he understood, and then there was a moment of silence.

Suddenly, his mother burst into incoherent screams of rage on the other end of the line. The only words that came through clearly, loudly and clearly, were, "After all that money you spent on her, she won't let you borrow her car?" She had other choice things to say about me, but that one sentence rammed itself into my chest like a poisonous dart.

All that money? What could she be ranting about? Every date Drew and I went on, I paid my own way. He invited me over to his house for dinner one time, but he ate at my house, often with my entire family, several times. The only money he actually spent on me was the few dollars he doled out for the small, sad, grocery store flowers he obsessively brought me. The content of those words bothered me much more than the fact that she screamed them at the top of her lungs. How could she say that about me, when I was the farthest thing from a high-maintenance girlfriend? If there had been any doubt in my mind that Drew was the wrong man for me, it was vanquished with those few words. I knew that if I married him, I would be hearing those words hurled at me for the rest of my life. Just like my cheap and loveless stepfather...and my birth father...and even my mother...begrudging me every pair of cheap jeans, Kmart sneakers, or t-shirt. My blood ran cold. Drew told me not to listen to her, that it was OK. I said, "OK," then hung up.

I prayed and cried for a while, then I wrote him a letter. I couldn't break up with him in person because I didn't have the heart to look at him and leave him, nor did I have the raw courage to face his anger in person. As I wrote, I didn't mention the money insult as the reason why; rather, I confronted him about his spiritual fakery, which was bad enough. I let him know that I knew he wasn't a Believer, and I could not be the companion of an unbeliever. I told him it was over, and that if he ever decided to get serious with God, to look me up.

After I mailed the letter, I didn't answer my home phone for more than a week. I monitored my calls by letting my answering machine pick them up. Then the call finally came, screaming and hollering about how unfair I was, that I was obsessed, that of course he was a believer, that I didn't understand...over and over, the same words, hollered in my ears. I listened to the message twice, and then I erased it. I told myself the worst had passed, and it was all over now. I tried to get on with my life, doing all the things I needed to do, but everything felt different now.

I told my mother, and after wearing a strangely muted, shocked expression on her face for a few moments, she told me I was nuts. I was throwing away a good man, and I had to be crazy for doing this. I tried to explain my spiritual reasons, but she didn't want to hear it. I tried to tell her about his anger issues, but she dismissed me. I shouldn't have expected anything different; after all, my stepfather, her second husband, was a rage-a-holic, too. Just like her first husband, my birth father. My stepfather didn't speak to me at all about Drew or about anything for a month. That was actually a relief because he was a singularly unpleasant person to deal with. I didn't need him poking at me on top of my sorrow at this point. Mom didn't do much better than that, hardly speaking to me at all, yet not venting any rage at me, either. I was working later than usual those days, so I never saw them at dinner time, and they made no effort to touch base with me, to find out how I was holding up since the breakup, or anything like that. They avoided me completely. I was all alone in the world except for my little boy and my relationship with God.

I had a few hang-up calls for the next few weeks, but no more angry words from Drew. The inexplicable money insult still rang in my ears, but I had no hope of solving the puzzle. I tried to chalk it up to one of those stupid things people say when they are angry. Either Drew's mom was a raving lunatic, or she was just mistaken and lashing out.

I went on to a new temp job in a rather run-down section of Coral Gables near LeJeune Road. My strategy for avoiding the scariness of the neighborhood was to leave on time and scoot out away from LeJeune onto Eighth Street as quickly as possible. This would put me into a better neighborhood very quickly, and I would feel safe. But the last day of my temp assignment at a foreign bank housed in that part of town would not end quite the way I expected.

The story continues in Part 3 in the next blog entry....