I was served the petition for divorce 5 days later by certified mail at the office. Odd really. Since the night of the forced entry I had been fending off intrusions on a daily basis and spent little more than two or three hours at a stretch there. DF abbreviated his work schedule by closing our business at noon without notice. As soon as the truck disappeared onto the road to KMC's town, I'd race down the stairs from my office suite, calling out to anyone within range that I'd be back later. The two-mile route to my home typically took about 7 minutes, given the speed limit. Once at home, I'd park my car inside the garage, wedge garden implements in between the garage doors and the support rails (the automatic door openers had been deactivated) to prevent them from being forced open and stand on guard upstairs at the window.
Like clockwork, within an hour, vehicles would draw up with trailers hitched, ready to secret away the remaining contents. Not that there was much left to take, mind you, as the day following that fateful night, DF had left the home upon his attorney's advice while I was at work and had removed most things of value that could fit in the back of the truck and her vehicle, and her brother's truck and trailer. Nonetheless, the attempts continued. One successful on the day that I discovered the sidewall of the front tyre on my vehicle had been slashed in the parking lot of my office and spent three hours awaiting its repair before heading home to take up guard duty. Of what purpose was there to change the locks? The front door was fully glazed and had a similar sized fixed glass panel that any large object could break.
This became a daily routine, each subsequent attempt thwarted by appearing at the window with phone in hand. When I was not at home, I was fending off taunting and threats from both DF and KMC in the office building. We never spoke. When we would encounter each other in the office, I'd try to mask the grief with a smile when greeting him in the morning as he arrived, or at night when he'd leave, all the while fully aware of their machinations and all activities surreptitiously going on behind the scenes. I was stunned but determined to deal with the inevitable end to our relationship with grace and quiet acceptance. Mine was similar to the sort of expression one would see from a family member at the bedside of a terminal patient.
As heart-breaking as it was to see, let alone collect all of this evidence, I could reveal nothing, nor demonstrate that I had even the slightest inkling. Letters were the form of communication. DF would write at least one per day, I suspect guided by KMC, instructing me on what he wanted and what I must do. Reading them was painful, as neither he nor she knew how incriminating the information would become. The only analogy that seems appropriate, in this instance, is that of a parent watching her child make mistakes that could land him in trouble, and not being able to offer a warning.
In a moment of weakness, on the night prior to Thanksgiving, I wrote DF a short letter begging him to write nothing more; that I would not read another letter in the hope that he would cease. I informed him that divorce would preclude my association with his immigration case and enclosed information on the immigration procedural guideline for a person of his status and what he would need to do, and signed it "may all your dreams come true, love, El".
Unlike all the years prior, Christmas 2002 would be very difficult.
Like clockwork, within an hour, vehicles would draw up with trailers hitched, ready to secret away the remaining contents. Not that there was much left to take, mind you, as the day following that fateful night, DF had left the home upon his attorney's advice while I was at work and had removed most things of value that could fit in the back of the truck and her vehicle, and her brother's truck and trailer. Nonetheless, the attempts continued. One successful on the day that I discovered the sidewall of the front tyre on my vehicle had been slashed in the parking lot of my office and spent three hours awaiting its repair before heading home to take up guard duty. Of what purpose was there to change the locks? The front door was fully glazed and had a similar sized fixed glass panel that any large object could break.
This became a daily routine, each subsequent attempt thwarted by appearing at the window with phone in hand. When I was not at home, I was fending off taunting and threats from both DF and KMC in the office building. We never spoke. When we would encounter each other in the office, I'd try to mask the grief with a smile when greeting him in the morning as he arrived, or at night when he'd leave, all the while fully aware of their machinations and all activities surreptitiously going on behind the scenes. I was stunned but determined to deal with the inevitable end to our relationship with grace and quiet acceptance. Mine was similar to the sort of expression one would see from a family member at the bedside of a terminal patient.
As heart-breaking as it was to see, let alone collect all of this evidence, I could reveal nothing, nor demonstrate that I had even the slightest inkling. Letters were the form of communication. DF would write at least one per day, I suspect guided by KMC, instructing me on what he wanted and what I must do. Reading them was painful, as neither he nor she knew how incriminating the information would become. The only analogy that seems appropriate, in this instance, is that of a parent watching her child make mistakes that could land him in trouble, and not being able to offer a warning.
In a moment of weakness, on the night prior to Thanksgiving, I wrote DF a short letter begging him to write nothing more; that I would not read another letter in the hope that he would cease. I informed him that divorce would preclude my association with his immigration case and enclosed information on the immigration procedural guideline for a person of his status and what he would need to do, and signed it "may all your dreams come true, love, El".
Unlike all the years prior, Christmas 2002 would be very difficult.
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