The End was near, I was witnessing the end of my marriage

I spent many a day running from the basement up fifteen stairs to the first floor, only to sprint up fifteen more stairs to the second level and once more, fifteen more stairs to the attic to place an item or box in the attic.  I had the thinnest thighs I'd seen in some time.

I unpacked the entire house after my parents left and Chappy returned to work.  After the house was unpacked I started painting in the basement.  The clay soil was every where from the construction workers tracking it in to the movers and once it was on the sole of your shoes, it would be tracked upstairs onto the beige carpet.  I carried a scrub brush and One Shot carpet cleaner in a holster for those moments that I'd spot a slightly rust shade of clay on the carpet. 

I mopped the basement floor but I swear the clay dirt seeped through the cement and reappeared, so I decided to paint the floor and the poured cement walls to keep the clay from reappearing and, it just made the unfinished basement look better.

After I painted the basement walls and floor, I painted the wood steps the climbed to the first floor.  I had tried to get the builder to paint the house an eggshell finish verses a flat as flat paint shows every mark.  The builder said flat paint does not show imperfections and that is what he was using.  I informed him at the price we were paying for the house, there shouldn't be any imperfections and I wanted an eggshell finish.  I partially won that battle, he painted some rooms with eggshell, but left most painted in a flat matte.

The  ceilings were over nine feet tall so painting was a bit challenging as I had to go up and down the ladder often.  I painted the kitchen and applied a paper border. I organized the kitchen and pantry and moved into the living room, painting and finding swatches for custom curtains.

I had the interior decorator from J.C. Penney's come to the home and I picked out the material I wanted and the style of drapery.  I ordered extra material to make slip covers for the pillows we had so they would match the drapes.

I moved upstairs. I painted the stairs and stair well to the attic, again, to just give it a nice finished look.  I started to paint the master suite and bathroom.  There was a tray ceiling and an area off to the side of the main bedroom that was like a sitting room.  The blue prints had a fireplace in the master bedroom, but I didn't want one.  It just took up space on a wall that I might need later.

In the guest bedrooms, I painted each room and bought material to make my own drapes and matching shower curtains.  I had looked at some custom made samples in the show room and thought to my self, I  could do this.  I bought the material and started sewing.  I was quite proud of myself.  I had never lined curtains or made cornices, but they were quite impressive for the novice seamstress I was.

As I was painting the second guest bedroom, Precious, who was now with us in Georgia passed behind me and I feared she was going to knock the gallon of paint over, I turned quickly to move it and my foot hit it, dumping almost a full gallon of yellow paint onto the cream carpet.  From my days of handling homeowner claims, I knew Stanley Steamer was the best at getting stains out of the carpet and I called them. They sent a crew out and the carpet looked brand new again.

I worked for close to a year getting this house perfect.  I worked in the yard, clearing out brush in the back and developed my first case of poison ivy. I had no idea what it was until it looked like my flesh was being eaten.  I stained the deck which was a job and a half as the deck was built over a slope and it was recommended to paint both the top and bottom to prevent damage from possible termites or other pests known to exist in the south.

I was busy.  Precious and I took  a walk everyday at the green way path not far from our home.  Again, I was alone. Chappy traveled. I went to get my haircut one day and struck up a conversation with the stylist.  She had been cutting my hair for a few months now and she wanted to know "what I did."

You come to realize that you are defined by your work. I was no longer a claims manager, I was unidentifiable. How do you respond to that? I had always been "some thing" and now I was a wife, other than that, who was I?

I struggled with this.I enjoyed being able to have time to settle in and make this house our home, but I was not a person who would be able to do this long term. I had gotten to know the  neighbors that had lived there and were moving in.  I volunteered to be on the home association board. I needed to meet people and I had no idea how to.  The stylist told me they were looking for a part time receptionist at night. It was three days a week from five to nine. I didn't know the first thing about hair nor how long to book a stylist for a perm verses a trim.

She introduced me to the manager.  Her name was Lorna and she was from Jamaica.  She had always styled hair and she and her family had just moved to Georgia after several years in Washington DC.  She could cut hair, but not make a portion of what she made in DC, so she agreed to manage the salon.  She knew nothing about managing people.  I did.  We struck a deal.

The job was at J C Penney's  The hours were Monday, Thursday and Friday's from five to nine.  You would be entitled to free hair cuts and forty percent off all merchandise that you could buy in the store and wear at work.  Otherwise, you had thirty percent on home fashions and twenty percent on all sales items.  How could I pass this up? I shopped a lot at Penney's and free haircuts and color?  Sign me up! But I had one problem, I didn't want to work Friday nights.  Friday nights, Chappy came home and I wanted to be there to see him, not sitting in some salon until nine.  Lorna agreed. If I could help her manage the staff and store, behind the scenes, she'd  figure out Friday nights at the reception desk.

I started working there and actually enjoyed it. I could still work on the house during the day and clean up and be at the salon by five for an evening of answering phones, scheduling and checking people out after they were finished with their stylist.

I started the job in late December 1999.  Lorna knew that I had to go back to Michigan for Christmas and she was fine with letting me have the time off.  I was meeting new people, earning a little money, getting discounts on things around the house, to include the custom drapes I ordered and having fun.

But in late January 2000, I noticed a change in Chappy.  It was not a gradual change, it was a light switch turning on and shedding a flood light on a major change.  I could have almost pin pointed the day it happened.  Yet, it took me a few weeks to really understand how this change was going to effect the rest of my life.


He was hiring new sales people all over the country. One in particular was named Courtney Dewey. She was a college roommate of the President's daughter who was also employed by Crawford.  Courtney was hired against Chappy's better judgement, but all of a sudden that is all he talked about. She was single and lived in Georgia, but the only opening he had was in Denver, Colorado. She moved out there and he started spending a lot of time in Denver "training" her.  This wasn't new, he did this all the time, but my gut told me some thing was not right.

Soon after she was hired and transferred to Denver, he transferred her to Tampa. Another employee with seniority who lived in Arizona wanted the Tampa position as she had a grandson who was terminally ill in Florida and she wanted to be closer.  Apparently when she was overlooked, she took the matter to those above Chappy.

He would share these stories with me every night whether we were on the phone or he was home.  There was not one night in seven years that Chappy didn't call me and talk for hours until Courtney came into the picture. Than things changed.

I noticed in late January  2000 that he didn't call home every night.  Chappy didn't realize that at one time, I traveled the road and I knew the temptations that were there for the taking if you so desired.  When he came home I asked why he hadn't called or answered his cell phone when I called him.

He was rather short in his response, "Greg doesn't call Cheryl every night when he is on the  road." Greg was a sales person that I had known for years before Chappy and he now reported to Chappy.  I guess he thought I'd accept this as reasonable.

"You are not Greg and you've called me every night that you are away from home. In fact you used to call me when you came in from being out as late at two in the morning, so what has changed?"

"I don't have to call you every  night, I do it as a courtesy." Oh really? A courtesy.  So for over eight years you call just as a courtesy.  I'm not buying it.

"What are you doing that you can't call me?"

"I'm busy. You know I have a job that pays the bills, you are just on vacation."  This just kept getting better every time he opened his mouth. I had to remind him that this "vacation" was his idea and the moving all over the country, was  his doing.  I had jobs that at one time paid more than his did, but I gave up all of this for him, so I expected the courtesy of a call every night he was on the road. 

"Do you call your mom when you are on the road?" I didn't even have to ask, I already knew, "then you can call me."

By March, he continued to call when he wanted to, but now he was concerned about his clothing.  He took a special interest in his clothing.  He started shopping for himself and buying expensive golf shirts and shorts.  Chappy was not one to buy clothing for himself and he did not buy expensive casual wear. He started traveling to Tampa where Courtney was now living and "missing" his flights home on Friday night.  He'd call late to say he'd missed his flight and couldn't catch another one until late Saturday.

In 2000, there was not a problem getting any flights from Tampa to Atlanta.  Atlanta was a major hub, you could fly into Atlanta practically any hour of the day from Tampa, but Chappy couldn't find a flight from Tampa to Atlanta until late on Saturday?  Some thing was not adding up and my gut was screaming once more that I was living with a rat.

He stopped telling me where he was staying, where he was traveling. He stopped answering his cell phone or returning my calls.  By March, I was pretty sure I was witnessing the end of my marriage and who did I turn to? Min.

Who could talk sense into him better than his mother?  Wasn't she the one that lectured me on commitment, sticking to a marriage through thick and thin. Wasn't she the one that told me marriage was no cake walk and you had to work at it every day.  I started writing to her via email about my concerns with Chappy.

The first time she responded, I was shocked at her response. She was appalled that I would even suggest that her Chappy was even remotely being dishonest with me.  It was her opinion that I had too much idle time on my hands and it was giving me time to make up stories to discredit her Chappy.  She raised him, he would never do what I was suggesting.

I responded by painting the big picture for her. I started with Vicki and what he had done and I through Paulie in there as well as a few others that he had taken home to meet his mom while on the road, I ended with Diane.  She thought it would be best if I found a job so that my focus wasn't on Chappy and his work.  She really thought I needed to focus on me and not him.

I had written to her maybe four or five times and ended it. She was not on my side, this was her son, she was going to protect him even if she witnessed his infidelity.

I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't eat.  When he came home the tension between us was unbearable.  I tried to explain it to my parents, but I don't think they were buying it either. I think everyone thought I had lost my  mind again.

I had told Mom and Dad that I knew some thing was going on. I listed all of the changes and what I noticed the most, was when he was home, he looked through me, not at me.  He had emotionally removed himself from our marriage and I told my parents, toward the end of March 2000, that I was witnessing the end of my marriage.  No one believed me, but I knew it was over.