Chapter 4

Jack and I didn't socialize much. We both worked long hours and I enjoyed spending most of my time with my daughter but especially after I lost Mom I started realizing that it was nice to talk to other adults outside of the office and the playground.

When she died I was fatter than I had ever been in my life and didn't even realize it. Afterward for the first time in my life eating made me sick. By the time I met V I had lost over 20 lbs, within one year I lost 40 lbs. When your weight changes quickly everyone notices and asks questions. I was starting to enjoy the attention.

A few days went by before I received another instant message from V. Again we talked for hours about nothing.  We often surfed the web together. We would send each other links to jokes, poetry, short stories or news articles and talk about them as we read.

I remember talking to him July 4th. We talked about the fireworks each of us had watched.  On July 5th I received an e-card from him. It was a picture of fireworks, and it said something like, a memory of the fireworks we shared last night, all my love, V.

At first I thought it was really sweet but then I thought there is no way this guy is being sincere. After all we only met on June 22nd. I wrote him and told him that I understood all my love is just an expression and asked him not to say things that he didn't mean because I might take him literally.  I confessed that I was beginning to think I was in love with him and that it didn't make any sense.

The next day when I found him online he asked, how do you know I didn't mean it when I sent all my love? I reminded him that we had only known each other a few weeks and that he was living with another woman that he loved.  I asked him not to be cruel to me.

"How can it be ok to fall in love with you?"

I brought up the other women he was emailing again; he reminded me that I had been talking to other men. "You told me you talked to other men on here, is it the same as when you talk to me"? "No, it's not," I responded.  "You are the one who is married.  I  understand that you have a little girl and that you love your husband.  Why is so hard for you to believe that I love you too?"

"Isn't love essential to living?  Do you believe in it?"

"What good is it to love you when I can't have you?" I asked.

"I want all of you but I will settle for whatever you have to give" he responded.

We spoke bluntly and agreed that neither of wanted to hurt our loved ones. I felt responsible for my husband. We had been through so much together.  I never doubted that he loved me. I loved him but I wasn't really in love with him. He is the father of my child and I couldn't imagine ever leaving him. He never had anyone in his family he could count on, we were barely making ends meet and then there were his health issues. He wouldn't do that to me and I couldn't do that to him.

Many times before that I told V that I was "happily married". Finally I was completely honest. We agreed that if we were in such perfect relationships we never would have met and become so close. He told me he loved Jill and wanted their relationship to work too.

He asked how I would feel if my husband had an affair... I said, I would probably be happy for him and I meant it. Many times I wished he would fall in love with someone else who could make him happy. I often felt I was the cause of him being unhappy.

Not long after we moved in together there were many times when Jack wanted sex and became angry at me because I didn't. I had no desire to have sex with him when he had been drinking. He was never physically abusive to me but I couldn't feel close to him unless he was sober and he was never sober.

I would say "how about tomorrow you don't drink and we can have a romantic evening?" He would agree, but the next day, by the time he came home he would already be on his 3rd or 4th beer... It totally turned me off.  I would get angry and many times I told him that if he wanted a fuck he should go find someone else.

Later I would feel bad for the things I said and then he would feel bad, and it became another excuse for him to drink because he knew I was disappointed in him.  We would both apologize and then it would start all over again. This continued for several years.

Jack grew up in extreme poverty; his Dad had mental issues and left his Mother with seven children and nowhere to live when he was about ten years old. He is not like him but he has always feared that he would be. For the many years he worked on jobs that paid commission. Whenever we were struggling financially in his mind it was all his fault, even though I definitely contributed to our problems by overspending. When Jack quit drinking I thought I would fall in love with him all over again but it never happened. I loved him; I still love him, just more like a brother than a husband.

V asked lots of questions about my marriage and my relationship with my husband. I poured out information but when I asked him about Jill, he never revealed much. He told me that I shouldn't beat myself up so much. Relationships change, the honeymoon phase doesn't last forever. He suggested that maybe there was a reason we met. 

He asked if I ever saw that movie, same time next year. It came out in the 70s.  It was the story of a man and a woman who had what they thought would be a one night stand and they ended up meeting the same week in the same place every year until one of then died. I had actually seen the movie before. I love old movies but I wasn't very impressed with that one.  

"You will be my same time next year" he said. I was insulted, "is that all you want?"  " I already told you I want all of you but I will settle for whatever you have to give. I am willing to share, are you?"

Wow, I couldn't even imagine any possibility of pulling that off. The idea of lying and sneaking around made me really uncomfortable. I am terrible at lying and being labeled an adulteress was not appealing to me at all. I also knew that if I were ever with him I wouldn't want it to be for only a week.

It wasn't smart or nice but the idea of never seeing him was unbearable. Finding a way to keep him in my life and not hurt anyone became a sweet dream.

Next he asked for my phone number, I hesitated, I was never home alone. When I talked to him online it was when everyone was asleep. Finally I told him he could call me at work. I emailed him the number and it was maybe two days later when he called. It was surreal. Of course when he called me it was the worst possible time. My daughter, who was seven at the time, was at work with me. I was in someone else's office when I answered the phone. Somehow I kept it together; I transferred the call and sent my daughter to a coworkers office.

His voice was hard to describe, actually a lot like I imagined. I recognized it immediately every other time I heard it. I don't remember much of what we talked about that day but I know I mostly giggled like a little girl.

V and I continued our spontaneous online marathons. Somehow, planning a time to be online never worked out so whenever we found each other on it was really hard to stop talking.

It wasn't long before I became dependant on him. From the time I met him till the day I found out he died I never went more than twenty four hours without checking my email and hoping to hear from him if there was anyway possible to do so.

V didn't like talking about his life to me much. In the beginning, he talked a little more. He was cautious and I understood that, I was nervous too. When I asked him his real name he wouldn't tell me even though he knew mine. Of course I only told him that accidentally. He teased me and said he was afraid I would show up at his door and tell his girlfriend that he belongs to me.

I understood but after we had been talking for months I was really hurt by that too. I'll admit I was totally obsessed but I was also married and had a small child and I was also the one saying I couldn't meet him in person.  I only wanted to know because I felt like he should trust me enough to tell me.

He told me that he loved me, and that part of me belonged to him, and that both of us were in the same situation and no one could know about us. "What difference would knowing my name make?"

He wanted me to plan a weekend away with him but it seemed impossible. I didn't really do any traveling for work and around that time and I couldn't imagine finding a good excuse to go away alone. "You will know everything you want to know about me whenever you are ready to meet me in person."

It really stressed me out to think he could just disappear one day and I would never know what happened to him. It made me even more obsessive. He kept asking me for a picture, I didn't own a digital camera or a scanner.  A few months later I had some photos of a vacation we spent with my Dad developed and noticed there an option to put them on a Kodak cd, so I did.

When I picked up my pictures I felt guilty about the cd. My pathetic old computer didn't even have a cd drive. I took it to my office, found one picture of just me (not a great one) and sent it to him. Technology was so bad back then. It took over 10 minutes to send it from my office and we had one of the fastest connections in town.

I was nervous about letting him see what I look like.  I tried to warn him that I don't look like Pamela Anderson. He told me anyone could see her pictures, he wanted to see my smiling face. I was sure it would be anticlimactic after he waited so long to see me.

I didn't realize that it was formatted so that you could only open it if you installed the kodak software that was also on the disk until after I sent it. He emailed me later that evening. It took him an hour to download it, and then he spent three hours trying to figure out how to open it.... he told me he knew I was pretty and that I looked just as he imagined. It was really sweet.

Even though I asked many times, he never once sent a picture of himself. He would say that he didn't like to see himself on film. "Why do you want it?"  "I just want to look into your eyes." His response was the only thing you will see if you look in my eyes is a reflection of yourself.

It might be hard to understand but honestly, it didn't matter to me what he looked like. I knew I loved him and didn't care if he weighed 500 pounds. It bothered me that I didn't know his face but when I finally met him in person it was like I had known it all my life. He wasn't 500 pounds. In fact he was tall, muscular, handsome, and had the most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen. He never mentioned that he was balding; honestly it only made him look more attractive to me. I was relieved he wasn't flawless.

I spent a lot of time looking in those dark, deep eyes in the short time we spent together. I didn't see myself,  I was trying to look inside of him. I wanted to memorize every feature because I knew it would probably be a long time before I was able to touch him again.

I dreamt of him many times before our meeting. One time I had a vivid dream that I saw him driving a tour bus that said "Mr. V's Tours on the side of it. He was wearing a hat and looked right at me and smiled as he passed by. I know it sounds crazy but I swear it was his face.

It took a lot of questioning but he told me that he was born in Cuba. I'm not sure exactly when his family came here but I'm pretty sure it was in the 50's or early 60's. He lived in New York as a child. He had some memories of Cuba. He told me he lived near Havana in a little village.

He had a close relationship with his Mom. He used to go to her house for lunch a couple of times a week. He didn't get along with his Dad that well and never told me much about him.

He was an engineer; he drew plans and did inspections on construction projects. He also had a Broker's license, and a surveying license. He let his ex use his broker's license for years until she finally got her own. The surveying he did sometimes but he tried to avoid it.

He married once, a woman from Jamaica. I don't remember her name. I do remember that they divorced in 1986; because that was the year I got married.

He was living with a woman that I called Jill when I met him. (He wouldn't tell me her name so I named her Jill. So I decided I wouldn't tell him my husbands name and he called him Jack). She had a son named Thomas. They lived together about 10 years, he and Thomas were close. He was in his early twenties and a paramedic when V died. He talked about him as if he were his son. He was very proud of him. He told me he would like to think that he had been a positive influence in his life. "All I did was try to help the little guy grow up".

We had been talking a couple of years when V and Jill split up. Even though we talked about meeting in person we hadn't done so. She caught him talking to me online one time and was hurt. It was several months before they broke up. I felt really bad about that. We weren't even saying anything personal but my screen name was K 4 V or something and he told me she was upset.

My husband found me talking to him too and it was really awful.  Basically we both lied and said it didn't mean anything but my husband knew better, and Jill probably did too.

I didn't really want him to be single unless I could be with him and he said the same to me. He told me he was patient. I was not so patient. I cried many nights wishing I could see him, touch him.

On Valentines Day he sent me a link to this site called e-fax. It was free software and a phone number that you could give out so that you could receive a fax on your email. He insisted I install it.

Once I finally got it installed I received a fax from him. It was a rose, a real rose that he laid on the screen. I was so touched that I looked at it several times before I even noticed something big! A phone number and the name of his company.

I couldn't help myself. I was afraid to ask him about it because I didn't want him to shut me off again. I started doing research.

 I found his company listed in the online phone book and it listed the number he faxed me from, from there I found his business license which listed his name and I ended up drilling down to find Jill's name. His divorce papers, his survey license, broker's license. Ok, I went a little over the line. I was just so happy to be able to verify some of the things he said to me and actually know his name.

I waited at least six months to tell him. I knew it would scare him. I sort of assumed he had done the same kind of search on me but he claimed he hadn't. He was a little angry and I couldn't blame him. He knew I would never do anything to hurt him or his girlfriend. He was afraid that my husband would find him if I kept that kind of information on my computer. I did, but only at work.

He told me he wondered why I never asked about it. He said he planned to tell me his name and more when he sent it but I didn't ask so he just waited. For sure he was a patient man. I didn't tell him I found Jill's name, I knew I'd gone too far.