I was still very close to Lindsey when the whole blowup happened with the twin. She was also dealing with marriage issues, which culminated in a very nasty divorce.
I had noticed that she always needed a Rhoda. You know, The Mary Tyler Moore show of the 1970’s. She cast herself as Mary Tyler Moore and always needed a side partner. I often wondered about the other women we would visit on occasion and it wasn’t until after another Rhoda replaced me that I figured it all out.
The new Rhoda liked to hang out at night and drink in bars with her.
Suddenly, there was no time for me. I would call, listen to all of her problems, I would start to talk and she would have to go. Sorry, no time. This happened every time I called.
I decided not to phone to see how long it took for her to miss me. It was almost a month before she phoned me. I knew it was over. She had moved on.
I vowed to never be a Rhoda again.
By this time, the drama with the twin was going on, Michael had quit his well-paying job to work for a friend in his new shop 60 miles away for very little money. I was feeding us on $25.00 a week. I would do things like buy a chicken and make four meals from it. The final one would be homemade chicken noodle soup. I even made the noodles to save money. I grew to hate it.
Years later, William asked why we never had chicken noodle soup anymore. He had loved it. He never knew that we were almost broke. We gave up everything including life and health insurance. Everything was gone except our house and we came close to losing it.
Michael was in his two-year fog of not believing me about what happened with his twin. He was cold, distant, sarcastic, and very absent. I considered leaving him. My dad stepped in. He said to get my marriage back because it was important that William had two parents who loved each other.
I took control. We ended up taking long evening walks together in the downtown area and dad told me not to even mention the twin which I didn’t for at least ten years. We talked about very benign stuff. After a long while, we fell back in love again.
I went back to work. I had worked at William’s school as a paid aid and was head of both the Education Foundation and the Site Council. I had learned about education.
When it came time to find a job when William was nine-years old because we had no money and insurance, I applied for a job as a kindergarten aid at the school where I got sick. It was 1990. I earned $4.35 an hour but I had access to insurance for the family.
It was still a hard time. We still were living on very little money. My paycheck bought William’s shoes or clothes and haircuts. That was it. I cleared just under $70.00 a month after paying for our insurance.
Working for the school, I was still able to be at home with William during vacations and holidays. It was the perfect solution.
Finally, Michael gave up working for his friend and got a job working at another friend’s shop. He was being paid a good wage again. Life suddenly became easier but I never forgot how it felt to be broke. I learned not to waste a dime and continued to manage our money wisely.
A year later, we planned a vacation. We rented a van, and the three of us drove to Yosemite, stayed in a B&B in the Gold Country and even panned for gold. It sounds so simple but it was such a big deal to us. It was the first time in many years that we had money to do anything extra.
I left the school when William was in 6th grade and returned to work for a lot more money in the Music Department when he was in 8th grade. It helped pay for his high school private education. It also took my entire paycheck to pay our monthly bill for his college tuition for two years.
What happened next is a whole other story.
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