She Chose Me Part 2

My Dearest Vee,

            If you are reading this, then I am dead and Maddy believes you have recovered. I want to tell you that our years together have been the happiest time of my life. When we married, I fully expected to grow old with you and nothing would have made me happier. Seeing you with Will and Zoe did my heart good and reinforced my belief that you would always be the man I wanted to be with. You were a great support to me right up to the end and that makes what I have to tell you all the more difficult. I’m sad to say that I don’t deserve the love you gave me. Had I not died, I would never have revealed my secret, I know how much it will hurt you. Now that I’m not there it is essential for you to know and I want it to come from me and not as a surprise.

For two and a half years prior to our leaving Sunbury, I had a sexual relationship with my boss Terence Sandford. It was not just sex, I’m not like that. I did love him, but you must believe, not in the same way I love you. During my time with him I got to see a side of him that others don’t . He can be kind and generous and not at all like the ruthless business man he appears to be. We were only together when we were away on business and you were never a part of that. We never spoke of you when we were together and he was never with me when I called you. It was like two separate lives.

In one life, it was fancy restaurants, Versace dresses, Gucci bags and Jimmy Choo shoes. In the other, I had my wonderful man working to build us a future and making me feel special. It started before William was born and I ended it when I returned to work after having Zoe. During that time, his relationship with his wife got worse and when I returned to work, he said he was going to leave her and wanted me to marry him. That was never an option, my love. I chose you and our life together over life with a man more rich and powerful than I have ever known. Please remember that my love. After your anger has subsided and you’ve got over the shock, remember I CHOSE YOU.

Now I come to the really hard part. The part I’m too much of a coward to tell you in person. I think he is the biological father of our children. I really wanted them to be yours, but when their eyes never turned brown I began to have doubts. Since then I’ve noticed other physical similarities. I’ve never told him any of this. YOU are their father, the one they love and who has always loved them. It breaks my heart to tell you this; I know how much it will hurt, but you have to know. Situations may arise when you need to find blood relatives and I want you to know where to look.

If you were a lesser man, I would be worried about telling you any of this, but I know you. No matter how hurt you are, our children will always feel as loved as they’ve ever been. I pray that one day you will be able to forgive me. I’m so sorry and ashamed for what I’ve done and since we moved down here to Somerset, I’ve tried to be the wife you deserved. Now I’m being taken from you and perhaps that is my punishment.

I wish a wonderful life for you and our children. You are still a young man and too good a man to be left on his own. I pray you’ll find someone who will be a better wife than me.

Goodbye my love, Have a wonderful life and always remember I love you.

Vicky

The tears were running down my cheeks as I finished the letter. Maddy began dabbing at my eyes with a tissue. I read it again and a third time. The tears stopped and I just sat there.

“Vaughn, are you alright?”

I pushed the chair back, grabbed the letter, screwed it up into a ball and threw it across the room.

“BITCH! FUCKING BITCH! Why would she do this to me? What did I ever do to her? All I ever did was love her and she does this. She gives me two children, lets me love them, waits until I’d lay my life down for them, knowing someone is waiting to snatch them away from me. How could anyone do that and still claim to love me?”

“She did love you, Vaughn. Writing that letter was the hardest thing she ever had to do.”

“And you, you knew. All that sympathy and helping out while all the time you were laughing at the gullible fool. Bringing up another man’s children and he doesn’t know.”

“It wasn’t like that. We never laughed at you. She loved you and I was jealous of what you two had together. I didn’t know anything until she gave me that letter. She only let me read it so that I could gauge when would be a good time to give it to you.”

“Well, that’s it then. You’ve delivered your bad news, now fuck off. Go on, get out, I’ve got to learn to live on my own and I might as well start now.”

“What do you mean live on your own … you still have two children to care for.”

“You think so, well not for much longer.”

“No Vaughn, don’t say such things, you love them. You’d never push them away.”

“I won’t have to, he’s going to take them. Sandford’s going to take them from me”

“I don’t understand. How can he take them he doesn’t even know?”

“Of course he knows. What do you think yesterday was all about? He offered me half a mil if I didn’t fight his paternity and custody suit.”

“Tell me you didn’t accept. Please Vaughn tell me.”

“Don’t be stupid Mads, of course I didn’t accept, but he’ll take them anyway. Who would you award custody to? On one side, an unrelated, self-employed consulting engineer with no support network to speak of. On the other, their biological father who can give them anything they want and can pay for any level of support.”

“We’ll fight him. I’ll help you in any way I can. I’m sure we can make the courts see they would be better off with you. Please don’t blame Vicky; she didn’t expect this to happen. I know how much she loved you.”

“Yeah, doesn’t change the fact that she brought all this about.”

“Calm down, and we’ll make plans to deal with this. The first thing to do is to find a solicitor. We need one that specialises in family law. We can do this Vaughn, really we can.”

Like her sister, Maddy was always optimistic. She and her husband, Robert, did their best for me and we nearly pulled it off. Within two weeks of my visit to London I received a summons to take the children to a clinic for paternity test. My solicitor had advised that fighting the test would be a waste of time and money.  He was right, of course, fighting at that stage would have made it look like I had something to hide.

After Vicky’s letter I thought I was prepared for the result. I was wrong. No matter how often I told myself that the result will go against me I secretly hoped it wouldn’t be true. When the results came back all that hope was taken away and I slipped into a deep depression. My, carefully preserved, air of normality disintegrated. I went through the house boxing up anything that reminded me of Vicky. If it hadn’t been for Maddy, Mum, and the children I would have given up. Maddy realised I couldn’t speak about her sister without the rage surfacing so she volunteered to explain everything to the children.

Will was adamant, there was no way he was leaving me, no matter what happened. Two weeks later that I received a summons to attend the family court for a custody hearing.

*****

 

The family court is an unusual affair. It has its own special judges and is held in a committee room. Nothing that happens in that room is ever made public and anyone disclosing any of the discussions can be prosecuted for contempt. On the day of our hearing Sandford had two legal representatives, one of whom was Johnston. Social Services and Children’s Services were represented along with me and my solicitor. It seemed ridiculous to me then, and it still does, that the two people whose future was to be decided were not allowed to attend. Johnston and his deputy presented their case, that the children should be with their biological father. They outlined all the advantages the children would receive by living with Sandford.

My man told the court that I was the only father they had ever known and that it would be extremely traumatic to take them away from a loving father. I could see from the faces around the table that he was having the desired effect. I began to have real hope. Unfortunately Sandford’s team could see the same thing I did. When asked if he had anything to add Johnston stood up and addressed to court.

“The court has been told what a good job Mr Jennings and his wife have made of bringing up the children. This is true and my client is very appreciative. However, that was when there were two parents. Since the death of Mrs Jennings more pressure has been placed on Mr Jennings. Unfortunately Mr Jennings seems to have developed a propensity for violence as a means of dealing with that pressure. I would like to show the court some extracts from a recording of the interview my client and I had with Mr Jennings.”

 He opened up a file on his laptop and the picture appeared projected onto the back wall of the room. 

“This recording of a meeting we had with Mr Jennings to discuss this matter. I made Mr Jennings aware that the meeting was being recorded.”

The first scene was me grabbing the front of Johnston’s shirt and going head to head with him. Then there was me thumping the desk, jumping up and pacing up and down the office. Finally came the bit with me pushing Sandford in the chest sending him sprawling on the floor.”

My solicitor tried to stop me as I sprung to my feet.

“It didn’t happen like that. That meeting was a goddamned ambush.”

The judge repeatedly told me to sit down and eventually I did.

Johnston continued. “Mr Jennings cannot cope and my client does not feel the children would be safe in his care.”

I looked around the table, and realised I’d lost all the ground my solicitor had gained. The panel retired to consider a verdict, but I already knew the outcome. It only took them 30 minutes to decide that within ten days I would hand over my children to the Social Services who would in turn take them to Sandford.  There can be no appeal against the decision of a family court so all I could do was to make the most of the time we had together.

*****

 

Will wanted to run away so he wouldn’t be there to be collected, but I pointed out that would result in me being jailed for contempt. On the day of their collection there were tears all round. As I hugged them both. William stepped back and looked at me.

“He will never be my father. As soon as I can I’ll be back. I love you Dad.”

Zoe kissed me and assured me she loved me and would do whatever it took to get back home. The court ordered Sandford to make provision for visiting but I couldn’t bring myself to follow it up. As things turned out I didn’t need to. Within three weeks both of them stood on my doorstep. I seemed that Sandford’s idea of caring for and educating them was to send them off to boarding school. Will ran away, went straight to get Zoe and they made their way back home. Of course the police paid us a visit later that day and the following morning Social Services came to take them away again. They were smart kids so the next time they didn’t come to me but went to Mum and Dad. We had three days together that time. Following that it was to Maddy and Robert they went to. The police threatened me with a charge of abduction, but as I pointed out, I didn’t go and get them and I couldn’t stop them coming to me.

When Maddy leaked the story to the press, the Social Services came under a great deal of pressure. They were not allowed to disclose anything that happened in court and so couldn’t defend themselves. By the end of the summer term, both children had managed to get back to me four times. All this time my solicitor tried, without success, to get another hearing.

During the summer break Sandford whisked the children off to Mauritius for a holiday. This ruled out any more runaways. They kept in touch by phone and Skype but I missed them terribly. When Will told me he had a plan, I urged him not to do anything stupid or illegal. He just laughed and told me not to worry.

All the efforts made by myself, Maddy and my solicitor, got us nowhere. It came as a surprise when I was summoned to appear before the family court at the beginning of September. My surprise turned to shock when I found out the hearing was not to charge me with contempt, but to reconsider the original verdict.  It seemed Social Services thought insufficient emphasis had been placed on what the children wanted. Sandford was only represented by Johnston and he seemed remarkably subdued. We all sat there looking at each other until the judge called the meeting to order. I was under strict instructions from my solicitor, to remain calm. Once the preliminaries were out of the way the judge turned to me.

“Mr Jennings, at the last meeting of this court you demanded sole custody of William and Zoe. Is that still your position?”

“It is Ma’am.”

“You would not consider joint custody.”

“No Ma’am, it would be too disruptive. Whatever the court decides, it would be best for the children to have only one father. I believe that father should be me.”

The Social Services spokesman told the court that during the interviews with the children it became obvious they wanted to stay with me. There actions since the previous court decision underlined that.

The judge turned to Johnston.

“Mr Johnston, during the previous hearing you claimed Mr Jennings had a propensity for violence.” She actually read this last phrase from the transcript of the meeting. “Mr Sandford was concerned for the safety of the children if they remained with Mr Jennings. Is that still the case?”

“No Ma’am it is not.”

 I rocked back in my chair unable to believe what I had just heard.

“Would you care to explain what brought about this change of heart?”

“Yes Ma’am, Mr Sandford accepts that both children want to live with Mr Jennings and he doesn’t believe they would feel that way if he were violent towards them. He suggested we give the entire recording, of the meeting to a psychologist for evaluation. The court has a copy of the psychologists report. In short Ma’am, the report concludes that Mr Jennings had no idea his wife had an affair with my client or that the children were a result of the affair. The psychologist is of the opinion that Mr Jennings was in a state of shock and his reactions were those of a man defending his family.”

“Are you saying you wilfully mislead the court?”

“We did not try to mislead the court, Ma’am. However, we do believe  we were guilty of misinterpreting Mr Jennings reaction.”

My solicitor looked at me with a huge grin on his face. I was mystified, everything Johnston said about me was correct but why the sudden change of heart. He’d had no worries about misrepresenting the situation before.

“My client has no objection to Mr Jennings having custody, but demands visitation rights.”

The judge turned to me. “Do you agree to this Mr Jennings?”

“No Ma’am, I do not. My children have been badly scarred by the events of the last four months. Being forced to spend time with the man they see as responsible for all of that, is only going to inhibit the healing process.” My solicitor was pulling at my arm trying to get my attention. He was mouthing the words “quit while you’re winning”. I turned back to the judge. “I am prepared to allow visits by Mr Sandford but only at the request of my children.”

“Are you saying you’d refuse to accept the children if Mr Sandford is granted access?”

“If Mr Sandford were a reasonable man I would have no problem, Ma’am. However, he has shown himself to be anything but reasonable. His behaviour so far has shown he is a man who is prepared to go to any length to get what he wants. If you grant him access I expect to be back in court every time my arrangements do not fit in with his. My children need stability. Giving Mr Sandford the right to interfere will damage that stability.”

The judge looked at Johnston, who just waved her away. She told us she would retire to consult further with Social Services. My solicitor wanted me to change my mind about access. He saw that as a deal breaker. I was confident something had happened to make Sandford change his mind and that lack of access would not be a problem.

The court reconvened an hour later. Once everyone was sitting down, the judge called us back to order. “I have reached a decision.” she said. “Despite Mr Jennings unusual attitude to access, I am awarding him sole custody of William and Zoe. Social Services will monitor the situation.” She turned to me. “Be warned Mr Jennings. If I ever find out you are preventing your children from visiting Mr Sandford, I will have you back in this court before you know what is happening.”

That was nine years ago and I’d not seen anything of Sanford since then. Neither Will nor Zoe had ever expressed any desire to see him. He did send birthday cards and presents for them. He sent Will a cheque for £1,000 for his birthday. I sent it back with a note saying he should send something more appropriate for a 14 year old boy. After that things got better. More sensible gifts arrived and I always made them write thank you notes. Other than gifts and cards he left us alone.

As the years went by, Maddy and Mum worked on me. It wasn’t right for the children to grow up with me hating their mother. Maddy kept reminding me that Vicky had the chance of having it all.

“She could have divorced you, taken the children and had a life of luxury. Instead she turned her back on all of that and moved here with you. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

As Zoe got older she started to ask me more about her mother. What was she like? What did she like to do? It’s hard telling a young girl that her mother was a slag, so I gilded the lily a bit. Slowly but surely it had an effect on me. Maddy started getting Vicky’s pictures out and I stopped objecting. There’s a limit to the amount of hate you can carry for a dead person. The good memories started to return and they outweighed the memory of what she had done. Being both mum and dad to a couple of teenagers while trying to earn a living kept me pretty busy. Too busy to worry about people like Terence Stanford.

*****