“You bitch!”
Dick slammed the phone down into the passenger seat. His children were in the backseat, looking like they would prefer to be invisible, or better yet, anywhere but there.
Dick’s Ex, that horrific woman, had just told him “No,” yet again, when he said he needed to drop the children off about an hour later than the court ordered return time. He and the kids had just had a decent day at the water park and now he wanted to stop by Dairy Queen for some last-minute ice cream before the kids had to go back to that hell whole Dick’s Ex calls a home.
“That bitch!” he said to himself, only not so silently that it didn’t fill the cabin like an acrid smoke.
“Your mother says, screw you. You can’t have ice cream. I don’t know why she treats y’all so badly. She’s a horrible mother.”
Dick woke his phone with his command, “Send an email to my lawyer.”
“What do you want to say to Donny?” his phone asked.
“Donny, file another case for contempt against my Ex. She’s refusing to allow me to return the kids a little later. I want her to suffer for this.”
“Sending, ‘Donny, file another case for contempt against my Ex. She’s refusing to allow me to return the kids a little later. I want her to suffer for this.’”
Still furious, a few minutes later, Dick pulled up to his Ex’s home. “Maybe we’ll get ice cream next time, if your stupid mother will allow it.” The children slunked out of the car, carefully shut the car door, slowly walked to and through the front door of the house, closing it behind them.
Dick backed out onto the road and peeled off toward his home, fuming all the way.
As soon as he parked in his driveway, he called the Ex. “You stupid witch!,” he yelled. “If I want to take my children for ice cream you damn well better say yes. Next time, I won’t ask. I was trying to be nice.” He threw his phone on the kitchen counter, cracking the screen a little bit more.
Then he posted a picture of his oldest son oldest displaying a thoroughly disgusted look on Facebook. He wrote, “This is what it looks like when your son learns his mother broke up our marriage by having sex with his father’s best friend. DM me if you want to see the pictures.” Happy with himself, he thought of the collection of pictures he would be sharing of his Ex in the act with another man. He vividly remembered the night he took them when he, his then wife, his once best buddy and his best buddy’s wife all had a raucous evening together. He didn’t know then how much use he could make of those pics. As it turned out, they sure would come in handy,
Dick poured himself a double Jack and coke, one of what would become many that night, stood in front of the full-length mirror in the living room taking in his almost immaculate appearance as stewed about his ex. Dick had many enemies, he thought. That was certain. But his Ex certainly ranked at the top of the list. No doubt about it, she was his worst enemy.
As he admired his reflection, he certainly should have added one more to his lengthening list and realized this unconsidered candidate ranked at the very top.
Michael Manely
