Quote Originally Posted by iris lilies View Post
I was furious with Jeff for ruining his life and her life.

Jeff is black, Ellie his wife was white and this stirred up the usual race bullshit endemic to St. Louis. It split our neighborhood with friends no longer speaking to friends. Things were not the same for ten years afterwards. So I was furous with him for doing that, too and this was a big deal because we had a very large and close circle of friends, I would say probably 30 people in the core party group.

He shot her on the day their divorce was final. The judge had awarded the house to her and she told him he had to leave. Ridiculously, they both still occupied the house out of a stupid idea that if one of them left that person had less claim on the house.
That is what our lawyers had us doing and it was horrible! Finally he started stalking me away from the house and I got a protective order. The judge gave me the house but he was extremely angry, like Jeff, and I thought I would end up like Ellie if I kept the house so I gave it to him to avoid him murdering me. (He had already told me he was thinking about having his first wife killed, he knew people who could do it as a favor. He was a lawyer.) So I lost my house. I still have a recurrent dream where I get the house back.