XXL Pt. 02

"Tell the truth? You don't have to have a good memory," Frank said.

Frank noticed Mary Beth's face harden and looked, following her line of sight. He saw Barbara Trenton and a tall, good looking man approaching.

"Do not, I repeat, do not speak to him," Frank hissed urgently. "And when he is talking? Do not interrupt him. I'm going to give you a pad and a pen. He says something that's not true? Write it down and I'll ask him about it. You have a question? Write it down and I'll be the one to ask him. Do you understand?"

"How can he, that's a new, when did he get his hair cut?" Mary Beth snarled, noticing that Richard was wearing a new suit, was sported a stylish buzz cut.

"Ms. Trahan, did you hear a single thing I just said?" Frank snapped.

Barbara Trenton was telling Richard Trahan basically the same thing Frank had told his client. Do not speak to Mary Beth. Do not interrupt Mary Beth. Any questions? Write it down and Barbara would be the one to ask the questions.

A bailiff opened a door and called out for Trahan V. Trahan.

"Its Traw haw(n)," Richard smiled to the burly man.

"Wasn't sure how that was pronounced," the man smiled.

"Oh, I bet you get some in here that make you say 'Huh? That even a name?" Richard chuckled.

And just like that, he and the bailiff were the best of friends.

Priscilla 'Cilla' Ayles was a slender woman in her late fifties, short and thin. Her black hair was done in a severe bun on top of her head. Her face was devoid of any makeup and her clothing was conservative, almost dowdy looking.

She nodded as Barbara introduced herself and her client. Cilla did let a small smile escape when Frank introduced himself and his client.

"It's good to see you again, Mr. Castro and congratulations on being reinstated," she said calmly.

"Thank you, Ms. Ayles," Frank smiled. "It feels good to be back. I still have student loans to pay, you know?"

Cilla, Barbara, and the bailiff smiled at this small joke. With a nod, the five people sat at a table. The bailiff stood behind the four litigants as they sat, facing Cilla and an older woman. The older woman had a small recorder in front of her.

"I am sure your attorneys have already told you what role I play in this proceedings, but let me state, for the record. I am the mediator. You will each present your case, your side of the separation, the dissolution of your marriage. I will render a decision. If there are no objections or amendments to my decision, it will go before a judge for his or her signature and in ninety days, the marriage shall be dissolved," Cilla said. "This is Ms. Benning; she is a court reporter. She will be transcribing the proceedings today."

"And if a decision cannot be reached?" Barbara asked, for clarification.

"Then that will be brought to a judge. He or she will then hear the arguments and render his or her decision. My role is to assist in keeping the backlog down," Cilla said. "Any questions?"

"Agreed," Frank said.

"Agreed," Barbara echoed.

"Tray, Traw haw(n) V Traw haw(n)," Cilla said. "Looking over the petition as provided by Ms. Trenton, and the response filed by... Sam Feldman, why is Mr. Feldman not here?" Cilla asked.

"Fired me," Mary Beth snapped.

Frank placed a restraining hand on Mary Beth's hand. He shook his head.

Barbara slid an incident report across the table. She then slid the security officer's affidavit across the table. She also slid copies of both to Frank.

Cilla read both aloud for the record. Frank continued to keep a warning hand on Mary Beth's arm as she simmered.

Mary Beth was seething as Richard's attorney recounted the bills that Richard had been responsible for, the expenses he'd incurred. The bank statements were produced, their tax returns were produced, his pay stubs from St. Pious were produced.

Cilla then turned and looked at Frank. The silence grew.

Finally, Frank stammered that he'd provided the court with all records of the household bills for 1821 Samson Way. He did produce the financial records of Albert and Sandra Rossini; the paying of these bills and incidentals had fallen on Mary Beth's parents since Richard Trahan had abandoned Mary Beth.

"Abandoned me long before," Richard wrote on the pad.

Barbara smirked, but did not comment.

"Yes, I've received all of that; thank you," Cilla agreed. "I did not see any W Twos or Ten Ninety Nines for Mary Beth Trahan. Nor have I seen any of the receipts for her portion of these expenses."

"I uh, she's a stay at home mom," Frank said.

"A, the children are grown. They do not reside at Eighteen twenty one Samson Way," Cilla stated. "Two reside at eleven zero nine Daniel Drive and one resides on campus at Missouri River State University. His primary residence is listed as Eighteen twenty one Samson Way, but at present, he is not staying at the primary residence."

"And don't say the cats are mine," Richard wrote.

Barbra smirked. Mary Beth glared white hot hatred at Cilla Ayles, then at Barbara Trenton.

"Eleven..." Cilla mused and rapidly flipped back through the papers in front of her.

She then looked at Richard. With one more glance at Mary Beth, Cilla waved her hand that they should continue.

Finances aside, Mary Beth listened, feeling more and more resentful as Barbara spoke of the emotional turmoil Richard Trahan had endured. Frank put a restraining hand on Mary Beth's arm. Then he wrote that she would get her turn.

Cilla's face was bland as she turned to Mary Beth.

"To say that Mary Beth was shocked when she received the petition for divorce is an understatement," Frank started. "As far as she knew, she had been a loving, faithful, devoted wife to Richard Trahan. There had been no..."

Barbara slid the photograph of Mary Beth and Chrissie kissing at the Marcie Martin concert. Frank looked at the photograph, then slid it to Mary Beth.

"I, I, this... It was a concert," Mary Beth said, now frightened. "We'd been drinking, we just got a little crazy."

Barbara slid the second, third, fourth and fifth photographs that had been sent to Richard's phone. Frank shuddered in disgust and slid the photographs to Mary Beth.

"Where'd you get these?" Mary Beth cried out.

"Phone number ending in six five six four," Richard spoke for the first time since sitting. "Someone sent them to me. Isn't that Noelle's number?"

Mary Beth knew that it was Noelle's phone number. She hung her head.

"Like my client said, it was a concert. They got a little wild, a little carried away, but it was just that one time."

Barbara slid another photograph of Noelle using a strap on cock on Mary Beth. Then she pulled it back and circled the time/date stamp on the bottom of the photograph. When she slid it back in front of him, Frank saw that the photograph had been taken the afternoon after the concert.

"And what about you and your fat little girlfriend?" Mary Beth screamed out. "Huh?"

"Who?" Richard asked, smiling.

"Uh huh. Didn't think I knew about her, huh?" Mary Beth snarled.

"I think Mr. Castro's client is referring to Amanda Wolff," Barbara smiled.

"I don't know the lard ass's name," Mary Beth said.

"My client is tutoring Ms. Wolff for her GED," Barbara smiled. "She had been a student at St. Pious but did not graduate. Mr. Trahan is tutoring her, getting her ready to take the test."

"There is a mirror," Richard said quietly. "It is right there, by the front door. Told you that it was a horrible place to put a mirror, but Noelle or Chrissie insisted it was the best place for a mirror, so I put it where you wanted it."

"Mr. Trahan? What does..." Cilla asked.

"You have no choice but to look in that mirror when you open the front door, coming in or going out," Richard continued. "I know you opened it when Al asked you to unlock the back gate so he could get back there cut the grass. You had look right at yourself when you opened that door."

"What does this have to do..." Cilla tried to interrupt him again.

"And after looking at yourself in that mirror, I have no idea how you could dare call anyone else a lard ass," Richard smirked.

"Mr. Trahan, that will be enough," Cilla snapped.

Barbra shot Richard a withering look. He pantomimed locking his lips and throwing the key away.

"A little late for that," she whispered.

Mary Beth very nearly fainted when Cilla Ayles made the decision that, as he had requested in his petition, Richard would be given 1109 Daniel Drive; Mary Beth would retain ownership of 1821 Samson Way. Furthermore, since 1109 Daniel Drive currently appraised for one hundred and twenty four thousand dollars, but 1821 Samson Way appraised for one hundred and eighty three thousand dollars, it was not a fully equitable split. Richard would also receive twenty nine thousand dollars, half of the difference in property values.

"Or, Mr. Trahan should be allowed to keep his 401K plan; Mary Beth Trahan relinquishes any rights to that?" Barbara offered.

Cilla looked at Mary Beth. Frank looked at Mary Beth.

"I, I've got bills. How I'm supposed pay my bills?" Mary Beth whined.

"There is a petition for alimony, household..." Frank weakly stated.

"It was Mrs. Trahan's infidelity that prompted Mr. Trahan to seek dissolution of the marriage," Cilla reminded Frank. "The courts do not reward infidelity."

"I don't even have enough gas get home," Mary Beth whined.

She looked with pleading eyes at Cilla Ayles. Cilla had seen her share of unfortunate, unfair separations, her fair share of destitute spouses, spouses that tried to use finances to manipulate the other spouse. She stared back at Mary Beth.

"He only left twenty five bucks in the account," Mary Beth complained.

"And five cents," Richard wrote.

Barbra looked at Richard, question evident in her eyes.

"Twenty five years of marriage, five kids," Richard wrote.

"Cute," Barbara wrote. "Only a math teacher would come up with that."

"Mrs. Trahan, Mr. Trahan left the primary residence three months ago, no, no, four months ago," Cilla stated. "What have you been doing since then?"

Richard looked at Cilla Ayles as the woman's impassive face looked at Mary Beth. Richard then looked at the stricken face of his wife.

"I, I kept waiting for Richard to come home," Mary Beth pleaded.

"Or his wallet," Richard wrote.

"STOP," Barbara wrote.

The next forty minutes were spent signing the paperwork. Mary Beth actually cried as she affixed her signature, signing away any hopes of getting any more money from Richard.

It did not even occur to Mary Beth that she was also signing away any hopes of reconciling with Richard. Mary Beth had not thought to request marriage counseling. And Frank had not seen any reason to request marriage counseling; Mary Beth had never expressed any hopes of reconciling with her husband. And with a final stamp from Cilla Ayles's notary stamp, the paperwork was completed.

Mary Beth numbly shuffled out of the room. The bailiff did shoot her a sympathetic look, but Mary Beth did not see it. Frank Castro said something, but Mary Beth didn't really hear him.

She ducked into a bathroom and relieved her aching bladder. Washing her hands, she happened to look up and was shocked at what she saw in the mirror. A fat, wrinkled middle aged woman looked blearily at her. She wondered when she'd become fat. She wondered when her hair began showing threads of gray.

Mary Beth shuffled outside. Another chill blast and Mary Beth again remembered that Thanksgiving was around the corner. And she had no idea what to do about Thanksgiving. Or Christmas.

"And where did I park?" she wondered.

A rapping on a window caught her attention. She stopped and looked. Richard rapped again on the window and waved to her.

Mary Beth felt an immediate rush of anger. Was he trying to gloat? He'd had a tremendous victory; was he really going to gloat now?

'Coffee,' he mouthed through the window and pointed to his coffee cup.

Another chill blast of Mountain air buffeted her and Mary Beth nodded her head in approval. She walked to the door of the small diner and entered.

"Here you go, Honey," a waitress said cheerfully and poured Mary Beth a cup of coffee.

"Thank you," Mary Beth said quietly.

"No problem," the woman said and walked away.

For a few moments, the two sipped their coffee in silence. Then Richard cleared his throat.

"Know, a big piece of me died when we lost Casey," he said.

"Me too," Mary Beth said miserably.

"But I didn't have a wife I could turn to, share that with," Richard said.

"I was right there," Mary Beth said angrily.

"No, no you weren't," Richard said quietly. "All you kept saying was that somehow it was my fault. Somehow it was my fault our baby was born with a bad heart."

"Oh that is such bull shit," Mary Beth snarled.

"And twenty years later, I'm still wrong," Richard sighed.

Mary Beth realized that this had been an argument they'd had a few months earlier; that she disregarded whatever he said. That she dismissed his opinions, his feelings.

"And when Ritchie got into drugs, God, I've never felt more alone," Richard said, a catch in his voice. "My son, my big boy, hooked on drugs and there wasn't a God damned thing I could do stop it."

"You never..." Mary Beth said.

"I did, Mary Beth," Richard said. "I did try. And I failed. And you never would let me forget that I failed."

"I failed too," Mary Beth sniffled.

"Instead of having each other, I really needed you," Richard said. "But you were already gone."

Mary Beth was about to accuse him of being the one that had gone. She was about to deny him his feelings again. Then, as the waitress refilled their cups, Richard slid two twenties across the table.

"Get some gas for your car," he said gently.

"Thank you," she said quietly as she quickly grabbed the two bills.

"But uh, God, almost sounds shitty say it," Richard said. "I'm dropping the insurance end of this month. And there's still nineteen payments left on it."

"Oh," Mary Beth said.

"Insurance on the house is paid up through March; we're with State Farm," Richard continued. "But before the end of March? Need get your own insurance."

"And the hits just keep coming," Mary Beth muttered.

"We got a pumpkin pie to die for," the waitress suggested. "Or an apple..."

"Still got that cherry?" Richard asked.

"Yeah. Want that?" the woman asked.

"Mary Beth? Want cherry?" Richard asked.

Mary Beth nodded her head. Richard held up two fingers.

A moment later, the waitress put two pieces of pie, with scoops of vanilla ice cream slowly melting in front of Richard and Mary Beth. She walked away, checking on the other two customers.

Mary Beth had not realized how hungry she was. She shoveled the warm pie into her mouth. Then she scraped up the ice cream. Richard slid his plate across the table and she ate his scoop of ice cream as well.

"The windbreaker," Mary Beth suddenly remembered as the flag across the street fluttered and snapped in a gust of wind.

"Hmm?" Richard asked as he emptied his cup of coffee.

"You left your windbreaker. A yellow windbreaker," Mary Beth said.

"What size do I wear?" Richard asked.

"I don't know. Size fourteen, I know that," Mary Beth said.

"I wear two XL," Richard said. "XXL. It's the size I was wearing when we got married. You used to sing that stupid song, 'I'm two x l-ee for my shirt, two x l -e for my shirt, so X X L-ee it hurts,' remember?"

'Oh yeah, Mary Beth smiled, remembering the long ago silly memory.

"And what size is the windbreaker?" Richard asked. "And those shirts?"

"I don't know," Mary Beth admitted.

"X L," Richard said. "Those slippers? Size thirteen."

"Oh," Mary Beth said.

"Anything else?" the waitress asked.

Richard handed the woman a ten and a five. Then he gently touched Mary Beth's hand. When Mary Beth looked up, he was gone.

Calls to Noelle's phone went to voice mail. Mary Beth left the simple 'Why? Why did you send Richard those pictures?' message, then vowed to never call that number again.

A call to Jewel's number was answered. Jewel did agree to let Mary Beth come over to use her computer to search for a job.

"You know, Curtis Construction? Where Buddy works?" Jewel said when Mary Beth entered the house. "They hired that receptionist, but turned out she was just looking scam them."

"Really?" Mary Beth asked, interested.

"Uh huh. Supposedly had an 'accident,' slipped on a loose rug," Jewel said, using air quotes when she said the word 'accident.'

"Help me put together a resume?" Mary Beth begged.

Lyle Curtis met Mary Beth and liked her. He saw a short, pleasantly plump woman with some maturity to her. Her lack of employment history didn't bother him in the least. He knew running a house, raising kids was plenty of experience.

They shook hands and Mary Beth was shown the layout of the phone system. She was shown the computer system. After Lyle left the small office to go to a project he was working on, Mary Beth did a 'happy dance' at her desk.

When she arrived home that afternoon after her first day of work, Mary Beth immediately thanked Jewel, thanked Buddy. After she left their front door stoop, both Buddy and Jewel commented that they'd never seen Mary Beth smile before.

Turning her cell phone back on, Mary Beth lost the smile. There were phone messages from Jackie and Andy; Richard had called them both and let them know that they had two weeks to vacate 1109 Daniel Drive.

"He can't do that!" Jackie screamed.

"Mom, what the fuck, huh?" Andy said, using one of her buttons. "I mean, he drives Ritchie away? And now he's driving us away?"

"O my God; Richard's right," Mary Beth said. "This is what we, what I turned them into."

"Father won that house in the divorce," Mary Beth said when Andy did answer his phone. "Like he said, you got two weeks. And if I was you? Wouldn't take all two weeks. Find a place, then clean up that house."

And when Andy tried to use Ritchie's death, Mary Beth told Andy that the ride on the Ritchie's Death train had come to an end. Jackie received a similar phone call.

To Mary Beth's chagrin, Jackie and Andy did find another place to live; they moved in with her. Mary Beth now understood a little of what Richard had gone through when he was trying to finance two households.

The day before Thanksgiving, Lyle gave all his employees a twelve pound fresh turkey and sent them home just before lunch. Mary Beth brought the turkey over to her parents' home; Sandra was cooking the Thanksgiving meal that year.

"And the year before, and the year before that, and the year..." Sandra said.

"Want me do it?" Mary Beth asked.

Sandra looked at her daughter for a long moment. The woman judged that Mary Beth was sincere in her offer and smiled. She patted Mary Beth's cheek.

"Maybe next year, okay? I've already got everything here," Sandra said.

Mary Beth felt happy, almost content as she drove home. That feeling stayed with her until she pulled into her driveway. Jackie's car and Andy's truck sat on the driveway, right where they had been when Mary Beth had backed out of the garage to go to work that morning.

Entering the home, Mary Beth saw that Jackie was still in too short tee shirt and thong panties, fuzzy socks on her feet. It was far too revealing an outfit to be wearing in front of her brother. Andy was wearing his high school football jersey. Mary Beth could not tell if Andy wore anything underneath the jersey.

Andy and Jackie were lounging on the couch, arguing over what television show to watch. Their cereal bowls sat on the kitchen table.

"Television off," Mary Beth snapped, marching into the living room.

Jackie and Andy ignored her. Mary Beth walked over, jerked the remote from Andy's hand and turned the television off.

"You, and you, listen up. There's some new rules in this house," Mary Beth snarled. "You have two weeks. Fourteen days. Two weeks to find a job, a full time job or find a new address. Jackie, go put some clothes on; that is inappropriate to wear in front of your brother. Andy, go shave that stupid looking shit off your face and comb your hair."