Chapter 14 - A much better man...

I have put this off long enough. Back to the reason I am writing, back to the journey.

It took about six weeks of writing before I felt in my heart that Rett was sincere in his apology, that he felt some of the pain that I had endured. But there was something still stopping me from opening up to him. I kept asking him questions, but he never once asked me anything. I noticed, and I wondered why.

One Friday, I designed a mini-questionnaire of my own, simply 5 questions that had been on my mind. I rarely ask questions that I don't already know the answers to, or know what direction they will take. One of the 5 questions I asked was "How many people have you told 'our' story to?". I had a sneaking suspicion that he hadn't shared it with many people.

He replied that he had told 4 people, his therapist, one male friend who wasn't currently in his life, and two female friends who he referred to as his FOC (Family of Choice). He had not told either of his ex-wives about this.

Personally, I can't imagine not sharing this with someone I love. How can you not open up to someone you love? Why would you not share this? It spoke volumes as to how he viewed love and those he loved, and his integrity or his level of honesty. I can see this now, but at the time my vision was not as clear as it is now.

Rett had told me early on that his encounter with me had changed his life. It made him "a much better man than I used to be". This was a line that he repeated often throughout the months we corresponded and spoke. He also told me that I deserved honesty now, and that he was going to be honest even if it would be painful. More prophetic words.

Someone who is a good person does not have to tell you, they just are. There were hints along the way that he wasn't a good person, but I just couldn't let myself believe that. I wanted him to be a better person...I needed him to be a better person. And yes, I needed him to be honest, probably more than anything else I needed that.

But honesty doesn't come easily for Rett. As I said earlier, he is a recovering drug addict, and they are liars, expert liars. He didn't tell me about his drug addiction at first, but he eluded to it several times and I knew it was either an alcohol addiction or a drug addiction due to the words he used...like 'amends'. It is a common word used in any twelve-step program.

Just to be clear, here are the 12 steps for narcotics anonymous:

The Twelve Steps
These are the original Twelve Steps as suggested by by Alcoholics Anonymous.[8]
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

He wrote to me that 3 years ago he had wanted to find me to make 'amends' for what he had done. (It is difficult to track someone down if you don't remember their name.) He wrote, "If I could have found you about three years ago, I would have started this myself (or that's what I told myself back then - honest). Who knows, perhaps I did find you - sort of a Celestial 411 kinda thing. I have a couple of angels that run tasks for me - perhaps they took this one on themselves."

That sentence touched me so much it made me weep when I read it. When I replied I was honest and I told him it made me cry because I had always thought about our child as being my angel and that perhaps this time, it had been working for the both of us. And truly it felt as if that was what had happened. Something was working to help us heal from all of this pain.

Also in that e-mail I felt as if the layers of the onion had been peeled back and I could hear him bearing his soul. He admitted to lying to me and taking advantage of me and he said he was sorry. And I believed that he meant it.

Here is what he said:

"I trapped myself into that lie, continued to bury myself deeper, and did not know how - or have the guts - to come clean. I'm sorry. It may not be worth much, but I'm a much better person today, and have worked hard to put the karmic balance back into my life."

There was the second reference to being a better person. Ah, "methinks thou doth protest too much..."