THE COFFEE TRAILER
March 2003
I don’t have a lot of journal notes about this, but I do have some good memories. As you know, I had closed my coffee shop by now, but we were still running the coffee trailer we had built. It was fully outfitted with a 3 head espresso machine, grinders, fridge, freezer, clean water and dirty tank and had a big window to serve cars that drove up. Craig ran it up in Ogden across from the IRS and sales were very good. I was working real estate at the time and he wanted to run the trailer. But when his depression hit, he spent many days in bed and didn’t go up to run the business. I was concerned about it not being kept up and didn’t want things to go bad in it. I would go run it occasionally, but with Craig you never knew from one day to the next what his plans were, so it was hard to plan around him. Craig was also talking about leaving the country without notice and my attorney was worried that Craig would sell the trailer without my knowledge. That business was still entirely in my name and Craig was using my business credit card to purchase the products and keep it running, as well as whatever he felt like charging on that card, but he kept all of the money. I don’t know how he cashed the checks, but he took cash most of the time. I never saw a dime that he took in from it, but I was paying the bill. So my attorney advised me to get the trailer and lock it up until we could agree in the divorce how the assets and liabilities would be sorted.
This was a very scary move for me to take. Craig had taken the wheels off the trailer so that it couldn’t be stolen, but my best friends brother owned a trailer business so she arranged some wheels for me. We had to move this trailer without Craig catching us, as it would have created a terrible scene that none of us wanted to experience. I did own the trailer outright, but that would not have stopped Craig from raging if he discovered me taking it. It was his cash cow. We managed to get it out of there and another friend of mine had a warehouse that he let me put the trailer into. Whew.
But then, on March 13th 2003 I had an appointment with Shondell. I’ve mentioned before she worked out of her home. The room she did her counseling in looked out over the front area of her home. While I was in there with her, Craig arrived on his motorcycle and drove right up onto her front lawn, got off the bike as fast as he could and ran straight into her house. Her front door was unlocked as people waiting for their appointments could sit in her living room comfortably.
When we saw him arrive she quickly got up and grabbed her phone and by then Craig was in the consulting room with us and he YELLED at me. He was furious that I had “stolen” the coffee trailer. Thank heavens I was there and not somewhere else because I don’t know what he would have done to me. Shondell held onto her phone and talked calmly to Craig. She said we need to get our attorneys to sort out that stuff and stay away from each other. Then she told him this was my session and he needed to leave. He cussed, he pointed fingers in my face, he made some crazy threats, his eyes and face were on fire and Shondell started to call 911. That made him leave. He got back onto his motorbike, rode it in circles on her lawn, tearing up her grass and then took off like a bat out of hell. Once he was gone we were both shaking and couldn’t believe what had just transpired. She told me that we are, by far, the worst case she has ever dealt with. She is worried about me and is very concerned Craig is going to do something destructive to our family. That was a Thursday.
I don’t think I heard from him the rest of the weekend because I have no notes.
Journal entry Monday March 17th, 2003
The kids went to Craig's house after school today. I picked them up at 8:30pm. Craig asked if he could come and tuck them into bed. I said no. He became angry and said I must tell the kids that I am prohibiting him from being with them. I told him as long as he is angry towards me, he is not welcome in my home. The fighting is not good for the boys to hear. I reminded him that Shondell had told us to stay away from each other. It is a lot more peaceful this way.
End of journal entry.
That’s it for today. I have an email from Craig’s first wife that I put up on Patreon, on the $10 level of subscriptions as promised. In this email she describes Craig to a T and obviously was better with identifying manipulation and personality disorder than I was.
Next we will be going into April and May of 2003 where things start to get more intense with Craig's behaviours.
So until then, THANK YOU for your support. Please like, share and subscribe and help me turn this into a podcast and be able to reach thousands more that way.
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Let’s do this TOGETHER! Let’s help those who are desperately needing help now! I will never give up. The pain I felt and still feel is turning into strength, and I will not ever stop doing everything I possibly can to help those in need of help. I appreciate you all, please keep love in your hearts and don’t allow anyone to ever take that away from you.
Eve
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