Free Bitter Harvest: A Woman's Fury, a Mother's Sacrifice by Ann Rule Page B

room. He cleaned it—but Kelly lost all her possessions. He just picked everything up and threw it away!”
    Mike tried to work shorter hours and spend more time with his family. He vowed that somehow his relationship with Debora would turn into a loving marriage and they would magically become a happy family. He was so eager for that to happen, in fact, that he made a promise to his children that he was not sure he could keep: he told them that he would never go away again, that they would be a family forever.
    He would regret that promise for the rest of his life.
    The “honeymoon phase” in the Canterbury Court house lasted only six months. After Christmas, all the old problems resurfaced. Mike summed it up accurately: “I made the mistake that so many people make—either they have a baby, or they buy a house, and they think that everything is going to change, that all the bad times will be left behind. But they never are.”
    Once again, Mike had to evaluate his marriage—his life. “It became clear to me that our relationship had not substantially improved. I still did not have any love for Debora, and I decided that I wanted a divorce.”
    As far as Mike could see, the new house was soon as messy as the old house had been; Debora had little interest in keeping it in order, and order and neatness mattered tremendously to Mike. Even more, he longed for the passion he had never found in his marriage. Reconciliation or not, she was no more interested in their sex life than she had ever been. And she had become a heavy, unattractive woman who paid no attention to how she dressed. She had cut her beautiful hair even shorter and looked sloppy and rumpled most of the time. Mike could barely remember the slender resident in her expensive sports car, with her long hair flying in the wind. And although she was keeping a lid on her tendency toward violent histrionics, he still felt Debora was a powder keg waiting for a match.
    Finally, Mike had come to believe that his role in their marriage was simply to give Debora status in their community and bring home a paycheck. When he had the time to visualize the life he longed for, it seemed he didn’t want more than most men: a caring wife who appreciated his sexual interest in her; children who loved him; a clean house. But he had none of these things; he had only a steeper mortgage than he had before.
    He wanted out—badly.
    He did not, however, tell Debora of his decision; he dreaded a repeat of the scene in their old house. Besides, he, Debora, and Tim planned to go on a trip with a group from Pembroke Hill School that summer—a wonderful trip to the Amazon River and the Inca ruins in Peru. Mike knew perfectly well that if he told Debora beforehand that he wanted a divorce, all hell would break loose. “I thought it would make the trip miserable for us, and potentially miserable for the other people on the trip.”
    If the vacation in Peru went well, at least Tim would have memories of a last happy time with his mother and father together. So Mike kept his mouth shut. Knowing that eventually he would have to leave his marriage if he was to enjoy any happiness in life, he thought he could stay for another six months.

7
    T he Kansas City area of the mid-1990s was, like so many other parts of America, caught somewhere in a time warp. Anyone with imagination could close his eyes and see the covered wagons rumbling west over the prairie, which is not flat at all, but faintly undulating. A century and a half ago, the population of Kansas City, Missouri, was measured in the dozens, but merchants there thrived when it became the jumping-off place for pioneers and the California gold rush. Then as now, the roads west were surrounded by trees where creatures with watching eyes scanned the plains below. In the summer, the hawks are hidden. In the winter, they perch, their feathers ruffled against the frigid wind, about a hundred yards apart, dark gray birds a foot tall or more. It