Part 7 (2/2)
”Yes,” Jenny said.
The girls were in school, but Kari said that she and Matt were going to Ka.s.sidy's grave. Kari sounded melancholy but not overly so, and Jenny judged that her friend was taking the anniversary in stride.
It was around that time that Kari called Linda to discuss her plans for the future. The two talked every day, but this day Kari had something special on her mind. ”I think I'm in a place where I need to reach out and help others who've lost a child,” Kari said. ”I'll always miss Ka.s.sidy, but now that I've found peace with her death, I'd like to find a way to help other parents.”
”That's a wonderful idea,” Linda said. ”You're so good with people.”
Nancy didn't sense anything wrong either when Kari called in late March and asked about plans for the upcoming Easter celebration at Nancy's father-in-law's ranch. ”What can I bring?” Kari asked. Nancy said they didn't need anything. They were planning a Texas barbecue, and the others had already signed up to bring everything needed.
”No, no, no!” Kari insisted. ”If not food, let me bring Easter eggs. We always color so many with the girls.”
Nancy agreed and hung up the phone. It would be the last time she talked to her niece.
So many judged that Kari was handling the anniversary well, yet what was wrong? If sad memories weren't causing Kari such upset, making her hands shake, perhaps it was the chasm that had developed in her marriage.
What had been building for months escalated a week after the seventh anniversary of Ka.s.sidy's death. Since February, Kari had accused Matt of being distant, and he'd responded by saying she was the one pulling away. But as March drew to a close, Kari began confiding in friends that Matt's overactive s.e.x drive wasn't kicking in as it had in the past. It marked a turnaround in their marriage, one Kari might have understood had she known about Matt's interest in Vanessa Bulls.
”I actually want Matt s.e.xually, but he told me that he doesn't need me like that anymore,” Kari told Jill Hotz, her Dallas friend to whom she talked nearly every afternoon.
”Kari seemed really upset, really troubled about it,” says Jill. ”I told her they'd been married a long time, and it was probably just a phase. It would go away.”
After Kari could no longer speak for herself, what would be left was a trail of e-mails, hinting at what went on that final spring behind closed doors, as she struggled to repair her marriage. In those e-mails, Kari seemed willing to sacrifice nearly everything to save her family. Meanwhile, Matt continually s.h.i.+fted the blame for the dire turn in their relations.h.i.+p.
On Monday the twenty-seventh, Kari e-mailed Matt. Hoping to reconnect with her husband, she'd asked Linda to take the girls that upcoming Friday night. ”So what are we going to do?” Kari asked.
”NOTHING!!! Sleep,” Matt replied.
”I am sure that is what you would want to do,” Kari responded. ”I am not sure what has changed in you but something has. :)”
”I was just joking, Kari,” he responded. ”I am not different. I promise. We can go to the movies, out to eat, or rent a movie and order in, whichever you want.”
”I tried the other night to make things special, and now the ball is in your court,” she responded. ”I hope you don't miss the basket.”
”Very funny,” he responded. ”You make me laugh. Hahaha. You did make things special-I never miss the basket.”
Yet Friday night, when they'd have a leisurely evening together, was still five days away. The week ahead would prove a tumultuous one.
The next day, Tuesday, March 28, Kari sent Matt another e-mail, apparently after what had been a disappointing s.e.xual encounter: ”I know you are not at work yet, but there is something on my mind . . . Matt, I love you very much, and I wasn't joking about what I said last night. I do not doubt your love for me. I just think that something has changed in you, and I can't figure out what it is. Until you open up and tell me what is going on, we cannot go any further . . . Never in our marriage have you ever told me no, and I guess I feel like this is just one way you are pulling away.
”I know you think I am seeing things, but what I feel is real. I have decided that until you open up to me and tell me what is going on and really spend the time needed to make things better, I will not do 'anything' with you. Then again, maybe that is what you want. This morning I thought you would have liked what I did, but I felt like you seemed put out, and I am tired of giving and giving and you not giving back.
”So I guess what I am saying: if you want our marriage to be better than it has ever been, then some things have got to change. Please know I am not in any way saying I do not love you or do not want to be with you, but the way I feel has got to stop, and that means that you have got to tell me what is going on in your mind.
”I love you very much and I am sorry if I have made you mad, but like I said last night I AM SICK OF THIS!!! You are breaking my heart :(.”
When Matt got to WCY, he e-mailed back: ”Kari, I just want you to know that I love you. Just wanted to say that.”
From the outside, it would appear that their relations.h.i.+p was at a crossroads, and the only one who had all the facts, who could have come up with the answers, wasn't talking. Matt could have confessed to his interest in another woman or even simply announced that he didn't love Kari and wanted a divorce. Instead, in his e-mails he blamed Kari for the problems in their marriage. From her response, it would seem logical that he insinuated that their disagreement somehow had something to do with their dead daughter. ”Wow,” she wrote. ”I guess Ka.s.sidy has never crossed my mind in what is going on now.”
It was all Kari's fault, Matt said. She'd been cold, not fulfilling him s.e.xually. Her response was at first measured. In her e-mail, she accepted that s.e.x had been less important to her than it was to him, referring to it as ”the way I was.”
Then she wrote: ”I understand that I will not expect anything from you like that until you are ready. I want to be real honest with you. I am so sick of talking about this. I just want to focus on us. I will try to not second-guess your feelings for me. BUT you have got to really spend time loving on me as well. It has to go both ways . . . I love you.”
Minutes later, perhaps after they'd talked on the phone, it would seem that she'd reconsidered. This time, she sent Matt an e-mail that read: ”You know what? I am sick of this. And so that is it. I am finished.”
At 11:25 A.M., Matt replied, and this time he attacked Kari on every level, as a mother, wife, and lover: ”I guess the whole idea about where Ka.s.sidy fits in is the way in which I see her death as a defining moment on [sic] both of our lives. We will never be the same again,” he wrote. ”I know that you have told me a number of times that you prayed the night that she died, that you wanted her to be pain free . . . I have never told you before what I did in her room at midnight when I went in to check on her. I guess this is part of the 'not sharing' everything with you. I went to her bed and placed my hand on her back to make sure she was breathing. She was. She looked up at me briefly and went back to snoring quickly. I kept my hand on her back, and I prayed for her that night. I prayed that she would be cancer free, and I prayed for her to start and finish school, graduate college, get married and bring her family home for the holidays. I remember praying the words, 'Please, G.o.d, make her well, so we can have her here with us. Please! I need her.'
”I don't know why I never told you this before. Maybe I didn't want to make you mad. You and I have discussed the fact that your prayer was the one that WAS answered that night. I don't know why mine wasn't. I know deep down I hold a grudge against G.o.d and you for Him answering your prayer and not mine . . .
”All I know is that I chased you for our entire marriage. You often did make me feel like you did not need nor [sic] desire me. I felt as though I was like the sperm donor for your children, and I was now the butler, cook, babysitter etc. (although I know I am not good at keeping the house clean). We have always been friends.
”I just got off the phone with you and I am just as sick with talking about this as you are. I want to work on us just like you do. I don't want to be looked at weird or blamed or look at you weird or blame you anymore. It has to stop!! We cannot do this much longer, before one of us snaps! I don't know what would happen, but we could snap at each other and say something we can't take back.
”I do love you very much. I love my family very much. My girls are my world! There is nothing I wouldn't do for my girls.
”I do love you-and I am planning for Friday something special for the 2 of us. I just needed you to know what has been on my mind and heart. Please forgive me if anything I say here upsets you. I don't want to make you mad.”
His standard signature closed this direct a.s.sault, ”Matt Baker ~ Chaplain”
That e-mail must have been devastating for Kari. Matt was blameless. He was the dedicated husband and father, the one who prayed over their dying daughter and fought to save her life. Kari? She took without giving back. She'd prayed for their daughter's death. She'd rebuffed her husband and made him feel small.
Twenty minutes later, she responded: ”Wow so you finally said it. You blame me for Ka.s.sidy's death. I had to read it a few times to make sure I understood what you had said. I feel like you just took a knife and put it through my heart. I have never ever told you that it was your fault that she wasn't alive, ever!!! Yes I carry that guilt of my prayer, but I know in my heart that G.o.d knew what he was doing before I ever prayed that prayer. Yes we will never be the same after Ka.s.sidy's death, but one thing I have learned is you can either let it change you for the good or the bad and that is up to you.
”Sorry you have felt like you have chased me our whole marriage. Sorry you feel that all you do is cook, clean and take care of the girls. You have truly painted an ugly picture of me. At least now I know how you feel about us and about me. At first I wondered why you would stay with me, and then in your last sentence you said you would do anything for your girls, meaning Kensi and Grace and that is why you have stayed.
”Yes I agree I am very tired of talking about this, but at least one thing happened: I now know how you feel about me and about our relations.h.i.+p. I am not sure what we do from here. I have some things that I need to work out because you said some things that really hurt. I am not mad at you but I am hurt.
”. . . I know that marriage isn't easy, even harder with the loss of a child. BUT I am not sure how a marriage can last when one person blames the other for the death of that child. I am in disbelief about what you said. Shocked.
”Thank you for being honest with me finally. I wish it didn't take so long, but I understand why you did because those words must have been very hard to say, to write. I am just not sure what to do now.”
Afterward, Kari called her mother and confided in her. As they talked, Kari said that she and Matt were having problems, and that he blamed her for Ka.s.sidy's death. ”Mom, I'm going to divorce him,” she said. ”I don't think we can get beyond this.”
As a professor of communications, Linda taught her students that one should never give advice but rather ask others why they thought the way they did and what they believed they should do about it. At that moment, however, she wasn't in a cla.s.sroom but talking on the phone to her daughter, someone she dearly loved, about ending a marriage. She knew Kari loved Matt, and she knew that a divorce would hurt not only Kari but also Kensi and Grace.
Talking to Kari, Linda reacted not as a professional communicator but as a mother and a grandmother. Most of what Linda knew about Matt Baker was good. She knew he'd moved from job to job, but not about his dalliances or his bizarre s.e.xual advances toward young women. What Linda believed about Matt was that he was, overall, a fine husband and father. And, of course, that he was a minister, a man of G.o.d.
”Sweetheart, divorce isn't the answer,” Linda said. ”What you need is counseling. Clearly Matt hasn't dealt with this yet. You need to go to counseling together.”
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