Finally, in the middle of a day in the early summer of 1998, I pack my suitcase, buy an airline ticket and catch a plane to Sun Valley, Idaho, where I can feel safe. We have a beautiful log cabin, nestled within millions of gigantic pine trees beside a small creek, and overseen, as if God were watching, by looming mountains covered in colorful wild flowers. It is there I seek comfort. I tell Rick over the phone, “I’ll come home should you decide to actually tell the truth, and get some real help.”

Instead of making these changes, he now rips pages from the many journals I’d written over the years, where my soul-felt pain of life has been recorded, and distributes copies to family and friends. This astounds me, yet no one I’ve loved sees anything wrong with my husband’s outrageous behavior! Instead, I’m judged by what I’ve written, what was meant for no one’s eyes but my own. These pages are handed out to others who love drama, completely out of context. As if there is any good excuse to expose privately documented, innermost feelings to the public!?!

I choose to call these, once my friends, schadenfreuden and laugh when I even hear the word.

Relying almost completely now on Larry and Christiané for the mirror of whom I choose to be, I continue from the mountains trying to find comfort in what Dad always said: “God lives in the mountains, Debbie.”

I talk to my children and a few straggling friends, over the phone, trying to convince them of the injustices that are occurring, but they can’t see anything more than, “You’re sick.” They use my uncontrollable crying as proof. Larry says, “If they loved you once, they’ll love you again. Your true friends will believe in and support you, no matter what.” Apparently, I’ve never really had anyone’s love or friendship, which is now being revealed to me, and most difficult to admit or believe.