CHAPTER 1

I was almost twenty years old when I met Mark. It wasSeptember of 1977, and I was beginning my junior year at theUniversity of Vermont (UVM), where I was a double majorin physical education and psychology, with a minor in coaching.Located in northern Vermont, UVM was one of the largest collegesin the state. The Winooski River ran through its gorgeous, tree-filledcampus. Snow fell in abundance in the winters, and summers werebeautiful. While I was still in high school, I had spent summers oncampus attending gymnastic camps. I had fallen in love with theschool and its gymnastics coach. Even as a high school kid, I hadknown I would go to college there someday.

I had grown up in West Castleton, Vermont, a small town ofabout ten thousand people in the southwestern part of the state. Iwas the youngest of eight children, although I shared that distinctionwith my twin brother, Keith. Four boys, four girls. My parentsdivorced when I was seven because of my father's alcoholism. Hedied a year later, so I spent most of my childhood without a dad.

Mark was twenty when I met him, a history major fromBurlington who like his father before him was destined to go onto a career in sales. He had transferred from Ithaca College in NewYork that fall to play hockey. We met one afternoon when my houseof nine girls (six of us being college gymnasts) were getting readyto throw a birthday party for my roommates, whose birthdays werenear. There was a huge cake on the table, and Mark thought it wouldbe funny to stick his finger in it and taste the frosting. I was notimpressed. I thought he was a jerk. He came to the birthday partythat night, and the front porch collapsed when we stuffed it withtoo many students. Mark made up for his lousy first impression byshowing up the next day to help fix it.

From that moment on we were friends. I saw him often, sincethe hockey and gymnastics teams shared the weight room. Duringmy senior year he lived behind me just down the alley. I wouldwatch him walk by on his way to his 8:00 a.m. class in his hikingboots, boot-cut jeans, and tan and green down jacket. I liked hislook, but his body language showed a quiet struggle. He lookedsad and distant, and he rarely smiled. Despite this something drewme toward him. I knew I was going to end up with him. It wasn'tsomething I contemplated; it was something I knew like the colorof my hair.

Late that winter Mark introduced me to Jack, a freshman whowas also from Burlington, Vermont. I was in the commons andchatting with a friend when Mark brought him over to our tableand introduced us. I stood up to chat with Jack and felt an instantconnection. It was like a heat wave. He had electric blue eyes,dark hair, and a raspy voice. The way he looked deep into my darkbrown eyes took my breath away and made my legs shake. Laterthat afternoon he looked for me on the fifth floor of the library. Hewanted to see if I had felt what he had.

We enjoyed a brief but passionate affair that lasted into thesummer but ended before I returned to college that fall for myteaching assignment. I don't remember how or why it ended.

Mark was still at UVM and lived nearby. We soon startedjogging together. He was no longer playing hockey, and I wasthrough with gymnastics. But we both wanted to stay in shape. Wespent a lot of time together, and our friendship blossomed, slowlygrowing into a strong, steady relationship. Our bond was sealedone winter day when we jogged through downtown Burlington.Snow was falling, and Christmas displays twinkled in the storefrontwindows. I realized then we were soul mates. We were in love. Itwasn't the driving, passionate kind of love I had shared with Jack; itwas the kind of love that lasted forever. There was a reason we weretogether.

As for Jack, the passion and connection I felt with him lingeredand always left me wondering. I often secretly hoped I would runinto him again one day, but thirty years would pass before that wishcame true.

* * *

As the love between Mark and me thrived, I couldn't helpnoticing the deep sorrow that he carried with him. I rememberwaiting for him to smile early in our friendship. Would it be a smallone just at the corners of his mouth, or would it be an eye-crinklingone? As it turned out, he had a huge, disarming smile. But he didn'tunleash it often. Something haunted him.

I was also puzzled by his relationship with his family. I camefrom a loving family, but he wouldn't even call his parents. "Whydon't you call your parents?" I would ask him. When he did call,he was always abrupt with them, like he couldn't wait to get off thephone. I sensed there was something wrong, and this little voiceinside me questioned whether it was wise to become so involvedwith him.

I graduated with a teaching degree in December of 1979 andmoved south to Montpelier, the capital of Vermont. I was ready toget out of Burlington. Mark still had a semester left at Burlingtonand wasn't scheduled to graduate until the following May. We madethe relationship work by taking turns visiting each other. And afterhe graduated, we settled on Burlington as our new home. Markreally wanted to stay in his stomping grounds, and ready for a newadventure, I readily agreed. Although I moved to Burlington in thesummer of 1980, I continued to job hunt in Montpelier in the hopewe would eventually settle there. Unfortunately teaching jobs wereas hard to find in 1980 as they are now, so after substitute teachingfor a year and working odd jobs to pay the rent, I landed a sales jobbased out of Burlington. It was never something I wanted to do, butit was a job. My new employer was Westin Company, a fidelity andsurety bonding company. I was their sales rep for three quarters ofthe state. I called on attorneys, bankers, and insurance agents.

Meanwhile, Mark was working as a sales rep for a transportationcompany. We both traveled a great deal and enjoyed meeting upon the road. But we were busy since Mark also covered the samelarge area of Vermont. Although his father had always pushed Marktoward a career in sales, it wasn't a natural fit. The bread and butterof a career in sales—meeting quotas, working with sales managers,and training that involved role-playing and presentations in front ofpeople—he didn't enjoy. He hated the corporate world, respondedpoorly to the stressful life it entailed, and needed regular escapes tohis family's lake cottage to recharge.

The cottage was located on Mirror Lake, which was aboutthirty-five miles north of Burlington and seven miles north of thenearest town, Birchwood. The cottage, a thousand-square-foot,three-bedroom building with an open floor plan, sat on one hundredfeet of beach frontage, one of the nicest points on the lake. Staineddark blue-gray with white trim, it had a matching detached garage.Mark's parents spent—and still spend—every weekend and someof their vacations there. They had built the cottage when Markwas thirteen, and he had been retreating to its cozy confines eversince to boat, water-ski, fish, and swim in the summer and ride thesnowmobile, ice fish, sled, and cross-country ski in the winter.

Mark and I started talking about getting married in early 1982and were soon shopping for rings. We got engaged in Florida inMarch of that year and wanted to get married right away. Buthis parents convinced him we needed a long engagement and abig wedding. So after he gave me a ring, his parents monopolizedthe wedding plans. Where, when, how, what, why—they dictatedevery detail. I wanted to get married in West Castleton, but hisparents refused to even attend the wedding or contribute financiallyif it wasn't in Burlington. I didn't fully appreciate their controllingnature until later in my marriage when it all became abundantlyclear I was stuck in a toxic environment with no way out. I didwonder why (on July 19, 1983) I so desperately wanted to run outthe back of the church on my wedding day. Was it just nerves orsomething worse?

From that day forward there was always a little voice of warning,a nagging feeling of despair. I got really good at pushing it away. Ihad married into this family, and I was going to make it work andcreate a good life. For the most part that's what we did. I really didthink Mark's family just cared more than mine. I realized laterthey cared about the wrong thing—what a person did rather thanwho he or she was. My children and their relationships with theirgrandparents were eventually affected by this way of thinking.

James and Ruth, Mark's parents, were both born and raised inBurlington. They had lived in the same 1960s-era, split-level homesince Mark's elementary school years. (They still live there today.)Along with raising Mark there, they had reared two other boys:Harry, who was two years younger than Mark and the owner of alearning disability, and Tom, who was five years younger than Markand the youngest of the three.

James had graduated from Saint Michael's College in theBurlington area, putting himself through school, and Tom wouldeventually follow in his footsteps. Not Mark, though. Mark's smallrebellion was all part of a larger pattern. While Tom was the goodson and Harry the one with a handicap, Mark was the rebelliouschild. Their parents were well liked in the area, especially by thehockey community. James was your typical type-A personality: hard-charging, controlling, and manipulative. He was five feet ten, withdark hair and brown eyes. James was an athletic man and continuedto play hockey and tennis well into his golden years. He retired atthe age of fifty-five after a successful career as a sales manager, buthe continued to tinker with his own machinery business. Markowned his facial features, including his big smile, to his mother,Ruth, a beautiful woman with red hair and blue eyes. She neverwent to college, never worked as long as I knew her, and never hadany interests of her own. She was a product of her husband, whocontrolled her every move, even finishing her sentences for her.

* * *

My life with Mark unfolded like a bad novel, one where thefamily was so tied together they lost their individuality. No clearlines were drawn, and once the pattern was set, no matter howhard I tried to break it, I failed. I constantly felt like a bad personfor wanting things to be different, for trying to pull my family outof this environment. Deep down, I knew things were going to endbadly.

Mark's family cottage at the lake became a wedge between us.For him it was a place he loved, a place he was drawn to during all hisfree time. If he wasn't there on the weekends and holidays, he felt likehe was missing out on something. It was like a drug for him—andmore important than me. His parents encouraged his addictionbecause it meant they never had to let go of their son. I lookedat their enabling behavior like a form of brainwashing—a silent,controlling type of abuse. For me the cottage was an increasinglytoxic place.

Mark rarely came to West Castleton with me because he couldn'tsacrifice his cottage time. I think he was grateful when I left forweekends or occasional weekdays so he didn't have to feel badlyabout being there. He missed out on so many wonderful times withmy family. Maybe my family was a little too real for him. Everyonewas allowed their own thoughts and feelings. No one controlledanyone. There was no fear—at least not the kind that grabbed youand wouldn't let go. He also wondered at times if I would come back,knowing how I struggled. But I had made a commitment.

Like his father, Mark chose a career in sales and was convincedthat this was the only avenue he could pursue successfully. Hisfather believed that too. For example, if you chain the legs of circuselephants together and make them walk in a circle and then removethe chains, the elephants will still walk in that circle. My love forMark was not strong enough to break the patterns long ago setby those chains. Mark would later find himself trapped in thecorporate world, overwhelmed by panic. He tried to be who hisfather wanted him to be. Mark dreamed of being either a teacher or achiropractor, but those dreams went unfulfilled. Never comfortablein the corporate world or in sales, he began to feel trapped.

I conceived my first baby on July 4, 1984, after I had beggedMark to stay home from the cottage for the holiday weekend. Hedid stay home for me but was miserable, and he made me feel terriblefor asking him to sacrifice a weekend at the cottage for me. Thenin October, just four months into my first pregnancy, I went intopremature labor while at a high school football game. After I spenttwenty-four hours in labor, I went to the hospital and had surgeryto remove the fetus. I never knew the gender, only that the baby hadnever developed normally. Just one more sign.

After I lost the baby, I was devastated, and my grief botheredMark's dad so much that he actually lectured me, telling me to getover it already and move on. I now realize he couldn't control how Iwas feeling, and that made him crazy. He was afraid when he wasn'tin control because control came from fear.

I was fearful of ever trying to get pregnant again, but two yearslater I gave birth to my first child, a boy. We named him Charlie. Itwas January 30, 1986, and Mark was there for the birth at a hospitalin Burlington; however, afterward he was pretty much absent. Heleft me alone in the hospital and then later at home all winter. Iwanted to share the first weeks of our baby's life with him, butrecreating became his priority. I was busy with the baby, and thatgave him a reason to be absent. I accepted it because I had thiswonderful, beautiful baby to care for, even though my world wasless than perfect and the little voice was becoming harder and harderto ignore.

When Charlie was just three months old, we found a piece ofproperty on the lake just down the beach from the cottage. Afterlengthy discussions we decided to purchase it so we could begin topull away from the cottage time and have our own family space. Thisproperty that we would spend our summers on gave us the space Ineeded to survive up there.

The lake itself was beautiful. I understood why Mark was sodrawn to the pristine water, the beautiful beach, and the woods.Not at all commercialized, it was a place where you could leave allyour troubles behind. To this day I still love the lake but not thecottage, the lake house we eventually built on our property, or allthat dwells there.

Spring brought a worsening of Mark's depression. He rarelysmiled and was verbally abusive, something I wasn't going to putup with. I told him he needed to go for help—or I would takeCharlie and leave. I didn't want our young son growing up in suchan atmosphere. I was also confident that it would break Mark's heartto see us leave. Sure enough, he began treatment for his depression.I was hopeful he might find his way out of the darkness.

The medication helped, but things were a long way from beingperfect. I wanted too much for him to feel better. Sometimes I wouldfind myself watching him, seeing the sadness in his eyes, and I wouldfeel helpless. I couldn't imagine going through life never feelingreal joy, but that was what Mark was doing. I wanted him to findhappiness and to see the future when he looked at Charlie.

Still, I figured he was making an effort and was glad for that. Istayed home with Charlie for seven months before I decided it wastime to go back to work. I had quit my job with Westin Companytwo months before I had given birth to Charlie because my pregnancyhad been considered a high-risk one and my doctor hadn't wantedme to travel anymore. Fortunately I was able to land a new job withSchmitz National Transportation Company. Although I didn't haveto travel anymore, the new job, which included inside sales, entailedplenty of stress, not to mention forty-five to fifty hours a week. Everymorning I dropped Charlie off with the babysitter on the way towork, and every evening I picked him up on my way home, tradingmy paying job for my nonpaying one.