Evidence in a Toy Box

I was active duty Air Force and worked in the Education Office. One of my duties was to collect tuition assistance from students who didn’t successfully pass their classes. This required my interaction with other support staff across the base. One of the airmen I interacted with was Jedidiah Day Jones. I loved having to call him up. He had the sexiest voice. We flirted a bit.

One day, I was at my desk working when I heard a voice. Oh my. I knew that voice. It was Jedidiah. He was not nearly as sexy looking as he was sounding. We talked for a while and he asked me out. I accepted. We dated a bit and got along well. He seemed to like my son. I was still heartbroken over my last failed marriage. I didn’t want a really good-looking man who would cheat on me. I was okay with liking someone and having it grow into love.

I was honest with him. I told him I wanted to have another child when I was 25 years old because I didn’t want my son Fergus to be an only child. He asked me to marry him and I said yes. He told me he wanted to be a father and for us to be a family. We went to Las Vegas and got married at the Little White Chapel. He told me to stop taking my birth control pills. I asked him if he was sure because as soon as I stopped them, I would become pregnant. I was that fertile. He said yes. Three times.

(That’s right people, we had the same conversation about having another child … count them … three times. Every time, he said he was ready for us to get pregnant and have a child together.)

We got married, got a ticket for a burnt-out headlight on the way home, he moved in with me and we were pregnant three days later. I told him I was pregnant, and he said, “I’m not ready to be a dad.” What the????

The next several months were an emotional roller coaster in a Hell-inspired theme park. He started sleeping on the couch. He drank every leftover dime up. His car was broken down and he expected me to pay to fix it. He stole my son’s birthday money. He got drunk at a house party we threw and tried to drive away in my car, I threw my keys into the neighbors darkened yard. He got angry and left. He moved out. He moved in. He moved out. He cheated on me with a coworker of his who was short and quite plump. I was angry he cheated on me with someone less attractive than I. He moved in. He got angry and wanted to move out again and his best friend who was also a long-time acquaintance of mine told him he was being ridiculous, and he would only move him one more time. He moved out. He tried to take things that were mine before he came into my life. He took back gifts he’d given me. He threatened to take my unborn child.

I panicked. I lied. I told him the baby wasn’t his.

Later I told him the truth, but it was too late. He grabbed hold of that lie and ran with it. He said he wanted a DNA test. I agreed to allow it but refused to pay for it. I told him it was physically impossible for anyone else to have fathered my child.

He told me he was going to ask for full custody and that he was only going to agree to pay $65 a month in child support. He wrote a letter and left it in my son’s toybox stating he was being tempted by Satan to kick or hit me in the stomach, so I’d lose our baby. I still have that letter 28 years later. I used it to ask for supervised visitation after our child was born because it proved he was considering harming our child.