Donna blasted George, saying: When you were here, you saw me starting to get sick. She mentioned how George had “massaged” her breast and underarms; how he had helped her back to bed after she vomited all night; how he had fed her soup and put her to bed, kissed her, and told her how much he loved her. Donna said she was sicker now than ever. She was mad because he had promised to spend the Fourth of July (even though they had that confrontation with Gail) with her “doing something nice.” She claimed she didn’t have “many holidays left.” How dare George spend twenty-four July Fourths with Gail and “ruin the only one” Donna had left.
Oddly, Donna demanded to know “how many times” George had given flowers to Gail since he officially moved back home.
She talked about a new buyer for CCHH and was hoping George could help with the sale, before carrying on about Gail and how everything George did was now with Gail. Donna felt she and the baby were playing second fiddle. Clearly, this was beginning to provoke Donna, placing Gail at the center of her deep hatred.
“If you care about us” (George had apparently said he did), she wondered why he had such a hard time showing it. She had—at best—three months to live; she wanted to know George was going to be there, not just by phone, but in person.
A few days later, George wrote Donna a succinct e-mail, letting her know that he had spoken to Dr. Bevins “about an hour ago.” The doctor finally called him back. George warned Donna about a call from the doctor regarding that “April letter,” the one George had received via his post office box, written supposedly from the doctor on his practice’s letterhead, telling George that Donna was pregnant and dying.
George said he was sorry for following through with the doctor, but he “had to know for sure.”
Donna was not pregnant.
Yet, in spite of the truth (not pregnant and possibly healthy), George signed off: I still love you. . . .
Donna was livid at the prospect of having to “explain” herself once again. This was the second time George had questioned the authenticity of her pregnancy. She was tired of it: You keep doing this. . . . She spoke of a time the previous year when George had made her “have a test” in order to “prove to Gail” that she “did not have any venereal diseases.” She accused him of not wanting to face up to the fact that he fathered a child, making a point to say he was looking for any way out.
Further, Donna explained that it wasn’t gastric bypass surgery she’d had years ago. No, it was stomach cancer, and told George that he was the only one who knew the truth. How dare he question her?
From that point on, Donna listed a host of ailments she had. Many of these were brought on by her pregnancy: dizziness to malabsorption, cramps, her feet turning purple. The woman was a wreck. She even went so far as to say how George had watched her “passing blood in [her] stools.” That ailment alone should have convinced him she was sick. She had colon and back problems, chronic anemia, and a laundry list of health issues. Before ending the e-mail, she carried on for another two pages, laying into George for just about everything under the sun, including how much of a man he had turned out
not
to be. Dr. Bevins was right, Donna raged, when he had said George was not fulfilling his obligations as a man.
Home alone one night, near this time, Donna made a call to a young man she had met only once.
“Hi, how are you?”
The man had no idea who was calling.
“We met at a Christmas party last year,” Donna said.
He vaguely remembered.
After a bit of catch-up, Donna said, “I need you to come by and change a few lightbulbs for me.” The guy was a handyman whom two friends of Donna’s had introduced her to. As she spoke, he later said, he thought the request—to change her lightbulbs—was odd, considering he had met her only that one time. How in the hell did she even know how to contact him?
Nonetheless, he knew she wanted to have sex and took a ride over.
“I changed the lightbulbs,” he later explained. Yet Donna, he figured out rather quickly, wanted something else.
He “went back there two or three times [after that] and had an intimate relationship with her.” The handyman explained, “She became obsessed with me. She offered to buy me a fishing boat. She would stop by my apartment in the early-morning hours and knock on the windows. She even walked into my home once uninvited and left a rose on the table, and never announced her presence” while he was home.
Donna waited a few days after writing that last e-mail to George. When she didn’t hear from him, she lashed out with another series of e-mails focused on what she viewed as the genuine root cause of all their problems: Gail.
It was
Gail
behind George’s attitude.
Gail was forcing George to question
everything.
And
Gail
who should pay the price for their breakup.
After what . . . Gail did to me . . . it is unforgivable, Donna wrote.
She explained (as if George had forgotten) how Gail had told her (that day in the hotel room) that she wished the baby and Donna would die—and here it was going to happen. Donna felt betrayed by Gail, as if Gail had sabotaged the entire past few weeks and had a hand in everything that George had been doing.
I thought she was supposed to be Miss High and Mighty, [who] never does anything wrong, Donna wrote. During the past month, as she got to understand Gail’s true desires, Donna suddenly realized that she didn’t want Gail to raise her child: Hell no. She could “never, ever forgive” Gail for what she had done to keep George away from her and their unborn child. The adjectives she used to describe Gail: evil, cold, and a disgrace to womanhood. Donna claimed never to have met someone in her entire life as “mean and hateful.” Gail made her “sick” to her stomach. Living with her and being married to her all those years must have been akin to George “living in hell.” She mentioned how sorry she felt for George. However, since he had dug this hole with Gail,
he
was to blame, too. Gail was “useless” and “insane” for knowing how they (George and Donna) had slept together so many times and been in love, and yet she
still
wanted to be with him. It told Donna how weak and desperate Gail was for a man.
There was a complete change in tone. Donna had turned a corner. She was no longer begging George for his love. Instead, she had turned her rage and hate toward the woman she believed stood in the way of her and George sharing a life together.
It was Gail this, Gail that. Gail was the rival. The stumbling block to all of Donna’s plans. The walls were closing in: She had lost George, and her business was closer to filing bankruptcy.
All Gail’s fault.
Near the end of the e-mail, Donna said she was thinking about killing herself “and the baby.” Why should “we” live any longer? She had no reason to exist in a world, knowing that when she was gone, Gail was going to step in to take care of her child. It disgusted her.
45
W
HAT MOST PEOPLE
involved in these types of adulterous situations don’t realize as things come undone is that, sooner or later, there comes a time when the unnecessary occurs. This sort of back-and-forth, pointing of fingers, making accusations, idle threats, curses and slurs, cannot go on forever without a
consequence
—sometimes several consequences. And when one is dealing with an irrationally thinking psychopath, one has to expect the unexpected.
On September 1, 1999, Donna e-mailed George. Unlike the e-mails she had sent up to this point, this one started off all business. She spoke of claims and audits, adjustments and payments. The tone was terse. Donna had always rambled. She’d start off talking about one thing—sex, for instance—and merge easily into how their future was paved in love. But here, after a tumultuous month (August) of disappointments and accusations on George’s part, she obviously had other things on her mind. This person writing on September 1 was not the same woman who had written a few weeks prior. A good indication of when Donna had lost control came when, back on August 17, her forty-sixth birthday, she called George in Michigan out of the blue with a request.
“I need you to promise me that you won’t have sex with
her
today!”
For some bizarre reason Donna wanted to know that George would not sleep with Gail on Donna’s birthday. She claimed it was important that he did not have sex with Gail on this
one
particular day. If she could have peace of mind, she would be okay for that one day.
“Sure, Donna,” George said.
They talked some more, but George had to go.
In the end this was not a hard promise for George to keep: Gail was in Texas visiting family.
Ten days after that bizarre request, Donna called.
“I need you here to help me sell CCHH.”
George said he’d talk it over with Gail.
“Not unless I go with you,” Gail said.
Donna called back and asked again.
George told her.
“Don’t you
dare
bring that bitch down here!” Donna raged.
“I’m not going without her,” George said.
George hung up, realizing those days of sharing any information about his family or future plans were over. Donna couldn’t be trusted. Everything from her now was filled with hate. She even sounded different. Meanwhile, George was going to church with Gail again. His marriage was improving. Gail and George were talking again, planning trips together. Gail’s birthday was just a few days away, September 6. George promised to take her to the Soaring Eagle Casino in nearby Mount Pleasant.
As George read through this new e-mail, it started off all about CCHH; yet Donna couldn’t address George without including some of that fury boiling over inside her. She felt scorned. It was apparent Donna was not going to walk away without making somebody pay.
Donna was running out of money as the summer came to a close—at least that’s what she told everyone associated with CCHH. There were employees not being paid. Her rent was overdue. Many of the vendors she used were not receiving checks.
She said one of her employees had bitched and moaned about getting paid, so she cut the woman a $500 check, noting how everyone at CCHH believed she could save some money by not paying George because he had “another job.”
Whenever Donna began to degrade George or Gail, it snowballed. Her rants spiraled out of control. For example, as Donna wrote about her money problems, she used it as a pathway to talk about how much she despised the idea George had suggested weeks ago about not coming down to Florida without Gail. It was something that grated on Donna’s mental state. She said no “other businessman” would have let his “wife interfere.” It showed how weak a man George had been throughout their breakup. Every reference to Gail was painted with critical remarks and pointless jabs. Donna said she should have known better than to ask George to come to Florida, anyway. Taking a swipe at Gail, she groused that “when you are a queen,” who had been “raised with a silver spoon,” you can get whatever you want in life.
She hated her rival for this.
Donna talked about doctors and how she couldn’t understand why George believed one doctor so easily. She said all he had to do was take the trip south—
alone, without Gail
—and he could see for himself how sick she was and how big her stomach had gotten.
After another brief denunciation, focused on CCHH, Donna signed the e-mail: Your Donna, who still loves you. . . .
“It was all a bunch of lies. All the stuff she said was lies,” George later said.
Gail approached Emily one afternoon. It was close to Gail’s birthday. George was out.
“What do you think?” Gail asked. She held up a pair of “sexy” black underwear—the silky, see-through type.
Emily didn’t know
what
to say.
“Look,” Gail said. A black push-up bra.
This was so unlike Gail, the very conservative Catholic. Here she was, standing in her bedroom, her daughter staring at these garments, an uncomfortable silence between them.
Had Gail Fulton changed
that
much to satisfy her husband’s needs?
Gail was trying to “be more sexy” for George: If that’s what he wanted, and it would keep him at home, why not?
Was Gail going too far? Or was she trying to conform to her husband’s wishes and listen to his needs? If this—wearing sexy lingerie—was going to make him happy, why not?
Gail had a nervous laugh. She let it out as Emily stood in front of her, stunned, staring at the clothing.
“I cannot believe I just showed these things to my daughter,” Gail said, flashing an embarrassed smile, dropping her arms, and tossing the clothes on the bed.
“Too much information,” Emily responded. “You need to divorce Dad. He’s not treating you right.”
“I don’t believe in divorce, Emily. Plus, I need to be here for you and your brother.” Gail felt the only way she could be a good mother to her children was by staying married to their father and taking care of all three of them.
“You need to worry about
you,
Mom. Don’t worry about me and Andrew. We’ll be fine. You need to go back to Texas and be with your family. It doesn’t matter. We can come, too, and all be together.”
Emily noticed that look in her mother’s eyes—a single moment when Gail thought seriously about it all, and how less stressful life sounded. But then Gail snapped out of it and decided that divorce wasn’t something she ever wanted to consider. She had married George for better or worse. She would take those vows to her grave.
“My mother had turned into this needy child,” Emily observed later. “She relied so heavily on me and my brother, and I had watched this situation with my dad destroy her. I thought, ‘Divorce is the only way out of it all.’ It cannot be healthy for her to stay in this marriage. There’s no way this is right. No one person should have
that
much power over another person. I was making an impact on her. She was taking computer classes. She was thinking about leaving. I had no idea to the extent of what was between my mother and father then, and had realized later that it would have taken a lot longer for me to turn her around.”