The Million-Dollar Guilt Trip

When Gwendolyn Rodriquez divorced her now ex-husband, Raymond, she had been furious. Seventeen years had since passed, but her fury burned just as bright. She had been the one at fault—years of resentment led to years of belittling and eventually Raymond, with his honest heart and compassionate nature, couldn’t take it any longer—but that did little to quell the sour emotions that rotted deep within her. Gwendolyn wasn’t the type of women to admit defeat easily. If ever.
When Raymond suggested they go to therapy, she simply responded with a flippant “therapy is for pathetic quacks like you, mi amor” and that was the end of it. Used to getting her way because of her exquisite yet intimidating beauty, she disregarded him when he told her he wanted a divorce. A divorce? You’re out of your mind, she’d spat at him. Your brain must be smaller than your penis if you think we’re getting a fucking divorce. She had expected him to take what she dished out (pasta with a side of put-downs, anyone?) and move on. It wasn’t until she received the official papers that she realized just how serious he was. Well, she would show him.
Her plan to strip him of his dignity and “take him to the cleaners” worked entirely in her favor. She took every last penny he had. His boat, their house, his car, even his golf clubs. It all became hers. Raymond had given it all up easier than she had predicted, giving her whatever she wanted in lieu of on-going alimony payments, but that hadn’t dampened her feeling of delight. She had won. And she would continue to win. They had what would be their last face-to-face contact at their final divorce hearing; lukewarm water and lawyers all around.
“I don’t know how I ever fell in love with you,” Raymond said, saddened.
“Same to you, mother fucker!”
“I’m truly sorry your life is so… small.”
“Fuck you. By the time I’m through, you’ll wish you’d never met me.”
“The thing is, Gwen, I already do.”
Regardless of Raymond’s lackluster reaction, Gwendolyn was satisfied with the results of the proceedings. Yet, she wasn’t even close to being done with him. She didn’t consider herself overly vindictive, but she also didn’t accept Raymond’s desire to leave her in the dust. At one point in time, she’d been his only desire. His best trophy.
Unfortunately, he’d never been hers. Not really. She’d been chasing after a version of him that didn’t exist. By the time Gwendolyn realized he wasn’t “buy a yacht and sail around the world” rich and didn’t have a step-by-step plan on how to become that man either, she was pregnant. And there was no escape. She’d have to accept his mid-level salary because there was no way in hell she was getting a job. Her? Support them? It was laughable.
They ended up with two children, a boy, Nathan, and a girl, Emily. At the time of the vicious separation, they were six and four years old, respectively. Gwendolyn knew that the final knife she plunged into Raymond’s heart had to be one that would hurt him the most—forever. So, she did what any blood-thirsty ex-wife would do: she used the kids to her advantage. Pawns, in her sadistic strategy. They were at their most impressionable and she could work with that. She had wanted her children to hate their father as much as she did. How dare he leave them! Of course, the person he was leaving was her, but she didn’t like being the only one suffering. Raymond had to suffer too. It didn’t cross her mind that her children might also be affected by this wicked scheme. Gwendolyn thought of herself first and foremost.
Her lies came effortlessly, dripping off the end of her tongue like poisoned hot honey. Nathan and Emily listened intently as their mother fed them lies for dinner and fibs for dessert. When she felt like they might be slipping back into the grasp of their father, she cried. Loudly. She told them stories of abuse, anger, and betrayal. As would be expected, she substituted characters and plot lines in her fictitious tales to explain how Raymond was the one to break up their happy home. Well, of course Daddy says he loves you, but I love you more. He wouldn’t have left if he did, she sang. Although the courts had ruled for a shared custody agreement, it was devastatingly one-sided by the end of it all.
Over the course of the years since the divorce initiated, Nathan and Emily had been marinated in so many of Gwendolyn’s elaborate lies that they no longer had any relationship with their father. In fact, it would be safe to assume that they hated him. They refused to see him other than the odd father’s day, they didn’t send a card for his birthday, and they didn’t allow him to share in any of their successes, big or small. To them, he might as well not exist at all.
Raymond had endured many agonizing years, alone, wondering when things had gone from bad to worse, and if there was a way, any way at all, he could have seen it coming and stopped it. He missed his kids with his whole heart. However, he had spent too many afternoons waiting in his car at the end of their driveway—his old driveway—for them to come with him for the weekend. He had left too many voicemails and written too many emails, all to go unanswered and possibly even unread. Eventually, he came to terms with the idea that his own children, the two people he loved most in the world, would be happier if he would just leave them alone. It was the most painful time in his life. He thought he’d rather stick a fork in his eye than endure it any further.
Not too long after he’d given up all hope, he met Nora. He thought he’d known how to love before but with Nora, everything was new, real, and honest. She was everything he hadn’t known he’d wanted and needed. Over quiet nights at home with a scotch on the rocks for him and a glass of Merlot for her, he’d divulged every detail of his previous life. Nora let him cry and offered a shoulder to lean on. She listened. Eventually, she loved. They were married within two years and started a family of their own. Together they both made efforts to include Nathan and Emily in their new life, but they were fruitless. A part of Raymond was always mournful, but Nora felt it was for the best. If they can’t see what a great dad and person you are, maybe they don’t deserve you, she told him. He loved Nora more than anything and conceded that she was right—as he often did and she often was.
Gwendolyn, forever unsatisfied in her own life, despised that Raymond was once again happy. She kept the occasional tab on him, to calm her twisted conscience. She was shocked to discover that he had found a new wife, fathered two more children, and worked his way so far up the corporate ladder that he now stood amongst the sliver of human beings wealthy enough to live without a financial care or burden. He was rich.
It was abundantly clear to Gwendolyn that although she kicked him when he was down all those years ago, he didn’t stay there. He rose, soared, and peaked. Without her.
Then, he died. It was sudden—or at least sudden to Gwendolyn, Nathan, and Emily. None of them having bothered to call, text, or see him, they weren’t the least bit aware that he had been feeling off lately. He was out walking the dog one night when he collapsed on the sidewalk. The doctors said it was quick, but the pain that clung to Nora seemed to cling with a fierceness so strong she wasn’t sure it would ever subside. When Gwendolyn first heard of his passing, she didn’t bat an eye. In fact, she once again felt triumphant. She truly was a deplorable woman. However, when she discovered through idle gossip just how much money Raymond had and how her, Nathan, and Emily had been left out of the will, she felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her.
It’s just not right, she told her lawyer, we were his first family and he cut us out cold. The lawyer suggested that she either let it go or take up the issue with Raymond’s wife.
Gwendolyn, although unfamiliar with the emotion, could have sworn she felt a small pang of guilt. Had she deprived her children of their right to millions? She had heard through a friend of a friend that each of Raymond’s new children—his imposter children, according to her—received a million dollars while the new wife got a whopping five.
And so it was now that Gwendolyn found herself in one of the biggest predicaments of her desperate life.
After one too many tumblers of her closest and oldest friend, Jack Daniels, she couldn’t deny it any longer: she felt terribly and utterly remorseful. She had to come clean. If not for her own conscience, then at least for the bank accounts of her children. They deserved that money. He was their father for fuck’s sake! How dare he disinherit them. Aren’t you supposed to continue loving and supporting your children no matter what? So what if Nathan and Emily hadn’t been as attentive toward him as he would have liked? They were still his kids. His first kids.
In her inebriated state, Gwendolyn called Nathan and Emily into the living room. Luckily, with rent prices and the state  of the economy being what it was, both of them still resided at home.
As she confessed all of her lies and manipulations, she sobbed and begged her children to forgive her. Yes, she supposed that she had stolen their relationship with their father, but they could have reached out to him at any time! She never tried to stop them. This burden was on their shoulders as much as hers. They’d had a good life with her, hadn’t they? If they’d wanted their dad in their lives so badly, why hadn’t they tried?
Coarse language and shouts of anger flew from Emily’s mouth while Nathan silently brooded and stewed the facts over and over in his head. In the end, Gwendolyn did what she always did—back-tracked her confession, made herself out to be the real victim, and begged them to leave it all in the past, with the exception of Raymond’s newfound wealth, of course. It would all work out in the end. They needed to go after what was rightfully theirs.
Three days later, Emily and Nathan showed up at Nora’s door, without the courtesy of a phone call and this time, with Gwendolyn waiting in the car at the edge of the driveway, like Raymond had done so many times before. It was the first time the three of them had met in person. Nora’s immediate reaction was to slam the door in their ungrateful, hateful faces. What did they want, after all of these years? Raymond was gone.
“We want to get to know our dad,” said Emily. “I know it’s a little late, but better late than never, right?”
“We were dicks, but we were just kids,” added Nathan. “It’s also unfair that we wouldn’t be included in the will. We just want what’s rightfully ours.”
“Kids? Sure, that was true in the beginning. But what has been your excuse for the last few years? You’re how old now? Twenty-four and twenty-one?” Nora asked incredulously. “How about I’ll give you some family photos and you can get to know him that way.”
Emily spoke before Nora had a chance to close the door. “Our mom told us the truth. We know now that our father didn’t abandon us. She told us lies about him and we believed it all, but now we want to make it right.”
Nora couldn’t believe what she was hearing. They had been given seventeen years to get to know their dad. How many times had Raymond tried contacting them, trying to make amends, crumpling with failure when his attempts at reconciliation went blatantly ignored? No. If these people wanted to get to know him, they certainly weren’t going to do it with his money. There was absolutely no way in hell that she would allow Gwendolyn to benefit from any of this, either. She believed that if Raymond had purposely left them out of his will, then she had to respect his wishes. If they were serious about righting their wrongs, she would help them. But it would be of no monetary worth.
Three months after Raymond’s death, Gwendolyn was still furious. It was difficult to imagine a time when she wouldn’t be. Nathan and Emily were slowly starting to build a relationship with Nora and their half-siblings. She, of course, was not. Her children hadn’t received any money from the will and neither had she. She had confessed for nothing. Nothing.
What good had it done? For her, certainly none at all. She felt as though her relationship with her kids was deteriorating with every meal, every afternoon, and every second they spent with their extended “family”—if you could even call it family. For many years, she had been the only family they needed. The remorse she had felt when she had discovered the considerable sum of Raymond’s estate had long vanished.
Gwendolyn was much more comfortable in her flame of fury and that’s where she intended to stay until it burned, charred, and inevitably ate her alive. Which, not that she knew it at the time, would be sooner than she expected.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴅ