Is There Justice?

It isn't quite the end of the weekend and I don't know what is in store for the rest of the day so I can't really call this a weekend recap. Instead, I will just say that it has been a very eventful weekend thus far.

It turns out that not only did The Bad Mad get out of jail without us being notified, but he ALSO showed up at the AA meeting on Friday night. Jacquie and I had been planning on going to the meeting together and then coming back here and we were all going to stay the night, but plans changed and I ended up having a night out with Steve and stayed the night with HIM. At the time, I struggled with a little bit of guilt, because I felt like I was totally dissing Jacquie because a better offer came along, but now what I am is grateful. It was highly unusual for Steve to want to spend an entire evening with me AND a night, especially because he actually had to take the night off of work from his second job to make the invite, and I wanted to take advantage of his kindness-God knows when and if it might happen again! Anyway, I now feel as if that was God working in my life, making sure I did not show up at the meeting and find The Bad Man there. It was bad enough for poor Jacquie; her husband was also there, and he basically had to hold her back and prevent her from doing something rash-and I would have been right there with her, I think.

She said the the worst thing was walking in the door and seeing him come around the corner into the kitchen, hearing the laughter in the other room behind him. He said, "Oh, hi!" to her, as if he either thought she didn't know or, perhaps, thought she wouldn't care, and she felt like it was a slap in the face to all of us. The laughter in the background, the fact that he was out and living his life as if nothing had happened, well, needless to say it made her angry.

She and Jim duly called the police (and not me, because they didn't want to ruin my evening out, which I respect and love them for), and apparently the order from court on Wednesday hasn't gone through yet, and until he is actually served with the order, there isn't anything illegal about what he is doing. It feels to me like a big fuck you, though, because he was sitting right there in the courtroom when the judge and the prosecutor were talking about it. The police made a report as well, which was good, even though it may not change anything, and when I called the Sheriff's office on Saturday morning, they told me the same thing-that even though there wasn't anything technically illegal about it, they would like me to report anything else like this that might happen over the weekend, and they would make a report on it.

Still and all, nothing to be done until Monday morning, and I will call the prosecutor's office first thing to find out what the hell is going on. I feel angry and betrayed by this so-called "justice" system, because three weeks in it feels like they are already dropping balls-it makes me worried about the outcome, and whether or not the small sense of security I had about The Bad Man ultimately doing time is, in fact, something I should feel. Still, it's all I have at the moment, and I am just going to try to get through it all day by day.

We opted NOT to tell Hannah about any of this until tomorrow, because for the first time in three weeks she has shown signs of rejoining "life," so to speak. On Friday, she went to stay the night with a friend, and that was the first time she has shown a willingness to be with someone other than out little circle of people. We also went to a neighboring town yesterday with Jacquie, her son, and the friend Hannah stayed with, and the girls wandered off in the mall and Target alone, and that is progress. I don't want to ruin that, but will instead tell her tomorrow after school that he is out, and with hope the new order will have com through as well. It IS lying by omission, which I don't necessarily condone, but I think in this case it is okay.

With luck and hope, I will know more tomorrow. Until then, I am just going to get through this day in as peaceful a manner as possible.