To Die For (32 page)

By December, Dana had received another painful letter from Craig decrying her continued badgering of their aunt. Dana had gone to the nursing home and persuaded her to sign a will splitting the estate three ways. Craig said that their great aunt, who was so senile she believed she was living in the 1920s, condemned Dana for her greediness. Dana denied forcing her to do anything and said she would abide by whatever Auntie decided. But at that point, the will had been changed. Craig's wife, Jini, thought Dana had a frozen heart, and wanted very little to do with her.

Dana felt Craig was truly responsible for creating the vulture-like atmosphere around their aunt and never really asked for anything—other than the china cabinet. “I only asked her for that china cabinet as a child and did it innocently … I'm not worried about who gets what … I will be grateful for whatever (if anything) that is left.”

During the holidays, Dana thoroughly enjoyed fixing up the house with lights and decorations, but she didn't often make it over to Russell and Jeri's house for family get-togethers. Everyone knew that Dana and Jeri's ex-mother-in-law, Norma, didn't get along, and they figured that was the reason. She and Tom usually spent holidays with Tom's family.

Despite their best efforts, Dana had not yet conceived by springtime and it was putting a strain on the couple's relationship. She was 33 and desperate for a baby. She continued to spend lavishly, though Tom pleaded with her to keep their finances under control. Their fights were getting bigger and more serious. Tom believed that Dana was just taking her frustrations out on him. He felt that she treated her dog better than she treated him, and she told him that he was right. Tom thought that Dana was never happy with what she had and seemed always to be searching for something else. She would bounce from project to project, the way she'd bounced between continents before they were married, but nothing seemed to make her happy.

On the Saturday before Easter, Dana took her brother, Rick, and Tom's brother, Gerald, for a day of boating and water skiing on Canyon Lake. Rick told Dana that she was being bossy and thought she seemed upset that no one was jumping at her commands. She retaliated by pouring a beer on Tom's head as he piloted the boat. He responded by pouring a beer on her head. The whole afternoon, Dana hounded Tom about whether he still loved her, asking him over and over again. After they got home, she became upset and stormed out of the house, but came back in and demanded that Rick take Gerald to a Mexican restaurant around the corner and wait for them while she talked to Tom. When Tom said he couldn't understand why Dana was acting so irresponsibly, she unleashed her fury on him. Rick phoned both of them the next day and called Dana a “goddamned, fucking, ball-busting bitch” for acting like a child and having such a ridiculous temper tantrum. “You have little consideration for anyone else's feelings or comfort,” he said in a note, adding that he disliked “the tension that surrounds you, Dana, when you don't feel that you're being obeyed…” Rick didn't speak to Dana for six months. It wasn't the first time that she had cleared the house. Dana would snap for apparently little reason and explode at Tom, make a scene, clear their friends out of the house, and then leave herself. Whatever friends Tom had left stopped coming over. Tom allowed Dana to hit him in the shoulder—and she could pack a punch for a woman. Tom was said he felt “beat up” and isolated.

Their playtimes were also getting rough-and-tumble. Dana liked rough-housing and would sprint at Tom and tackle him, knocking him down. One time, she punched him hard in the face while they were wrestling around. Tom was hurt, but he didn't get mad because Dana said it was an accident.

In August 1990, Dana got a new job as an operating room nurse at the Inland Valley Regional Medical Center in Wildomar, making $46,000 a year. The construction industry was still in a slump, and Tom was earning less than $16,000 a year. Still facing down credit card bills, they borrowed $2,200 from a relative and asked Russell and Jeri for help in refinancing their Canyon Lake home. They declined because Tom and Dana owed more on the house than it was worth.

In November, Rick wrote a three-page letter to Dana warning her that he did not want to resume their relationship until she conducted herself responsibly, referring to the Easter incident earlier in the year. He expressed appreciation for Tom, who he thought was “busting his ass to love and serve you. His only frailty so far is probably his tendency to remain soft-spoken and being afraid to tell you what his true feelings are at any time because he is afraid of hurting your feelings.”

Rick's physical condition had deteriorated considerably and he was in a great deal of physical pain, as well as mental anguish and stress over trying to create some semblance of a family. “I have seriously considered that if I become much more physically disabled or have to suffer much more physical or mental pain that I'm just going to go up on some high peak somewhere with a majestic view of what's left of this poor planet, lay my serape down, and let my life cease.”

Dana responded by sending him a humorous Christmas card with a note saying that his letter wasn't pleasant or fair. “Do you think we could ever cut out the bullshit and just get along? Ya know, family, love, etc?”

In another three-page letter, Rick wrote that he was bowing out of his relationship with her because it was “upsetting and painful to contribute to you what little I have and then be told that I am not working in your best interest.”

He also wrote about Dana's requests for money from their aunt. “I have asked you repeatedly to let me handle it, but you just don't get it that she doesn't see things the way they are. Now that she's so old and senile, trying to make sense out of anything with her is an incredibly frustrating experience. She is in no financial position to help any of us. What she has is hers to do with as she wishes regardless of what anybody thinks.”

He recommended that Dana look at a video series on family interaction by author and psychologist John Bradshaw, and said that she needn't respond to his letter. He asked her only to leave him out of her life and to stop being an irritant. He was tired of the fights, the conflicts, the upsets. “I bear no animosity toward you or Tom … I no longer want to confront our relationship nor do I want to attempt to have anything remotely resembling a family.”

A year later, in November 1991, Dana sent Rick an irreverent, funny birthday card with a note, “Wishing you a happy b-day despite your total disgust with us and all of your family.”

Rick wrote Tom a six-page letter one month later, bitter about Dana's “poor little Dana, nobody loves me” routine, her profound disregard for other people's feelings and her thirst for things, not people. Rick said the emotional and physical pain and exhaustion that came with his increasingly debilitating arthritis, and the unsuccessful history of trying to create something of a family with Dana, led him to the conclusion that was forcing him to have no more contact with her. He asked Tom to return his photo albums, his guitars and the silverware with the monogrammed “W.” Rich again referred to the Easter debacle, criticizing Dana for refusing to apologize for or acknowledge her behavior in being oblivious to anything but herself … “She doesn't give a shit about anything but having everyone else fall into line with her dreams and wishes even if they don't begin to approximate reality. So, it's reality be damned, Dana's dreams however impractical or neurotic, will prevail.”

Dana wrote back immediately, saying that she will never “live up to your expectations and [I] have finally stopped trying.” Dana insisted that she “truly cared” for her aunt because she loved her and wanted to share “precious moments” with her, and “all I hope is that when she goes, she goes happy and in her own home … Whatever her will says I really don't know. I can only hope whatever decision is made, it comes from her heart.”

She asked Rick to “let go of all the hate and disgust you have for me and quit insisting I apologize to you for my entire life. If I really seem like a ball buster [sic] bitch then most likely I am. I am also your sister, your only sister so can we ever be civil?… Let's just drop all the past shit and go on, OK?

Dana promised to stop sending Rick her hard-bitten remarks if he promised to “quit persecuting my existence and turn off the spotlight shinned [sic] on all my mistakes … I love you anyway, fuckhead!”

*   *   *

Tom didn't care whether he lived or died. Dana had alienated him from his friends, put them thousands of dollars in debt, and was getting more violent. She was constantly hurting him, verbally, physically and emotionally. She even threatened to run him down with his own truck. Tom was afraid and told her that he was afraid. The fear and the psychological torment rendered Tom emotionally paralyzed, which drove Dana into a frenzy. She hounded Tom for affection, to make him say he loved her. He tried to reassure her often, but it was never enough. He began to realize that whatever he did would never be enough for Dana. He realized he had been clinging to what their relationship used to be and what it could be instead of what it was. Like any relationship, there were good times and bad times, but it was difficult for him to step back and recognize that he was being abused. He'd never minded Dana “wearing the pants” in the family, but he decided that he should start living life more for himself instead of for her. He began taking time for himself to fly planes more often and thought about getting back into music. He began practicing his drums and started getting another band together.

Dana was angry at his new-found focus, particularly because the focus was not on her. She was still trying to get pregnant and in late January 1991, she realized she had succeeded. She was overjoyed. She happily gained weight and their relationship took on a rosy glow. Both Dana and Tom believed having a baby could save their marriage. The relationship settled into a period of normalcy until Dana had a miscarriage in March. She became deeply depressed and started drinking more.

Still desperate to have a baby, Dana began to take fertility drugs. The drugs, consisting of female hormones, contributed to Dana's extreme mood swings and she resumed her rampages. Tom was torn between wanting to assist his wife through a difficult period that, with all due fairness, was partially the result of the hormone imbalance brought upon by fertility drugs. But he also realized he needed time for himself. When Dana was pregnant, he realized he had been walking on tenterhooks waiting for Dana to combust. Tom put a band together and started having practice sessions.

He began to stand up to Dana, and let her know when she was out of line. Dana would call her outbursts “speaking up for herself” and “speaking her mind.” Tom had another name for them: “insta-bitch.” He would also say that “the bitch notch was going up to ten,” which was his way of telling Dana that she could have handled something better. Tom tried that as a way of stopping tempers from escalating. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn't. Since he was working with a band again, he had an outlet and somewhere constructive to put his energy and attention.

Dana threw herself into her different ventures—the wedding business, silk-screening and her hospital work. She had a need to organize everything and be in control. She had an excellent work history and was diligent with her patients, all of whom seemed satisfied with her care. But her domineering attitude made her co-workers' lives miserable. She would become friends with a co-worker and then, six months later, something would happen and they were no longer friends. She didn't get along with most of her co-workers because she was highly critical of their work. Dana had no tolerance for what she saw as people's stupidity; she had a low boiling point, and was known for “getting into people's faces and giving them the business” because they irritated her, just to “shock them into reality.” Dana had no problem being called a bitch. She prided herself on earning the title.

Dana was still working extra hours but the financial problems continued to build. They missed house payments and were sometimes broke. Somehow, Dana always found a credit card. She managed to keep up her monthly pedicures and weekly manicures, and always looked neat, clean and professional. She also started hanging around with the band and watching their practices, particularly their guitar player, Jim Wilkins. He often brought Jason, a tow-headed toddler, along with him. Dana would take Jason and play with him while they practiced and that lifted her spirits.

Soon, Jim and Jason became a part of Tom and Dana's social life. They flew planes, picnicked, partied, drank and made music together. One night just before the holidays, the band was booked for a party. Tom and Dana had been fighting again and Dana that night decided to go home with Jim. She arrived back at her Canyon Lake home at 6 a.m. the next morning and told Tom that she was going to leave him for Jim.

Dana and Tom reconciled and she came home, but they had a restless holiday season. Soon after, Dana found that she was pregnant again. Tom wondered whether he or Jim was the father, but it didn't matter—in March 1992, Dana suffered another miscarriage. This time, she didn't seem as depressed as she had been after the first one, and within weeks, Dana made plans to go to Sweden to visit some friends. She was there three weeks. When she got back, Tom picked her up at the airport and told her that he was leaving her. Dana was so devastated, she started seeing a psychiatrist, who prescribed Paxil, an anti-depressant.

That summer, she went back and forth between Jim and Tom. It seemed as though she was using Jim as a tool to get Tom back, because as soon as she went to live with Jim, she would desperately try to get back with Tom. But Tom didn't want to discuss reconciliation unless she had finished her business with Jim. Dana would insist that she was having nothing to do with him, but Tom would fly over Jim's house in his ultra-light and find her car parked there every night and every morning.