While visiting my brother in Maryland, I drove Caleb and Amelia from Maryland to Michigan after Rita claimed her father died–I was skeptical since the kids refused to tell me how their grandfather was doing. I stayed with my aunt and uncle to drive Caleb and Amelia back to State College for school on Monday. I suspected that Rita might stay with Amanda for a couple of extra days if her claim was valid. Rita and I exchanged the following messages after asking when she would bring the kids back a couple of times on Sunday.
Rita: This is the plan I going to leave no later than 2 I think. The kids should be with me because my dad has passed. They need to be with my family too.For the sake of not fighting with you over what should be a given you can drive Caleb and Mae [Amelia] home. Just note in our custody and what judge has said in person too.Family events such as reunions, graduations, weddings, and deaths. Children should be allowed to go to those events.
Rita: I will be there at 9:30 to get there clothes
Eric: And I am allowing them to be at those events. Driving them home is no such event. You can have them as long as you want today while you’re in MI.
Eric: If you would like to have them more then next weekend can be a makeup weekend.
Eric: Regardless next weekend should be a makeup weekend with Amanda since I will not see her this entire weekend.
Eric: Note that the agreement says they should be allowed to attend. It does not say that that time does not need to be made up.
Eric: Their clothes are on the front steps.
Eric: Are you going to drop kids off when you’re leaving?
Rita: I will drop them off
Eric: ‘When’ is the key part of that question.
Rita: Little after 2
Eric: Ok.
Eric: You still on schedule for a little after 2?
Eric: Look. I’m sorry about things. I’m not sure why you blew up when I asked you about next weekend. If you were going to be home I was just going to see if I could have the kids next Sunday.
As you can see from the messages, Rita planned to drive back to State College on Sunday and considered this drive time a family event; I did not. However, “for the sake of not fighting,” she agreed to let me drive them back. Rita then confirmed dropping them off a little after 2:00. I’m not sure what time she arrived, but she did so with Mike driving his truck. As I was unbuckling Amelia from the back seat, Amelia said she’d preferably go home with her mom. I’m not sure if they put it in Amelia’s head that she should be with her mom or if Amelia wanted to be with her mom because she realized Rita was upset. Amelia was six-years-old and had asked a couple of times to ride back with me, so my best guess is that someone said, “Your dad will drive you home, but you really should be with me.”
When Rita wouldn’t help, I told her that we’d need to figure out some make-up time. I knew it was a poor time and insensitive to bring up custody issues, but I wasn’t even sure her father was sick; she had told the kids not to say anything to me about him. Additionally, I was so frustrated with her taking away my time with the kids, claiming that I would have the time made up, and then never scheduling it. Rita started yelling; Amanda got out of the car and ran down the street, her coping mechanism for dealing with stress. Caleb began to yell at me for upsetting his mother, and Amelia began to cry. Given her reaction, it should have been pretty clear that Rita’s dad had passed away. In hindsight, I’m not sure why I assumed she was lying, but something didn’t seem right about the kids refusing to tell me how their grandfather was doing.
As I tracked down Amanda, who I could see peeking around the corner of a street a block away, Mike got out of his truck and grabbed me. I tell him to get back in his truck and stay out of it. He gets in my face, and after some shouting, my aunt gets between us and pushes Mike back to his truck. He goes flying backward down the quiet one-way street, Rita grabs Amanda, who is now returning, and they take off, tires squealing. My aunt, who worked at a prison for many years, wrote a statement about this if I wanted to file a police report for simple assault. I thought about it, but it just wasn’t worth the effort.