A Mother’s Lies

As you may know, I’ve always had a soft spot for crazy women. Not too crazy, mind you. Neurotic, not psychotic.

Lindie, the mother described in A Mother’s Lies, How a Father Lost His Daughter to a Bully’s Vengeful Plan, by O. A. Matthews, is too crazy for me, and you too, maybe. Matthews and Lindie had been together for some years and were living together in a house they’d had built when her façade slipped too far to ignore.

Matthews and Lindie had been arguing about something or other when she said she would accuse him of abusing her and their daughter. She had threatened to lie him to jail several times before, and this time he secretly recorded the quarrel and called the police himself so they could see nothing was going on.

While the cops were still there, Matthews’ parents showed up, and Lindie managed to make them think Matthews had gone off the deep end, until later that night, when Matthews played for them the recording that he’d made earlier. Then they understood.

A few months later, when Lindie learned that Matthews’ parents had heard her tirade that night, “… she was madder than I had ever seen her. Of course, I was the bad guy. She threatened to make my life hell and said she would teach [our daughter] to hate me. Little did she know, I was recording that episode also.” A Mother’s Lies is a page-turner.

Lindie tried to make good on her promise with the active help of a thoroughly biased court system. She kept Matthews paying lawyer’s fees, restricted and sabotaged his visits with their daughter, spread rumors about him, accused him of having sex with her sister, and so on.

I couldn’t help imagining what I’d do in his situation. I’ve been fooled enough to know what to do when I finally wise up, but the level of Lindie’s hatred and bile are out of my experience, for which I am grateful. I haven’t wanted to hurt anybody in many years, and I don’t know if I could not hurt Lindie.

The only woman I’ve hit in more or less anger turned out to be crazy for real and was later institutionalized. I say more or less anger because in the seconds it took me to chase her down I lost my edge. She had previously lied about me and had just thrown a wastebasket at me, but seeing her cowering on the floor I suddenly realized that she wanted me to beat her up. I haven’t seen her since. Matthews is stuck, though, because he loves his daughter. Bless him.