after that, Paul fell in love. It wasn’t the kind of fiery, out-of-control love he had once felt for Monica. That love had died because of a lack of communication. “I know now we just had sex,” he sadly admitted to Anita. With Anita, Paul felt he could walk through life with her forever in his soul.
Anita learned of Paul’s generosity, his ability to listen and how safe she felt around him. Having survived an abusive marriage, it took Anita a long time to trust again. She wasn’t about to choose another violent man and she knew the signs to watch for. Never in her relationship with Paul did he menace her, and she loved the positive male influence he had on Josh, her fourteen-year-old son.
Anita also learned about Paul’s caring nature. Paul also served as a male nurse for the former governor, who had suffered several strokes and was in a wheelchair. Paul did things for Bolack that many people hired to provide security would simply never do.
Seeing this gentle, caring side of Paul made Monica’s treatment of him infuriate Anita. A woman’s true beauty, Anita knew, was more than skin deep. It radiated from her inner self. Independent but caring, Anita didn’t hold grudges and tried to think of others while respecting their privacy. So she couldn’t believe Monica’s self-centeredness. Monica treated Paul more like a servant than a husband.
While Anita couldn’t believe Paul could love a woman like Monica, some people who knew Paul just couldn’t see him with Anita. Most people remember her spending every free moment of time riding a horse and wearing old jeans and boots. In fact, she sometimes related better to animals than people. A free spirit, she usually wore a natural look, with no makeup and her red, glossy hair curled below her shoulders, casually blowing in the wind.
Sometimes when Anita looks at me, I can feel her beauty, Paul thought.
Anita’s beauty was reflected in her soul and her personality. Her easy self-confidence—in exact opposition to Monica’s neediness—her poise, her dignity—these elements made up Anita. She wasn’t cocky, but she believed in herself—which was attractive to Paul in itself. Anita possessed a natural loveliness that shone through the simple T-shirts and jeans she threw on in five minutes.
It took Monica two hours to get ready to go anywhere. Her clothes, makeup and hair had to be perfect. If they weren’t, she would not go.
“Anita’s not what people call ‘drop-dead’ gorgeous. It’s everything, the whole package. Monica’s beauty was only exterior,” Paul divulged.
Had Monica known Anita, she would have joined the rest of the people in town in not understanding why Paul was attracted to the woman. Anita saw men as shallow and immature, always needing to show off the trophy they had won, which is exactly how many perceived Monica—a trophy. For Monica, natural and internal beauty were not concepts she knew of or cared about. Monica’s sweet, innocent face and lady-like hospitality made everyone describe her as an angel, as someone who never entertained an evil thought. Most people didn’t know her well. They had never seen her blistering anger or jealousy.
Paul’s intense guilt didn’t stop his having an affair with Anita. Not that Paul didn’t try. He wrote several drafts of “Dear John” letters to Anita trying to cut the relationship off, but he never could bring himself to send them.
Paul and Monica now had only the children in common. Since he had to work two jobs to make ends meet, the couple rarely saw each other.
Emotionally, Paul and Anita grew closer. Anita never forgot the first night they made love. It was perfect. They drove her sedan one March night to the river; cottonwood trees formed a canopy overhead. She reclined the car’s leather seats and their pent-up love and passion combined with the beautiful scenery as bodies and minds intertwined.
Anita hoped that some knowledge she had gained through therapy after her abusive marriage might help Paul. She gave Paul the book Co-Dependent No More by Melody Beattie. Anita’s therapy had helped her recognize unhealthy relationships and steer clear of them. She hoped Paul might do the same. Later, he told her he had stayed up all night reading the book.
“I can see everything so much clearer after reading the book,” he said. “I’ve never been in therapy, but I can see myself on almost every page,” he revealed to Anita.
Pleased that the book helped him, Anita still panicked at what happened next.
Before Anita gave him the book about co-dependency, Paul knew the balance between his work and Monica’s work on the marriage was “a bit off.” He knew he deserved better, but he didn’t know to what extent or how to get it. The book answered those questions for him. And he realized how unhappy he was with Monica the way things stood.
Paul terrified Anita by jumping into action too quickly after reading the book. He decided he didn’t need therapy or other help. He would act.
“He went immediately from Point A to Point C,” Anita noted. “He began talking about leaving Monica right away and getting his own apartment. I was like, ‘Whoa! Slow down.’”
In February of 1994, Anita stepped out of the whirlwind and broke up with Paul. After a bad marriage, she didn’t need a relationship growing more serious by the minute with a man in an unhealthy and destructive marriage. In one sense, she feared commitment. If he divorced Monica, that changed everything. Anita felt she wasn’t in love with him then and she relished her hard won freedom. She needed to date others to be sure of her feelings. She needed to fulfill her own needs now that she was master of her own life.
Soon afterwards, Paul began writing Anita a love letter, saying he always wanted to be with her but wouldn’t push her into anything if that’s not what she wanted. Paul expected to wait until six months or so after he polished the last version of the letter on March 7, 1994, before giving it to Anita. He estimated that the date he would send it to her would be around September 25. Why he picked that date, he couldn’t explain. But he wanted to give his relationship with Anita time. Anita was afraid, he knew, of getting involved with someone so obviously caught in a co-dependent, unhealthy relationship with his wife. Although Anita had already broken up with Paul, they were still seeing each other as friends during this time. Paul believed Anita would change her mind and their relationship would again begin to blossom—especially after he and Monica divorced. He wrote in the letter that if she was reading it six months after he wrote it, then he and Monica were probably divorced.
As he penned those words, he had no idea what was about to happen during the months to follow.
Paul expressed his deep love for Anita in the letter and lamented the fact that Anita didn’t feel the same way.
“Why is it so hard to say or express that you love me?” he wrote. “Because you don’t? If you’re reading this, it must be the truth. I’ve thought very hard about what I am going to do next and it is not without great sadness that I must write this.”
That night in March when Paul actually wrote the letter, Anita went on a date with another man.
“I can’t compete with the other men you date,” the letter went on, “who are better looking than me. I’ll never be able to offer you anything more than my love, my care, my strong
