4 AM Updates

For the third time tonight, I just got off the phone with Tim.

Call #1 was a two-hour catching-up call, with the occasional Squeaky-related complaint, but no signs of anything critical.

(Anyone got a guess on where this might be heading?)

Call #2, at midnight, waking me from a sound sleep, was to ask me what I thought about the following: Squeaky had called early today asking Tim if he minded if she went to her friend Malia's for a while. Then a bit later, she had called to tell him that she wasn't going to be home at 6 after all, that she and Malia were going to an 8:00 movie. And as of midnight, Squeaky STILL wasn't home, and wasn't answering her phone, and was he right to be annoyed? And did I think she was okay, or was he worrying about nothing??

Call #3, at 3 AM: "G? Squeaky just came in with the cops and took the baby and left."

I asked him, in about four different ways, what had led up to that point, and each time I got the same answer: when the phone was finally answered, it was Malia who answered, and of course Tim doesn't like Malia and was not exactly polite, but when he talked to Squeaky he had not (per him) said anything that would be construed as threatening. (Now frankly, I don't care who said what to whom; Squeaky knows Tim well enough to know that there are two, and only two, excuses for her to involve the cops: either a) he ACTUALLY puts his hands on her (not "threatens to" because the two of them threaten horrible murder ten times a day and both of them know better) or b) he ACTUALLY sets about injuring himself. (Questions of safety involving the baby are past consideration; he loves that child beyond imagination.)

Tim is now threatening his own life--though he's promised not to act on that til at least tomorrow night, and most likely will alert authorities beforehand if he DOES have such intentions--I've been down this road with him before, and right now I can tell that all he really wants are an answer as to WHY, and his baby back in his custody. The threats of self-harm are right now just Tim's shorthand for "I am miserable and sad and I don't understand what just happened to me, and I'm scared that history is repeating itself."

Well, -I- don't understand either, and though I'd like to be more optimistic, I'm afraid that history is doing exactly what he thinks it's doing. But next time Squeaky logs into her Facebook account, she's got a letter from me that would melt paint off the walls. Tim may be most-upset about this, but in the who's-most-upset arms-race, I am DEFINITELY in second place tonight.