End of the road

Almost two weeks after hearing about it and after several attemps at trying, Stephanie found media confirmation - a story on th e Web site of a paper in a NC small town about a serious traffic accident - of the apparent death of one of the big nemeses of our lives, Vincent's ex-stepmother, "Rosie," who helped mastermind and motivate much of Vincent's father's campaign against us for almost a decade. Rosie always believed that Vincent's father secretly still loved Stephanie - and perhaps he did - and so he had to be especially mean to Stephanie to prove this wrong. Rosie may have legitimately loved - whatever this meant for her - Vincent as a stepson and may have convinced herself that she was the superior mother. But Vincent was also a convenient toy with which to terrorize Stephanie (and therefore Vincent and me). Together, the were quite a pair - both violent, both charming, both excellent liars. Stephanie's father always said that when Stephanie and Vincent left Ohio - despite their efforts to stop this - their marriage couldnt last. Although the trial still loomed, without Stephanie there in person to battle against, why stay together? And sure enough after a few years it became apparent that Rosie had connected with another man. And then we became occasionally involved in complex triangles and squares with Vincent's father, Rosie, and Vincent's father's new sometimes girlfriend. At various times both of these women called Stephanie for aid in legal fights against Vincent's father. And - as I mentioned earlier this week - at one point Rosie got us some money by scaring Vincent's father into catching up with back child support to everyone lest he go to jail (the other woman eventually got him sent to jail). This woman still scares us. The last time I remember seeing her (although Vincent's seen her more recently) was when Vincent and his then half-brother joined one of my side of the family's family reunions in Westerville, OH, and then Vincent stayed over at Rosie's house, then less than a mile from my grandparents' house. But Rosie then moved with her new husband (involved somehow in NASCAR, Vincent's father's and her favorite sport also) to North Carolina (nearby NASCAR racetrack pictured above), and then Vincent became estranged from his brother. More legal fights eventually pushed Vincent's father to ask to prove that he wasn't actually Vincent's would-be half-brother's biological parent, and I don't think Vincent had talked with Tyler (then Tom) for a year or two until he called to talk about his mother's death. Yes - in an accident eerily similar to the one Stephanie's mother was in (except this time the driver at fault was the one injured - and worse) Rosie was apparently driving early one morning and veered off the road, then swung back across and crashed into an oncoming car - but this one was an SUV. When Vincent's father called, he intimated that she had lingered for several days - apparently with little brain function - until folks called it quits. Rosie and Stephanie has always been the same age - but she will now always be 35, two years older than I was when I met Vincent and Stephanie - and his father and Rosie and Tyler. Stephanie and I have long disliked this woman and Stephanie - despite herself - expected she might feel some euphoria if Rosie ever died (she apparently had a very serious and even life-threatening heart condition ever since we met her). But Stephanie says the whole thing has felt curiously anticlimatic - even when - as of tonight - we don't have to take Vincent's father's or Tyler's word for it, since the crash was in the media: http://www.observernewsonline.com/content/view/87613/1/ Rosie of course leaves a teenage son - probably 15 - and husband. A survivor of a difficult childhood, Rosie returned - to be buried - to a childhood home area in Vinton County, OH (where my Grandma spent one of her young years). Stephanie said Vincent's father- who toyed with going back with her at one point - and even Vincent showed little emotion about this news, but I'm afraid that's par for the course with Vincent and his father either way. I myself am not sure what I think although I know one nemesis that we won't be facing in court or in the parking lot again. Three stories to ask us about some day: Stephanie and Rosie's fight in the front yard, Stephanie cowering in the laundry room while Rosie crosses the parking lot, and Rosie on TV shifting pennies back and forth on a table in a fraudulent fund-raising scheme that eventually netted some $40,000 and cosmetic surgery for Rosie (a scheme that we helped finally stop).

-- Perry