Even at the mention of the name...

So I get this phone call on my work voice mail yesterday. The accent was thick and the connection from the caller's cell phone poor, so I only understood a few words. The person spoke as if he knew me but I couldn't place the voice.

I called the number just now, thinking perhaps it was a vendor that I needed to speak with. It wasn't. It turned out to be an ex-relative, my past wife's uncle, calling hoping to offer me a bit of extra work with his company that just opened a branch here in Marietta.

I couldn't make it much past his introduction before the adrenaline was pumping and my breath became shorter. I wanted to lash out at something. I could hear nothing else of what he wanted to say and only my sense of social propriety kept me from slamming the phone down as he spoke.

Explaining that I appreciated his offer, I nonetheless had to tell him that even the association that I would make constantly to that woman when dealing with him was not possible. I wanted to have nothing to do with his company.

The man himself is a good man, as is much of her family that I met, but the fact that the mere MENTION of the woman's name as he was reintroducing himself set my blood aflame. I earnestly believe he was merely trying to provide an opportunity that I might enjoy, and that I appreciate, but there is no way that I can have anything to do with anyone associated with that adulteress.

The rage, the fury, that this woman still incites, four years after the fact, is disturbing.