Bitter Harvest: A Woman's Fury, a Mother's Sacrifice by Ann Rule Page B

desperate to be away from her, yet afraid of the scene he knew she would create.
    Mike also worried about his children: what would become of them if he left Debora and moved out? But, he decided, they would be better off with a single parent, in a home where there was no arguing, than they were now. He would gladly be that custodial parent—if Debora would agree.

    It was so hot that summer; the air was thick and still. When the wind blew, it was like a blast furnace, stirring up dirt devils in the dust. Gardens burst forth into bright flowers and the sunflowers bent under their own weight on ten-foot stalks. There were no flowers around 7517 Canterbury Court; Debora had never been interested in gardening. The trees that had been there when they moved in were enough. The kids enjoyed their pool, Mike went off to his office very early every morning and came home late, and Debora lay in bed reading.
    Mike had vacillated for months, weighing his dread of another thirty or forty years with Debora against his almost equal dread of a “horrible divorce.” They were not getting along, and they never would. It was as simple as that. Neither of them could heal unless they made a clean break and started to build separate lives.
    Sometime in late July, Mike asked Debora for the second time if she would give him a divorce. The result was a “terrible outburst,” far worse than even he had expected. “It was … volatile behavior,” he said, “screaming, a lot of profanity, hitting herself. It was awful.”
    Debora opposed the idea of a divorce, although she had no choice, really. She would not hear of their telling the children together, or of planning the best way to break the news to them. She was not going to let Mike walk away from the marriage looking like a man with a shred of decency; it was more important to punish him than to cushion the blow to their children. Just as she had done the first time, Debora told Tim, Lissa, and Kelly in her own way: a hysterical outburst designed to make the children detest their father. He had broken his promise to them, and he was leaving them all. Not surprisingly, Mike’s older children hated him after that.
    There was so much hate in that beautiful hour on Canterbury Court. Debora hated Mike. He had come to detest her. Their children were carefully schooled to stand by their mother, the victim, and to revile their father.
    But however much she hated him, Debora wanted to stay married to Mike—for many reasons, some probably too convoluted to understand. Possession was one, of course. Mike was her husband; she had viewed other women with suspicion long before he was guilty of infidelity. As the family of a highly respected, wealthy physician, she and the children had a place in society; without him, she feared losing that.
    Perhaps most important to Debora was her dream that both Lissa and Kelly would be BOTARs (Belles of the American Royal). Kansas City has two “coming out” events, at which debutantes are introduced to society: one is the Jewel Ball, the other the American Royal, a horse and livestock show that lasts almost two weeks. There are several social activities during the celebration of the American Royal, but the BOTAR Ball is the most visible. About twenty young women are presented at the BOTAR Ball each year. They are the loveliest, most talented daughters of haute Kansas City. Debora wanted Kelly and Lissa to join them. She wanted Tim to be a BOTAR escort.
    If her children’s home was broken, Debora was certain, they would lose their chance to move among the most sought-after young people in the area. She had never been a debutante—not in Peoria—nor a beauty queen. The kudos she received had all been for her superior intellect; she seemed, now, to be living through her “beautiful children,” as she called them. She wanted them to move easily in the rarefied air of Kansas City society.
    Most of all, Debora did not want to lose any more of her prestige and her