The mom of one of the boys from the team who came to practice with us at Maxwell seemed to understand that I loved coaching these kids and how I took an interest in them doing well. When these practices at Maxwell were going on, I would text to invite him and his mom would reply with what they had going on or if he could make it.
Then later we had another conversation about Babe Ruth baseball and how the boys were doing.
Her son went to a different school than mine and they both played for their schools. At one point she messaged me asking me about the experience my son was having with his team because her son was not having that good of an experience. We texted briefly about it but I stopped talking to her and kind of left the conversation hanging after just a few messages.
These few very short conversations entirely about baseball and the boys happened over the course of about 9 months. But, each time I had one of these conversations Luz would get pissed. She would tell me how it was going to turn into an affair. She would go into one of her jealous moods and for a week again I was a pariah.
After one of the last conversations she was screaming at me to get the fuck out of her life. She was berating me about carrying on with women. When I asked her who these women were, she could not come up with any names or examples or even fuzzy memories. I gave her my phone and let her go through our messages. She read them and then just kept going. I kept asking her, what am I supposed to do? Was I just supposed to not talk to parents who message me about their players. This mom was not the only parent who messaged me about their players but Luz seemed to take a special interest in this one parent. I could not understand what Luz thought I should do. She could not answer me and just kept telling me how it was going to become an affair.
After the third conversation when she went into her jealous rage, I told her I was not going to do anything differently. I told her that if any parent messages me about their players, I am going to talk. I told her how I can't live. I can't do something I love to do, coach, without feeling like she is going to jump all over me and scream horrible shit at me just because I am talking to a parent about their player. When I told her I was not going to do anything differently, that turned into weeks of pain. She was screaming at me every other day to get the fuck out of her life.
But, this was the first time I did not acquiesce. After about five years of this kind of shit, this was the first time I told her I was not going to give in to her. But, old habits die hard. I left the last conversation hanging and some day I need to explain to this mom what happened.
This was the point where I decided I could not fix her. She was not going to fix herself.
But then, after one of these nights of her screaming at me and me sleeping on the couch like I had for the months before that, she came out of her bedroom at 4 am. She started to ask me how we can fix us. We talked a bit and she kinda listened to what I was saying about not being able to live. I told her about how nothing I could do was ever safe from her wrath. Something as simple as brining her a rose could turn her into a jealous rage. I told her that I did not want her anymore. But the conversation progressed and I told her the only way I would ever be willing to try to fix what we had was if she went and got help for her delusional paranoid jealousy.
She agreed.
She never went.