Life, Heaven, Hell

By Stephen Wieprecht

How I met my first real girlfriend?

After playing a softball game with a couple of my brothers, everyone went back to somebody's house to party. My younger brother showed up with the woman he eventually married, and his friend showed up with her friend. Her friend was being pretty serious, so I asked her a series of serious questions about herself.

She said she graduated second in her class, was the head pom-pom girl in high school, was teaching aerobics, studying aerodynamic engineering, had a curator scholarship, was on the dean's list, and had straight As.

After she had gone for a little while, I looked at her with a simple dumb looking face and paid her a compliment.

In an overly self-confident simpleton tone, I said, "You know...that ain't half bad for a girl."

Then I just counted backward from three and watched the emotion build on her face.

She exploded right on cue and said, "Not bad for a girl?"

And then she started to vent.

After ten seconds or so, my look of puzzlement gave way, and I looked out of the corner of my eyes to the right and then to the left. I looked back at her, and a small smile appeared.

She knew something was up and came to an immediate stop. She looked to the left and then to the right. Everybody was looking at her like she had lost her cool.

She looked at me and said, "I hate you," and then made her exit in style. I didn't see her after that for a few months, but I knew, with the good guys up by one, it would be interesting when I would see her. Our paths crossed again a few months later, around Christmas, and she was eager to even score.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887930015

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Life, Heaven, Hell

Stephen Wieprecht

Copyright © 2023 Stephen Wieprecht

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88654-989-8 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88793-001-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Prologue

Life, Heaven, and Hell

The Early Years

The Middle Years

Jack Struggles to Survive

Trying to Move Life Forward

Hell

The Divorce Modification

Prologue

Jack sat on the third floor of the 108-year-old Victorian home where he had raised his son and daughter, and he wondered, What happened?

Just two years prior, he had signed a divorce decree in which he gave up primary custody of his daughter, who was eleven at the time (his seventeen-year-old son moved in with his older brother—being mad at both parents). Now, after having raised his daughter as a primary caregiver, after giving $17,000 of his 401(k) to his ex, after his ex-wife had agreed he could keep it in writing after she had cashed out her 401(k), and after he had agreed to let his wife have around $3,000 worth of tax credits and tax deductions for his daughter every year, she was hitting him for more.

His lawyer gave him weak advice during the first divorce and told him it was the best deal he could get without an expensive court battle. He was in no position to fight back then. He needed two operations—one for a ruptured disc in his neck and another for a torn shoulder muscle. He was in no position for an expensive court battle. His lawyer told him if he signed the deal—as long as he lived up to his obligations and the finances didn't change more than 20 percent—he would never have to deal with his ex-wife again. He wanted primary custody, but at least this made the concessions seem palpable.

Now, here he was just two years later, facing the possibility of losing everything. He could even wind up in jail under a worst-case scenario. Even though he had done everything he had agreed to do in the divorce decree, in addition, he often picked his daughter up from school, fed her, and helped her with her homework; he was facing mounting lawyer bills. Why was he being punished for doing what he had agreed to do?

Furthermore, he had his daughter for two extra overnight visits a month for almost a year after his daughter decided she wanted to spend more time with him.

The extra overnight stays started about a year after the final divorce. Jack went to see his girlfriend in Japan, and while he was gone, Shannon had been fighting with her mother a lot. Shortly after he got back, Shannon's mother blew up, and told her, "You are