My wife did manage to calm down before the night was through. Although thoughts of murder and vandalism ran through her head, she overcame and tried to put the whole incident behind her. We agreed that we would have nothing to do with Y and B in the future.

It was around lunch time a couple of days later that my wife remembered that B had wanted all of us to get together to discuss the situation and for her to call to set that up. My wife had calmed down enough to feel that she could have a rational, intelligible conversation at this point.

She dialed their number.

Y answered, “Hello?”

“Can I speak to B?”

B came on the phone, “Hello?”

“This is The Girl…”

“Yes, I’m ready to talk to you now,” B said. “I…”

“No! You’re done talking. You’re gonna listen now!”

“You…”

“Shut up and listen! Who the fuck do you think you are? How dare you come over to my place and I find you alone with my husband and you’re the one accusing me of cheating with yours. I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Forget where we live, who we are, that we were ever friends!” My wife hung up.

After she again calmed down, The Girl told me that it sounded like there was someone else on the line in the background while she was yelling to B. Could it have been Y listening in?

Fifteen minutes later The Girl and I were discussing the whole situation when the doorbell rang.

We both looked at each other.

“You better get that because if I open the door and see that it’s her, I’m gonna stab her in the heart with this kitchen knife!” The Girl said.

Stabbing people with kitchen knives seems to be a recurring thought with my wife. I’m glad that she loves me. I hope.

I opened the door. Y stood in front of me, his saddened eyes checking something out on his shoe.

I sat down with him on our porch while The Girl remained inside eavesdropping.

“Sorry for my wife coming over,” he said.

I looked over to him. The thing on his shoe was still bothering him. I looked out across our gravel path leading to the house and surveyed the weeds growing alongside it hoping to give him time to organize what he wanted to say.

“Something wrong with her,” he said. He now looked up at me.

“Like what?” I said.

“She trying to make me say that something happened with me and The Girl,” he said.

“The Girl is pretty mad right now,” I said.

“Yah, tell her sorry. Is not first time,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“My wife best friend a few years ago was at party with us. Dinner party. During dinner I sat next to my wife’s friend,” he turned more towards me. “Friend was brunette, very dark hair. My wife knows I like women with dark hair.”

“Hmm,” I said. Y’s wife is a bleached blond.

“Yes. After that party, my wife never spoke to her friend again.”

“Never?”

“No, never. She is so jealous,” he said.

“Well all I can say is that I think it’s best if we don’t see you or your family socially anymore.”

“Yeah,” he said. The thing on his shoe was bothering him again. “She needs help.”

“She probably doesn’t think she does. You’re gonna have a hard time getting her help,” I said.

“Yeah. I worry about the girls.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She always wants more and more money and things. She was happy for a bit after I bought her the car but I remember when the girls were small,” he looked at me again. “She would not buy them clothes or shoes or anything. Only for herself.”

I was surprised that I was surprised about this.

He continued, “So one day I had enough and took them and bought them shoes.”

He paused for a bit while in thought. I noticed that even the crickets seemed quiet as we all waited for him to finish.

“She took the shoes back and took the money and bought herself clothes,” he said.

He looked at his own shoe again. The crickets still muted, I began to feel sorry for Y — really sorry. I asked, “Wow. She really did that?”

“Yeah.”

What could I say? Trying to be helpful I said, “You’re religious. You go to church every Sunday. Why don’t you see if you can get some counseling or help from there?”

“Yah, maybe I will see.”

“Anyway. Thanks for coming over and explaining. Like I said I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come over anymore and we won’t be coming over to your place anymore either.”

“Is too bad.”

“Yeah, it is, but this is all stuff that your family has to deal with. When it starts affecting others like us, I need to draw the line at us.”

“Yeah. Ok.”

We said our farewells. He left — bad shoe and all.

I went back inside to a still pissed off wife whose thoughts were of butcher knives dancing in front of her eyes. I wasn’t as worried about the butcher knives as I was about our psycho neighbour who might be unpredictable enough to do something — anything — to either of us or our home.

What sort of damage could B do to our place while we weren’t home. Sure we have an alarm system and more immediate nicer neighbours, and sure our house is set in from the road, but still…we’ve got lots of windows.

Next: Cars, cops, handcuffs, and other loose ends.