(8/13) “I woke up our oldest son John. I said: ‘Your dad’s been living a double li
(8/13) “I woke up our oldest son John. I said: ‘Your dad’s been living a double life, so I’ve got to run down and meet somebody. Can you watch the baby?’ Even as I was driving there, I didn’t believe any of the things the woman had told me. I thought she was lying. I thought I was going there to confront her. To defend the father of my six kids. The hotel was at the back of a Denny’s. When I knocked on the door, a young girl answered. She was much younger than I imagined. Not a teenager, but young. She was tiny. I think she was on drugs. Her hands were fidgeting. She invited me inside the room, and we sat down on the edge of one of the queen beds. She began to tell me the exact same story that she’d told me over the phone. She said that Tripp had been sleeping with prostitutes for years. And they were blackmailing him. They’d taken all our money. He’d given them credit cards and they’d maxed them all out. The girl seemed like she might have been in love with Tripp. She told me that she didn’t charge him for sex anymore. She told me that she’d met our youngest daughter, and Tripp promised her they would start a new life together. She described this charming man, who suddenly turns into someone that is trying to kill you. And I knew then that she was telling the truth. She pulled out her phone and started showing me photos of Tripp. I can only remember one of them. He was behind the wheel of his car. He had the biggest smile on his face. And his pants were down. Right then the phone rang. She turns it to me, and it’s Tripp. ‘I told him I was meeting you,’ she said. ‘And he’s threatening to kill me.’ She asked if I could help her buy a bus ticket to Atlanta. I pulled out my checkbook and wrote her a $100 check. ‘There’s no money in this account,’ I told her. ‘But I just closed on a house. So wait a week before you cash it.’ I gave her my phone number. I told her that if she decided to get out of this life, I would help her. I felt sorry for her. Even with everything she’d told me, I wasn’t mad. I saw a wounded soul. Someone who’d grown up just like me. Someone who hadn’t escaped. I guess I hadn’t escaped either, not completely. But I was trying.” -- source link