Tuesday 29 July 2003

Toward the end of May while working at APAC, Kari actually sat next to me saying she wanted to talk... for the first time in two months. I noticed her necklace had a cross and two small baby rings. I stated right away before she had the chance to bring it up, "You had another miscarriage, didn't you?" She was touched that I had made the connection without a word spoken about it.

She called me at school just to say hello a few times during the end of the school year. Once school ended, my days were empty (though I still worked nights). She was full-time working four ten-hour days, while I kept my Sunday through Wednesday nights for work. On her next day off she called and said she wanted to do something and suggested going fishing. I went to her house, got our gear together and she drove to a lake about twenty miles away. It was the first time I'd been fishing in a year and it was fun. She caught a few more than I did, but neither of us had any keepers so we tossed them back. I met her husband that night after we came home from work and we all sat in their kitchen, drank beer, and played cards.

Her husband worked as a prison guard, opposite shifts from Kari. They lived in a rented farmhouse in Bangor. And they fought everyday. Kari was 27, her husband 24, I believe. She had a bachelor's degree in psychology, but it had been a few years since she'd done any work relating to the field, when she worked in a prison. Since then she worked at a hardware store (from which she was fired for having sex with a 17-year old), at La Crosse Mail Center taking calls, and now at APAC.

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