A Gambling Debt

Ten years ago my husband played poker with a few high rollers, to play you had to pony up ten thousand dollars. This was primarily to keep low lifes out of the game. His company hired a new VP Sales, a very A type man with a big ego. He heard about the poker game and wanted in.

That night, the game was at our house. The man lost badly and he owed my husband thirty four thousand. He asked for a last chance, he put his house up to cover his debt, double or nothing. He was working with my husband and my husband agreed to take the bet. He asked me to write it up, I'm an attorney, the paper was witnessed by two of the other players. The man lost again.

His house was heavily mortgaged, nowhere near enough to cover his seventy thousand debt. This man had a young wife, a stewardess for Delta and my husband asked for her as guarantee on the debt. When she was told she had to move to our house until her husband paid up she was in shock, she was a young woman from St. Louis, her husband used her as a chip to cover his debt. This time my husband drew up a simple note, promising the girl on default. The man defaulted, my husband didn't believe in catch and release and the girl moved in with us, the divorce was quick, there were no assets, the man owed a lot because of his gambling.

My husband wasn't crazy about her flying around and he put her to work for a friend of his. She stayed, whatever he did with her I don't know I wasn't in the room but she is wholly focused on him, I can only imagine. I was never keen on the housewife role, but she is, she loves being a housewife for him, she is a happy, content woman. I reached the conclusion that denying her children was wrong and I agreed to let nature take its course.