This woman’s interference in our lives started to become reminiscent of a bad soap opera. As the months passed after the devastating news about the our “temporary addition” to the family, Kevin coped as best he could. Being away from his family in Hong Kong was hard, but his network of friends helped him deal with what was really, to him, like losing a child to death.
It was only a couple of months after the shocking revelation that Kevin rang me from Hong Kong, very upset and angry. Apparently, Gertrude had been breaking into his Internet email account, because she knew the secret question to his password, and every time he changed it, she would find the new one, and on it went.
This all started to make sense to us, because when this sordid incident first occurred, with Gertrude absconding with the baby he believed to be his, Kevin and I were actively emailing each other and keeping records of what was happening. Then he rang me one day to tell me his whole inbox had been deleted. Gertrude had broken into his account to hide all the evidence we had on her.
However, Gertrude didn’t know that I had been keeping copies of all the correspondence. I kept it in the event that one day, her child may look for her father and want to know the truth regarding what her mother did to my brother.
Gertrude even emailed the bank, impersonating Kevin, and asked that the log book of the yacht be sent to her. As hard as this is to believe, the bank sent them to Gertrude via her request from Kevin’s personal email address.
The papers they sent are legal documents that state ownership of the yacht. Gertrude had no entitlement to the yacht because she had not contributed one cent to it. It belonged to my brother
My mother rang Gertrude and told her we knew what she had done. She also told her to return those papers unless she wanted us to get the police involved and sue the bank for their mistake. Gertrude knew she was in big trouble, so she wrote a letter to my mother, accusing Kevin of abuse and me of assault. I couldn’t believe what a right piece of knitting this woman was. Any other decent human being would have been mortified to inflict such emotional pain on someone they had once loved.
I ignored her threats. These times have been extremely difficult for me to write about, because they stir up negative emotions, which I try to keep at bay whenever possible. I actually feel sorry for Gertrude because she is obviously deluded, and there is not much you can do for people like that. My only wish was that she would disappear out of our lives forever. Well, wishful thinking is a good thing, but unfortunately, that wasn’t to be the case.
When Gertrude was expecting, Kevin hadpurchased a unit in Hong Kong to accommodate his new family. Kevin and Gertrude enjoyed living on the yacht, but it was no place for a newborn. I have fond memories of feeling so proud of my brother when he was busy preparing his unit to welcome back Gertrude and the baby after the birth.
He spent long hours buying the furniture and even building much of it himself. Gertrude had returned to Spain to have the baby, and Kevin stayed to get the flat ready for their return. He of course was scheduled to get over to Spain before the birth.
Gertrude decided that she was entitled to half the rental income that Kevin was getting to pay the mortgage of the unit. She was under the impression that she should receive half the rent, even though she had contributed very little and had already damaged my brother with her deceit. What she couldn’t understand was that because she was responsible for paying half the mortgage, her rental had to go back in to the mortgage. Kevin of course put all the rent into the mortgage and covered the shortfall and expenses himself.
Gertrude then decided to write to Kevin’s attorney, demanding $180,000 HK. For weeks we put up with her rantings and claims. We could not get the wretched woman out of our lives. Kevin seriously considered foreclosing on the mortgage. Her response to that was to then threaten my brother with the Spanish Authorities to claim maintenance from my brother (for the baby that was not his). She assumed that because his name was on the birth certificate, she would claim maintenance.
These threats did very little to worry us. The DNA tests proved Kevin was not the baby’s father, and finally another chapter of my seemingly sane life closed.
