Episode 14: The Right and Truthful Queen
Welcome to MOONDAY CAFE a podcast that’s posted every month on the day of the full moon.
MOONDAY CAFE is devoted to the mind-expanding, mind-bending magical power of story.
After Dovey reconnects with her father, her world speeds up and life takes some fast turns and some unexpected adventurous awakenings.
Our guide is author, inspired performer, and barefoot cowgirl, Dovey Conlee.
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Episode 14: The Right and Truthgul Queen
At the meeting with her father, Dovey agrees to come for a short visit at the ranch. She sternly asks for a couple of months lead time before the reunion. Knowing the trip to the ranch could be filled with emotion, she wants to give herself plenty of time to anchor more into the Dallas life-style and her father slightly understood and stoically accepted her intention.
They parted that evening as wounded family members.
Dovey skirted the hardest part of his depositions about meeting the aunt. When her father loudly demanded that she tell him exactly what the aunt had confessed about her mother’s death, Dovey lied. As hard as he had always been on her, she would not dare wound him by telling him about the lie the woman spoke into his wife’s ear; the lie that broke her heart. That moment in time would have to go with Dovey to her grave.
Back at her work, Dovey was beginning to enjoy days with her wonderfully gay co-worker that was effusive about every delicious part of life and living. He was a breath of fresh air in a building that was mostly filled with attorneys and glossy financial advisors. Several times a week, they closed the leasing office for lunch and had great meals together within walking distance on good days. On other less pleasant days, they took his Mercedes to some of the hot spots nearby and talked about art and theater and fashion and men. Yes, men.
He liked men. She admired men. It was a fun and it was an effervescent fit.
One particular day, after a salad nicoise and half of a mini-cheesecake, as Dovey unlocked the office door, a florist arrived with a bouquet of tulips. The tulips were for her and the card read, Let me speak frankly. I would like for you take the time to join me for drinks. I have something to tell you. I will call you in an hour. Don
She signed for the bouquet and studied it as she placed it on her desk. The co-worker whistled as he saw the blooms and said, Tulips? This time of year? Those are expensive!!! What’s the occasion?
I’m not really sure, Dovey responded. I need to think about this. And, with that, the next hour was an in-depth conversation with her gay friend about the pros and cons of taking this meeting. After the chat, she made the decision to go. IF he actually called. Then, the phone rang.
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At the happy hour that evening, Don was waiting for Dovey to enter the restaurant, which was conveniently close to her office. Wondering if this might be some sort of emotional execution, she changed her mind and turned for the door when he moved faster and said, Come here you scared little bird. I won’t bite. Sit. Let me get you a drink. He had a smile and a manner that was polished and comfortable and weirdly trusting for some very odd reason.
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Two months later, when Dovey did make the trip to the ranch, she made it with Don, who was suddenly making a lot of the calls in her life. He had bewitched her with his charm and tidbits of historical information about what he had heard about her mother through his former mother-in-law misfit. Looking back, it might have been basic animal behavior training. She was starved for any forensic information about the woman that brought her into this world.
When they arrived at the ranch in his fine European car, her father grinned through his cigar from the wide front porch while her stepmother seethed. When the stepmother saw a set of golf clubs being unloaded with her luggage, her first words were, Oh, so you’re playing golf now.
Dovey paused before responding to her unkind welcome. No, not yet. Those are Don’s clubs. Let me introduce you.
Maya Angelous famously quoted that ‘one may never remember what was said or done to you, but you will always remember how they made you feel.’ And, she was sterling in that assessment. Don swept in and charmed the daylights out of her stepmother first, then aimed straight for the heart of her father, deflecting every barb and cannon ball until he prevailed and deliberately convinced both of them that he was meant for Dovey, even if he came through the ethers to find her. He brought distinctively lavish gifts and he showered both of them with stories and amusements and addictive delight.
On that day of their first visit together, the sad, but prosperous, ranch turned from black and white to living color. And, for the first time in her life, she felt a part of something bigger.
She watched and felt her ice cycle self dissolve, drop by crystal clear drop. She was completely unprepared for this, but it was a roaring river now with rapids and a message of absolutely no return, bursting like the white water of massive change.
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Dovey and Don were married in her father’s formal living room a year later, followed by a cocktail party that drew the neighboring ranchers and some bankers, all of the help and Dovey’s co-worker, who winked at her as he raised a glass of French champagne, the drink her father insisted on serving along with all the whiskey. The evening frightened Dovey at the soul level and made her want to run, but ranch neighbors kept the night alive.
It became a short trip from happy to grief when Dovey’s father was diagnosed with a cancer so aggressive and saturating that after discovery, he was told he only had a few days to get his business in order. Few things could break Dovey, but this did. It was too fast after returning and reconnecting and proving herself to the man she had misunderstood and loved with all her heart.
He died on the day he was born. It was a Sunday and she was with him.
At the graveside, after all of his grieving friends left the ranch cemetery, the snow started to fall and she sat there on the ground until the snow covered both her hands, Don stayed behind waiting in the car, seemingly put out that she was not behaving properly and, to some end, angry about making him wait; making him cold.
It was as if Indian had left her. She begged for him, but? Nothing, which made her feel more alone. The snowflakes were the size of a nickel and feathery soft and she wished she was one. A snowflake that wold dissolve and seep through the ground into the soil around his grave.
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Within days, Dovey’s generous inheritance was snagged and managed by Don. Her oil and gas mineral rights revenues were merged. Cattle were sold at a dispersal sale and the stepmother severed all ties with Dovey as she moved to be near her own son and Dovey’s life was distilled down to a depressed pancake of the woman she fought so hard to become. She did dissolve.
Her gay friend and co-worker was quickly banished and Dovey learned about it when she overheard a scathing phone call coming from Don’s office. In a few months after that intention rupture, the co-worker sadly died alone from Aids, sending Dovey further into abandonment.
To cheer her up, Don planned a massive distraction. He scheduled to whisk her away with top-tier travel to Europe, stopping first for weeks in England and then to Paris for a month and then to Germany for a river cruise and to purchase a new car to be shipped to the states.
It was a type of life Dovey had never seen.
After returning to their new glossy home in Dallas, and after recovering from the long European journey, they traveled first class to Hong Kong and China and his tactic had actually worked. Dovey saw a much larger landscape and was intentionally treated to the beauty of other cultures and the many trappings and distractions of those cultures temporarily made her forget her compounded grief. It was an escape into an international wonderland, but that changed.
Dovey’s money seeded new ventures. Transportation companies in Dallas, Houston, Phoenix and Tampa were started and run on a shoestring, but they did generate cash and cash was such an intoxicating king.
Don soon closed his office as a financial planner, because now he had financial backing and he did not have to answer to anyone. Not one client, not one regulator, not one banker. His keys to freedom were in his hands, thanks to Dovey’s misfortune.
And, with enough rope can come a hanging. Over time.
If a life is built on the pursuit of power, power will take over.
In 1991, news of the Berlin wall breaching and with the simultaneous break in Russia’s power, Don turned to Dovey and said, That will be where billionaires are made and I intend to go there as soon as possible.
By 1993, he did travel to Moscow and upon his return, their home was filled with Russians that had nefarious intentions.
Still, Indian had abandoned Dovey for some upsetting reason. It was the most alone and outnumbered that Dovey had ever felt in her entire life.
On one occasion, while Russians were visiting, a former KGB operative followed her into the bar in their home library and asked for a ‘cup of vodka.’ Dovey dutifully poured a shot glass of vodka and the Russian said loudly, Didn’t you hear me? I asked for a cup of vodka, not a thimble.
They stared at each other while she poured a glass of straight vodka, Dovey wondering what was happening in the other room of the house. Then, the Russian said in a low and intentionally seductive tone….
We Russians are ready to make American money. You like money, right?
Dovey never answered. He went on, We have access to very powerful composite hand weapons that disassemble and can move through the highest level metal detectors. Amazing technology, right? Yes, we have thousands and thousands and now, right now, these weapons are very close by in Mexico ports. All we need is distribution throughout this great United States! You have transportation companies. Please, think this through. You will have so much money. Money for everything!
Don appeared and looked over the Russian’s shoulder and asked, What are we talking about here? Upon the silence, Don placed his hand on the Russian’s left shoulder and said, Let’s take the vodka bottle to the meeting. No need to bother Dovey for a drink, right? And as the Russian left the library, Don whispered to Dovey, Vodka is like blood to these guys. They shouldn’t bother you anymore.
Before the catered dinner that night, while Dovey was lighting candles, the Russian found her and propositioned her again about the weapons. She had one word in response, Never.
She didn’t know that her life would forever change with that one word. Doors closed with a slam and when the planes left for Russia, Don was on board with the Russian guests.
Dovey went to draw money from their account and was informed she had been taken off the signature card. When she went into the office and asked their CFO for cash, she was told that she was taken off all the accounts. She called the attorney and he would not return her calls.
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One thing her father did teach her well when she was 8 years old was how she should always have her own checking account and, to that date she still did have that same account that he opened for her when she was a child and, over time, it did become hefty and only Dovey knew it existed.
At the time, the popular book THE CELESTENE PROPHECY was boiling the western culture and its story centered around the magic of Peru and the mysteries of their beliefs about healing spiritual diseases. Within a week, Dovey was headed there by way of Miami.
Through her favored university, she found out about a group of scholars traveling there and she beseeched them to join in their journey at the last minute and quickly she was accepted to join the group that was making more than a tourists trip.
While Don was in Russia conceiving a child with a Russian journalist, Indian finally showed.
Dovey had been packing on the floor of her closet when Indian took a rattle and shook it behind her. She turned with tears to see her imaginary avatar tucked into the wall of Don’s suits. What do I do?, she asked.
Indian said one word. GO!
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When her flight returned after two weeks of spiritual healing in Peru, Dovey cleared customs and immigration and did not go home. Instead, she went to a hotel to call Don to let him know she would not be returning to their relationship.
After clever and creative attempts at damage control, Don realized that he needed to turn up his enchantment, but it was too late. She had found herself again.
Months later, after so many legal expenses, Dovey was free from the Russians and free from his calculated control. She discovered a gated apartment community in Los Colinas near a posh hotel area that had several golf courses and fine restaurants and settled herself into a lovely place that comforted her as she made a fresh start. She started to smile again. She felt she could breathe, sort of.
Until, one afternoon, she went shopping for indulgences at a gourmet market, where she bought a magical ‘ranch relish’ made by a company in Texas, when she returned to her apartment, she found a card on her door from the FBI placed on her door with a message from an agent that read, Call me at your earliest convenience.
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The meeting was recorded in the field office there. The agent advised her that she had been observed for over a year now and the agency had concluded that she was not involved with the sales of high level Russian arms to Iran, but her husband had been. They asked for her help.
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Dovey followed their instructions for over 2 years, then was professionally dismissed. They had the information they needed.
In that ‘free-floating’, surrealistic moment of wonder, she watched the doors snap shut on western businesses acting as mules to sell and transport weapons to dangerous countries will ill intent.
She packed her car and drove in one shot to get to what was left of the ranch. She camped a few days, calling for Indian. But, nothing. This solitude was good medicine.
She walked the property. She threw rocks. She broke sticks. She climbed trees. She became as still as a wild animal at times and then all her purging turned inside out and into love.
Love, like she never felt in her life fell over her like a fist full of glitter. She decided she would remodel an old hunting cabin and build another small cabin for guests, then after that, another small cabin for guests and so on.
She decided to take her grief and her pain and her crumbs of leftovers and build her own business that had only one purpose: love.
It took 26 months to put her designs into play. She cut and burned brush, she hired builders, plumbers, electricians and she painted everything herself. With pride.
She gave birth to a dream and the dream came alive. She watched it slowly unfold and slowly start to thrive. Cars showed up for tours, always giving Dovey a jolt, but tours turned into reservations and reservations turned into repeat reservations and repeat reservations turned into loyal customers.
She watched love save lives right in front of her eyes.
And, finally on her formal public opening, while she recalled what it took to override all of those many challenges in order for her to get to this moment of mastery in her own life, Indian walked from her peripheral vision and into clear view. He put his hand on her heart, opening her heart chakra and pushing the wounds through her chest and finally out of reach into the cosmos beyond. Then, he took a feather from his headdress and placed into her hair.
Dovey was now the right and truthful queen of her own life.
The feather was her crown.
The crown she had earned.
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