False Faces

I so much wanted to end our last summery Friday before Labor Day weekend on a cheery, chipper note but this, alas, was not to be.

Who is really behind the mask? Friend or foe? People let us down. We expect that, but preparation is utterly impossible when caught with our pants around our ankles, free-falling through the rushing, hissing atmosphere upon discovery of ruthless, cold-hearted betrayal. Usually when we think of identity theft and all the misery, hassle and frustration it entails, we picture a lurking greedy, heartless stranger craftily sifting through our trashcan. We rarely envision this callous, lying, conniving snake to be a trusted, cherished friend. For one woman, her best friend.

The last few days have found several of my close relatives flabbergasted, stunned and outraged to discover the enormous tangled web of trickery, sham and deceit surreptitiously inflicted upon them for over a year by one solitary woman who smiled in their face while stabbing them in the back. Their pain and despair have deeply affected me who feels helpless and powerless to right this morally reprehensible wrong. But we all reap what we sow, and eventually the guilty trip themselves up, make mistakes, and blow their carefully concealed cover as the precariously stacked house of cards swiftly tumbles to the ground. And so it happened. Though she high-tailed out of here like a frightened rabbit, she will never outrun the evitable paying of the piper, or the long arm of the law. Details are accumulating and evidence piling up. Why would someone destroy the good name and excellent credit of their friends and family? Some addiction such as shopping? gambling? drugs? For the time being the ‘why’ remains shrouded in mystery. As I watch people I love attempt to glue together the wreckage of their shattered lives, my most fervent hope is that justice prevails.