“Well, what happened?” Barb asked.
“Mike got up and said what she did—she didn’t even get to talk—the judge just said, ‘I declare you a whore, and I am taking your two daughters away from you! You will not even have visiting rights until they turn thirteen years old! When they turn thirteen years of age they can make up their minds if they want to stay with their so-called mother or go with their father.’”
Barb couldn’t imagine a judge saying such things. No man of the law talked that way. But then she couldn’t have dreamed up a woman like Sharon Lynn Fuller, either.
Sharon hated living in another woman’s house. Signs of Perry’s life with Julie were evident everywhere she looked: the wallpaper, the carpet, the way the dishes had been put away. All were reminders of her man’s life with another woman. She couldn’t stand living there one more minute. They put the Nelson place in Rocky Ford up for sale. Sharon sold the convertible Mike had left her, and she and Perry bought a tiny gray ‘‘dollhouse’’ further down 10th, between Pine and Locust Streets.
The instant their divorces went through, Sharon wanted to get married. She had given up so much for Perry Nelson that she damn well would not tolerate a long engagement. Perry readily agreed. In reality, he had no choice. He had been the focus of such derision since leaving Julie for Sharon that a happy ending would be his only salvation.
Sharon made her own wedding dress, not because she had to, but because she could and she wanted to. It was a Gunny Sax pattern that flowed full and long to the floor with a cinched bodice that accentuated her full breasts. She selected a light, wheat-colored material, though it was more a preference than an acknowledgment that white fabric would have been inappropriate for the bride. She also fashioned the flouncy brim of a straw hat with silk flowers and lace. She picked out a beige leisure suit for Perry.
On July 1, 1977, the pair that had scandalized Trinidad and Rocky Ford exchanged wedding vows in a private ceremony at the St. Francis of Assisi Mission in Taos. It had to be Taos, for Sharon. The place had seemed magical from that first weekend trip during which she’d gotten to know Perry. The couple honeymooned over the next couple of days, spending their last afternoon in Santa Fe.
When they returned to Colorado, the local gossip line percolated with the latest.
He married her. The eye doc married the minister’s wife!
For many in Rocky Ford, the news that Sharon and Perry had tied the knot brought more resignation than joy. When they came back as man and wife, few marked the occasion with a gift. It just didn’t seem appropriate.
Nor, to some, did it seem genuine.
“I felt like the whole marriage was a show,” said a woman who knew all parties in the sordid and tragic Nelson saga. “It was like they were trying so hard to portray that they were so happy. They were trying to prove to the world they had done nothing wrong, that their love was good and right. It didn’t matter about Mike and the kids or Julie and the girls. Their love was higher than that. Sharon was always a big one for appearances. She wanted everything new and perfect in her home. But it was just for looks. Her marriage was the same way. There was no heart to anything she had or did.”
Living in California with Lorri, Julie, for one, was surprised when she got word of the July union . She checked with her lawyer and he confirmed that though the divorce was pending, it had not yet been made final at the time of the Taos wedding. Julie let it sit. She didn’t want the man anymore.
Those two deserve each other, she thought.
Sharon Nelson could spit tacks. She had never been so angry in all her life; at least, she couldn’t think of a time when she had been. At the end of a visit, Rochelle Fuller informed her mother that her daddy was moving her and her sister to Ohio the next morning. Since Mike had legal custody, Sharon saw no way of stopping him.
“I saw them drive away,” she told a friend, “and I didn’t know when I’d see my girls again.”
Three weeks later, a letter arrived addressed to Sharon. In the missive, Mike indicated that even though he had moved to pastor a new church out-of-state, visitation with their daughters could continue. Sharon and Perry would get Rochelle and Denise for Christmas vacation and two weeks in the summer. They’d have to arrange for transportation to and from Ohio.
Sharon considered waging a legal battle for her daughters, particularly Rochelle, whom she knew was not Mike’s biological daughter.
“I didn’t know how to do it without tearing [Rochelle] up, totally. How do I drag [Rochelle] through court without screwing [her] up more than [her] mother?” she asked.