He was never to take them.

Court orders.

It was a lie. But no one questioned Jessica—why would they?

But now, Jessica wasn’t allowing the kids to even speak to their father.

One evening, Pam recalled, when Jessica picked up Sam and McKenna at the Alabama Dance Academy, she babbled about her (supposed) latest dilemma with Alan. It was right after Alan and Terra hooked up. Alan informed Jessica he was taking the visitation situation to family court to get things settled. It wasn’t what he wanted to do, but Jessica had forced his hand.

Jessica was incensed at the notion that she could lose custody of her kids. As far as she could tell, Alan’s plan all along was to get sole custody and take the kids away from her.

And that, she decided, was never going to happen.

“What’s wrong?” Pamela asked Jessica, noticing how on edge she seemed. Pam was curious why Jessica was so irritated.

A smirk flashed across Jessica’s face—that Joker-like grimace Jessica could call up in a moment’s notice, the one that screamed revenge. She was up to something.

“I’ll take the girls to Florida,” Jessica snapped back at Pamela, “if he ever tries to get them!”

Knowing Alan was involved in a long-term relationship with Terra, and might marry her one day, Jessica needed to act. She was a single mom. Alan was working on creating stability, which Jessica knew the courts would look at favorably.

One other time, Pam later testified, some weeks after that first incident, Jessica was in a rage over Alan and his desire to take her to court. The court had set a trial date and Pre-Trial Order for September 14, 1999. The judge had asked each party to file “a list of all [their] personal and/or real property,” among other actions. This grated on Jessica’s unstable temperament. She hated the idea of being told what to do. The court even “encouraged professional counseling” to rectify the issues of visitation and child custody. After all, it could only help. A trial was going to turn things nastier.

Apparently, however, Jessica had a new plan.

Pam asked if everything was all right.

“If he ever tries to get the girls,” Jessica said, helping one of the kids put on her jacket, “he’ll regret it.”

Jessica was not going to allow her ex-husband to have his way. Nor was she going to permit another woman, especially someone she saw as prissy and prudish, to step into her role as the mother of her children. Just wasn’t going to happen. In her mind Jessica was undoubtedly prepared to do everything in her power to see that Alan and Terra never got custody of the kids. Thus, the situation—a war Jessica had waged—wasn’t about Alan not seeing the children anymore.

It was about winning.

Beating Alan.

Alan’s plan, up to this point, had never involved taking legal full-time custody of his kids. Jessica was telling people this—one could only assume—to draw sympathy and make Alan out to be an aggressive, uncaring monster. Alan was known as the proverbial “peacemaker” in his family. Many of his friends agreed with this. Alan never once vocalized a desire to take the kids away from their mother—even when Jessica was at her worst. To the contrary, Alan was all for the kids staying with Jessica. Providing, that is, she could raise them in a way he saw fit. Part of that upbringing needed to include Jessica fulfilling her end of the divorce decree regarding visitation.

From old friends and family, Alan got word that Jessica routinely dropped the kids off at the houses of friends and family (her mother included) and took off for an indeterminate amount of time. Jessica pushed the responsibility of raising their kids, it seemed, on everyone else but Alan. This made it clear to Alan she was punishing him. No other reason. She wanted to hurt him.

“Alan just wanted to see his children,” Robert Bates later explained. “But she kept shoving him back.”

Alan and Terra planned to get married at the end of June 1999. They talked about having the wedding on the stage of the Alabama Theatre, a building they had grown to love throughout the years of their relationship. Invitations were printed. The caterer hired. Flowers purchased. Limos. Gowns. Little wedding favors picked out.

But Jessica wasn’t about to let Alan go through with it. If Alan got married, what would a judge say about his situation? Alan would have that lock on stability first. Terra would be the kids’ stepmother. Both Alan and Terra had clean records, something Jessica couldn’t claim. Jessica feared the worst. So she kept the girls away from Alan the week leading up to the wedding.

No one could find them.

“No kids, no wedding,” Alan said.

Terra had no trouble with the decision. She understood. There was no way she was about to marry Alan without his kids being part of the ceremony.

“Instead of going through with the wedding,” Kevin Bates later said, “Alan and Terra decided to postpone it. They weren’t about to get married without the girls present. Whether or not Jessica was responsible for keeping the kids away, Alan knew it would send the wrong message to them.”

Some weeks later, as the subject of when to reschedule the wedding came up, something else happened. The last year and more had taken its toll on Alan. He was ready to give up. He felt there was no way he could drag another human being—suffice it to say, a woman he loved deeply—into such a mess.

It wasn’t fair.

Terra hadn’t been feeling herself lately. She was tired a lot. It turned out to be Crohn’s disease, a debilitating disorder that causes inflammation of the digestive tract, as well as a host of other symptoms that make life uncomfortable at best, miserable at worst: frequent abdominal cramps, dry skin, joint pain, stress.

She flew to Iowa to work on a special project one weekend. Alan met Terra at the Birmingham Airport a few days later. He looked glum, Terra noticed as she walked into the terminal. Alan had his head down. Seemed preoccupied. Not himself. Terra knew him well enough by this point. His demeanor. It was different. Something was going on.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Alan, what is it? I know you.”

“I don’t know that I’m—I’m”—Alan had a hard time getting it out—“ready to get married.”

There it was: out in the open like an exposed secret. She’d asked for it.

Terra was astounded. Hurt. She didn’t know what to say.

She called her father later that night and told him the story.

Tom Klugh loved hearing from his only daughter. They had weekly talks. Tom thought only the best of Alan. Knew he was the perfect husband for his daughter. Terra expressed how happy she was with Alan, and how much she loved his kids.

Terra explained how she felt about this latest incident. Every detail.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” Tom responded when she was finished talking. “What can I do to help?”

“That is going to be it.”

Tom didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

“Alan and me. I think I’m done.”

Terra didn’t have the energy to go back and forth with Alan on a relationship seesaw: seeing him, not seeing him; getting married, not getting married. It wasn’t her. Terra was all about yes or no. She didn’t want to be with someone who didn’t want to be with her.

Not a week later, Tom talked to Terra again and things seemed better.

“I think I’m going to give him another chance,” she said. “I really love him, Dad. If it can work out, I want it to.”

It wasn’t that Alan didn’t want to marry Terra—his decision had nothing to do with love. Nor was it a reflection of Terra’s character. Alan adored Terra more than any woman he had ever met or dated. They were perfect together. Alan felt torn that his ex-wife was torturing their lives. Day in and day out. Jessica ran their emotions. Now she had gone and destroyed their wedding day. What else was she capable of doing? What else would she do? Alan didn’t want to drag such a sweet person as Terra into the chaos of his life dealing with Jessica. Terra had endured it long enough already. Didn’t matter what Terra said. That unconditional love she showered on Alan and the kids was something Alan did not want to take advantage of. Enough was enough. Jessica wasn’t going to hurt anybody else.