An Interview With Jennifer Meling -- Life After Poisoning Filled With Doubt, A Desire To Trust -- ''There Were Times I Lay Awake Thinking, `I Wonder . . .' ''

In the 14 months Jennifer and Joseph Meling lived together after she was poisoned by a cyanide-laced decongestant capsule, she wondered if the man in bed next to her had tried to kill her - and might try again.

"There were times I lay awake at night thinking, `Hmmmmm, I wonder if this is going to happen again. I wonder if I'm making a big mistake,' " she said in an interview yesterday.

Jennifer Meling, who testified for nine hours this week at her husband's trial on charges of product-tampering, said that after she went back to Joseph Meling she made sure she looked twice whenever he handed her any medication. "I was real careful," she said.

The 30-year-old Olympia teacher left her husband and filed for divorce shortly after she was poisoned in February 1991.

But within months she dropped the divorce action and moved back in with him.

Jennifer Meling says she still doesn't know in her heart if her husband, as the government alleges, tried to poison her to collect $700,000 in life insurance.

"I would hope that he didn't do it," she said. "I would hope I made a wise choice in choosing who I married."

At least once a week since last August, she has driven more than 60 miles from an Olympia apartment she shares with another couple to the King County Jail, where her husband has been held without bail.

She is not allowed to bring him anything. They talk through a glass window for up to two hours, depending on how many other inmates have visitors.

She said she has read several books about battered-spouse syndrome in which some battered wives become dependent on their abusers and return to them regardless of how much they have been hurt.

She said she recognized some of those qualities in her relationship with Joseph Meling, and the couple tried to put a stop to the pattern through counseling.

On the witness stand in U.S. District Court in Seattle yesterday, she told jurors that when she came back from a two-month respite in Hawaii after the poisoning she was determined to leave her husband, get an apartment by herself and start a new life.

She had gone as far as selecting an apartment and even had picked up the key when she got together with Joseph Meling for what was to be a final conversation to "let him have his say before I moved on."

It was during that conversation, she testified, that she changed her plans and decided to return to her husband.

"That's what I wanted. Those were my marriage vows. . . . I wanted to make it work."

For the first few months of the reunion, the couple spent a lot of time on the road for his job as a telecommunications company salesman, Jennifer Meling said in the interview.

"I was still very tired, very worn down," she said. "But it was nice to be away and no one bothering us."

She described the relationship as much calmer than the storminess that sometimes characterized the marriage before the poisoning. They were trying to work things out, she said.

`BREAK THE CYCLE'

"Instead of dancing the same dance, we'd break the cycle."

When her husband said something to her she saw as manipulative, she'd speak up and he'd quit doing it, she said.

By fall, Jennifer Meling had resumed teaching English in the Tumwater School District, and Joseph Meling was working in sales for another telecommunications company. They lived together in an Olympia apartment.

They went to counseling regularly, individually and as a couple. "It helped us understand our communication patterns, how we were butting heads," she said.

During this time, her husband's status as the prime suspect in the Sudafed poisoning case was a constant source of stress.

She said the FBI needled her regularly, seeking evidence for their case.

What's more, not one mutual friend of the couple ever came forward to say they believed in his innocence, Jennifer Meling said.

The most support she got was from friends who said they would stand by her no matter her decision.

Her return to her husband is a continuing source of friction between Jennifer Meling and her parents, who never allowed Joseph Meling in their house after their daughter returned to him.

His home is now jail, and Jennifer Meling says that has taken a toll on her husband.

"He looks like he's lost weight to me," she said. "His hair went gray almost immediately after he went into prison. That was amazing."

She pulled out a Christmas photo showing his jet-black hair, a photo of happier times, she with her arms encircling him.

Despite nine hours on the witness stand this week, Jennifer Meling fears jurors may not have gotten a fair and complete picture of her views about the crime and about her husband.

Given the rigid question-answer structure of her sworn testimony, she said she felt cramped, unable to clarify fine points.

"You get tired up there (on the witness stand)" she said. "You get emotionally worn out. . . .

"I tried to be as truthful as I could, (but) it appeared as if my testimony was slanted. . . . Loving a person gets in the way of being totally objective.

"I think I was very frustrated with (Assistant U.S. Attorney Joanne) Maida's questioning, and probably a little too comfortable with (defense attorney) Cy (Vance) and his questioning."

`DID HE DO IT?'

She described her time on the witness stand as the culmination of two years of stress and waiting, two years of wondering, "Are they going to arrest him? Did he do it? Is this marriage going to work?"

She said she also feels victimized a second time, this time by the media.

"It's difficult to have every little aspect of your life dealt out and fed to the public. . . . I have a private life.

"If everybody knows they're going to live their private life in a public light, a lot of things would be changed.

"Obviously I didn't have that opportunity. I feel like I'm suffering because of it, being victimized again."

Her attorney, John Wolfe, has fielded offers from about 20 agents seeking interviews for shows such as "Prime Time," "Geraldo" and "Inside Edition," as well as overtures from intermediaries interested in books and made-for-TV movies.

Wolfe said he has contacted another lawyer to handle such negotiations. His client isn't sure of what she wants just yet.

Jennifer Meling indicated, however, that her future doesn't hang on the outcome of the trial of her husband, who, if convicted, could spend the rest of his life in prison.

`I'M A SURVIVOR'

"The important thing for me right now is to get hold of who I am. . . . I know I'm a survivor. I can make the best of it. . . ."

She said her doctors have told her that, medically speaking, she is fully recovered from the cyanide poisoning that put her in a coma for several hours and nearly killed her.

Yet she believes she's been more susceptible to "sickness, allergy, any bacteria," lately, probably as a result of stress relating to the ordeal of the trial.

For now, Jennifer Meling will continue working as a program planner in the Tumwater School District. She says she isn't ruling out a change of jobs, or even a change of scenery somewhere down the road.

"I'm one of three people who took the medication, and (I) survived," she said. "But sometimes I don't feel very lucky.

"In all of this I think God had something planned for me. I'm going to trust that He'll work that out."

-- Times staff reporter Jack Broom contributed to this report.