The Black Hole: Can I Just Disappear Forever?

The Black Hole

I sat alone in my Expedition and punched his name on my phone. I had to call Husband. I had to stop him from ruining what was already in shreds.

I knew I wouldn’t stop him.

“Please don’t go. Please don’t go to that Mexican dance hall.  We are trying to figure out things. Why are you going there?” I asked.

“I don’t tell you where to go with your free time,” Husband said.

“It’s not the same. I never stepped out on our marriage. I didn’t cheat on you. I didn’t f*ck somebody in the back of my truck or in some cheap motel. It is different,” I said.

“We’ll see,” he replied.

I knew what that meant. He was going to go to that dance no matter what I said or did. He didn’t care how it tore me in two or how badly it hurt, because he was going to do whatever he wanted to, regardless of me.

It was always the same. He came first.  Then I came second, or third, or fourth, or however he felt at that particular minute.  He was the center of his own universe.  If I fit into the plan, then great, but if I didn’t then I was forgotten in a heart beat.

I wanted to get out of the Expedition and run and hide. I wanted to find a cave or dark hole and crawl in it and never return.  I wanted to die.

My head was on the steering wheel once again, tears streaked my cheeks, and I heaved in and out as I sobbed on the phone.

I didn’t want to be on Earth anymore.  I didn’t want to do this anymore.

But then I thought of my kids playing with their grandparents at the lake house down the gravel road. I put the key in the ignition, put my sunglasses on my face, feigned allergies, and drove forward.

 

Little Voices on Family

I heard C. talking to his little neighbor friend in the backyard. It was typical four year old chatter about trees and action figures and parties but then the topic changed to families.  Shadows were cast over their faces as they climbed in trees.

“If you sleep at my house, you can be with my mommy, daddy, and sister,” C.’s friend said.

“My daddy doesn’t live here anymore, but if you sleep at my house you can be in a different trundle bed,” said C.

I froze at the kitchen window.  How sad is that? My little man knows that daddy doesn’t live here any more and now he is already starting to explain it to his friends.

I never wanted this to happen. Who does? A broken home and a broken family is what I am facing and now my sons are learning to live with it too.  They are learning to explain the situation in kinder terms for others to understand, because the true pain of it all is unbearable.

The coming and the going is painful. The smiles and familiarity is uncomfortable. The fact that my boys are not going to know their dad in a way that I knew my dad hurts my heart.

Shit, E. is not even going to remember when his dad and I were a couple.  The affair started when he was six months old and I didn’t find out about it until he was over a year.  Soon he will be two and this whole thing will be all he knows of life.

I know I have to make a good decision for me regarding whether or not I should even try to patch things up with Husband, my little men’s lives are also depending on it.

I have to be smart and wise and forgiving, but I just don’t know whether or not he should stay or go.