The left pt 2.

This statement, along with so many he’s made through our five year courtship and ten year marriage strengthened my trust in him. He’d watched his Mom self destruct after his Dad left, just as I had watch my beautiful, intelligent father fold inside of himself for over a year. We were like mirror images of the same person. Even into the early years of our marriage we were both highly protective of our parents. We didn’t dare say anything derogatory or unsavory about the wronged half of our parental duos.
We acknowledged this to each other laughingly, the oldest of our siblings, he had two and I had one, we felt a responsibility than was unnecessary but part of us nonetheless. Abruptly we stopped this when we had our daughter. We had someone else to protect. Not only Sadie, but ourselves.
We decided together to put our pasts behind us. Sadie wouldn’t know how insecure we were, Sadie would only know how much we loved each other and her. Sadie would never watch a car drive away knowing it might not come back for weeks or months at a time. Sadie would never, ever know the pain we had both suffered. Without uttering a word, we both agreed to this. I would do anything, anything to not have my child wake up crying in the middle of the night because of me.
I didn’t count on stretching this promise to its limit, and watching it rebound in my face like a rubber band. I didn’t count on Sean changing his mind. I didn’t count on it, I didn’t expect it, and I certainly didn’t know how to deal with it. Sometimes, when you are one of the left, you can still become comfortable and complacent. Those are the times you have to watch out for.


I was making lasagna when my life changed. It’s funny how you remember things like that. The noodles were greasy in my hands as I packed them into a casserole dish, while Sadie baked in her tiny tots kitchen to my left. When the phone rang, I considered screening, but as rare as sales calls were, I took my chances.

unforgivable

Carmen Silver checked her rearview mirror once, then twice. No one was following her, thank god. She relaxed in small increments. She looked at her daughter sleeping soundly in the backseat and sighed happily, maybe just maybe they would make it this time. Maybe she would get far enough away so that she’d never be found. She knew there were ways to change your name, start over. Carmen was counting on some good luck and prayer to carry her through. Her stomach rolled uneasily as a light rain started to fall. Her mind raced with all she’d need to do. She should have thought through this a little more. She tapped lightly on the brake; her back tires slid and finally caught the rain slick road. Carmen took a deep breath to calm herself. I’m going to be fine, she thought, I am going to be OK.
The mountain roads were hazardous under the best of conditions, but in the rain or snow they were almost impossible. Carmen knew if she could just get off the mountain she would be home free. Suddenly, her vision went wickedly blurry. She gasped. The sheen of lights on the road caused her head to ache. She squinted and rubbed at her face. The road danced in front of her and instinct kicked in. Carmen slammed on the brake, and the car slid endlessly towards the shoulder and eventual drop off. She gulped air and looked back at the baby. Oh no oh God please no no no no no. Knowing from her early bible lessons that God would listen any time, she started to pray frantically. Making deals with God in the middle of the night was Carmen’s special talent. She promised she’d never drink again. She promised she would call her Mom, but most of all she promised Dale would never hit her baby again. The car stopped, but Carmen’s vision continued to ebb and swim in front of her. Blinking and crying she fought to regain control of the situation, but panic was getting the better of her now. If Dale caught up to them, it was over. Light sliced through the windshield and a horn blared. Just as quickly as the silence had started it ended. The car lifted and lurched towards the edge of the road and began to roll. Carmen prayed again, sickly, as Megan began to cry in the backseat. Not my baby, Lord, please not her.

The Left

This is a WIP
Enjoy!

I have heard that divorce is nothing. I have heard that it’s just a matter of words on paper. It’s an easy way out in a world of drive-thru decisions. I know better. I know that it matters, I know because it mattered so much to me when I was seven going on eight that my throat hurt with the effort of not saying the things I wanted to say to my Mom or to my Dad. I know that divorce is a living breathing entity that lives on, far beyond the paper it’s written on. It fills the room the way smoke can when the windows are closed. It has a taste, for me it was molasses mixed with butter, the sweet burnt smell that will forever make me melancholy. For my brother it was bacon. We both ate looking at the table at our Grandmothers house, listening to people talk as if we weren’t there or couldn’t comprehend what they were saying.
For my husband the taste was Juicy Fruit gum, the gum his mother passed him over the airplane seats as they moved from Michigan to Georgia in one weekend. He won’t chew it to this day. Divorce has a smell, as well, a bitter desperate smell that reminds you of cheap bars that stand alone next to neon blinking hotels.
You can argue that it’s petty to blame your parents for your hardships. I would tend to agree. I am generally inclined to agree. I think that past a certain age, get over it, and move on. I know that things can be bad; I know one of the worse things you can see are your parents kissing someone else for the first time. I know that seeing them as people when you are too young to actually think of them in these terms is confusing and maturing to say the least.
Sean and I came from similar places of pain and so I thought we were on the same page. I thought he knew and agreed to my terms of living. I absolutely refused to be blindsided by anything.
I had laid down the law in the early days of our relationship. I wasn’t one to shy away from what I considered to be an essential part of me. We were munching pizza in the common room of our dorm, lying end to end on an enormous faded and smelly couch. He was absentmindedly rubbing my bare foot with one hand as we discussed random things. When the subject of parents came up, I resisted the urge to sit up. The subject made me so tense I tossed my unfinished pizza back into the box.
“My Mom left when I was in kindergarten.” I said, looking at him to gauge his reaction.
“Oh, well, My Mom and Dad split when I was ten or so.” He stopped rubbing my foot and stopped inhaling the pizza, I noticed, though he didn’t put it down.
We were both silent for a minute and I thought about how best to say what I was thinking. I should say what Clara, my roommate and current best friend, had discussed ad naseum. Which was that when a parent leaves, even if they are replaced you are then and always one of the ‘left.’ As in, one of the left behind. It makes you sketchy and suspicious for the rest of your life, you can’t help it. It’s Sean who breaks the silence.
“Did your Dad remarry?” he asked, skating lightly into the sensitive discussion.
“He did.” I answer. “When I was fifteen, she’s still around, but...” I pause, and Sean hears what is in my silence.
“But you remind her of your Mom and the life her current husband had before you were around?”
It shocked me that he was so insightful, but as tears pricked my eyes I thought about the pain still lodged in my chest. I thought about how it might always be this way. I might always wonder why I was a girl my Mom didn’t want. “I can’t do it. I could never divorce. I won’t do it to my kids.” I proclaimed rather vehemently for a nineteen year old who three years earlier had decreed she didn’t want children, she never would. Sean simply looked at me. A gorgeous boy on the cusp of man hood, his green eyes shiny from his own unshed tears and nodded. “I know you won’t