Chapter One

As of the eighth of January, 2003, the third millennium had not been too kind to me and mine. It had seen my widowed mother, at one time about the sharpest mind I have ever encountered reduced to a mere husk, all insight and savvy stripped away, leaving behind only the anger, bitterness, and pain of a long life. My wife’s father passed away, her mother hearing the code blue to his ICU room from the confines of her own hospital bed two days after Christmas. My eldest son, albeit step, Billy, slipped out into the night, and dropped out of high school in March of his senior year. My wife had been mentally ill for quite some time, and had been diagnosed with a profound depression and delayed stress syndrome with dissociative phenomena. But my name was not, and never will be Job, and things had slowly started to fall together once again.

A few years before, we had it made. We both had good jobs. We managed to take the kids to Disney World twice, both times staying on-grounds in the monorail resorts. Kathy and I went to Maui for over a week and then put in a pool for the kids right when we got back. Kathy could go to her favorite auction house every Friday night. No longer living paycheck to paycheck, we had finally reached a good place in our lives. I wanted to get back there.

As long as I had known her, Kathy had always bounced back from any setback. Upon losing a good job wrongfully, she accepted their severance package gracefully, opting to receive it over time, thereby accruing more compensation. She stayed home for a while and then found an even better position. While being grief stricken by her father’s death and a bout with severe carpal tunnel prevented her from working and also presented her with the strong possibility of loss of the use of her right hand caused a depression, she resigned, went into therapy, and ended up as the office manager at her psychologist’s firm. I had no reason to believe this trend would not continue if not escalate.

I try to be a patient man, often succeeding. The one thing I learned on a two month bicycle trip that actually stuck with me after twenty years was that if you stay your course, and keep moving, no matter how slowly, you will eventually reach your destination. There will be the inevitable need to backtrack occasionally, but the real danger is in stopping. You have to stop from time to time, just to take a break, however, the longer you stay in one place, the harder it is to get started again. Inertia is a hard force to counter.

For over a year, Kathy had been unable to do much around the house besides exist. I told her that her number one job was to get herself better and I would handle everything else. Then I waited for the woman that I, standing before the hearth in the living room of my parents’, and now, our home, promised to love, honor, and cherish, in sickness and in health, till death do us part, to return to me.

Recovery from depression takes a lot of time and a lot of work for all involved. Kathy’s progress had been erratic at best. Usually, it was two steps forward and one step back; although all too often, the other way around. But progress had been made, nonetheless. Due to her extreme paranoia, the house was still under a virtual quarantine but she had started to drive again. At first it was just solo Sunday drives through the park, and then, little errands about town during the day. Later it was to get some of the antiques appraised. And at finally, to her weekly therapy sessions. I no longer had to play hooky from my job every Wednesday morning to get her there as I had to for months on end. Life was good.

I managed to attend my Wednesday night backgammon tournament, something I haven’t been able to do for over a year. It was good to see my old friends again. She did call and fuss a bit when I wasn’t back by ten, but that was no big deal. I was already happily out the door and on the way home. I was looking forward to the next day, something I had started to miss.

A breakthrough had been made. Kathy had contacted Bonnie, now living in Bloomington, who had been an old highschool friend and was going to meet her for lunch. She wanted me to make Luke’s sandwich for him when he got home from school. I had made arrangements with my boss to be close to town that day. I ran to the pharmacy to get one her prescriptions. When I pulled into the driveway, I could see the school bus pulling to a stop down the street. “Just in time,” I thought, as I hurried into the kitchen to start his snack, pondering what I would make for dinner that night and whether or not I had the time to start a load of laundry before returning to work. It was then, that I spotted the envelope leaning against the microwave.

My first thought was not one of neither panic nor despair, but was one of total, grim resignation. It all clicked; her saying “Goodbye,” to Luke and myself that morning instead of her usual “See you tonight,” the gradual disappearance of her favorite antiques, her aloof and pensive attitude of late, not to mention her mysterious errands during the day. She had run off to kill herself surrounded by her precious collectibles. All that we had been through together flashed across my mind in less than a second. It was an instant and an eternity at the same time.

I shakily opened and read the note, hand written on paper torn from a spiral notebook she had been using as a journal. Pages long, it contained no erasures and only one cross out. There was a rather snotty post script about a painting I had found distasteful added to a page for Luke as well. It told of her intent to move to Texas and stay with her friend Tammy. We were not at fault and were not to try to contact her. I was to divorce her on the grounds of irreconcilable differences and she would contact Luke after a “long time”. The third item in the envelope was a notarized affidavit giving me total rights to all marital property and well as Luke.

I composed myself as best I could and went to the front porch to wait for Luke. He was still a couple of houses down. He was walking slowly, head down, with a concerned look on his face as he kept glancing up at my truck. He knew something must have happened to have me there during the day. When he saw me standing there, he broke into a run.

“We gotta talk,” I said.

I was still reeling with shock as we entered the kitchen. Telling him what had happened, I handed him the one page that was for him. It said simply, “Mommy loves you. You’re the best thing I ever did.” Every muscle in his face contracted in anguish as he managed to cry out a single, pained syllable; “Why?” I had no answer. I could only stand there and hold him and pretend to be strong myself, waiting for at least one of us to absorb the blow.

My mind flashed back a few years. I was putting the kids in the car in front of my parent’s house. Something was terribly wrong. I don’t remember that particular crisis du jour, there are so many in young families, but I remember being very upset and in one hell of a hurry. My mother called out from the porch, “Hang in there.” I said, “Yeah, sure, I will.” and then, under my breath, “But I don’t know why.” I was fifty feet away, but she always could hear a rat pissing on cotton at two hundred yards. She said simply, “Because, that is what we do.” and turned and disappeared into the house.

Luke stopped shaking after a few minutes. We stood silently in the kitchen for a while.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“She’s going to be one of those in the back isn’t she?”

“What do you mean?”

“One of those in the back. When I graduate or accomplish something, she’ll be the old lady sitting in the back with the hat and sunglasses, right?”

“Yeah, and maybe a scarf. It’s just you and me now.”

“Dad, it’s been you and me for a long time”

Neither of us wanted to accept the real possibility that she had taken off to kill herself. Both of us had seen the depths of her depression and her with a bloody knife in her hand. We skirted about the issue, but did not dismiss it out of hand. While I do believe that suicide is everyone’s inherent right, it is also about the most selfish act possible. On the other hand, sometimes a little selfishness is required in order to simply survive. If one truly wants to die, one will; a dramatic suicide would not be necessary. The most selfish act would have to be a staged suicide attempt, which we had already seen. With what she already put us through, I would put nothing past her.

I tore the house apart looking for some kind of clue to give me a handle on the situation. The side door to the house had been ajar, telling me she had slipped out the same door as her eldest son. The partial pack of cigarettes meant wherever she went didn’t allow smoking. The phone bill had calls to Florida, not Texas as was indicated in her note. Her wedding band, left above the kitchen sink, was even more expressive than the “Dear John and Johnny” letter of her intent to literally abandon us.

The bank statement revealed some of her activities her few days in town. She had been going to a different pharmacy, doubling up her prescriptions, as well as buying phone cards. She had bought herself a box of chocolates at Fanny Mae, probably creams. The computer showed a deleted file, updated the morning of the day of her departure. It was her resume. Her journals, on which she had labored for hours each night were empty, except for a scratched out things “to do” list.

I saw three long distance calls to the same number in Florida on the phone bill. They were on consecutive days at the beginning of the billing cycle. I had earlier wondered why Kathy had taken the initiative to pay that particular bill and none of the others but figured at the time she was just starting to help with the chores. Apparently, I was in error in that assumption as well as the one in which she was talking to her therapist every night from nine to ten each night as she had claimed.

I wondered how long she had been planning this and how she could so easily walk out on her husband of fourteen years, not to mention her twelve year old son. Her side of the family, while being very supportive, had few answers for me as she had managed to alienate all of them with the exception of her bedridden mother. Her eldest son still wasn’t ready to open up to me and had refused to talk to her at all since his departure. She had only a few, if any, friends that I knew of who had been in any contact with her over the previous couple years. The only comments I could elicit from the neighbors were, “I’m so sorry.” and/or “Fuck her!”

Her therapist’s office called to confirm her next appointment. They were shocked by this new development, but were pleased when I offered to keep it. It was tense and silent when Luke and I went into Mary’s office, but warmed up rapidly. She was concerned as to our welfare and relieved by our attitudes. She cut Luke loose but wanted to see me one more time.

At that next meeting she indicated that she had reviewed her notes and still did not see it coming, neither had the psychiatrist. She wondered how I had survived the last two years so well and emphasized the need for a divorce if not only for my sake but for Luke’s. Otherwise, her comments were basically extremely polite versions of those made by the neighbors.

Her possible suicide was still pressed on the back of my mind. This changed about a week later. I was talking to Luke in the kitchen while making a Chef Boyardee pizza. I would have just had a pizza delivered, but was still unsure of our financial situation. We were just discussing our days, nothing of real import, when I discovered one more missing item. I had previously noticed the disappearance of the family silver, which although a relatively inexpensive set, I had always firmly believed should stay with the house, no matter which child should inherit it, and was totally disappointed in Kathy for her taking of it, and the shallowness that her action implied. I had thought I was a better judge of character. This newly discovered missing item turned out to be much deeper to Luke and myself.

“What are you looking for, Dad?”

“They’re in here somewhere.”

“What?”

“The measuring spoons.”

“What are those?”

“I need to put a tablespoon of cooking oil into the crust. You use them to measure out stuff. They’re in here somewhere.”

“Are they expensive?”

“No, not even a couple bucks. But I need them.”

“Mom must’ve taken them.”

I started to chuckle as all of my fears of Kathy’s suicide melted away. I erased the obituary I had mentally written for her two years ago.

“What’s so funny?”

“I guess she wanted to cook herself a nice dinner before she offed herself.”

Luke started to laugh too and said, “Two dollar spoons, cheap ass measuring spoons.” his concerns evaporating as well.

“She’s setting up housekeeping somewhere.”

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re better off without her, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

Our recoveries began that exact moment. Within a week, the neighbors were commenting on the change in Luke. The old Luke was back. No longer consumed by his mother’s condition, as he had been for so long, often coming in from playing with his neighborhood friends to check on her, he started to flourish once more. His spark was back. Teachers at his middle school went out of their way to express their pleasure of his progress academically as well as their relief in his improvement of attitude and basic demeanor. He was becoming happy again.

I would not consider myself exactly happy at that time, but I was happier. The fact that I was now a single dad with a stressful job that required me to be out of town on a daily basis weighed upon me heavily. My immediate supervisor was very understanding when I had to take off for a few minutes to care of something. His boss, however, was not, and was even angry that I didn’t finish the day Kathy left. That would have been great, “Hey Luke, Mommy took off for parts unknown, never to return. I’m going over to the next county to take care of a few things. Lock the door behind me, I’ll be right back.” I don’t think the boss’s boss has high blood pressure, but he is most certainly a carrier.

On the other hand, I no longer had to come home to a sequestered house to face whatever crisis, whether real, imagined, or fabricated, that awaited me each day. The major source of stress in my life had taken a major powder. As the house was no longer closed to the public, people started coming by again. Billy as well as my brother, Sam, became regular visitors. Neighbors knocked on the door to chat. Her family called to check on us from time to time. It was good to rejoin society after two years of seclusion.

With the realization that Kathy was still among the living, I could do more during the evening than just walk around the house filling ashtrays and pounding Budweiser. Repairs were made. Painting was done. Furniture was rearranged. I had finally woken up and smelled the feces. It had come to me; if I wasn’t appreciated, I wasn’t deserved, and had other things to do.

The work served to replace the nagging worry I had as to what she might have gotten herself into and her eventual fate. I still did have feelings for the woman. There was a reason I had married her in the first place. But, it was already well past time for me to take the bull by the tail and face the situation. I called my attorney.

At this point I must digress. What is past is prologue, at least that is what they said in college. In order to see where or what something really is, you must see where it came from, quark theory be damned.