Leaving

It was 9:15 pm on a humid night in June, and I was just driving home from the office. Lee complained about money ever since getting his hours cut at work, so for a few months I’d been taking overtime shifts at the law firm. When everyone else clocked out at 5, I would start tackling the massive backlog of paperwork left over from a recent merger. Sometimes I only stayed a few hours longer, but this particular night there was plenty of extra work. I didn’t clock out till 9.

Lee and I were supposed to leave on vacation the next day. We had planned a little trip to Montana with a few of ours friends, and there was still a lot to do. Laundry needed to be done so the two of us could pack. Groceries for the trip needed to be bought. The pile of dirty dishes in the sink needed washing, and the house needed to be straightened up before we could go. I hadn’t been able to tend to these things because of the overtime.

I suppose I was hoping Lee would pitch in and help out. After all, he got home from work each day by 2:30 pm and school was out for the summer. Typically, Lee would play computer games from 2:30 to 7:00, when he would stop just long enough to eat whatever I prepared for dinner. Sometimes he would put on a TV show for us to watch. Other times not. He resumed playing games by 9 pm, and would continue until 2 or 3 in the morning.

Lee was looking forward to this vacation much more than I was. I thought that maybe, just this once, he would put his games aside and do what needed to be done.

I was wrong.

I walked through the front door and my heart sank. The living room was in shambles and looked worse than it had the day before. Dirty dishes were still piled high, the counters littered with crumbs and empty snack boxes. The washing machine was silent and empty.

I found Lee on the sofa, engrossed in his latest computer game.

Have you even packed yet?

Lee shook his head no.

A great swell of sadness rushed through me like water through a crumbled dam. Anger followed, and I burst into tears right there in the kitchen. Amid the sobbing I tried to explain about the laundry and the dishes and the packing, only my outburst wasn’t just about that night anymore. It was about all the nights and days that Lee sat back on the couch while I worked my heart out at the office. It was about all those times I came back from my second job to find all the housework undone and waiting for me. It was about me giving and giving and giving…. Until there was nothing left to give.

Lee said the stress was my entire fault, because I’d chosen to work overtime at the law firm and a second job on the side. I reminded Lee that all the extra money went into our bank account, for our expenses.

Lee shut his mouth and glared at me in a way I was all too familiar with. He turned his back to me. This was the start of yet another long silent treatment, only this time I simply did not have the strength to muster up an apology. I had nothing to be sorry for.

That was the moment I knew the marriage was finally over. I couldn’t endure the silence any longer. How do you fix a troubled relationship if your partner doesn’t want to talk about it? Like the line from Counting Crow’s Adam Duritz, “If you don’t want to talk about it then it isn’t love.”

I locked myself in the car and called my mother. I had always been taught that troubles between a man and wife should never be discussed with third parties, but at this point I was desperate. My mother was surprisingly calm as I told her everything that had been happening the past two years. Mostly I cried and tried to explain the silent treatments.

I can’t do this anymore, Mom. I can’t. It hurts too much.

She was thoughtful and quiet for a long time. Then she said, “Sounds like it’s time for you to come home for a while. I’m flying to Salt Lake tomorrow to get you.”

So I went to bed and didn’t sleep all night. Around 1 am Lee came into the bedroom to retrieve his gun and a round of bullets. A part of me kept waiting to hear gun fire.

The next morning I got up for work like always. On my way out I passed Lee, asleep on the couch. His gun lay loaded on the coffee table. I remembered something that Lee told me the last time we had a fight: “I’ll shoot myself if you don’t leave me. That way I’ll be out of your life and you can move on.”

The sad thing: Lee and self-pity don’t mix well. I actually thought he might do it.

I took the loaded clip out of Lee’s gun and left the house. A few stoplights away I received a cryptic text from an angry Lee.

“I don’t need my clip to load a bullet into the chamber.”

I called the police right away, told them I was worried about the mental state of my husband, asked them to please go check on him. Sometimes people ask me why I didn’t turn the car around myself and go back to the house. My response to that: remember Susan Powell? Remember Lacey Peterson? Lee was not behaving normal, and I didn’t want to be another death statistic.

I went to work and told my boss about heading back to California for a while. She was kind about the whole thing, said she understood. It only took me 15 minutes to pack up my desk. There was a dachshund calendar, a few birthday cards from my colleagues, my notary stamp, and a framed photograph of me and Lee. The one we used with our wedding invitations.

All afternoon I alternated between crying and running errands. I put gas in the car. Paid our rent for the next month. Busywork kept me sane, kept my mind from sinking too far.

Mom’s plane came in at 5:00 pm.  I remember what the sky looked like as we drove from the airport to the house. Cloudy, dark with a chance of rain. She called up the Salt Lake City police department and requested an escort to meet us at the house.

Lee was gone when we arrived.

I remember hearing music when we walked in. Lee left it going on a loop, the same track playing over and over and over.  It was our song, the one we danced to at our wedding. The song I listened to when the pain got too big and I needed to remind myself that I loved Lee.

The music made me cry like a child. Of course it did. Love is a difficult hurdle to leap, even when reality is staring you in the face. I dropped to my knees and told God I was leaving.

Stop me if I’m doing the wrong thing, God.

We threw the computer and all my clothes into the back seat of my car, and filled the trunk up with a bit of the food storage I’d been collecting over the past 6 months. The only other thing I took was Charlie, my little Dachshund.

A man from the downstairs apartment came out and helped us carry the heavy things. Before we left he slipped me a $100 dollar bill. “For the road,” he said. It strikes me as odd that a stranger would be the one to answer my prayer. His compassion was humbling.

It was dark when we hit the road, a bright full moon peering out behind a sea of silver clouds. All I could do was stare out the window and weep. Outside it began to rain.

What am I doing?

I asked myself that question a hundred times, and thought of every happy moment Lee and I had ever shared. Memory is funny like that. Our minds reshape the past when the heart is most tender, and that night I saw my entire marriage flash before me in glimpses. Laughing, dancing, making love. Lee’s smile, and the shape of his hands. The sound of his voice when he said my name.

The heart remembers love.

I would have turned back if Mom hadn’t been there. Thankfully she was, and thankfully we made it back to California in one piece. I’m not sure I would have been strong enough on my own.

It wasn’t until the next day that I remembered why I left.