Lee Makes Up His Mind

Speaking in present tense for a moment, this week’s post has been incredibly difficult to write. I spent hours this evening staring at an empty screen as I tried to decide exactly what to say, how to put it. 

Sometimes emotions hijack your life. You feel like the captain of a sinking vessel, wailing a tragic struggle against the crisis of your own ruin. 

Other times feelings stay hidden, elusively lurking in a clouded fog.  

The heart is a funny thing. 

This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you about Lee calling me up on a Monday night to formally end our marriage. 

My parents were hosting a ward pool party in the backyard. It was Mormon Family Night. Isn’t that ironic? Dozens of ward members milled around outside my bedroom window, chatting and laughing as I sat huddled alone on the bed with a phone pressed to my ear. 

It was not an angry or confrontational conversation between me and Lee. There was no name calling, no bickering or pointing fingers. Just the quiet recitation of stories we’d told before. I couldn’t live with things as they were, and Lee couldn’t fathom changing. 

The archetypal dead-end on a lonely road leading nowhere. 

Our decision to divorce was a pivotal, defining moment in my life . . . and yet, right now I am unable to summon the emotions I felt that night. For the first time since starting this blog, I feel disconnected from the story in a way I can’t quite explain. I have replayed the scene over and over in my mind, but nothing profound or intelligent wants to come out of me right now. 

Why can’t I tell this part of the story? 

(Yes, I’m honestly asking)

Possible explanations: it’s been a long week for me. Other concerns of a different nature have been pressing in. My emotional self is somewhere else at the moment, working out other questions. 

What’s that thing Kurt Vonnegut said?

So it goes.  

I remember a voice moaning in pain, hoarse from weeping. Mine. 

Me. I was crying.  

My brother heard the noise and came inside. He hugged me. This is the part of the story I wanted to tell, the time when I was heartbroken and my brother came to comfort me. 

It was the first time my brother had ever hugged me. 

So it goes. 

Father-In-Law

Five hours and 3 minutes.

That’s how long I stayed at the hospital that night. It grew late. In that time I saw 2 bloody suspects in handcuffs, 3 exhausted police officers, and 1 distraught woman chained to a bed because she thought the doctors were trying to experiment on her brain. 

The nurses drifted in and out of my area, running tests and taking blood. They thought my heart was having some sort of spasm or attack. I remember doing an MRI, but nothing abnormal turned up.
 

In the end they decided that I was suffering from acute gastroesophageal reflux, brought on by extreme stress. They made me swallow a Lidocaine tonic, and sent me home with a 2-month supply of prescription acid reducer. 

I spent most of the next day passed out in my bedroom. 

That is, until my father-in-law called. 

*Nathan’s voice sounded tense and worried as he explained the situation with Lee. He and my mother-in-law had flown from Washington D.C. to Salt Lake City the week prior. They had visited with Lee each day at our apartment, holding their collective breath, waiting for their only son to open his heart and express his deepest thoughts. 

Lee remained silent. 

In vain they tried to help him understand the gravity of the situation, the importance of taking action.

“He isn’t saying much,” Nathan admitted. “I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere unless you come back. I know Lee said he’s against couples counseling, but mom and I think you need to drag him along and make him do these things. Divorce is a terrible, terrible thing. We don’t want that.” 

Of course you don’t. Nobody wants divorce. 

I felt a steep, strangling pressure over my chest as though a dark cloud of smoke had enveloped my entire body. I could almost imagine the oppressive energy taking shape and form, reaching with its thin, bony fingers to steal away my last vestiges of light and hope. 

I came very close to giving in then – weak with fear, with love, and now illness. I had the proverbial white flag clasped in my quivering hands and I was almost ready to wave it. 

But then another voice broke through the shadow, soft but insistent. Call it God, or guardian angels, or a transcendent inner-knowing. I saw glimpses of the stagnant, oppressive wreckage my life would become if I gave in to Lee’s dismal paradigm. 

I remember my sorrow was so heavy. 

I can’t do that, dad. Lee’s ambivalence and refusal to work out problems is why I left in the first place. I hear you. I understand that you want me to come back, you want this fixed, but I need Lee to say those things to me, not you. Did you know he’s only called me twice in two weeks? And every time it’s the same thing. Lee doesn’t want to work on the relationship. He just wants the problems to magically go away. I’m tired of being the only one willing to act. I can’t drag him along anymore, dad. The stress is making me sick. Did you know I was in the hospital last night? 

No. He didn’t know. Not surprising, since Lee didn’t call much. Nathan cleared his throat and told me a story about Lee as a child, how he used to clam up and give his parents the silent treatment when he knew he was in the wrong. 

“It’s just how he deals with being wrong,” Nathan said. 

I sighed. 

That doesn’t make it right, dad. At this point his behavior is unacceptable, and I just can’t do it anymore.

I could hear the disappointment in Nathan’s voice. 

“Well, mom and I will keep working on him. Just promise you won’t file divorce papers yet, alright?”

Alright. But I can’t hold off forever. I need to hear from Lee. 

“Okay.” 

We ended the call and I collapsed into bed, waiting for my heart to stop pounding. Standing up to other people has always been outside my comfort zone, outside my realm of desire or experience. The adrenaline took a long time to wear off. 

Sleep arrived in fits and starts, my mind sliding down into blissful nothing only to be yanked back into the painful present.  Even in sleep I couldn’t escape. 

I always dreamed of Lee.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy

**The author apologizes for not updating sooner after the last cliffhanger. Thank you for your patience! Cheers!

The Hospital

Waiting for Lee to make up his mind felt like keeping watch over a coma patient. 

Every little bit of attention he paid me was like a stirring of fingers, the flutter of eyelashes. Any moment now he would come awake from this long sleep, see my face, and say my name. In one bright moment of thrilling recollection he would remember that he loved me. 

I poured over pages of scripture ever morning, and at night I prayed to God as fervently as I knew how. Maybe Jesus would have mercy on me, and help save my marriage. I prayed for Lee’s heart to soften. I asked for angels to visit his bedside. I wanted Lee to dream dreams or see visions, anything to have a mighty change of mind. I wanted miracles. 

Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. 

I visited the Redlands Temple on Tuesday nights. Lee’s name went on the altar every time and we would gather round for Lee, pray out loud for Lee, beg for divine intersession in behalf of all God’s lost and ailing souls. Afterwards I would sit in the beautiful rooms for hours, desperate for comfort, straining to hear God’s voice. 

Did Jesus really know what it was like to fall in love? 

All I heard in the still silence was the sound of my own fear. What if Lee chose to divorce? What if I ended up alone, old and washed-up? Unwanted. Unloved. 

Lee called me one night just to chat. He asked if I thought my parents hated him. 

No, I said. They’ve done nothing but show concern for us since this whole thing started. They would really like to see us work it out. My mom is a little surprised you haven’t shown up on the doorstep yet.

 

He laughed at that. Did you think I would come? Did her tell her I would?

I paused, an old familiar sadness pinching at the back of my throat as I struggled for words. 

No. She thought you might, but I told her no. I knew you wouldn’t come. 

I could almost picture Lee nodding his head on the other end, not in resignation, but in matter-of-fact acceptance of the way things were. Lee preferred to view his own actions as phenomena outside the realm of his control. 

People don’t change, he would tell me. They are the way they are.

 

The next night my stepdad grilled steaks on the patio, and we ate our dinner by the pool where the light was warm and the breeze cool. My toes were bare on the pavement and it felt good to dip them in the water. I was wearing my brown and white sun dress. 

I remember washing the dishes afterwards. There was a small feeling in my chest, something tight and painful like the poke from a thumb tack. I ignored it for a while, thinking that maybe my stomach was just trying to settle. I wiped down the counters and put the leftovers in the refrigerator. By the time I retired to my room the pain was exploding in sharp, pulsing stabs. It felt like my lungs were contracting. I couldn’t breathe, and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I was hyperventilating. In my panic I ran to the family computer where my stepdad was typing. 

I think something’s wrong with my heart, Steve. I need help. 

Steve had been a paramedic once upon a time. He took one look at me and dialed 911. 

I ended up at the local community hospital in Wildomar. The nurse stripped off my dress and asked if I had a religious preference. Mormon, I told her. LDS. She wanted my name, my birthdate. She filled out the forms for me because my hands were shaking too much. I still couldn’t draw a proper breath. 

She asked if I was married, and I answered her with tears I didn’t even know I was holding. 

Yeah. 

But my husband isn’t here, I cried, nearly choking with the shame of saying it out loud. 

It was like hearing the awful truth for the very first time. 

I’m afraid, in terrible pain, and my husband isn’t here.