April 7, 2012
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…windy…overcast
I get up to feed the animals. I’m dressed but my hair is uncombed. My youngest has an appointment at lunchtime with his therapist. He’s happy that he’s with me, “I can talk to you. I can’t talk to dad anymore.”
I get ready at the most leisurely of paces. H drops our youngest off, and he hugs me when he’s safely inside. I look at him quizzically, “What’s wrong? I know your dad took you somewhere special. How did it go?” He sighed and grabbed a plate. His dad got him breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. He has a doughnut, a croissant with egg and cheese and an orange soda. I cock an eyebrow. He said, “I asked for Orange Juice, but they screwed up the order and dad wouldn’t let me change it.”
Typical.
He tells me about the outing. They went “ghost hunting” at a local cemetery, “It sucked balls, mom. We walked around and his girlfriend and her sister acted like they were picking up messages from the ghosts. It was embarrassing.” He tells me that his brother found his dad’s girlfriend’s niece to be attractive so he went off with her. He admits that the girl was pretty hot. Somehow I knew this was more the whim of the girlfriend than anything else.
Predictably, Angel me snorts laughter, “He NEVER would do something you wanted to do. You went alone or he ridiculed you. Guess she must be pretty special.”
She must be, I laugh. Heaven knows I never meant shit to him.
My youngest admits that his dad’s girlfriend is fat (“Fatter than you, mom. Like her ass is really wide and she has big boobs that sag bad.” I don’t know what to say to that). She doesn’t strike him as intelligent. He doesn’t like her. He’s going to find many faults. He’s scared that his dad will move her in. She has kids too.
Therapy goes well. I find out that my youngest finds it easier to talk to me, and that it’s hard for him to talk to his dad. I pay $50 to find out what I already know. I call H and relay it all to him, but he’s busy with his performance, “I don’t want him to believe he can LIE to me….” He isn’t listening.
I call my oldest for the rest of the scoop. His little brother was right: the niece was hot. Her aunt was heavy, “Mom her boobs sag to her waist like an old lady. She’s not very smart. We walked around in the dark. I sort of abandoned my brother, which wasn’t cool, but I like the girlfriend’s niece.” I sigh because he doesn’t know her name. I tell him to research local ghost hunting tours. Trespassing in graveyards here will earn you a ride to the pokey. We have too many Santeria practitioners here. They like doing their animal sacrifices in graveyards. He’s horrified to have forgotten that. He reiterates that these people aren’t the brightest folks. I wave it away, “It doesn’t matter. I just don’t want any of you to get into trouble. You’ll be a shining star to them if you find somewhere to really hunt ghosts.” He gets it.
He’ll never learn how to play the game if he listens to that dolt I divorced.
“Ma? The new girlfriend is fat. Really fat. About your height, but over 200#. She’s kind of annoying, because she wants to be friends with us. She tries too hard. We were both polite and nice, but I think dad is going to move her in.”
He wants someone to cook and clean.
He’s pretty annoying himself. They’ll make beautiful music together. Part of me wants to laugh, and part of me wants to slap sense into my ex. My youngest is afraid that they’ll have to deal with this ridiculous woman.
I don’t have the heart to tell him that she’ll tire of his dad once she realizes that he’s a violent alcoholic. For the moment he has me to blame, but eventually she’ll become weary of his excuses.
My youngest is 13. He’ll deal with the parade of side show freaks that are H’s girlfriends for five more years. It breaks my heart. I wish I could snatch the kids up and take them far away. He’s never going to figure out how to parent his kids. He’s a bigger asshole than I ever suspected. One of my friends asks me what I expected.
“I expected him to find someone pretty and quiet. I wanted her to be quietly religious, sweet, a phenomenal cook and keep a spotless house,” I say. I wanted her to be everything I wasn’t. My friend is silent, and my words hang like heavy smoke. It occurs to me that I wanted something better for him, so I would disappear from his memory.
As if 28 years would be easy to forget.
“I’ve disappeared before. It’s kind of nice actually. People forget you very fast,” I told a friend. She was horrified, “Why would you want to disappear? I would think that you would want people to remember you!” I shook my head, “No. I want them to forget me. I don’t like people to think about me when I’ve gone.”
It’s bullshit, of course. My students remember me. I hear from them when they pass their licensing exams, when they apply for jobs, even when they discover that they are going to become parents. Nurse T says, “No matter that chapters close and life moves on. We all love you Ms ____! That never changes. You lifted us up and taught us so much! We will always love you!!” Tears blurred my vision, because I know that many of the nurses I taught will affect change in the profession. I’ll never know who they touch, who they “bring to the light”. I only know that I made an impression, that I planted a seed.
So much for moving into the shadows.
I click through the notifications on the social networking site. D has made contact again. J is right. He doesn’t give up easily.
I won’t contact him
“Vanish in the air. You’ll never find me…” ~ Sting “Wrapped Around Your Finger”
Bullshit really. But I won’t be the one to contact him.
