“Raleigh, please listen to me. You missed. Your own. Daughter’s. Wedding.”
Silence.
Next, she said, “Whatever you’re chasing, you’re chasing it too hard.”
“I’m sorry about the house,” he said. “I’ll make it right.”
“I think it’s too late to make it right.”
“What does that mean?” my dad asked.
But my mom didn’t answer.
“What are you saying?” my dad pressed.
“I guess I’m saying,” my mother said, her voice so calm it was almost spooky, “that I want a divorce.”
Wow…
Wow.
Adivorce?
I mean, there were many—many—things about my parents’ marriage that could be improved. But adivorce?
After all this time?
They just had their thirtieth wedding anniversary!
After she said the worddivorce, my dad panicked and begged her to reconsider, but I could already call it.
My mom had made her decision.
“Don’t tell me I don’t love you,” my dad said.
My mom sighed. “I’m just really not sure,” she said, “if you even know what love is.”
After a while, my parents got quiet. So quiet, for so long, I couldn’t stop myself from tiptoeing down—skipping the squeaky step—and peeking into the kitchen.
My dad was in a kitchen chair, his arms clutching my mom’s waist.
She was tolerating it, and absently patting his head, and staring off into the middle distance like she was still trying to absorb the conversation they’d just had.
“It’s for the best, Raleigh. I really think it is.”
In a thousand years, I never, ever would’ve imagined my parents getting a divorce. This was the life they’d built for themselves. This was what they’d agreed to. It wasn’t gonna win any prizes, but they were okay. They werefine. They’d been fine for years.
Except, I guess, maybe they weren’t.
Maybe, deep down, my mom had been seething. Or, short of that, maybe just lonely.
That was enough of a reason, wasn’t it?
He really was always working. It was the only thing he liked to do. He didn’t have hobbies. Or friends. Or areas of interest.
Those things were my mom’s.
She maintained their social circle, and sent the Christmas cards, and made dinner, and confirmed doctor’s appointments, and brought fresh flowers home from the grocery store. All the mortar that held everything together? That was her.
