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I take him in as I approach. He shaves his head completely bald to hide a thinning crown, but it works. His mother’s Puerto Rican legacy left him with perpetually olive skin and thickly lashed, dark-brown eyes. He works out and is still as trim at thirty-three as he was at twenty-one. But now, I can’t see any trace of the handsome man I decided would make a good partner for me and a good father to my children.
I reach out and grab his arms, but he yanks out of my grasp.
“Listen, it’s too late for this shit, Milly. I’m sorry, but I'm not the man for you. Maybe I never was. I don’t know. But I'm done wasting my life with a woman who I don’t love and don’t even want to fuck anymore.”
I rear back as if he struck me.
“Kevin, how . . . ?” My question trails off; I don’t even know what I'm asking.
But, he seems to. And he straightens to his full height, his eyes meeting mine directly for the first time in a long time. They are full of so much contempt that I take a step back.
“I’ll tell you why, Milly. You’re pathetic. I bet the thing that bothers you most about what I just said is the word ‘fuck.’ You’re boring. And I don’t want to live in this pristine prison you’ve created. And now this shit with your father has given you baggage I just don’t want to be associated with.”
I feel like the entire foundation of my life has been pulled out from underneath me. My knees give out and I fall, gracelessly, to the ground. Kevin steps over me like I'm one of the dirty socks he always leaves littered on the floor of our closet. I hear the teeth on the zipper of his suitcase as they engage, closing over his belongings and signaling the end of my life as I know it.
This sound spurs me into action. I spring to my feet and lunge for him.
“Kevin, you can’t. You cannot leave me. I want more,” I scream as I clutch his shirt front, clinging to it like it’s my life vest in a raging sea.
He grabs my wrists and starts to pry my hands loose, I only cling tighter.
“Milly, stop this. What the fuck are you doing?” His eyes go from plain disdain to burning fury as he starts to try to shake me loose.
“No! You can’t,” I scream again as I begin to cry in earnest and move my arms up to wrap around his neck.
“You are crazy. Stop this.” I'm a tall woman, but Kevin is taller and at least seventy pounds heavier than me. There is no contest and with his next shove, I go flying, my trajectory broken by the frame of our king-sized sleigh bed. I land on our mattress, flat on my back, and staring at the ceiling.
I hear his footfalls as he approaches, and I close my eyes to avoid having to face him. He's struggling to catch his breath as he speaks to me in a voice so menacing I feel a shudder run through me.
“Don’t get up, Milly. Stay there. If you even think about moving from that bed, I will call the fucking police,” he commands.
And, I don’t move. Not because of his threat, but because I’m physically incapable. My entire body is arrested in a state of shock.
I don’t say another word as I hear him pick up his suitcases and start toward the door.
His footsteps falter just as he starts to open our bedroom door and he says, “Oh, and Milly.” I open my eyes, thinking that maybe he’s not leaving. I’m wrong. “Happy New Year,” he says as he walks out of our bedroom.
I don’t move as I hear the front door slam shut with a finality that tells me he won’t be back.
I don’t say a word as I hear his car pull out of our driveway.
I lie there, not moving, not speaking as my whole life leaves me.
* * *
I got back from visiting my sister, Addie, in London a few months ago. It was such a bittersweet visit. Addie has always been the most distant and removed of the three of us. She carries so much resentment, but I didn’t realize how much until she unleashed her anger on my mother and me the night before we left. Her words about me and how she perceived the way I have chosen to live my life cut m
e like a hot knife cuts through butter. It was painful to hear her say she feels like I have given up my dreams for my husband.
Having a husband was my dream, it’s all I ever wanted. From the time I was a little girl. I used to watch my parents dance around the living room when they thought we were all in bed. I saw the way my father watched my mother, like the sun rose and set on her head. I knew one day I would have that kind of love.
My mother had been a lawyer before I was born, that is how she and Daddy met, but then she became a full-time mom. She was our class mother, the carpool driver for after school activities. She packed every lunch, cooked dinner every night, was at every practice, every game, every recital. Our house was where all of our friends hung out after school. It was my little slice of heaven and I couldn’t wait to grow up and replicate it.
When my dad left our world completely crumbled. We moved to Maryland to try to get away from the threats, the press, and stigma of his stunning betrayal.
I knew then, like I know now, that my father’s disappearing was not something all men do. Unlike my sisters, Addie and Lilly, it didn’t make me wary of committed relationships, if anything it made me more desperate for one.
I saw how my mother, in the weeks before my father left, was constantly asking him questions, demanding to know things he didn’t want to tell her.
