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You know before you know, of course. You are bending over the dryer, pulling out the still-warm sheets, and the knowledge walks up your backbone, You stare at the man you spent years loving, and you are staring at nothing. He was gone before he was gone.
The last time I tried to talk to Todd was just today. I had sent a text first, then tried to call him. He really is a good guy but I will never understand why I fell in love with him. I think mainly I got old and my clock was tick-tocking away. He used to be good to me. Why didn't we make it? Why couldn't I make it work? I really doubt myself as a mother and as a woman. I have serious emotional issues and sometimes just looking at the sunset makes me cry. I don't love Todd anymore. I'm glad that my divorce is almost final. I remember telling him, "Todd?" He looked over at me. He was in his recliner. I was stretched out on the sofa holding one of the twins. He looked up. I said, "You know, you're right in saying we have some serious problems, but also, there are lots of reasons to try and work things out. We could go to therapy." "Liz, I'm not doing therapy." My heart ached right then. I felt as though I was dying because my husband since 2004 had just rejected me. Again. "Are you sure?" I hoped my voice was light and pleasant. I hoped my hair wasn't sticking up or that my nose didn't look too big and that I didn't look fat when I sat up with Grace to adjust the pillow. "I would really like it if you'd go with me to see someone. Just once. A marriage counselor if you won't agree to therapy? I really think--" "Liz," he said. And I said, "Okay." He returned to his History Channel and I returned to lying on the sofa, to falling down an elevator shaft. There were certain things I couldn't think about but kept thinking about anyway: How to tell the people I'd have to tell. How lonely the nights would be (that was a very long elevator shaft). How I believed so hard and for so long that we would be able to overcome everything, and now I would have to admit that we could not. How wrenching is it when the question you want to ask is "Why don't you want me?" but you cannot ask it and yet you do not ask -- or talk about -- anything else. "Hey, Todd?" "Hey, Todd?" I said again, but this time he never even looked up.
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