Rise - Leaving

It was July when I told Sam I was planning to leave him; August brought his request to see a marriage counselor together, which I declined because I felt we would have needed to have a marriage worth saving. September brought me a new car, and October 14, Columbus Day, was the day I set out to find a new me.

In between July and October, I had to make peace with all aspects of my decision. I knew that sleeping alone and being a single woman would be the easy thing. The difficult part would be what to do about my son.

He was seventeen, and we were close. I had given careful consideration to what divorcing Sam would mean to Jesse. In marrying Sam, I had meant to bring stability to Jesse’s life, and divorce definitely put a damper on that effort. Still, I knew that if Jesse knew what was in my heart, and how incredibly lonely my marriage had really become he would tell me that divorce was inevitable and the best thing I could do for myself. I knew that he would not want me staying miserable for him. Though we had never talked about my marriage to his father, Jesse had known that I was unhappy with B and I had stayed in that marriage because of him. If I were to stay with Sam, Jesse would again be the primary reason.

And Jesse deserved better than to go through his life believing that his mother chose to be miserable to make him happy. He deserved a mother who was strong enough to go out and actually BE happy.

But I knew that if I moved out and got an apartment nearby, Sam and I would find our way back to each other, and not for the right reasons. It would be just as it was when his uncle died. He would turn to me because it was safe and predictable and I would allow him in for a minute which would turn into a permanent situation.

I was torn beyond belief. I wanted so badly to just find a way to be happy, but I couldn’t do it.

But Jesse was a junior in high school. He had friends; not a lot of them but good friends. The kind you stay in touch with long after school ends.

I took him aside, and told him that I had to end the marriage. I explained my reservations about splitting up with Sam and staying nearby. And I asked him what he wanted me to do.

“You need to leave him.” He agreed. And then he shook his head. “But if you’re talking about moving to Montana… Mom, I don’t want to move that far away. Can’t I just stay here with Sam?”

Sam agreed to that, though when I looked back later, I would see that it seemed obvious what Sam wanted was not to be a father figure but to keep me attached. Still, at the time I was grateful for his willingness to act like a father.

Leaving Jesse behind, voluntarily, after all I had gone through only a few years ago to get him back after nearly three years without him, seemed impossible for me to reconcile. I did not want to be away from him for even a day. But when I put myself in his position, I saw no other option for myself. He had moved around so much in his short life, and never had a say in where or when. Even in the nearly seven years since his return to me, we had moved three times. For me to ask him to do it again would be unconscionable. He needed to have a voice in his own life, and I resolved myself to giving him that voice.

He acted tough, as did I. He was supportive of my leaving. He told me he would be fine with Sam, and began volunteering to help me cook, so that he might be more self-sufficient when I left. Before I did, I stocked the freezer with lasagnas and carefully labeled dishes I had cooked up for them, complete with reheating instructions, so that they might not “miss” me so much. I made loaves of bread batches of cinnamon rolls and froze the dough so that all they would have to do was follow the instructions and have fresh-made cinnamon rolls or sandwich bread with a bit of planning.

The final weekend before I was due to set out on my trip, I began the packing. I had bought a car-top cargo carrier, and spent the final day packing everything I could carry into the new Honda and the extra space attached to the top of it. Jesse worked beside me, wordlessly shouldering the burden of most of the lifting. Even Sam pitched in and by Sunday night, it was just a matter of showering in the morning and putting my overnight bag and the cat carrier with Peggy in it, inside before I headed out. Sam had agreed to care for the dogs and even to let Jesse keep the other two cats with him.

So it happened, that early on Monday morning, I stood in the yard in front of my husband, performing a platonic and perfunctory goodbye hug. I sincerely wished him well, and then sent him inside so I could have the last few moments with the son who suddenly seemed so grown-up and towered over me.

Jesse was fighting back tears despite all the toughness in his demeanor, and one more time, I fought the little voices inside of me telling me I was doing the wrong thing. I hugged my son and would not let go until he broke the embrace, saying, “Mom, you have a long way to go. You’d better hit the road.”

Peggy was bitching at me from inside her carrier. Her voice had a way of bringing me back to reality. “Come on already,” She seemed to be saying. “If I have to be in this thing, get me on the road.”

So with tears in my eyes, I slid into the driver’s seat and started the ignition, only to have Jesse say, “Wait! I almost forgot something!” and open the passenger door to reach in and pat Peggy’s head one last time. Before he closed the door again, I saw his hand discreetly reach in and set something behind Peggy’s carrier. I respected the fact that he obviously didn’t want me to know what he was doing and pretended not to notice.

And with one final kiss on his cheek as he came around to my side of the car again and leaned in, I headed out, noting Sam in the bedroom window watching me pull away.

I cried for the first two hundred miles or so. Then I pulled into a rest area and got out to stretch my legs, and pulled Peggy’s crate out so she could have a bit of fresh air too. I’d forgotten about Jesse’s secretive maneuver until I saw a pack of his favorite gum setting on the seat. Beneath it was a twenty-dollar bill.

I opened the gum and chewed a stick of it, tears flowing rapidly by then. I wanted to turn around and go back. I was moved by his wanting to take care of me in a situation which was difficult for him, at best.

When I spoke to him that evening from a hotel room nearly eight hundred miles away, I told him I appreciated it and that he “didn’t have to” and he replied that he knew he didn’t, but that he wanted to help me set out to find a better life and it wasn’t that much anyway.

He was wrong. It was everything to me.

I still have half that pack of gum, nearly twelve years later.