I stood in the front foyer of our house, and I could just tell...
But if I was completely honest, all I felt was relief. I had been lying to myself for years, and if she hadn’t left who knows how many more years I would have held on. I hadn’t truly loved her in a long time; I was miserable, lonely and tired. The fight to stay with her had been pointless and one sided and in the end I was left with just this empty house. And her goddamned cat…she left her miserable fucking cat with me. I laughed for a moment, dropped my keys and stepped inside to see the note on the dining room table. I didn’t need to read it; it was just going to be more of her bullshit. I realized in that moment I likely never really knew her, just an image I had created of her and that she allowed me to perpetuate.
As I stood there though, the trapdoor swung open and I instantly realized what she would have come home for. She needed those few days to pack some things, but more importantly she would have needed money.
I poured myself a vodka and sat down to take stock. She had closed all of our joint accounts after our last big fight and I didn’t even have a bank card with my name on it. She controlled all of the credit cards too. She couldn’t have planned any of this but it wouldn’t have worked this well if she had tried. I was literally penniless and still a week away from a pay cheque that would be deposited into her account…
I needed a bigger bottle of vodka…
In the coming days, I would learn that she had been cheating on me since the first summer after we were married. I learned that she had run away to Prince George from Edmonton in an attempt to return to one of these liaisons.
In the very near future I would get a call from a lawyer, not regarding a settlement with her but another more insidious reason. The one asset she had left my name on was her car, and she had a serious accident in Regina during one of her blackouts. Her Saskatchewan insurance was voided because of her condition, and because she wasn’t working they were now going to come after me for the $50,000 she owed.
She called up out of the blue at Christmas of 2009. We hadn’t had any reason to speak since shortly after she left and because it was the season and I was drunk I felt amicable enough. We made small talk and she tried to think of some excuse for why she called but it didn’t matter.
She had some good health news; they had finally tied all of her symptoms together and diagnosed Celiac! Of course, it made perfect sense when you thought about it. Good for her. She was better but she weighed less than 95 pounds now and sounded very weak. I could hardly hear her for another reason though, it sounded like a cat fight in the background and I finally asked her what all the noise was.
She had some good health news; they had finally tied all of her symptoms together and diagnosed Celiac! Of course, it made perfect sense when you thought about it. Good for her. She was better but she weighed less than 95 pounds now and sounded very weak. I could hardly hear her for another reason though, it sounded like a cat fight in the background and I finally asked her what all the noise was.
“Well, that’s my kids…”
For the entire time we were married we had been told she wouldn’t be able to conceive due to her various illnesses. In fact, very early on the doctors took her off birth control to try and alleviate the migraines and she never took it again. I had been resigned to this and had made my peace that I would never be a dad, in fact it had made life quite simple and pain free in the last years of the marriage so I considered it a blessing really. But this was still a severe gut punch.
She anticipated my first question, no they weren’t mine. How many? Two... How was this possible? She had gotten pregnant almost immediately after leaving and had the second one shortly after the first.
I was polite but I told her I just wasn’t prepared to continue the conversation, wished her well, silently hung up and started to cry…
"Human" Civil Twilight
There's one way out and no way in
Back to the beginning
There's one way back to home again
To where I feel forgiven
What is this I feel? Why is it so real?
What am I to say?
It's only love, it's only pain
It's only fear that runs through my veins
It's all the things you can't explain
That make us human
I am just an image of
Something so much greater
I am just a picture frame
I am not the painter
Where do I begin? Can I shed this skin?
What is this I feel within?
It's only love, it's only pain
It's only fear that runs through my veins
It's all the things you can't explain
That make us human, that make us human
That make us human
It's only love, it's only pain
It's only fear that runs through my veins
It's all the things you can't explain
That make us human, that make us human
That make us human, oh, that make us human
Back to the beginning
There's one way back to home again
To where I feel forgiven
What is this I feel? Why is it so real?
What am I to say?
It's only love, it's only pain
It's only fear that runs through my veins
It's all the things you can't explain
That make us human
I am just an image of
Something so much greater
I am just a picture frame
I am not the painter
Where do I begin? Can I shed this skin?
What is this I feel within?
It's only love, it's only pain
It's only fear that runs through my veins
It's all the things you can't explain
That make us human, that make us human
That make us human
It's only love, it's only pain
It's only fear that runs through my veins
It's all the things you can't explain
That make us human, that make us human
That make us human, oh, that make us human
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