It was unfair of me.
But life wasn’t fair lately, so whatever.
And one day, on a Tuesday afternoon after I’d picked Jack and Lily from school, I fully shattered. There was no other word for it. I didn’t snap. No, there was no room in my life for ‘snapping’ under the weight of everything. Before now, there were hairline fractures on the surface of my soul, ones that small children thankfully couldn’t perceive.
But the thing about cracks was that they usually got bigger. Made things more fragile. And that Tuesday after school, I realized how fragile I had become.
So I carefully, calmly bundled my kids into our car and drove them to one of the many women who would take care of them. One that would look at me, not ask questions, and take my kids without a word without expecting me to call and tell her when I was coming back. One who would understand if I didn’t come back for a while.
Amy opened the door looking movie star perfect, as always. She smiled when she saw me. A genuine smile. Not full of worry or pity.
“Hey! I was just about to blow my brains out watching Peppa Pig. You saved me. I’ll get the wine.”
“Can you take care of the kids?” I asked, my mask starting to slip, unable to hide the tremor in my voice.
Amy’s smile faltered ever so slightly before she winked at Jack then leaned forward to take the bag I had packed from them. “I have brownies that Gwen made on the counter,” she rolled her eyes at Lily before continuing. “She is an evil witch, trying to get me to binge on sugar. Luckily, I now have you tiny humans to do that.”
Lily needed no more urging, passing me to run through the house. Jack glanced up at me, worried. He looked at me like that a lot these days. I ruffled his hair. “I’ll be fine, dude. Just need to go and take care of some things. Go and consume terrible amounts of sugar.”
He frowned for a beat. “Love you,” he said uncharacteristically, especially in front of an audience.
“I love you more,” I whispered as I gave him a squeeze.
Jack moved inside the house he’d been in many times.
“I’ll be back...” I trailed off, not wanting to lie, but afraid to tell the truth and become the world’s worst mother.
“You’ll be back when you feel like you can be back,” Amy finished for me. “We’re good here. Brock will be home soon, and I’ve got wine. I’m really good at keeping kids alive. I’ve babysat Mia’s kids before and managed to survive that.” She winked. “It’ll all be okay here. Take care of you, okay? You need this.”
I nodded once, not trusting myself to speak in fear of bursting into tears that I wouldn’t be able to stop.
So I turned my back on them all and got in my car. Drove away. Not knowing where I was going or when I’d be back.I hadn’t made the conscious decision to pull into Sunset Lodge. To drive in that direction. But it didn’t exactly surprise me either. That’s where I’d found myself during my last episode of hopeless sorrow. It was the place that had sucked in all my pain. Didn’t take it away exactly, but the air felt lighter there. It didn’t make any sense, but I guess it didn’t need to. What mattered is that being there helped.
So did the vodka I’d brought with me.
I was wearing shoes this time, so I called that a win. And my earbuds so I could lay out by the pool listening to earsplitting rock. The anger and hate in the music helped me. I resonated with it. I’d never understood why people listened to music like this, but right then I got it.
It was nice to hear someone screaming at the top of their lungs when I wasn’t brave or strong enough to do it myself.
So that’s what I did. I listened to heavy metal while drinking vodka by the pool on a Tuesday. Didn’t go to grief counseling, didn’t go to any circle jerk in a church basement, both of which were most likely much healthier and would’ve set a better example for my children.
At some point, I stumbled to my room, managed to drink some water, choke down two aspirin then fell into a dreamless sleep.I was hungover the next morning. Not surprising and not a negative. The throbbing in my head and the acid in my stomach was enough to distract me from reality for most of the morning. Enough to make me almost entirely focus on bad TV and not the fact that my kids were waking up without me. Waking up without their father and the fact that I was quite possibly the worst mother to ever exist.