Just the Two of Us

I had only had my new truck for a couple of weeks when my wife, with little warning and carrying not much more than the clothes on her back, climbed in the cab, highlighted R with the gear shift and backed down the driveway and out of our weekday lives. Four months shy of his second birthday, Silas didn’t grasp the magnitude of the situation. Mommy was leaving us. I thought probably for good. When she tried to hug him tight, he wriggled from her arms and insisted on scavenging through the minivan, the ride I would be keeping since I refused to let him go. I hated to part with my new toy, but the minivan was more practical for my new gig: single dad. It’s not like there was really anything to consider: truck/boy. It’s an easy call. When she announced that she was leaving my reply—after months of fighting and fruitless attempts at therapy—came without hesitation: Do whatever you want, but the boy stays with me. She agreed without argument, so I had custody of the boy during the week and my truck on weekends. We met nearly every Friday evening at a rural gas station equidistant from our separate dwellings to trade vehicles and mammals (I got the dog for the weekend; she got the boy). I got out of the minivan, into the truck, and beat it back up the well-worn path to the mountains. Usually, I left Silas sleeping in the back. I hated leaving him without saying goodbye, but not wanting to interrupt his nap afforded the perfect excuse not to have to exchange pleasantries. There was nothing pleasant to say.

I remember the tail lights glowing red and the finality of the instant the glow left. The marriage therapists, a husband and wife team, had mostly just sat and listened, emitting the occasional “hmm” and “oh,” verbal feedback to either show they were actually listening or to encourage one of us to keep talking. They offered up the occasional “How does that make you feel?” bullshit. But, with the image of tail lights imprinted on my closed eyelids, I realized they only offered one thing of value. When she told them she was thinking that some time apart might do us some good, they broke from their non-advisory stance and quoted some studies that showed that couples who split up rarely find the path that leads them back together. Don’t go, they told her. When she left anyway, despite her assurances to the contrary, I knew that it was for good.

The truck disappeared around the sharp curve below the driveway en route to an empty apartment over an hour away. I climbed in the van through the open sliding door, reached over the driver seat, found the keys, and cranked it up. Finding Nemo flashed on the tiny DVD screen above us, and Marlin’s undersea search for his abducted son briefly diverted Silas’s attention. Still in fleece footed jammies despite the muggy August morning air, he appeared to have been debating whether or not to eat whatever it was he had pulled from beneath the seats. I jerked the lever, and the sliding door lurched noisily down its track before sealing shut. Before the air conditioning got good and cold, two lanes of wet traffic traversed silently down my cheeks.

It’s difficult to reconstruct the right reality, to explain what I felt in that moment. It would be easy to reach the conclusion that I was hurt by the breakup, but part of the cocktail of emotions included, instead, a large shot of relief. With her removed the expectations were removed. I would pay the bills, cook dinner, wash the dishes, push the vacuum, pull the weeds, and, most importantly, care for my son’s needs. For months I had been doing all of this anyway as she slept the days away or whiled away countless hours on the internet. Now I wouldn’t expect any help, and there wouldn’t be any fingers to point or shouting matches when the help wasn’t forthcoming. But even if I had been virtually living as a single father while we all still shared the same home, there was something intimidating about those two words—single father—and something shameful about not being able to mask that reality. I tried to pretend that we needed the money and she couldn’t find a job in Boone so she had to leave. It was just too far to commute, so she got a little apartment. It was only temporary. But I knew better, and soon everyone else—family, friends—would know too. More than loss on that day, I felt the chest-compressing weight of failure and anxiety. Not only would concerns over how the breakup would affect Silas in the short and long term always lurk in my shadow, but I also had to figure out what to do with him. I started work in a week and, thanks to the sudden and unexpected departure of the person who was supposed to be Silas’s primary caregiver, had no daycare lined up. Thankfully, I was able to orchestrate a team of baby sitters to tide us over until a fulltime slot in a daycare became available. He’s been in good hands when he’s not in mine. But, now three years later, with his mother relocated across an ocean to London, the fallout of failure still lingers.

I hear Bill Withers singing:

We look for love, no time for tears

Wasted waters's all that is

And it don't make no flowers grow…
Just the two of us
We can make it if we try

And we’ll keep trying until the doubt is replaced with castles in the sky.