I Cried When He Left
State College, PA
1991
“When he left, I cried”, she told me as she took another drag on her cigarette. We were sitting on Lori’s couch and I had just met her. She had come up from the south to look at enrolling in Penn State. I had asked her what she wanted to study, but she didn’t know. She just knew she had to finally start college. She thought she was getting too old and opportunities were passing her by. And as she talked, she wandered back to a conversation about her ex-husband. And I speculate that all of her conversations eventually back their way back to her ex- husband.
“I didn’t love him anymore; I hadn’t loved him for over five years”, she continued. “Actually, I don’t think I ever loved him. I loved being with him when I was fifteen. Being with him was better than being with my mother. But when we started having kids, I couldn’t stand being with him. So the divorce was easy. It made everything new and scary for me. But when he left for Seattle, I cried”. She thinks about this for a few seconds and then picks at her finger nail.
And then she continued again and I sat and listened. “It took me awhile to figure out why I cried that day. Then I realized it. Here we were both just 20 and with two kids. He finished high school and I didn’t. And he was able to just get up and leave and start all over, erase his past and start new. And I couldn’t. He kissed me goodbye and said he’d send money. But I knew he wouldn’t. He never was that type. He never gave me a penny when he lived just down the street. He was so excited that day. He told me he knew he would get a job right away. And he'd save money so he could come back for the kids. But I knew he wouldn’t”. She spoke in a tone of resignation. She had been made this promise before and nothing ever came of it. So why should this time be any different.
“He was acting just like a little boy at Christmas time. All excited and happy. He was going to start over”. His youth stolen by fatherhood was going to be given back to him again and she just saw this as so unfair, an injustice.
“He was going to have a second chance. But not me. I was stuck with the two babies. I was so jealous. So when he hopped in that convertible with his two buddies, I cried. He waved his beer can to me as the car took off and I sobbed. That was seven years ago and I never heard for him again”. She crushed her cigarette in the ash tray and sat there silently for just a few seconds. She rocked herself. I didn’t have any words to comfort her so I sat in silence. She got up and excused herself and went to bed.
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