Shea & War

Chapter 7

Hope Can Be Like A Brittle And Fragile Boat, And Then, Sometimes, Hope Springs A Leak And Sinks

One Year Later

Shea

I knew this day was coming. I felt it like it was a frigid ice storm heading towards me, I didn't mark it on my calendar, it's written in blood and scar tissue across my heart and deep into my soul. One year ago today, my husband, the love of my life, War, left me in the hospital, broken in body, broken in spirit.   He went Nomad, he left our life, he left our club, he left his brothers, he left me, he rode off somewhere far and away from me and our life together. Then he disappeared into the ether.

By the time I was released from the hospital he had already taken some clothes from our house, packed up his saddlebags, and left on his bike. A week later in the mail I found a signed power of attorney from War, giving me all rights to everything we owned, our cars, our house and our bank accounts, and the right to make all legal decisions.

In the beginning, after he abandoned me, he would respond to my texts, never answer or return my phone calls, but he would text me back. His responses were short and terse, not the soft and loving messages he used to send to me. If I didn't know it was my husbands phone, I would have guessed someone else was responding instead of him.

After a while, he just didn't respond at all. I stopped calling, but I would message him daily, telling him I loved him, I missed him and I'm waiting for him to come home. That I want to fix us. I sent him messages on his birthday and our anniversary. He just occasionally replied that he was sorry, and that he was not good enough for me.

I received one call from him. In the year he's been gone, just one phone call. It was in the middle of the week on a Thursday night, 8 months after he left. My phone was on silent and I didn't hear it go off. I was in a movie with Suze and Kay, and a few other girls. When I got home and listened to the message it killed me.

War was obviously really drunk or on something, he was slurring and telling me that he loved me, and I was the best thing that ever happened to him, how he missed me. But that he was never coming back. Never. He wanted a divorce, he'd send me the papers, he was moving on and I should too. In the background I could hear a party going on, or maybe it was a bar. Then a womans voice came through, telling him to hurry up on the phone, she needed him, and that he needed to come to her.

Some woman needed my husband, and he hung up the phone while he was leaving me, his wife a message.  He hung up, so he could go to her.

It sounded like he had moved on.

I called him back, and of course he didn't answer, I told him I was waiting for him, that he was my life and I wasn't moving on, I needed him and I was going to fix us.

He didn't call back, but a week later he responded with a text.

War: Its over. Move on

Four words. Apparently that's all it takes to completely annihilate an already broken heart. My brothers are past angry, they're now starting to tell me I do need to move on. I don't know what's going on with War, what he's doing for the club. My brothers know, and they aren't talking, it's club business.

To be honest, I don't really care what he's doing, he's gone, it really doesn't matter what he's thinking, what matters is that he needs to come home to me.

Thank god for my family and the club. If I didn't have them and my job, I'd be a worse basket case than I already am. After he first left, everything went to hell. I couldn't eat, totally lost my appetite and was vomiting from stress all the time. After a few months, my brothers freaked out and had a come to Jesus meeting with me. They told me I looked like hell, I was a zombie walking through my life and I was scaring my nieces and nephews.