UNCONDITIONAL

Decided

       She  I had decided. Well, she bolstered by her supporters, had decided that the options remaining were singular. There was, after all, no excuse, no reason for his anti social and negligent behavior. Sure, he claimed a change in heart and mind but how long would it last before his return to the madness. She was in every respect, divorcing the disease not the man. She was cutting out the possibility of future pain and destruction. Was she really though? He had never encountered a person completely free of pain and turmoil. It wasn't protection in so much as it was an guarantee of a new and different pain, with new, possibly more intense, moments of destruction.

       She thought she was affirmed, that her pain was singular and unique. That she had cornered the market and could now demand any price. Sadly, this wasn't the case. Many Couples struggle, for years, even decades before finally facing their ego and coming to the uncomfortable realization that they are not the sole proprietor of this excruciating pain. That even her closest friends had been exactly where she is. A late night call that initially brings fear,  but then sadness. A broken and tearful conversation in a friends kitchen, where they confess the ugly truth. They are considering a terminal separation. Life just became to hard. They grew apart. Ultimately, after serious work, they decided to fight for each other. For their family. They are together and stronger for the test. A close friend is walking down a country road. Walking away from everything, a wife, kids. He's giving up. Families on the brink of being torn apart. He turned around, because he had hope that the struggle and pain of today would make them stronger in the end. Today they are the happiest family he knows. Are there still troubles and pain? Sure, but they face them as an open, honest, team.

       It was a treatable and manageable disease, but oh the damage it had wrought. Now it was her turn to deal the cards and she did so without so much as a thought. Face down, steel eyed and in complete and comfortable ignorance of the disease he now tried to control. She had given up.

       In his mind, it would always be a depraved act, comparable to suicide. Even more so,  if one half is committed to change and forgiveness. It's the supreme act of quitting on everyone. On saying my personal will and desires outweigh all these other peoples hopes and dreams. It says the comfort, intimacy,  and emotional stability of these little humans we made is a reasonable price for my self centeredness. That's exactly why I had to come home that December several years ago. I couldn't quit on them, and bring them a lifetime of what ifs and why's. It's so hypocritical. You were so angry and crushed when I even considered quitting an option. I believed in you and our family so much and vowed to you and my kids to never again put them in that position, because He saw the selfishness. How was it admissible for her? It's the exact same mode of operation. You quit on the family, but remove the other parent unwillingly. Like trying to remove your middle toe with an axe. You'll probably get it, but you're going to disfigure the other members. 

         "Where will you go?" She asked lazily but with a smidge too much enthusiasm.

         "I don't know," he mused, turning his head toward the expanse of mountains. "Montana, L.A., the islands, hell, anywhere away. Not away from you and the kids, mind you, just..." he paused and choked out the last few words, "far enough away to forget for a little while." He knew he could never leave his children and his love, no matter the prison she constructed. The idea of peace, forgetting, and letting go seemed enticing, but he couldn't quit on them.

           They had been commencing to divorce for some time now. Correction, she had been wholeheartedly pursuing divorce as he looked on in helpless amazement. His nerves were shot.

        He knew from personal experience the immediate and unavoidable effects divorce had upon children. His own father had thrown in the towel in favor of another woman when he was three. His earliest memory, and the last one he could recall for quite a long time was his mother on her knees at the doorway pleading with her husband not to leave. She insisted that any offense could be worked through and forgiven. She meant it.

           Here was the little boy, now grown, at least in body, pleading to not be let go. They had been at the process of quitting for so long now that they were numb. Both forcing themselves to bury emotion. One because he knew the terminal and very real consequences of giving up on true love and couldn't bring himself to face it or the loss of his role as everyday dad. The other so scared at the possibility of more pain and letting down friends and family that she had promised an execution of will, refused to allow any emotion or feeling to enter the equation.

          Another round of rain clouds began to roll in and stack between the river and the mountains. The sun which had filled the air with a wet blanket like humidity disappeared behind the gray blue bank of angry sky. It started to rain in oversized drops plugging holes in the freshly tilled garden.

"I despise this, you know. It's the furthest thing from what should happen." His eyes were noticeably red now.

"It's not exactly the way I had my life planned either," she responded without the aid or hinderance of emotion. "You took your ring off. I thought you said you would never quit?"

"I didn't quit." He snapped a bit at the accusation. "I took it off because I wouldn't want to be married to the person I was either. It doesn't indicate that I quit. Just that I have put away the person who wore that ring. I have to be better. I'm not that guy anymore. I'd gladly put on a fresh one to match my new life with you." The word fresh sounded misplaced and he immediately tried to locate another adjective in his word bank but none came.

A clap of thunder rolled through the hills and he briefly wondered if it was sunny and clear on the Kay key flats. The thought disappeared as quickly as the sun broke through the cloud bank. It was still raining hard and he craned his neck hoping for a rainbow. There was none.