October 2014
For the past month, I’d been living with my mother. It was a temporary living situation until everything with Wes and me was figured out. I’d been back to the house once and that was during the day, while Wes was at work, so I could pack up my clothes.
I saw Sinclair frequently, but we weren’t living together; there was a big part of me that was terrified of what Wes would do to Sinclair if he had the chance.
I shuddered at the thought.
My heart was still this fragile thing, slowly trying to piece itself together, but I loved Sinclair. He knew the basic facts, but he didn’t know why. It was bad enough that I had to face the truth of my relationship with Wes; why would I have wanted to share that with the world? I felt embarrassed¸ humiliated.
Every day Wes called me begging to talk. Every day I pressed IGNORE, because I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t get sucked back down into his life, even if I couldn’t completely ignore it.
As much as I wanted to hide beneath my covers and avoid everything, I had to face reality.
I stared down at the screen for a second longer and pressed CALL.
It rang twice before he picked up.
“Victoria? Victoria?” Wes sounded out of breath, as if he had run to get to the phone.
I took a deep breath. “We need to talk.”
In my mind, I saw this conversation going south. All I saw was Wes getting angry.
In fact, I was counting on it. That’s why I wanted to break up during dinner. In public. With witnesses. I picked out a restaurant that he took me to frequently when we were still in love. It had good memories. There had been so much darkness in our relationship since then that I just wanted to hang on to a small piece of good.
“Sorry I’m late,” Wes rushed to say. He kissed the crown of my head, a gesture he used to make all the time in the beginning of our marriage, but rarely now.
“It’s fine.”
Wes didn’t offer an explanation for being late and I didn’t ask; I already knew the answer. Work.
He sat down across from me, scanning the menu with focused concentration. The waiter got our order and there were no more distractions.
We looked at each other. He gave me a wide smile and asked me about my day, seeming genuinely interested in what I had to say. It was disarming.
But that was his MO: a long stretch of kindness and short bursts of anger. If I kept that fact in the forefront of my mind, I could get through this.
“Victoria, are you okay? You look a little pale.”
Before I replied I downed the rest of my wine. My hands were shaking. I laced my fingers together and waited.
The first course arrived.
Now or never, I told myself. You have to tell him.
“I can’t live like this,” I blurted out.
The truth can do one of three things: free you, break you, or complete you.
I hovered among the three, just waiting for Wes’s reaction. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and frowned. Confusion was written across his face. “Like what?”
“This. Right now.” I gestured at the space between us. “I can’t do this anymore.”
I braced myself for an outburst. Violence. But instead I was met with silence. It was unnerving and threw me off guard. Maybe I was making a mistake. Maybe things could go back to normal. Maybe…
No, my mind whispered fiercely. You have to do this.
Swallowing my nerves, I said very quietly, “I want a divorce.”
The words were just as painful to say as I thought they would be.
Wes dropped his fork. His hand moved across the table for my hand. I tensed, but at the last second he pulled away, looking like a man at war with himself. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered gruffly.
I didn’t reply, just carefully tracked every move he made.
“Where did this even come from?” he asked.
His shoulders drooped in defeat and he hung his head, staring blindly at his food. He said nothing and the conversations at other tables drifted around me. On some level, I think he knew this was bound to happen.
Ignoring the others around us, he reached out for my hand. I pulled back at the same time. Only our fingertips touched.
“I love you. I thought everything was perfect between us.”
At that, I frowned. “Perfect?”
“Everything was stressful because of work and you not being able to get pregnant—”
“This has nothing to do with work or pregnancy,” I quickly cut in. “At the beginning I might have thought that. But, no, this has everything to do with how you treat me.”
“I treat you fine. I give you everything, Victoria. A few fights and you’re ready to walk away? Come on now. I love you.” He said it sadly, looking like a man devastated.
This is what he does. Don’t buy it. Not for a second.
He was going to tell me how sorry he was, how much he loved me, but I knew a tiger couldn’t change its stripes.
“Are you trying to make me believe that you have no love inside you to fight for us?” he challenged.
Only a small hint of frustration seeped into his words. Considering the magnitude of our conversation, he wasn’t even close to reacting the way I had expected him to.
“Of course I have love for you. But it’s not enough anymore.”
My reply threw him off. He sat back in his seat, staring at me with his “lawyer gaze,” the one where he shrewdly picks apart a person and tries to call their bluff. He could keep looking, he could dig deep into me until he reached my marrow, but he’d find nothing but the truth.
Very carefully, I thought over my words. “Neither one of us is happy anymore.”
“What are you talking about? Everything is perfect between us.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. I was starting to feel like I was in the Twilight Zone. Was he delusional? I leaned in slowly and lowered my voice. “Nothing about us is perfect.”
“Then that’s the problem, because I see a relationship that’s strained. But I love my wife enough to stick it out.”
“Stick it out?” My voice went up an octave, earning the gazes of people around us. “That’s all I’ve been doing for a year!”
“A year?” Wes snorted. “And now you’re magically asking me to buy in to this idea that you’re unhappy?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do.”
“Un-fucking-believable.”
“I didn’t reach this point suddenly. It’s impossible to forget the years we’ve been together and the memories we have.”
“If it’s impossible, then stay with me.”
His hand reached out and this time I hesitated, because it would have been so easy for me to give in—to shrug my shoulders and agreeably say okay.
I dropped my hand into my lap. “I can’t, Wes. If I stay with you, then I stay with pain. I stay with abuse.”
“There’s no abuse. Just moments where I lose my temper.”
“And that right there is exactly why I can’t be with you anymore.”
The imploring expression disappeared, replaced by a coldness that I’d expected. To me it seemed like the reality of the situation was finally sinking in for him. There was no amount of “sorrys” to bring us back to where we once were.
“Is there someone else?” he asked, a biting tone in his words.
For so long I had agonized over whether I should tell the truth, but I was also extremely aware that Wes would use that against me and it would put me in a bad light. Never him.
I sat up straight and looked him in the eye. “That doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters. Why can’t you answer the question? ‘Yes, I’m with someone else.’ ‘No, I’m not with someone else.’ Two easy responses.”
“You’re going to sit there and give me the third degree, yet you’ve been seeing someone on the side.”
Wes slammed his hands on the table. “I told you that I’m not seeing her!”
Conversations around us died. I could feel the stares. Wes looked around and instantly lowered his voice. “If you want to divorce, get a divorce. I can’t stop you….”
I waited; he was getting ready to deliver a blow. “But I’m not going to make this easy.” His brusque tone was what I expected yet it still managed to give me chills.
As Wes asked for the check, I stayed in my seat. Not because I had to. Not because I was scared. Not because I was sad. I stayed because I knew this would be the very last meal we would ever share as Mr. and Mrs. Donovan.
We walked out of the restaurant together, saying nothing. The silence was unbearable, masking unsaid words that the two of us were just dying to hurl at each other.
We left in separate cars. I watched him take a right and peel out of the parking lot, toward the direction of our house.
I took a left.
I drove toward Sinclair.