“You’re seriously leaving town? For good?”

Heather is in the middle of packing what looks like her last bag when I step into our old bedroom. The boys’ and my stuff had been moved out for a while now, just two weeks after she left, but I haven’t touched her things. Didn’t care to. But now the house is sold, and she needs to get her shit. I still don’t know why she didn’t get it before now.

I’m a little surprised she actually showed up today.

By the look on the boys’ faces when they heard her car pull up, they were surprised, too. And I’m not sure it’s a good one.

“Well, what would you expect me to do, Andy? We have a meeting with our lawyers set up. You knew this was coming. Hell, you were the one who served me papers, not the other way around.”

She shoves another pile of underwear out of her drawer into the bag then slams the drawer shut before moving over to the closet. I stay right behind her, not letting up an inch.

“Oh gee, I don’t know. And what do I expect from you? Maybe… be a mom? Stay in town? Have a relationship with your sons? Realize that you were a selfish ass? Any of those would work. You missed their birthday. Thanksgiving. Christmas!”

She spins around with fire in her eyes and points an accusing finger toward me.

“You know I never wanted this.”

I raise my eyebrows and fold my arms over my chest. “Uh, actually, no. I didn’t know that.”

She storms out of the closet with an armful of shirts on hangers and throws them onto the bed that I plan to donate. “It was always you who wanted the family, who wanted kids and the whole white picket fence thing.”

“So, when you kept showing me rings and didn’t bring your birth control pills on our honeymoon, that was all me?”

“You know what I mean.” She grabs the last of her clothes out of the closet before moving on to the shoes, well the shoes that are left. I did touch those. In a desperate attempt at calming my rage one evening, I came to the house, took most of her shoes, threw them in a box, and took them to the Goodwill store. I wanted to burn them but figured someone else could actually get enjoyment out of them. And they’re expensive shoes. Those damn red bottoms don’t come cheap, it seems.

I came from nothing. I was raised by a single mom who struggled to put food on the table. Without the help of second hand stores, I would have gone to school naked. I can’t bring myself to throw things out, even if I do all right for myself now.

“I don’t know what you mean. Enlighten me.”

She looks around the closet, and I know she’s looking for her shoes, but I just stand there with my arms crossed over my chest, and ignore her silent questioning. “Andy, cut me some slack. All I’ve been for half my life was a mom and wife.”

“Don’t you dare pin this on me, Heather. You know damn good and well that I would have supported you if you wanted to work outside the home. I would have helped out more here, been available more, not taken the promotion with Barrett and Josh. You never, not once, made mention of you wanting something different.”

She lifts her bags off the bed, and if I were a gentleman I would take them for her. I am a gentleman, just not to her. Not anymore.

“You had to know things weren’t great.”

I follow her to the kitchen where she leans against the counter and twists the top off the bottle of water she brought in with her.

“Of course, I knew that. I didn’t realize it was because you felt like you were stuck in some suburban hell.”

Her eyes flash, and she slams her bottle down on the counter, a few drops spilling out. “I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to!”

I clench my fists tightly and take several deep breaths, trying to get control of my anger. It’s not me who I’m angry for. It’s our boys. Our boys, who are teenagers who need their mother, no matter how crappy she seems to have turned.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Besides, you have the boys. You have what you wanted. Why are you fighting this? Why do you care? You’ve already moved on with her anyway!”

“Harder than it has to be? You don’t know why I’m fighting this? And what the hell do you care if I’ve moved on or not. You moved on from me years ago.” She flinches at the tone of my voice, and I know she recognizes the anger that’s laced in it. “And what the hell do you know about my private life? I haven’t gone on a single date.”

“That’s not what I hear.” She sneers.

“You heard wrong then.”

She watches me closely, probably to see if I’m lying to her. When she doesn’t get what she wants, she huffs and rolls her eyes.

“You told me you wanted the boys. I gave them to you. Why do you still want me around?”

I slam my fists on the counter, making her jump. “I don’t want you around, Heather! I want the boys to have their mother! How do you not understand that? Do you know how it feels for them? To feel like they’re worth nothing? That their own mother doesn’t want them? You abandoned them!”

“I didn’t abandon them.” She rolls her eyes. “I left them with their father. You know — you, in all your perfect glory?”

“Oh, please.”

“You know what? I almost didn’t do this, but now that you reminded me that I so graciously gave you the boys…” She reaches around and pulls a tri-folded piece of paper out of her back pocket and hands it over to me.

I open it up, my eyes flitting over the words that I can hardly believe I’m reading.

I slowly lift my gaze to hers. She’s smirking, inspecting her nails like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

“What the hell is this?”

“My share.”

“Your. Share.”

“That’s right. My share. You didn’t think I was just going to walk away and not get anything out of being married to you, did you?”

“My family’s cabin?”

She shrugs her shoulders.

“You know how much the boys love it there.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to find one to replace it.”

I laugh, a bit hysterical and manic. When I finally get control of myself, I blow out a breath and scrub a hand down my face. “Holy shit. You’re the biggest bitch on the planet.”

“Well that’s not very nice,” she chides.

“Nice? You lost the right to expect me to be nice to you long ago, you miserable, rotten, no good excuse of a human being.”

I lean over the counter toward her when I can tell my words aren’t getting through to her. Or maybe they are, and she truly is that selfish and doesn’t give a damn. Either way, I’m done. So done. I take a deep breath through my nose and try to steady my racing heart and the heat that’s coursing through my veins.

“You want the boys?”

“You know I do,” I grind out.

“Then you’ll give me the cabin.”

“Why? It doesn’t mean shit to you. You never wanted to go there.”

“Aww, Andy. You know why.”

“Explain it to me.”

“What are you going to do for vacation without your precious cabin? You never wanted to go anywhere else. It was always there. No matter that I begged for you to take me places like Mexico or Hawaii.”

“Places we couldn’t afford,” I add.

“Oh please. You could’ve found the money,” she scoffs.

“What the hell did I ever do to you? You should be thanking me, getting rid of the ‘baggage,’ as you called them.”

“They’re my sons, Andy. They’re not baggage,” she says in the fakest voice I’ve ever heard with her hand on her heart.

“You walked away. What do you care?”

“If you want them so badly, why are you hanging on to the cabin?”

“Because it’s means something to me, you bitch!” I roar.

I take a steadying breath.

“Make a choice, Andy. Your boys or the cabin? How ugly do you want this to get?”

She didn’t even call them her boys, or our boys. I sit down, defeated but not out of the game. My family will hate it that it went to her, but they’d hate it even more if she was still in our lives.

“How did I ever love you?”

“Gee, I’ve wondered the same thing about how I ever loved you.”

“Take the cabin. I want you out of our lives. You’re signing away your rights to those boys. You’re never going to be near them again, you understand me? I don’t want your toxicity around them. I don’t want you to be a part of their lives in any way. We’ve been away from you for months now, and you know what? We’re better off.

“Here’s how it’s going to go down.” My voice is so low, I hope she has to strain to hear me. “If you walk away, you walk away. This right here? Is your only second chance I will give you. You told me you’re prepared to sign the papers the way they’re drawn up, so this is me with an olive branch. That final decision is on you, but I’m feeling generous and am giving you this time to re-think how selfish you’re being. But you don’t get to come back here and screw with the boys’ heads after this, giving them hope for you sticking around.

“You make this final choice, but you make it without me in mind, you got me? You know I think this is total bullshit. But if this is how you’re gonna play it out? Then I want you gone. Forever. You don’t get to be pissed if I meet someone and the boys love her and she loves on them like they’re her own. That jealousy won’t fly with me. You don’t get to come back at their graduation. Their weddings. I won’t send you updates on their lives. You don’t come to any of their games or watch when they grow up into amazing adults, because guess what? They will. They’re already amazing kids. And I have no doubt that they’ll be even more incredible as they get older. You’re gone? You want that? That’s fine. But…” I lean closer for my final blow. “You’re telling the boys.”

“What?” Now it’s her turn for her voice to be a whisper. But rather than anger, it’s filled with fear.

“You heard me. You wanna walk away from the two best things that ever happened to either of us? You plan to take away one of their happy places? You do it. But you don’t pretend that it’s on me. You own up to this, you make sure they know they’ve done nothing wrong. That you just can’t handle it because you’re the shitty one.” She flinches again, but I carry on, smirking. “Truth hurts, doesn’t it? I’m not the one who stepped out. I’m not the one who left immediately for a couple months, leaving you here to deal with the blowout and questions from our two boys. I’m definitely not the one who’s taking away one of the places that makes them the happiest. I’m not going to lie for you. I’m not going to allow them to question if they did something that upset you and made you leave. You will not be allowed to fuck them up, you got me?”

“But—”

“You got me?” This time I do nothing to hide my frustration from her. My voice comes out booming, in a roar that I’m sure our neighbors heard, not to mention the boys who are hanging out in the back yard.

“I got you,” she cries.

She looks at me with tears in her eyes.

It doesn’t faze me.

Her heartache is no longer my problem to deal with.

“And Heather?”

She looks at me, eyes hopeful as she wipes away the wetness now coating her cheeks.

“Yeah?”

“You don’t get the cabin until it’s final. I expect to see you at the divorce proceedings. I want this shit done.”

She drops her chin to her chest and quietly agrees, sniffling.

I walk outside and around the back of the house to the back yard where the boys are kicking around a soccer ball.

I lean against the side of the house before they’ve noticed me and watch them, so much worry taking over my mind I don’t know what to focus on first. I scrub my hand down my face. Bitterness threatens to take over, its ugly fingers snaking around the soft places of my heart. I try to shake it off, not wanting the boys to sense my mood, though I know that’s pointless.

I stick my forefinger and thumb in my mouth and whistle loudly. Both their heads pop up when they notice I’m standing there.

I lift my chin to let them know I want them to follow me.

Both their shoulders, slump and I see Aidan whisper something to Reece. Reece nods his head as they continue to make their way to me.

“Yeah, Dad?”

Gutted.

Their expressions tell me they know exactly what’s happening.

“Your mom wants to talk to you for a bit.”

“No thanks,” Aidan says, his tone full of anger.

I feel my heart crack and twist around, hoping to see Heather standing on the back deck, but she’s not there. If she left, I know I’ll lose my shit.

“Come here.” I hold my arm out as I sit on one of the chairs that are set around the stone fire pit in our back yard.

The boys both walk over, looking like their feet are full of lead.

“Just tell us.” Aidan, the bolder of my two boys, the natural leader. He’s a no-nonsense kid, always honest, sometimes to a fault.

I blow out a breath and lean my elbows on my knees.

“Your mom is inside. She wants to talk to you.”

“No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t care.” He looks away quickly and sniffs.

I can’t lie to my boys. Does she care? Hell if I know. I stay silent instead of giving them a sense of false hope.

“Then why is she leaving? Why did she already leave? For him? She just cares more about herself than us, so why should we care to go in there and have her tell us that?” Reece angrily swipes at a tear, his voice strong, even for his age.

“She’s—”

“Boys.” Heather’s voice cuts through, and all three of us turn to look at her. She’s standing on the bottom stair of the deck. Mascara smudged under her eyes, a few strands of hair falling out of her sloppy ponytail.

Neither of the boys makes a move toward her. Her eyes connect with mine, and I lift my chin and nod, hoping that she’ll be the mature one of the group and come to them. I stand up, grab another chair, and pull it near mine. I point to it while looking at her, and she takes a tentative step down off the stairs. I watch as her shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath and her hands holding a tissue twist together in front of her.

She makes her way over and sits down. No longer feeling a bit of empathy for her in this situation, I lean on the arm of the chair opposite of her. The boys take notice of my position, and I feel a twinge of guilt, but only for a moment.

She’s making this choice. This is on her, not me.

“Get on with it, Mom,” Aidan bites out, his eyes filling with tears that I know will only build on his anger.

“Boys…” She sniffles and reaches out to them. Neither leans forward to grasp her hand. She winces, apparently realizing they aren’t going to let her touch them, and slumps lower in her seat. “It’s not… I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

“Sorry for what, Mom?” Reece says, not hiding the fact that he’s crying. “Why are you sorry? Why aren’t we good enough? Why did you leave? Why are you leaving again?”

“I wish I had the words, I truly do.”

“Just go,” Aidan doesn’t even look her in the eye.

“Aidan.”

“What? What do you want me to say? That I want you to stay? Why would I want you to stay if you don’t want us?”

“I do!”

“No, you don’t. You don’t care. You never did.”

“I care. I love you boys so much.”

“Apparently love isn’t what I thought it was, then.” Aidan’s words are well beyond his fourteen years and break my heart even further. The thought that this is what they think, that this is what love is, pisses me off.

“Boys, I just—”

“Your mom doesn’t love me anymore.” I blow out a breath and look over at the woman who I once thought would be my forever. Her eyes plead with me to save her. Just like I always did. But I’m done. I’ve done the best I can do, the best that I can even think of in light of this messed up situation.

“So, you just don’t love Dad anymore? How does that happen? And why leave us all? We have friends whose parents are divorced, and their moms didn’t just leave completely.”

“Because…” She looks at me again, but I have no words to help her anymore. This is on her. “Because I’m not good enough.”

“Whatever, you just don’t want us!” Aidan cries out and stands up from his chair, knocking it over in the process. He points to her. “You’re just a coward! A big baby selfish coward who cares more about herself than anyone else! You don’t want us? Well, we don’t want you, either! You’ve been gone for months, and we didn’t miss you. Not a minute, right, Reece?” He turns to look at his brother then shifts back to his mom. “Not a minute. Because guess what. You can’t miss someone who doesn’t care about you! So leave. Go away with your jerk of a boyfriend.”

She reaches for him, and her cries have turned to sobs.

“He’s right.” Reece nods his head and stands up, putting his arm around Aidan’s shoulders. “We didn’t miss you. Just leave and get it over with. And you were right, too. You aren’t good enough. You’re nothing like a mother.”

I stand up, not being able to take another minute of it, and move next to my boys.

“Heather. You need to be honest. Tell the boys what you told me.”

She opens her mouth and a squeak escapes her.

“Heather,” I repeat, my voice stern.

I watch as she looks down at her lap and slowly stands up, swiping the tissue under her eyes before raising her gaze to the boys. She briefly looks to me then shifts her attention to them. “I’m so sorry.” Her voice is quiet. “I’m so, so sorry. I wish I had better words for you. I wish I could be what you need. What you deserve. It’s not you — you need to know that, okay? I do love you. That is not why I’m leaving. I’m just simply not good enough. I’m not cut out to be the mother you need. The mother anyone needs.”

“Heather,” I warn.

“Um. So. Your dad…”

“Heather,” I warn again. “Do not put this on me.”

“I’m-taking-the-cabin,” she says fast, the words run together.

“What?” Reece asks, his voice low and angry.

“I don’t understand,” Aidan says, a moment of sadness escaping him.

“I know. I know you don’t.”

“Wait. Dad? Can she do that? Take the cabin?”

I sigh and drop my head, closing my eyes for a moment. “It’s just a cabin. You’re more important.”

“Mom? Why would you do that?”

She glances at me then watches her — my — boys closely. Then she takes a deep breath and straightens her shoulders.

“Reece. Aidan. I lied to your father. I wanted to be what I thought he wanted me to be. I knew he wanted kids. I knew he wanted the life we had. And I loved him enough that I thought I could give that to him. But… and this is not on you. It’s on me. Something inside me, it’s… broken I guess. I figured that once I became a mom I would feel different. Happy.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you think you have to take away the cabin from us. From Dad’s family. You’re such a selfish bitch.”

Heather gasps, and my eyes bug out of my head at Reece’s quick use of the word, but now’s not the time to be getting on him about using a cuss word. Besides. He’s not wrong.

“Well, I hope you’re happy now… taking away the cabin. Being away from us. What kind of person does that?” Aidan shouts. “You never even liked to go there!”

“Oh, kiddo… when you get older you’ll understand.”

I guarantee neither of them will ever understand her.

“Thanks,” Aidan scoffs.

Reece apparently has had enough, though. He points at her, and she flinches at the anger in his eyes that’s aimed directly at her. “You know what? We don’t want you! We don’t need you!” He’s shouting loudly; his chest is rising and falling quickly. “Since you left? We’ve been so much better off without you in our lives. Dad is a hundred times better of a parent than you ever were.” He takes a deep breath before he glares at her then says in a low voice full of hurt and rage, “You’re a crappy parent, and we hate you. Just leave. We’re better off.”

“Reece,” I mumble and reach for him, but he yanks his hand away. Aidan seems slightly stunned by his brother’s outburst but lifts his shoulders and puffs out his chest so he’s at full height next to him.

“No. Dad. She wanted to tell us everything? Well, now she can hear everything we have to say, too.” He turns to look directly at her. “We really, really don’t need you around. What kind of awful person are you? You’re taking the cabin? The cabin that’s been in Dad’s family for years? Our happy place? You hated it there! What do you even care!”

“I…”

Realizing that nothing Heather could say will make the boys, or me for that matter, understand, and if possible, she might be making things worse, I decide the conversation is done. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”

She looks at me, and I stare back, unfeeling. There was a point where seeing her cry would have brought me to my knees. Where seeing a hint of her sadness would have caused me to do about anything to change it. But those moments are gone. They’ve been gone for a while. Definitely since seeing her having sex with another man. But it was before that.

“I…”

“Bye,” the boys say at the same time, not giving her any more emotion than she deserves.

She walks closer, and they both flinch when she opens her arms like she is going to give them a hug. Aidan turns away first, giving her his back. Reece simply shakes his head at her then walks away, back into the house.

Heather looks to me, tears flowing freely from her eyes. I shrug, not knowing what she wants me to say. She did this; I need to remind myself of that. This wasn’t my choice.

Without another word, Heather turns on her heel and runs toward the house. Less than a minute later, I hear a car engine start up, and with that, she’s gone.

Less than a minute after that I hear a loud crash and know the boys aren’t as okay with it as they tried to play off. And I can’t blame them. One bit.