He is late.
He usually calls or texts when he’s going to be late, but lately we’ve been more strangers than lovers, passing each other in the hallways, smiling, dropping quick kisses, breezing out the door.
He didn’t even tell me where he was going today.
I’ve been working on a memoir about meeting the woman who broke up my parents’ marriage, along with her two kids—my half-brother and half-sister—who were kept a secret from my mother during my parents’ marriage, except for the answering machine message I still remember, forever imprinted on my 9-year-old brain.
I’ve been dreaming about my mother, feeling her humiliation, sweating drops of regret. Today I could be her for the worry and fear that wraps around my throat and squeezes.
My thoughts seesaw between the two: What if he’s with someone else? What if something happened to him?
Both are equally irrational; this has happened before when he’s going to be late and he forgets to call and I work myself up into an agitated state and call him a few times, text him a few times, look up every highway he might have taken today to see if there were any fatal accidents reported, and if there were, I panic and make lists of police department numbers I can call if it gets too late and he’s still not home.
And then the door opens and it’s him. Standing. Smiling. Bending to kiss me. My tears are embarrassing then, as are the messages I’ve left on his cell to call me, I’m worried, is he still alive? As though he could answer if he weren’t.
He’s also never given me any reason to believe he would be unfaithful, but when you grow up with the trauma of learning your dad—the man you trusted to love you—has a whole secret family you didn’t know about, you grow up knowing anyone in the world can let you down. Anyone.
Even him.
I search for his location on my “locate iPhone” map. He’s right down the road. I remember now, about the business lunch, the workout. It’s a good sign that he’s late.
I breathe. I survive. I overcome.
One more victory against the past that stretches on.
(Photo by Anton Belashov on Unsplash)
