One #3
I want to say something that will undo this, or at least make it make sense. But all I can manage is: “Just go.”
He nods. He leaves the laundry with shoulders hunched as though he is the injured party in all of this, and I hear the thud of his shoes on the stairs, the opening and closing of dresser drawers, the hurried zip of a suitcase.
Ten minutes later he comes down, backpack slung over one shoulder and the suitcase handle in the other. He doesn’t look at me when he passes through the kitchen.
He stops in the living room. I hear him kneel, the creak of the couch, and then, quietly, “Hey, bud. I have to go into work tonight. Something came up.”
Leo: “Will you be back for breakfast?”
Ethan: “I’ll try.”
Leo: “Okay. Love you.”
“Love you too,” Ethan says, and then, softer, “Tell Mom I love her too.”
Leo must hear something in his voice as I hear him ask quietly: “Are you coming back?”
But Ethan is already out the door.
The front door closes, and the house is quiet. I stand at the washer for a long time. That’s the thing about survival. You never realize it’s happening until it’s the only thing left you know how to do.
Leo drifts through his usual bedtime routine with only one question about his dad. When I brush it off, he nods, already onto the next thing, a book about snakes he wants read for the third night in a row.
We do the reading. He stops me every two pages to ask if the snake in question could kill a T-Rex, or if there are snakes alive today with venom strong enough to melt a bus, or if snakes have feelings the way people do.
I tell him yes, definitely, and maybe, all with a voice so calm you’d think nothing at all was different about tonight.
When the story ends, he asks for water, and I get it for him, because that is what I have always done. He takes the glass with both hands, drinks half, and hands it back without spilling.
“Will Dad tuck me in when he gets home?” he asks, voice small but direct enough that I have to hide a flinch.
“He won’t be home tonight hun,” I say as I feel my heart break all over again for my little boy.
Leo considers this. “You can do it, then.”
I tuck him in. Pull his blanket up to his chin, his favourite plush beside him, one corner of the pillow folded under for luck. When I lean down to kiss his hair, he smells like apples and peanut butter, and I have to close my eyes, so no tears sneak past my guard.
On the way out, he calls after me: “Can you leave the hall light on?”
“Of course.”
The light switches on with a soft click. I close his door halfway, just enough so he can see the glow.
Downstairs, the kitchen is clean. There is no evidence left of dinner except for the faint garlic in the air.
I fill the kettle and make tea, because the script says that’s what people do when they need to think.
I don’t drink it. I just let the mug sit on the table, the steam thinning into nothing.
The house is so quiet. I go through the mail, sorting Ethan’s envelopes from mine.
I restack them, then restack again. I look at the fridge.
The drawing Leo made last week is still there, a green crayon dinosaur with a lopsided smile, held up by a pineapple magnet.
I trace the lines of it with one finger.
The supplements are next to the kettle. Folic acid, prenatal vitamins, things I’d started taking months ago because the doctor said it was smart to get ahead.
I pick up the bottle, feel its weight in my hand, and hold it for a long time.
I try to imagine a version of myself that would laugh at this moment or at least roll her eyes.
But all I can do is put the bottle gently in the bin, like it might break if I’m not careful.
I don’t call anyone. I don’t think I could stomach the questions or admitting just how blind I have been.
I sit at the kitchen table, the cold tea in front of me, and I watch the sky go from blue to black through the narrow window over the sink.
It’s not the affair that keeps replaying in my head. Not even the part where he said he never wanted another child. It’s the bag, packed in five minutes flat, no hesitation or pause to think through his choices. I keep trying to remember the last time he fought for anything.
Maybe that’s all it was. Years of getting so good at forgiving that I forgot what it felt like to be fought for.
When the house is fully dark except for the hall light and the soft glow of the streetlamp outside, I let myself breathe. I’m not angry. Not even sad, not exactly. I’m just…
…done.
This is what’s left: clean dishes, quiet house, dinosaur drawing, and a silence that feels more honest than any apology could ever be.
Maybe forgiveness was never the same thing as safety.
Maybe I called it that for so long I forgot there was a difference.
I sit with that for a while. I sit with it until I feel my eyes drift closed as I sit at the table, forcing me to put myself to bed. The strangest part? When I curl up under my blanket, the tears don’t come. My thoughts remain perfectly, blessedly, still.