3. CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 3
Rose
I called the kids and neither of them picked up. I didn't expect them to. I left a voicemail, even though they'd told me not to do that because " No one leaves voicemails these days, Mama ." But it seemed wrong to say what I needed over a text message.
"Jude, son, I know you're busy, and I'm sorry for bothering you. I just wanted to tell you that I'm leaving…your father. I…it's all my fault. This will be a surprise to him as it is to you. I need a little time, and once I have settled in, I'll be in touch again. I know this will make you angry, and I'm so sorry for that, my baby. I love you very much."
I left a similar message for Willow.
There was no point in calling Gray. When he was in the office, his cell phone went straight to Aimee without a Y, and she always politely told me that Gray was busy and asked if I wanted to leave a message. I never did because when I had, he'd told me he preferred not to be disturbed at work unless it was an emergency.
I'd called him once on the day of our anniversary, hoping he'd remember and say something, do something, stop me from making the decision I was reluctant to make, even though I knew I had to. But Aimee had not let my call through. I'd sent a text, but Gray missed it, as he did so many of my messages during the years.
After the call to Willow, I set my phone down on the dining table next to the envelope that now held what would be my past life. I looked at the house I'd made a home for us for the past fifteen years, the home that had become a claustrophobic prison where loneliness ate at me.
I had no regrets—none about what I was doing or how I was doing it. I was doing this for myself, in the way that felt right for me. After twenty years of serving my family, I’d earned the right to disappear.
When I stopped at a gas station to fill up my car, I texted Malou on my new and used two-generations-old smartphone that I bought on Amazon.
According to Gray and my prenup, if I asked for a divorce, I could take nothing with me. Gray's mother had told me so time and again. It was something Gray teased me about when I used to say some other man looked handsome. It always hurt that he joked that I was with him because of that stupid agreement. I'd signed whatever they put in front of me. I didn't care. I was marrying the love of my life, the father of the babies inside me; I didn't care whether he was a Rutherford or a teller at Piggly Wiggly. He was my man.
I should have added that to the note, I thought.
Maybe I should have also told him that I'd pay him back for the car, or perhaps he could just take it. I couldn't afford a Mercedes, even if it was years old. I couldn't pay the insurance, not right now. Maybe in a few months once I found my feet.
"You need to buy a new car, Mama. This is a piece of shit," Jude had said more than once.
"It's fine for me," I told him.
I'd heard him snicker with his sister behind my back. "Old and beaten. It probably is fine for her."
How had I gone so wrong with my babies? Why had I not raised them better—so they'd respect their mother like they respected their father?
"They learn to treat you based on how your husband does," my therapist had told me.
Oh yeah, I started seeing Dr. Mercer a year ago, after waking up one morning and wishing I never would again. I had started to look longingly at the Ambien that my primary doctor had prescribed when I told him I was having trouble sleeping. Whenever I drove, I wondered why I couldn't be in an accident like the ones I saw where it was clear that someone died. Why couldn't I take Malou's cancer so she could live because I didn't really want to anymore? One day, I counted fifteen pills of Ambien, put them in front of me next to a glass of water, and contemplated taking them. I didn't ultimately, but that's when I knew that things had gotten out of hand.
My therapist told me I was depressed. I was prescribed anti-depressants, which I took stealthily, which wasn't hard to do when I all but lived alone.
The medication had helped stabilize me and given me clarity to reach this life-changing decision: to end my previous life and embark on a new one, one that was for me , where I wasn't always doing something for someone else. I would be able to and intended to do whatever made me happy. I'd be independent and live the best life I could.
I'd run my friend Malou's Angel's Rest Bed that's all there is to it."
But they were not busy for him .
Even when they visited, Gray and the kids talked at the dinner table while I sat mute, watching my family with pride like I had something to do with how close they were. I became used to being invisible. And after a while, it became comfortable, a cloak that I often put on.
We went to work dinners and family events, and I dressed right, spoke when I was spoken to and disappeared into the wallpaper.
Oh, I heard the whispers.
At forty-two, Gray was a handsome, wealthy man. At nearly forty, I looked my age. I may have learned to buy and wear designer clothes, figured out how to eat with the right fork, and pair wine with food, but I was still Rose May from one of the poorest trailer parks in Atlanta, the same one they'd torn down a few years back because it was a health hazard.
"I just can't wrap my head around him stickin' with her, you know? I'd have thought he'd have moved on."
"You know she trapped him, don't you? She got pregnant."
"Maybe she gives good head. You know she grew up in West End."
"Well, imagine a Rutherford marryin' trailer park trash?"
"You know he's steppin' out on her, don't ya? I heard someone saw him at the Marriott with…(someone)."
According to the grapevine, there was always someone my husband was supposedly having an affair with. I didn’t believe it. I didn’t even ask Gray, because that would feel like an insult to our marriage, to us. And asking might mean hearing an answer that could break my heart.
I rolled down the car window when my eyes got heavy, to let the cool air wake me up. I increased the volume on the sound system and sang as loudly as I could.
" Done lost everything… ." Yeah, it was very à propos for me to sing Bad Luck and Trouble along with John Lee Hooker 'cause I had lost everything so I could find myself.