Friday, October 6, 2017

The Infamous Straw on the Camel's Back

It was a promise and a rose.
His company Christmas party was the reason he could not make it to his son’s Christmas program. I sat on the front row, smiling, taking pictures and trying to ignore the fact that other husbands and fathers were there to watch their little ones up on the stage belt out a warbling rendition of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.
 Our boy panicked his eyes wide with stage fright as he stared out at the crowd from his place on stage. He caught my eye and bolted from the stage, his fake reindeer antlers floppy with the movement as he ran and flung himself in my arms, his heart beating rapidly. I comforted him, tried not to laugh and promised him everything was going to be okay.
His daddy called at two in the morning, obviously inebriated, wanting a ride home. I went and picked him up, my co-dependency personality over-ruling my common sense, and he gave me a rose he had picked up from the gas station. It was red, wrapped in cellophane, the petals bruised.
 I wanted to tell him I was done, but I caved and said thank you. 
While he slept off his holiday party, I sat in the front room tucked into the recliner, going over all the reasons I should leave and battling the part of me that was afraid to be on my own. 
Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, puzzle pieces connected as I stared at the battered rose lying on the table next to me.
I was done. I had trusted him, ignored the whispers I heard, gotten angry at people that tried to tell me the truth and too stupid to realize that every red rose was a distraction to keep me from knowing what he had been doing.

In the end, I put away the dreams of happily ever after, I cried a river of tears and made sacrifices I never dreamed I would have to make. I had to walk away if I was going to keep that promise to my son.
It was going to be okay.