I had avoided meeting up with friends since my stint in the insane asylum. In fact, I had ignored the messages they left for so long that my voice mail box was full and no longer taking new messages. I didn’t care. What would I say to people? Long time no see, been kind of busy, I was locked up for being crazy? I knew avoiding the problem wouldn’t make it go away, so the first call I made was to the friend I’d had since childhood.

Mary and I have known each other since we were two years old. She is like a sister to me. I trust that she will accept me as I am, that she will listen to me, but also call bullshit when I’m not completely honest.

“It’s me.” I said.

“Oh, hey.” Mary replied. I could sense she was irritated. “Are you ready to do this?”

“Do what?” I replied, but I knew what she meant. I just wanted a second to think.

“Talk.” She was direct.

“Ok. Let’s take a walk or hike, and then do lunch. I’ll talk.” We arranged to meet at a local walking path.

I hadn’t seen her in months but she looked the same. She was perky and fun to be around. To see us together was an interesting contrast of two middle-aged women. She was average height and I was a little taller. Where she was fair-skinned, I was tan. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and pretty sparkling blue eyes while my hair was long and dark. My brown eyes were somewhat sad these days. She was busty with thin legs, whereas I was thin up and down, with smaller boobs. (Boobs that I fully intended to keep).

She had her don’t-bullshit-me face on. I knew that look. She’d want me to spill the beans. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“How have you been?” She asked.

“Fine. You know, keeping busy.” I replied.

“What’s going on? I didn’t come for nothing. You said you were ready to do this.”

So I told her about Wayne locking me up in a psych ward.

“Yeah, I knew that.” She brushed it off dismissively. “Why would he do that? What happened on that day?” she demanded.

“I just think things got out of hand. He took me to the ED and I woke up in a psych ward.”

“Why would he do that?” she wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” was the answer I gave.

“He called me. Told me you had a breakdown. You wanted time to recover. I didn’t know what to think, especially since I didn’t hear from you.” She was speaking in terse, short sentences.

“I know. I just needed some time.” I replied.

She asked, “Did you know Bruce called me when it happened?”

My mind briefly flashed to an image of Bruce, Wayne’s best friend of many years. Like Mary and I, Bruce and Wayne were dissimilar to look at, but moreover Bruce himself was a contradiction. Built like a body builder, he looked a lot like Johnny Bravo, but a somewhat effeminate version. He had mannerisms that made him appear wimpy, or almost girly. He was a man very much in tune with his emotions, and often more emotional than his wife, who we were also friends with.

I was surprised to hear that. “What do you mean? How would Bruce get your number?”

“I don’t know. He called me and said that I had to promise Wayne would never know that we talked,” she stated.

“Really?”

“He asked me what was going on. According to Bruce, Wayne called him that weekend and told him you were in a mental hospital. Wayne had a list of people he was calling about your condition. He swore each of them to secrecy. He claimed he would know if any of them leaked the information.” She paused, but I said nothing.

She continued on, “Bruce said he was shocked at what was happening. He asked me if I knew what the hell Wayne was doing, but I didn’t know anything. I told Bruce that we’d gone hiking a few days before that, and you were fine. You seemed a little stressed about work, but otherwise fine. We were both shocked to hear Wayne locked you up and that you’d had a mental breakdown. We couldn’t believe you needed to be locked up. It just didn’t make sense to us.”

As she told me more details, it became clear that everyone got a similar message as Scarlett — I could be mentally damaged for life — butt out, or you’d be cut out — and never see me again. So apparently Bruce had raised his right hand and was sworn in to the Nikita secret.

Christmas and New Year’s evoke images of bright, shiny, and hopeful, but mine would come to reflect the dullness of a bad hangover.

Decorating the house for the holidays was always a thing for us. We would all go pick out a tree, fighting for hours, choosing the perfect one. The kids would pull down the decorations from our attic. Then everyone would shirk the decorating duties and leave it to me – just me!

One night Alex sent me a picture. She had bought a tree and decorated it alone. I cried when I saw the picture, for so many reasons. I was touched that she was trying to make me happy. It made me sad that this was an attempt by her as well to hold on to those traditions. Yet clearly we were broken. It felt a little pathetic. The next day I went to the house to help decorate and make things more festive. We could certainly use some good cheer.

I told no one about my doctor appointment. With Alex going to college next fall and Ben coming home for the holiday, I wanted to bask in the calm and togetherness while we were still spending time together. We needed time together to repair the damage and try to get past what had happened.

I felt the heavy burden of being the cause of all the family drama and upset. All the fracture lines were my fault. That burden felt like carrying 100 pounds on my back. Cancer would be another burden to drop on my family and I couldn’t stand the idea of being the center of upheaval again. So I enjoyed the holiday, forcing myself not to think about the next steps. This was more a matter of putting it off for later, than thinking this could be my last holiday with my family. My thoughts were really week to week and nothing longer out.

Because of the separation and Wayne’s fight with my dad, our Christmas routine changed significantly this year. Normally we would spend Christmas Eve with Bruce and his wife, but this year, Wayne decided we would stay home. I didn’t ask – avoiding a potential fight for the sake of peace – and he didn’t say why.

Having learned from Mary the secret handshake between our friends and Wayne, I could guess at the reasons why we didn’t share Christmas Eve with them. I could go crazy which would embarrass Wayne, and image is everything to him. Maybe he wanted to respect my privacy. Maybe they’d know nothing was really wrong with me and that would put him in a jam. People might judge his actions. Or maybe they’d hear my side of the story and he wanted to control the narrative. Regardless, we stayed home.

On Christmas day, we’d wake up and spend some time together as a family, just the four of us, then we’d have brunch together at my brother’s home with his family and my parents. This year Wayne boycotted the Christmas morning tradition of going to Casper’s house for Swedish pancakes and Sausage Bread brunch. Brunch continued, minus Wayne, as the kids and I went to Casper’s.

Christmas was much more my time of year than Wayne’s. I enjoyed spoiling everyone in my family, and spent enough money for both of us. He was normally fine with spending money for the family and friends, but this year he was too cheap to spend money on anyone. I found it odd, but continued the tradition of being Santa in our house. I did all the gift shopping, wrapping, and stocking stuffing. If I didn’t do it, Christmas wouldn’t happen.

Years earlier, Wayne and I had agreed that we would not buy each other gifts. However, that becomes difficult as children grow and wonder why Santa didn’t leave a gift for mom or dad. So I put gifts out for Wayne. Wayne never seemed to feel awkward about his lack of gift giving. He was appreciative of my effort and thanked me for it, but never felt compelled to reciprocate. Some years he would write a love letter or get me a card. Often he would suggest we go on vacation as a gift to ourselves, but we didn’t seem to make that happen.

Maybe because it had been a tough year for me, or maybe now as adults they were seeing the inequity, regardless, this year on Christmas Eve the kids noticed that there were no gifts for mom. The kids were probably more sensitive to me being an underdog and needing extra care, so they took themselves shopping and bought me some UGG boots and smart wool socks. As adults now, with their own money, this was the first year they’d purchased gifts for anyone on their own. I loved their lavish gifts and really appreciated being in their thoughts. They seemed thankful for the gifts from us, as well.

Christmas dinner would normally be prime rib at our house and include my parents and Casper’s family. This year, it was just the four of us, my parents and brother’s family uninvited. Wayne’s decision to cut my family out of his life was very upsetting, particularly on Christmas, as we celebrated alone.

I knew that Wayne had a chip on his shoulder in regards to my family. The fight made it awkward for him, he felt it was my family against him. And he was pissed. There was a shift in his demeanor. He almost seemed as if he felt guilty about something as well. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt like there was something I just wasn’t seeing. His behavior was different. He had more interest in his phone, keeping it with him all the time and taking calls in the bedrooms. He bought a German-to-English dictionary. Was he planning a trip? Was he translating documents? Learning a new language? He had a padded envelope to mail that he was guarding closely and wouldn’t let me take it to the post office. I put these items up to him being distant from me and being annoyed at me, so I didn’t spend time adding up all these odd behaviors.

The dining table was beautifully decorated, the tableware and napkins artfully displayed. It looked so festive, but felt sad as just the four of us sat down to eat. Normally our kitchen would be filled with people, voices, laughter, and fun. Tonight it was a shadow of its former self with the four of us together. Everyone sat down to silence. I was reminded of “Silent Night”. We randomly sat around the table. Tonight, Alex was at the head of the table. Wayne and Ben sitting across from each other next to Alex. I sat next to Ben.

I started to talk, in what would become a speech. I took a deep breath for courage and decided to talk about the elephant in the room. I looked at each of them as I shared how I felt.

“I want you to know how much I love you guys. I want you to know how very sorry I am for what has been going on,” and tears started to well up in my eyes, but I continued on.

“I’m not sure how all this came to be, but I feel bad about it. I know I am responsible for your suffering. No one likes to admit when they are wrong, but I am doing that. I’m doing what I can to fix the problem. I acknowledge that this mess is my fault.”

By this time, the tears were free flowing down my face and I was starting to get messy. I felt my nose start to run.

Ben reached his arm over and put it around me and hugged me. His gesture was touching and generous but made me feel worse and I started crying harder. Children are not meant to console their parents. I am supposed to be the strong one. Moms are supposed to console their children.

My words were sincere. I knew that I had to be the one to build a bridge. I had to be the one to be “wrong” and accept the blame. Someone had to apologize, and say they were wrong, before we could all move forward. I didn’t do anything wrong, but I was the “bigger person”. I could carry the burden of being blamed. And I accepted my penance.

As I prepared for bed that night, in my home, I told Wayne, “It’s been really nice to be here with our family today and tonight I can sleep in our bed. I want to be back with my family. I want us to heal as a family, but we can’t do that if I’m not here.”

Wayne didn’t reply. He just looked at me with a measured look for a minute, then said he was going to watch TV.

While Wayne stayed up late watching television, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I looked to his side of the bed, smiling, feeling good to be home. But he was already up and dressed, the only evidence of his presence the tangled sheets.

I just stayed that one night in my home over the break, but I spent every day with Alex and Ben while they were home for the holidays. Knowing what I’d be facing soon, I cherished every minute with my children, no matter how mundane the activity. Normally Wayne would have taken time off for the holidays, but I think he wanted some space.

While Wayne was acting distant now, I knew that he would be by my side for moral support and comfort as I went down this cancer journey.

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash

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