Displaced: Book 2
The first U turn that changed the course of my life from that day forward.
For the first time in my life, I flew into Seattle and didn’t feel like it was home. I knew I belonged somewhere else. I felt heavy as I managed to smile at the busy travelers when I picked up my coffee. The first sip felt like emotional medicine, warming me. It was another holiday season approaching I was going to have to survive instead of experience. What would normally be my favorite time of the year felt like a distant reality I couldn’t touch. Like it was on the other side of a glass wall. I could see everything and I couldn’t feel any of it. It was another year of me straining to illuminate happiness for my children. It was disheartening as I had spent years making the holidays a tradition they would want to pass onto their kids. Memorable and unforgettable.
The last flight of my three legged U turn was short. I grabbed my bags at customs and waited in line. Hopefully, customs wouldn’t take long. Dylan was waiting for me on the other side. I pulled out my passport and heard the couple in front of me talking about Texas. “Fuck me,” I whispered. “Really?” I couldn’t help but listen to them.
“We had such a good time in Texas. I just love it there. I would move there really, wouldn’t you?” They continued as we moved forward.
Twenty minutes later, Dylan met me at the baggage claim and he quickly had my bags ready to go. He hugged me and I half smiled quietly following him out to the parkade. A Texas license plate appeared to me in the parking lot. “Are you kidding me?” I whispered aloud. “Universe, what are you playing at? This wasn’t my choice. Send the signs elsewhere. They aren’t for me.” Fifteen minutes later we arrived at the Thai restaurant we had agreed to eat at, just the two of us. He knew having the whole family there would be too much for me emotionally.
As we walked in, a Cure song came on. At this point, I was about to have it out with the universe. The one band, Bowie and I connected so closely to. They sat us down at the table and I put the menu aside to order my usual when a tall man brushed by my shoulder and yelled out to the bar, “Order for Bowie!” I sat there, every part of my body chilled to the bone and numb. Was this some sick and twisted joke? I swallowed hard as the tears filled my eyes.
“You okay?” Dylan asked.
“I will be,” I said quietly. My typical answer signaling I am so far from okay, but one day, one day I will be okay. Everything felt unreal.
I wasn’t supposed to be here.
Not in this restaurant.
Not in this town.
I was supposed to be in our bed I put together. The sheets I helped pick out. The comforter I bought. My pillows left behind. Our fish. Our home I had helped put together for four months. I had chosen our place with Bowie, the one he kept telling me to add myself to the lease, was just taken from me. The couch we chose together. The plates, the silverware, the soap dishes, the matching laundry baskets, my bedroom tv, my furniture, my photos, my books, my office, our hopes, our endless conversations about the life we were building…just gone. How come he gets to stay in the home we put together? How come I had to leave all of my stuff, my car, my life and before the holidays?
He promised me his 50th birthday and I had planned this out to the last detail and we would start fresh in January. He promised. I can do this. I took a deep breath.
I think I was in shock. Displaced. I couldn’t feel anything. What just happened? We spent the week laughing, going places, talking about future plans and now I found myself sitting in a Thai restaurant listening to the Cure without Bowie. And all my stuff? My clothes, office, packed up and hidden, like I barely existed.
I somehow made it through dinner and before long we were parked in front of the house. How would I face my kids? What were they going to think? I walked in.
My youngest met me at the door. “Hi,” I managed, forcing a smile before he wrapped his arms around me.
My oldest looked up from his phone on the couch, “Back so soon?”
Dylan set my bags in the hallway and he pointed me towards my youngest son’s old bedroom. “If you need anything, I’m here,” he said.
Most of the house had been packed up.
I opened the door, there was a temporary fold out mattress on the floor surrounded by boxes.
I closed the door, took one step and fell to my knees.
Only the moonlight peered through the window. A damp, cold room filled with packing boxes beneath a broken light fixture. They hadn’t expected me back so soon. I couldn’t believe where I had ended up. I pulled the comforter over me and laid down thinking about how I was in our warm, comfortable bed the night before with the man I loved who continued to say he loved me all the way to the airport. Who made sure I got back safely.
I closed my eyes, tears seeping through my lashes onto the pillow as I thought about how we laughed over dancing together in the living room on Halloween, Bowie’s witty remarks when we were learning to dance, how he was so excited to show me this place in the future that served “fresh” steak, seeing the incredible students he taught on stage and how proud I was of him and those kids, how I had gained a friend at his college and wondered if I would see her again, the fish he had me choose for our tank, the surprise hugs he would give waiting for me, the evenings watching the news together, the hot coffee he handed me in the morning as I stumbled out to the couch, the nights we lay there staring at each other for ages and the times I fell asleep in his arms while he continued to rub my arm in between snores. It was like a long awaited dream ripped from us after everything it took to get there.
Little did I know, this was only the beginning of the next three plot twists that would unfold over the coming weeks.
