I Should Have Left

"Come in, please. I'm sorry it's so late in the day; when I got your text for an emergency appointment I knew it couldn't wait. What has happened?"

"Jessica? You said you'd had a breakthrough. What happened?"

"Jessica?"

"It's fine. You are safe here. Take some breaths. We go at your pace."

"I should have left."

"You should have left."

"I should have left."

"I hear you saying that you should have left. Can you tell me more?"

"All that time. All that wasted time. I should have left."

"There was a place and time that you realized you should have left."

"There was something that you didn't leave and now realize that you wanted yourself to have left."

"The first time, the very first time. I should have left."

"Here's some more tissues. We can sit. We can wait. I see the effort you're making to stay calm. This is a safe space, Jessica. You are safe."

"I just... I didn't...it was just a normal day. Just normal. Our anniversary, sure, but we didn't always make a big deal... the girls, the holidays. He didn't always remember. So I waited."

"You waited."

"I waited until after dinner. Then I gave him the box. Because even if he didn't get me a gift it was our anniversary, you know? It was a special day and I'd bought the gift, and I didn't want him to think I forgot and I wanted him to have them because I'd saved to buy them and it had been so long since we'd gotten nice things and I thought he'd be happy and I didn't know... I didn't know... I didn't know what he'd, didn't think that he'd... it had been a good day and the kids were watching TV and there was a snow day...how could I know what he would what he'd what he would say?"

"Do you need more tissues? Here. You weren't prepared for what he'd say."

"He just looked at me. Just looked at me. At the box on the bed. Just looked at me. In the doorway with the stupid box and the stupid bow. At his stupid wife on ... on our anniversary with a stupid, a stupid..."

"He just just just looked at me and said and said, he said he didn't love me."

"I should have left."

"But he couldn't have meant it. It made no sense. It was a thing, things happen, ten years and they were, I was, the girls, Christmas, I bought, surprise, he said. I I I I should have left."

"You've made a discovery about your actions after your husband said he didn't love you on your anniversary."

"Yes. Yes. Yes. Are you not listening? All these year, all of those years. All of that time. The cold. The silence. The hate. The trying. The prayers. The time. The time the time the time. I thought I could fix it I thought I could fix me I thought if I just tried. If I just changed. If I was skinnier. If I was better. Better wife. Better mother. Better Christian. Better better better better me. If I was better he would fall in love with me again. I thought he was wrong."

"You thought he was mistaken and that things would go back to as they were before. You didn't leave. You have discovered that you want that past you to have done something differently."

"I was, they, they were so little, we, I, they, we promised. We I promised, you don't quit. You don't quit when it gets hard. You. You."

"Why?"

"Why? Why does everyone leave me? What is wrong with me?"

"I tried. So small, it was small too. So small and easy to get messed up. Just keep it clean. Just keep things clean. Be quiet. Stay clean. Just listen. My GOD just listen and no one will be angry and everything will be ok and he won't LEAVE. He said he was leaving in NINE MONTHS. Who does that? Who says they are leaving in nine months? That's a whole time to grow a baby in nine months. They were so small. I was. Scared. Sad. Who was I?"

"I should have left."

"You regret the decisions you made over thirty five years ago."

"I regret everything about then. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to do. There was no talking there were just his plans and I thought. If we could be normal. Stopped eating. Quiet. Quiet. Church. Be easy. Make things clean and easy. So angry. So angry. I was angry at him. At them. They had no idea. How could I? How could I tell them he was leaving? NINE MONTHS of leaving. Summer, and amusement parks, and beaches, and--- and I thought one last Summer that they could remember with everyone together. I see the pictures of then and they looked happy. They were happy. They didn't know."

"You made the decision to keep this from your children."

"Yes. Yes yes of course. And, what if? And he did he did. Two weeks before he was going to leave he changed his mind so it worked. I was right. He wanted it to work, all of it would work, and they didn't know. So we would all be OK. We would be a family again, and nothing would change, and church. And family and mom and dad and it was all ok."

"It was the right thing to do. You felt good then about what you decided to do."

"Of course. Yes. Yes. It was hard though to be, you know. It had been so long and he hadn't touched, I mean, but that's what couples do, right? So we, and it seemed, but it, I thought it would be good again. but. And then the mix tape, the phone calls, that heart pin. Folding the laundry and I could feel it hot in my hand through his jeans. Still hot from the dryer. That pin. And, and I woke him up. I wasn't crazy. That heart still hot from the dryer . It was there it was real. Got it at a movie. What what what movie? We didn't do movies. What movie? In his work jeans. A lie a lie a lie there cooling in my hand. Stupid. Nothing works. Nothing works."

"I should have left."