“No, look,” Big Anthony said, “I tried this husband and father thing before and I fuckin’ hated it. Being old and doing it again, it is worse than last time. I don’t want to work 7 to 5. I don’t want to do fucking bullshit kids birthday parties. I want to get drunk and be fucking happy for some goddamn portion of my life.”
“I am sorry you aren’t happy,” I shot back. I mean I cannot, even now, pretend like any of this came out of nowhere. I might not have realized that day how close to the surface all of this was. How close to disaster. But I knew my husband didn’t like the life we had. I knew he complained about his responsibilities and his duties all the time. I guess I just convinced myself it was just talk. That he was really happy, just a complainer. “But,” I said, “You made a commitment. You made choices. You have to be here for me. For your son…”
“I might have put that boy into you, but he ain’t mine. He is yours. All yours,” Big Anthony said. I looked quickly over my shoulder. Anthony Jr. was there. Watching. I turned back to my husband. Enraged.
“You son of a bitch…” I started.
“Save it,” Big Anthony interrupted, putting up his hands, “I am leaving.” He turned and started back for the door.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” I asked.
“I didn’t plan this out or anything,” Anthony said, walking with his back towards me and not leaving, “I was just coming home to get changed. But I have had enough of ALL of the bullshit in my life. Might as well just get it all over with now,” he said. And then he was out the door.
I walked out after him, quickly. By the time I got to the driveway, he was already sitting in his truck. The windows were down.
“This doesn’t make any sense, you can’t leave us! Have you lost your goddamned mind?” I asked. He kept looking straight ahead. I grew angrier with each passing moment as he ignored me. I thought about all of the sacrifices I made for the family. All of the things I did to please my husband. And here was just…
“You aren’t a man,” I spat at him, “You are a child.” The words poured like hot lava from my lips. But Big Anthony just sort of shrugged.
“I never wanted to be anything else,” he said. And then he slipped the car into gear and pulled away.
He came back a week later to pick up his clothes, but I’d already burned everything. And that was basically it. I haven’t even seen him in five years.
In a lot of ways, it was very easy to get over Big Anthony. He’d never been much of a husband. He was worse as a father. He was constantly distant, sometimes casually cruel, and a very selfish lover. I think my devotion to him stemmed entirely from the fact that I was a small town girl who’d lost her virginity and gotten knocked up. I was dedicated to the idea of playing house and making it work. I coasted on that for 12 years. But when it was gone, the whole idea of it unraveled quickly. The money he made was the only thing that was hard to replace, I quickly learned.
But, in that moment, while Big Anthony was peeling out of our driveway, I didn’t yet have that perspective. About half of my life had been abruptly ripped away. He was cruel. Cruel to me and to my son, and my heart was aching. And I was embarrassed, embarrassed at myself for being unable to be the wife that, evidently, my husband needed. And sad. Desperately sad because the whole situation just seemed so… tragic. My mind was moving a thousand directions at the same time and none of those places made a bit of sense. I was completely unmoored.
I think that’s why I did what I did next. At the time, I didn’t know what else to do. For years I would regret it. But, at the time, I just dropped my arms to the side, and walked back into the house. Numb, expressionless. I walked into the kitchen and saw that Anthony Jr. was no longer there. I also noticed that tears were streaming down my face and that my throat ached from holding in a wail. I kept moving, finding the stairs and walking up. The door to Anthony Jr.’s room was closed, but I walked in. There was no lock.
Anthony Jr. was lying on his bed, his face to the wall and his back to me. I thought that maybe his shoulders were shuddering, but I couldn’t be totally sure. I walked across the room, the tears falling faster now. A stifled, choking moan escaped me. I saw Anthony Jr. turn slightly, looking over his shoulder. But before he could roll, I had climbed in behind him on the bed. I sort of scooped him up, wrapping my arms around his chest, pulling my legs up behind his. Crying louder now.
“He is gone,” I hear myself saying. I could not tell if Anthony Jr. spoke. I just kept talking, “Your father is gone and he isn’t going to come back. I chased him away. I pushed him and he didn’t want to be pushed and now he is gone.” I cried. I shook my head, tears spraying onto the pillow.
“But we don’t need him,” I said, “We don’t need him because he isn’t a man. You and me are all this family needs,” I didn’t even know if I believed that when I said it, “You are the man of the house now, Anthony Jr. You are all I need. You will take care of your mother. Because you love me.” I said. I poured out all of this into Anthony Jr.’s ear. Saying these… heavy, heavy things that he couldn’t possibly comprehend all at once. I said so much more than that, but basically just the same message with different words. I don’t know how long I spoke. We fell asleep like that though, in Anthony Jr. s’ bed.