The Earring

Book 6 Part 2

There were times when I lashed out in anger. As we cleaned our house in preparation for a move whose deadline was only two days away, David said, "Why didn't you start cleaning sooner?" He was referring to the fact that no cleaning was done in the first two weeks after we were given the ultimatum. We'd been packing and doing other things, but left the cleaning for last. He'd left the timeline in my hands, simply following orders. Demoralized by his actions, he'd abdicated his leadership role.

"Well, excuse me," I retorted. "If you had chosen to reveal your affair earlier then I could have gotten an earlier start."

I didn't know his eyes could get any bleaker. The look he shot me gave the impression of a whiteout blizzard blowing inside him. He didn't say a word. He just walked off. He didn't come back for hours.

His departure led me straight from anger into bargaining. "Just bring him back, God," I prayed. "I need his help. Heck, I need his love and support. I'll do better."

I had studied Kubler-Ross's stages of grief. I knew that there was never a straight progression from denial to anger to bargaining to depression and finally to acceptance. Still the reality left me rattled. Every time I thought I was approaching the light at the end of the tunnel, I would regress to an earlier stage. My path through grief was more like meandering through a canyon following the route cut by an ancient river rather than following a straight road planned by the department of transportation.

Dealing with the fallout of our forced move heightened my sorrow. We concluded at that first family-night planning session that Josh and Zach would be left behind in Billings to complete their respective school years. Two of my babies were going to leave the nest prematurely. I was bereft. When Faith was told, she was livid. She insisted that she too would stay in Billings with her brothers.

"I like my school, too," she said, her arms crossed and her mouth in a straight line.

"I know you do, Babe," I said. "But you're not ready to take care of yourself yet. You still need your Mama."

"I'm not a baby," she said. "So you can quit calling me babe. I can get dressed by myself. I know how to make cereal and macaroni and cheese. I can make a peanut butter sandwich, too. If I have a stool I can do the dishes and put clothes in the washing machine. I can make my bed."

She turned and ran from the room. I wearily followed. She met me in the hall coming back from her bedroom. She was carrying her piggy bank. She held it out to me.

"I have some money in here. I can help pay for things."

I took her piggy bank and sat it on the floor. I squatted in front of her and tried another tack.

"I know you're a big girl," I said. "You know how to do a lot of things, but I'll be lonely if you stay here. I need you to keep me from being sad and having eyes like Eyore's."

Her brow wrinkled, and she squinted at me.

"Well," she said. "Daddy already has Eyore's eyes."

"I know. Do you want us both to be sad?"

"You already are." She stated the obvious truth.

"But I'll be even sadder without you to cheer me up," I said. "You can tell me jokes. Zach won't be there to do that."

"Knock, knock," she said.