I can't reply to emails yet, my heart is spread dangerously thin. I'm the thinnest ice at the edge of the lake in spring, the translucent kind that cracks if you walk on it, the kind that will drown you so please, just stay away from the edge.
I'm still alive. The second hand moves, time goes on, Bridget can exist forever in shock. As long as I stay here, I won't fall through the ice.
Jacob had asked me to meet him at church late last Wednesday evening, to get PJ to come over to the house to be there since the kids were sleeping and that it would be only for an hour or two. Sometimes he liked to talk there. Big long talks about life.
What's on your mind, Jake?
Self-preservation, Princess.
And then he told he was leaving me, leaving us, leaving everything behind.
That I was stronger than he was. That he had engineered just about every fall I took, organizing my setbacks and that Cole and Caleb's behavior fell into step perfectly. That he took me away from everything that was familiar on purpose. That he resented me for consuming his every breath for ten years.
That he was obsessed with me, that I was not God and I was not supposed to come first.
That I was killing him. Because he loved me too much. Because it made him sick to touch me knowing how badly I've been hurt before and he wanted to kill people who hurt me and that scared him. Because I'm too fragile for him to ever treat any differently. Because he couldn't stem his jealousy and he knew I could never choose between him and my friends and he worked so hard to try and make me completely dependent on him and he had failed and in the end he became completely dependent on me.
And now he had to go. Because I messed him up. Because he cannot breathe without me in his arms and I always felt the same way and I told him it didn't matter, that when you're in love you don't breathe normal air and he looked at me and shook his head and told me that I wasn't understanding him, that I was killing him, I was destroying him, because he loved me too much. Me. And because I do better when he isn't around. I function, I don't lean. I'm healthier.
How do you love someone too much?
He gave me a card that had a time written on it, an appointment already made with our lawyer and he told me not to miss it, that it was incredibly important that I go.
He said he would be gone the next day and oh, how he loved me, how he loved us and he always would but it was time for him to run now and he won't be coming back.
He wept. He put his arms around me and held me so tight and he wept for failing to succeed at the one thing he ever wanted because he told me he was a coward and a weakling and a failure.
Yeah. You fucking are. and I still love you. So, so much.
I walked out on him. I came back to the house and PJ asked me what was wrong and I lied to him and he went home and I sat in the corner all night, eyes wide open, letting panic wash over me like cold saltwater. I looked at my wedding ring and I realized that there would be no changing Jacob's mind because he was running from me for good, no do-overs and no chance to work this one out. That he had fooled me and ruined me too and that we would never see each other again. Right at that moment my heart stopped beating for good, I think. I won't ever live again like the way I did when I thought that Jacob loved me the way you're supposed to love the one you're with.
Early the next morning Jacob called and asked me with a broken voice just to leave long enough for him to get his things. That he couldn't see me. That he loved me. I didn't go back to the house at all that day. I took the kids and told PJ what happened and we stayed at PJ's mom's house overnight and then I went back to the house the next day alone after taking the kids to school and almost everything of Jacob's was gone except for a few books and clothing, his ring and a letter for me. He took the truck.
He went to Sam and told him he was quitting, and he disappeared from our lives in one day.
He didn't say goodbye.
I kept the appointment and went to see the lawyers who gravely asked me to sit down and then began to pass papers across the table that spelled out the finality of my love and the destruction of dreams Jacob had painted for me. Some of the papers I had to sign. The adoptions have been revoked, our separation underway, the house is in my name alone suddenly, and all of the money transferred back to me. I went underwater while the voices droned on and on in a soothing hum, ending with a no worries tone that made me want to smash the pretty glass doors on that office until they understood that I don't care about the money. Fuck the money, I want my Jacob.
There is no waking up from this.
There will be no mending of this heart. There is no consoling of the children. At first I told them he had to take a long trip but he would be back. I lied to them because it seemed like the safest thing to do because they were asking questions and I couldn't wait for the counselor to return my calls. I waited until weekend family therapy and with help I told them what he had really done.
I wish he would just come home, but I know this time it's vastly different. He isn't coming back. This isn't fixable. I know how he gets when the world crowds in and he runs. Maybe we were doomed from the start. We both said we were, everyone else said we were and it was a marriage masquerading as a ticking time bomb, a spoiled carton of milk with an expiry date long passed and I thought I remembered asking for the kind that keeps forever.
How in the fuck can you love someone too much? He loved me, of that I've never been more sure. The one thing he left me with is the knowledge that I have experienced life on a higher level and lived a love deeper than I ever thought possible.
Chris told me to treat him like he's dead. They're all scared to death that I'm going to sit here and just wait out the rest of my life for Jacob to return. Bless their hearts, they have stepped in, kept the kids busy and been here, but I haven't broken down, I haven't done much of anything except sleep on borrowed medicine and hope that I'd wake up to find Jacob here where he belongs.
I would still take him back. I don't care if everyone hates him, I don't care if none of it works or if I struggle for the rest of my life, I wanted him in it. I fell in love with his heart first and then the rest of him, against the best advice and the biggest obstacles.
And he gave up on me because it got too hard. Because he had guilt. Because when it came down to choosing between Bridget and God, God must win. Don't you see that? If he picks Bridget he gives up everything he stands for and everything he is and he can't figure out how to exist peacefully loving both of us. Because God is not as tough a customer as Bridget. He rarely talks back and he's predictable and benign and all-forgiving.
And easier. God is easier. No one ever becomes obsessed with God, but everyone seems to be obsessed with Bridget. I am my own religion. The cult people run screaming from.
I'm doing okay. I find myself double-booked for therapy for the coming week, PJ is playing dispenser and has taken every last pill, all the climbing ropes and everything but the smallest paring knife out of the house and everyone is wonderful. Ben had to fly out tonight but he'll be home for good in a couple more weeks, and really as long as the shock holds out I can function, maybe because it still feels unreal. Kind of like when Cole died only this time I know Jacob's out there somewhere and just doesn't want to be with me. It's harder than death.
Nights are the worst but I've got my phone and I've got my boys who are a call away and I've got sleep that is broken but sometimes full of wonderful dreams and in each and everyone one of them Jacob is still here and that's what keeps me going. It's all I have left.
