Enough is Enough
Enough is Enough
“Money and dick! Money and dick! That’s all you ever want from me is money and dick!”
The first three words shocked me, drawing my attention down the hall towards him, but all I could see was my oldest daughter’s scared and hurt-filled eyes standing behind him as he stormed past me, continuing his rant. When he picked up the dining room chair, slamming it full-force into the countertop, I didn’t watch it hit the ground, flipping, before settling atop the linoleum. Instead, all I could see was my two younger daughters, crying, crouched in the corner of their bedroom floor. Standing in the hallway at their doorway, I was at an intersection of input—he, now in the living room, crashes coming from behind me, meeting my right ear; his aftermath, beside me in the dining room, the crippled chair angled four feet away at my back left; two daughters in the corner, hands burying faces in my right peripheral; and one at the end of the hall in front of me, just outside her room—the oldest—frantically calculating what she should do next, but unable to move.
“Come here, baby.” I said, holding my hands out to her as she ran to me without pause. Guiding her by the shoulder, we joined her sisters.
“It’s okay, babies, it’s okay. I know it’s scary, so we’re gonna leave. Y’all grab your backpacks and a hairbrush and go wait for me in the Explorer. I’ve gotta go get my purse from my room. I’ll be right there. You remember the code to unlock the doors, right, Meme?”
“Yes.” She mumbled
“Ok, good. Go!”
“Okay, Mommy.” They sniveled, nodding, trembling.
As we entered the hall, I realized he was now in what used to be our bedroom. I ushered the girls left towards the front door and took myself to the right to face the clatter and screeches coming from my room. I opened the door in time to see my full-sized mattress hit the ceiling fan, the beams of light flickering out briefly before darting across the walls at odd angles, the mattress landing askew across the box frame. I froze. He continued as if he hadn’t noticed me, grabbing the alarm clock from the dresser, shattering it against the floor, then stomping it further into pieces.
“Jesse, stop!” I cried, reaching my purse and cell phone.
“Where are you going?” He growled, turning towards me, lunging, me at my night stand. I jumped backwards into the open doorway.
“I’m leaving!” I wailed, “You’re out of control!”
“Give me the keys, Marley.” He calmly demanded.
“No.” I refused, backing further into the hall.
His grief and anger was guttural, escaping his throat against his will as his need to destroy returned to its previous intensity. He snatched my laptop bag from the floor, hammering it into wide arcs by the strap as he beat the bag and its contents against the dresser, the walls, the floor. My heart dropped to my feet. The external hard drive… my photos. I dribbled my heart between my feet, forward along the hallway with me to the door, mourning the pictures of the children he had likely destroyed, but more than that, mourning the loss of innocence, happiness, and security my special little three were facing as they anxiously awaited me outside.
We drove the two miles to school in silence, all equally rattled, but Mom gathering her wits, knowing she’d have to calm three traumatized children somehow before sending them off to school.
He moved out the day before what should’ve been, and maybe technically still was, our eleven-year anniversary. I had told him three months prior that I wanted a divorce. Over ten years of lies, disappointments, and an uneven tilt when it came to providing for the family, had finally pressed me to my limits with our marriage. There were good times, don’t get me wrong. We created three beautiful children and they were undoubtedly created out of love, but that love was tightly woven into a mesh of problems. I was young and toxic when we married, misguided and overwhelmed, but hopeful throughout our child-bearing years, and determined to avoid becoming a statistic or rob my children of a wholesome, unbroken home every minute in between “I do” and “I don’t.”
I had grown to resent him. I pushed my resentment down for years. Every so often, it would flare out of me and we would separate, but our separations were always short-lived. I was too scared—scare of being alone, scared of being solely responsible for my kids and failing them, and scared of him abandoning them because he’s not with me. The hardest part of my decision to divorce him was hating myself for making my daughters simulate the experience I had had growing up without a father. I hoped that he would straighten out his life and have a home for them to spend time with him in, but I knew better. I always knew that without me to care for him, he’d land in a gutter and drift down a drain, off the face of the planet. I didn’t want that for them.
I felt like a selfish bitch for putting my happiness before theirs. No amount of reasoning could fully convince me that my happiness was also what was best for them, that living through years of broken glasses and furniture was more detrimental than having only one parent to guide them. Even in the times when I could be convinced that divorcing was what was best for them, I couldn’t convince myself that I’d ever be able to support them. We had never used childcare. I purposefully scheduled myself to work opposite hours as him, not only to save money, but because I didn’t want to risk my children’s innocence in someone else’s hands. Without his help, childcare for three kids would take all my pay, leaving nothing for food, electricity, rent. He knew this. He had proven it to me for years, struggling through his bouts of unemployment, barely scraping by with overdue rent, shut-off notices, and reconnect fees. How in the world would I make it through an entire year on my income alone? We barely made it a few months all those other times. These thoughts were conditioned into me.
Truth be told, I really couldn’t have left him any sooner, not unless by doing so, some other door opened that would have lead me to better pay. Up until I was a server at that diner in Beebe, I had no chance at survival on my own. I had only ever known low income. That waitress job earned me more in tips than Jesse and I had earned together in many of the previous years of our marriage. I took the opportunity and ran, agreeing to support him until tax season so we could have a clean break, but being sabotaged by his premature absence a month before those funds came in.
It wasn’t easy. In the beginning when school was out, I didn’t know how I’d be able to work without anyone to keep the kids. The very first day he was gone was a snow day. I worried about the ten dollars in my pocket, the empty fridge, and the money left on the tables that I wouldn’t be serving, but many things came together for me. Between kind co-workers, a devoted teacher, a certain kind customer, and a man growing into a different level of friend, I made it through the months that followed. I found a full-time babysitter, took on my own vehicle maintenance (with help, at times), completely re-arranged the house for a fresh start, and started using my maiden name again.
The girls entered counseling and struggled in their different ways. Emalie, nine, became withdrawn, refusing to talk about her emotions, crawling under her bed, hiding her tears. Zoe, six, began acting out at school, refusing to do schoolwork and even biting a kid. Kala, ten, tried to step up, mothering her sisters and helping me clean. For each of them, I tried everything in my power to comfort them. For Emalie, I crawled under the bed with her, telling her how I did the same thing when I got overwhelmed after my Daddy passed away. For Zoe, long talks on the swing in the backyard is where she leveled with me about how angry she gets when she misses her Dad. And for Kala, I praised her for her efforts, but kindly reminded her to just be a kid.
They still have moments of sadness, but are mostly well-rounded, kind, happy kids. It has been three years since the divorce and one year since I married that extra-level friend. They don’t see their dad as much as anyone would like, but they do get to see or talk to him every month or two. He did essentially fall to the gutter, but he’s managed to tread in the drain’s current, keeping him from falling from their lives completely just yet.
In my journey, I have faced both depression and ambition. Thankfully, as of late, ambition has had the upper hand. I proved to myself that I could support my children, with or without a man. I proved to myself that I could go to college, becoming an honor graduate in my associate degree program last May and continuing my journey for a bachelor degree in just a few short weeks.
Enough being enough was a long time coming with my first marriage, but the beauty of it all is discovering how much our lives have changed since making the leap to leave that toxic marriage. My girls now see how a loving relationship is supposed to be. They see that it’s never too late to improve yourself or chase your dreams. I am their living proof. In all the many ways that I may have failed them in the past and may fail them in the future, my only hope is that they will still love me in the end, knowing and understanding that I am Mom and I am human, but everything I do is out of love for them.
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