Forty Three: Letting Go
I was very close to ruining my entire family’s Disney vacation in one stupid moment of spontaneity. Fortunately, the teenage girl I married turned out to be a self-sacrificing, strong wife and she held it together for everyone else. Somehow, after everything, we managed to pull through the rest of the trip with forced grins.
Let me put this in perspective for you. After my proposal at Epcot, Gabrielle went back to the hotel room she was sharing with Jessica, Avery, and Zoe and left a note. The note said she needed to spend some time by herself and please not worry. She didn’t return until the middle of the night, according to my sisters. I approached Natalie after my conversation with Zac and tried to hug her, but she hit me. It didn’t hurt really, but it wounded my pride. She cried the entire monorail ride back to the Grand Floridian. Mostly she was just whimpering to herself, but every once in a while she’d emit a deep sob. My family kept giving me looks that told me to fix the situation, but what was I supposed to say? My wife had just seen me propose to another woman. I didn’t think ‘I’m sorry’ would cut it and besides, anytime I got close to her she pushed me away.
On the bright side, I actually carried both of my children the entire way through Epcot and back to the monorail. With Ezra on my back and a sleeping Penelope in my arms, I actually felt like I was among father’s who love their children. For once, it felt nice to walk beside other fathers and their sleeping children.
“Why is Mommy crying?” Ezra kept asking me. Each time he asked, a family member would shoot me a ‘look what you’ve done’ look. Usually it was my mother, unless she was trying to console Natalie.
“Cause Daddy’s a jack ass,” I finally said after the fifth time he asked. He didn’t ask again. I guess he agreed.
As we made our way back to the hotel, Natalie followed my mother into my parents hotel room instead of ours. Not knowing what to do, I took my children into our room and got them ready for bed. Ezra cried because I told him he didn’t need a bath and Penelope cried because he cried. After thirty minutes of dealing with them I was ready to call it quits and get one of my sisters. Before I could bail, my wife wandered in with puffy eyes and her head down-cast.
At first we didn’t speak. She just took Penelope from my arms and coddled her until she stopped crying.
“Why are you crying?” she asked Ezra, who was sprawled across the bathroom floor naked and refusing to get into pajamas.
“I want to take a bath,” he sobbed.
“You took a bath last night. We don’t have time right now. If you get your pajamas on right now you can watch some television while you fall asleep.”
I don’t think I’m father of the year, trust me, but I do think that my wife bribes our children far too often.
“Okay,” he sniffed, peeling himself off the floor and stepping into the pajamas shorts I’d been trying to get him to put on for the past thirty minutes. It makes me sick how much my children value television. I don’t think I really watched tv until I was at least eight years old.
“Mommy?” Ezra asked, struggling to pull his pajama shirt over his head. Natalie used her free hand to help him. “Mommy, why were you crying?”
She paused and then glanced at me. I’ve never seen her stare so icy. I hate to be cliché, but it literally sent chills running down my back.
Turning back to Ezra, she replied, “Because my wish didn’t come true.”
I assume she was talking about the firework show we had seen a few nights before at the Magic Kingdom. During the show, the speaker tells everyone in the audience to make a wish, because in Disney world, if you believe in magic, dreams do come true. It was a big slap in my face to know that my wife had probably wished that I’d become a better husband and wife, and only a few nights later she had seen me throw me profess my love for someone else.
“Natalie…” I said quietly, not knowing what to say about the guilt I was feeling. It’s not that I regretted loving Gabrielle, but I certainly regretted the way my wife found out. “I’m really, really…”
“I have to put the kids to bed,” she said coldly.
I disappeared out onto the balcony of our hotel while she put the kids down to sleep. It was painful to be in a room with her, to see how much I’d hurt her. I guess I didn’t realize how much I cared about Natalie until I saw her pain. Natalie was so good at being strong. She woke up everyday, pushed away tears, and tried to make things right for all of us. Everyday I rejected her and pushed her farther and farther away, but she never gave up on me. To see what all my pushing had led too… well, it didn’t feel good.
About a half an hour later the door slid open to the patio and she stepped out. I didn’t turn to look at her until she stepped next to me along the railing. It was then that I saw what I used to see in my wife. She looked like a confused, hurt child. Her hair fell down her back and her expression was exhausted. She looked like the 16-year-old girl I had met many, many years ago. Natalie has a beauty to her that is only hers- a beauty I will always respect no matter what. No matter how much I love Gabrielle, Natalie can still take my breath away.
She didn’t say anything for a few minutes, so I assumed I had to start talking first. Someone had to. There was too much to say.
“I’m so sorry… for what… I’m sorry that this happened,” I decided on.
She immediately broke down into a sob and gripped the railing.
“How long?” was her response.
How long had I loved Gabrielle? Oh god, for… for forever. I think I loved Gabrielle ever since the moment I was born. I figured four and a half years would be a more appropriate answer though.
“Since… since I met her. Four and a half years, I guess. I’m sorry.”
Her sobbing got deeper and she buried her head in her arms.
“Four and a half years?” she choked out. “How did I not know this for four and a half years? How could you do this for four and a half years?”
“I don’t know!” I turned to her. “It’s been really hard… and I wanted… I wanted you and I to be happy together, Nat, I really did! I wish we could have rode off into the sunset together and lived happily ever after. I really wish it could have worked out that way but…”
“How could you cheat on me for four and a half years!”
I frowned. Cheat on her? Aside from one kiss, I had never cheated on my wife, and certainly not for four and a half years. Clearly, we were on completely different pages talking about two different things.
“Natalie… I never…”
“She watched my children! She offered to baby sit my children and then after everything… she slept with my husband,” she shook her head angrily. “How often? Is that were you’ve been going every night?”
“I haven’t slept with Gabrielle since before we were married!” I yelled at her.
“You just said-”
“I thought you were asking me how long have I loved her! I’ve loved her since the day I met her, but Natalie, I’ve never cheated on you. I promise!” I figured the one hazy kiss we’d had right before Disney didn’t really count. Mentioning it would only make things far too complicated.
“You…” she paused to sob. “You haven’t?”
“No! How big of an asshole do you think I am?” We both stood there pondering the question. Considering my behavior and attitude during our marriage, it wasn’t surprising she thought I might be unfaithful. “Okay, I know I’ve been a horrible husband… but I haven’t cheated on you. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I was partly lying. There were times when I would have easily taken Gabrielle in my arms and whisked her away to an exotic island to have sex with her until we passed out of exhaustion. But my fantasies were just fantasies. If I had ever actually been given the opportunity to cheat on Natalie, if Gabrielle hadn’t been so moral and righteous, I’m not really sure if I would have.
Natalie cried against the railing for a few more moments, occasionally looking up every now and then too look at them. I stepped closer to her and wrapped a tentative arm around her back that she didn’t brush off.
“Where do we go from here?” I finally asked her. I needed to know. I was so sick of just standing still in time- stuck in an hour I hated. I didn’t care what happened next, as long as it was something.
“I guess you marry Gabrielle…” she said, her expression stoic and her voice detached.
I shook my head. “She didn’t accept.”
“Damn right she didn’t… I don’t know what I would have done if she… if she… you really haven’t been cheating on me this summer? Where have you been going every night?”
I knew my response was going to sound fake, but it was the truth and I needed to go with the truth from that point on. I was sick of living a lie.
“Gabrielle’s apartment.”
“That little…”
“Natalie, you can’t hate her. She doesn’t do anything except tell me to be a better husband to you, push me away, and help us with our children. I’m the bad guy. Hate me, don’t hate her.”
She digested my statement before asking, “Why do you go to her house at night if you’re not sleeping with her?”
I sighed and continued rubbing my hand up and down Natalie’s back. I noticed she was shaking. It almost felt good to take care of her. It let me know I wasn’t completely worthless- that if I tried hard enough, I could be the Taylor Hanson I used to be.
“I needed to talk, I guess. That’s all we ever did- talked about you, the family, the kids. And I guess I liked to spend time with her too,” I admitted.
“This is the end, isn’t it?” she said almost too quickly.
The end? Perhaps it was. The thought was both relieving and terrifying. Just think- the end of a four year marriage. It’s so strange that in one moment, something that existed for so long can end. But all things have an ending. Nothing in life is permanent. Every relationship has a finale, whether it’s a death, a parting, or, in my case, a divorce. No era can exist eternally.
“I…”
Speechless.
“It is… isn’t it?” her voice was quaky and I could see the tears threatening to spill over again. Oh god, seeing her fall apart might make me fall apart. “I don’t want this to be over…”
As she burst into tears, I pulled her into my arms and held her tight against my chest. It was the first time I had held my wife in… well, maybe in years. God, how had I fucked marriage up so badly? I always thought I would be a good husband! I expected to marry once! I thought I’d love the woman I married until she had silver hair and wrinkles around her eyes. In a sense, standing there with my crying wife my arms, I wanted to go back. I wanted to go back to the day I kissed her in front of the small chapel- to the moment we moved into the renovated pool house.
I remember that day so clearly. Natalie was carrying boxes from her car into the house while some men from Ethan Allen were lugging my brand new leather couch in through the door. My Mom was chasing Natalie, telling her not to lift too much or it might be bad for the baby. The baby. He was nameless, faceless at the time.
What was I doing? I was listening to an MP3 player, standing in the kitchen of my new house. I remember I was watching everything out the window, wondering if Gabrielle might come outside to see my new furniture. I guess that moment defined my marriage. During my marriage, I was too busy with music and Gabrielle to ever be the husband I needed to be to my wife. Somehow, I suspect though, even if I did it all again and tried all over again, divorce would still be inevitable. My heart just wasn’t in it. You can’t force love.
Sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off without ever knowing Gabrielle. I feel guilty thinking it, because I realize how much she has brought to my family’s life and how much my family has brought to her life. And you know, I honestly think that having known Gabrielle I am a better person. She brings out the best in people. But I wonder… if I had never met Gabrielle, would Natalie have been more special? Maybe Natalie would have been good enough for me if I had never wandered onto Gabrielle’s front porch when I was only 18 years old.
As much as part of me longed to go back and right all the wrongs I had made during my marriage, an even larger part of me knew that I belonged with no one but Gabrielle. I needed to do this. I needed to do it for Gabrielle, for Natalie, for our family… but most of all, I needed to do it for me.
“I think it is… the end,” I muttered into her should and rocked her back and forth. I couldn’t help it. My eyes started tearing up too. The moment was just so emotional. It was hard to take in the end and the hopeful beginning all at once.
“I’m not ready to be on my own…” she cried. “We can fix this. Let’s give this another shot. It can’t be over yet…”
The problem is, both of us knew it was nothing we could fix. There was nothing wrong with us except that I loved another woman more than I loved Natalie.
“Baby…” I murmured, surprising myself with my sudden affection- affection I hadn’t expressed in years. Something about leaving Natalie made me love her more. “It was over a long time ago… we both know that.”
She stepped back from me and held her hands to my cheeks. I looked at her, tears streaming down both of our cheeks.
“Taylor… I think it was over before it even began.”
“You know I love you, right?” I kissed her lips. “I love you for looking out for me for all these years, I love you for being the mother of my children… and I love you for letting me go.”
She wrapped her arms around me again.
“I have to let you go.”