First 3+ chapters
Chapter 1: Exit Wound
San Francisco, California
November 2020
Uber-high-powered exec job in tech? Check.
Multi-million-dollar mansion on a hill with a stunning view of forever? Check, check.
Rich, hot, mover-and-shaker husband? Check, check, check.
Unbearable loneliness? Check.
FOMO—on my own life—and regret for…everything? Check, check.
Abject misery, feeling like everything’s wrong and always was and always will be, waking up every day wishing I was dead? Checkkkk.
Sigh. I had such high hopes for my life.
Am I the only one who wakes up wishing…I hadn’t? Or is that just me?
I’m so insanely jealous of everyone who isn’t me. Even my Amazon lady—now deemed an essential worker, thanks to the pandemic. How in the world does she look so happy all the time? I see her smiling out there by her truck, although she pulls up her mask as she approaches the door.
Yet she’s still smiling, even through that mask. How is that even possible? Where did she learn to smile like that, with her eyes and her whole being? Why can’t I smile like that? Could I learn how? Does my mouth even move in that direction?
I know we usually get different drivers, but we seem to get this woman more than any other. And is she ever essential to me! Beyond the packages she delivers, keeping so many of us safe by not having to venture out during a pandemic, she’s essential. She’s sure teaching me that some people are happy without all these unnecessary trappings.
And I do mean trappings.
I want her life. She’s making me realize my husband and I may “have it all,” but we really have nothing at all. At least not where it matters. We certainly don’t have real smiles on our faces.
I truly meant to do better than this. Honestly, I did. I promise I’m a good person in here. Somewhere. All that goodness just got buried by an avalanche of…I’m not sure what. Maybe I need a search-and-rescue team to go out after that once-warm heart of mine.
Was it ever really warm, though? I think so. Okay, maybe it was tepid.
But working in the tech industry and being married to a top-notch a-hole changed even that. They turned my tepid to cryogenic.
But didn’t I let it happen? I must have, even if I never meant to.
Silicon Valley. Has a nice ring to it, right? Not so much, or at least not so nice. By definition valleys are low places and silicon is a metalloid element. Brrrrr. That’s great in the computer industry, but nothing you wanna snuggle up to. Sure, both of those can be good things, but I’m so not in the mood to look at them that way right now.
“Move fast and break things” is the Silicon Valley motto. But I’m the one who got broken—and then broke things along with the best of ’em. That includes hearts and spirits, mine and theirs. And, perhaps, everyone’s. Full-body shudder.
Yes, I wanted a powerful, bigwig job in the tech industry. And I’ll take one of those rich, drop-dead-gorgeous, power-broker husbands. Plus a stately mansion with scads of help to make it easy would do just fine too, thanks.
But I didn’t say a fun, high-powered tech job, and I didn’t say a loving, rich, drop-dead-gorgeous husband. Oh, those minor details that add or delete the whole point. And nowhere along the way did I say I wanted to be happy. I figured happiness would be the obvious byproduct of these. Oh, how wrong we can be.
Now I just want that drop-dead-gorgeous husband to just, uh, drop dead. Or I could. I really don’t care which one of us does indeed drop, just as long as when tomorrow dawns, one of us isn’t waking up to greet it.
Now I just want the stately mansion to fall off a cliff into the ocean. Now I just want to tell my boss to take this job and, well, you know.
I used to be nice. Didn’t I? When did I become as soft and cuddly as a cheese grater?
About all that moving fast and breaking things (and people), karma’s a bitch. Like I became.
And what goes around…
I need my soft self back. First step, since neither of us seem to be dropping anytime soon, leave this dude.
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Funny how one minute it was all vaguely tolerable, the next I’m out the door. Actually, it couldn’t quite happen that way. But my heart was out the door in a single minute, even if all of those logistics had to take a few days of clandestine packing and planning.
How could this be happening, though? Even as I made my preparations, I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to put our marriage down as time wasted. Well, better a marriage and a few years (okay, a decade) wasted than one more day of my life.
Besides, nothing’s ever wasted, really, I suppose. Just fodder. Grist. Christ.
About that clandestine bit? It’s not that he’d ever physically hurt me. I just don’t want to deal with him. In fact, chances are good that if he sees me stepping out the door with a suitcase, he might even start singing “Happy Trails” to me. I don’t need anything like that either.
My husband isn’t abusive in the typical ways, just your typical narcissist, like Donald Trump or Elon Musk. On steroids. I didn’t know my life would turn into Sleeping with the Enemy. Ever see that movie? Yuck.
My husband doesn’t love me. He plays chess with me. Took me years to figure this out. No, I’m not a pawn. I’m the Queen, as he prefers to be around powerful women to try to take down. So even though I’m the Queen, I’m still something to be toyed with. He’s forever trying to figure out how to checkmate me.
He’s a trickster, like Donald Trump is a trickster—making people believe he cares about them. There’s only one person those men care about, and it’s not us.
His (my husband’s, that is, not Donald’s) office is right across from the front door. The kitchen and living room are also nearby. So, nearly every moment of the day, he has a clear view of that door. The back door too, for that matter.
He’s nearly always in one of these rooms, so the only time I can get things out of the house and into my car is when he’s in the shower. I never knew how clever and conniving I could be until this time came.
He has the million-dollar surveillance system with all the bells and whistles, of course. But even he doesn’t watch it in the shower. And there’s not a whole lot he can do about it when he later reviews footage and sees my car exiting the driveway.
What in the world is wrong with me? Oh, just maybe months on end of lockdown and being with him 24/7 and going nowhere—physically and emotionally—is what’s finally driving me over the edge enough to drive that car away.
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Sunday, November 8
The instant I hear his shower running, I make my last mad scramble to the car, which is mostly just my purse, toiletry bag, small tote, and me because I’d moved everything else into the trunk already.
Damn! Did I really just forget my phone? You know, that thing that’s glued to my hand every minute of every day? What was that about “best-laid plans” and all? Well, I’m not exactly at my best in this moment in time.
“Babe?”
My heart skips a beat and I freeze midstep. Terror. Head-to-toe terror. What was that about blood running cold? I thought it was just a saying. It’s not.
I poke my head in the bathroom. “Babe?” That’s what we do.
“Can you get my conditioner? I thought I had enough in here.”
“Sure.” I hand it to him over the shower curtain, grateful it’s not one of those clear/see-through varieties. He’d be able to see right through me right this minute.
“Thanks.”
I turn to leave.
“Babe?”
I’m one stark raving scream. He never does this.
“Love you.” He never does that, either. What’s with him today?
“Love you too.” Do I sound normal? What’s normal? Did I ever sound it? I don’t think it’s in my operating system.
I grab my phone and slowly, quietly ease out the front door.
As I back my car out of the driveway, my heart bucks like a bronco. Will he turn off the water and hear the garage door closing? And if he does, so the hell what? I’m certainly allowed to run an errand, though he’s unusually paranoid about the pandemic. I just don’t need to see him right now. Or ever. Again.
Plus, the creature snarls at me. No—no Silicon Valley McMansion for us. But, still, instead of one of the beautiful San Francisco Victorians everyone hears so much about, our house is a modern (for the 1960s, anyway), gray stone monstrosity. The house has two wings off a center area, with windows that look like narrowed eyes. With the driveway, it looks like a dragon sticking its tongue out, snarling at anyone who approaches. Cozy touch.
Inside the house is no cozier—it’s all gray and glass. Gray furniture, gray carpet, even gray throw pillows. The only color is the blue of the sky and the San Francisco Bay sparkling in the distance. And if it happens to be foggy and gloomy like today, the outside matches the inside. Ew.
I maneuver my oh-so-super sleek Tesla Model S—in ultra-hip Deep Blue Metallic, mind you—onto the steep hill of a street. It’s ridiculously hard to live on a nearly perpendicular spot of the planet, but what’s been easy about my life in the last, oh, thirty-nine-odd years? Emphasis on odd. Plus, a whole lot of good that sleek hipness does me now.
Or anyone ever, really.
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I drive to the beach, a whole six miles away. I’d only thought of loading the car and leaving. To where? I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. Me, the Chief Marketing Exec of…oh, I’d rather spare you the gory details. Besides, you’re already so sick of hearing about it, I’m sure. I definitely am.
But me, the one who makes a living thinking of everything. Nothing now. No thing. That sometimes-brilliant brain of mine echoes with its sudden emptiness.
Staring out at the gray sky and the gray waves, I just feel—gray. I match the house I just left. No, cancel that; I feel less than gray. Is that even possible? Out on the horizon the two sheets of gray merge into nothingness. Yes. That’s it exactly.
I’d turned my phone off so no texts or calls could make me change my mind. I just sit. And sit.
And then the rain comes. Northern California goes many months without rain, from about May to November. The first rain after all those dry months is one big feeling of ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.
And then the tears come. I’d held them off for so long. The tears, combined with this first rain of the season, make me dissolve into one huge, full-body ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Oh, is this ever an ugly cry. But that’s me—or what I’ve become. Not on the outside, but on the inside. Butt ugly. I know I could be beautiful in there too. I think I remember her. I just have to find her again.
My husband revels in my looks: medium-length dark hair, dark eyes, a little tall but not that tall (five-foot-eight), killer body (he said once, and I took it as one of the greatest compliments of my life, since he’s seen a few bodies in his day). I take after my mom, although with my dad’s height thrown in.
The hub’s always loved when I have my glasses on instead of contacts. The wild-underneath librarian thing, I guess.
“So I can imagine taking them off you,” he once said.
“But if they’re already off, you don’t have to imagine that.” We laughed.
Too bad I don’t have a touch of troll thrown in too. Then he never would’ve had his eye on me or his clutches in me.
But didn’t I say yes to those clutches? I must have, because there I was, in them.
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After my visit to the beach on this most unbeachy of days, I drive to the Golden Gate Bridge. No, not to jump, just to go somewhere, since it’s starting to get dark. I love the towers lit up at night, with the lights reaching up to forever. Often, anyway. Tonight, though, the cloud cover cuts short “forever.”
But heading north doesn’t feel right, so I head east over the Richmond Bridge. I get such a kick out of that part of I-80 West and 580 East where you’re actually heading south (and vice versa the other way). Pretty much.
So strange—kind of like my life. Pretty much. Which direction have I been going, anyway?
And then my car, seemingly of its own accord, heads to I-5, the interstate that stretches through the three Pacific states, from the border of Canada to the border of Mexico. Right now I feel like driving the whole thing.
Credit card usage? Calls made, and even the location I make them from? Checking in to a hotel? The hub could track any of these, probably. He wouldn’t know how to do any of this himself, but he has quite a few friends who owe him favors. He could probably even have them track my license plate through highway cameras. Those friends who owe him favors are quite high level.
Does it matter, though? Really, it’s not as if he’d do anything to me. What, like he’s going to sic the Silicon Valley militia on me? All this fretting might be making this so much harder on myself, but that’s how much I don’t want to deal. So my phone stays off. No tracking allowed, at least for now.
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So much for attempting to sleep at a rest stop somewhere between the towns of here and there. This town and that town. The trucks thundering by at full volume take the word rest right out of that stop. So I mosey on down the highway some more.
I’m definitely not a drive-through regular of late (thanks, Covid). After pulling up to the Starbucks window and giving my order, I just sit there.
“You can pull up to the next window now,” the way-too-friendly woman has to remind me.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “I haven’t slept much lately.”
“No problem!”
I pull up to her window and her big smile. How in the world is she so happy? Just like my Amazon lady. What class did they take? What kind of morning smoothie do they drink?
At the traffic light, the guy behind me honks the second the light turns green. Calm the f down, turbo dude. Like you’re perfect.
Out on the highway, I merge into a lane and someone else honks at me, even though we both had plenty of room. Geez, buddy, did you think I meant I’d move into that lane a week from Wednesday?
Okay, maybe there wasn’t that much room. In flagrante delicto. Hey, I went to college.
But perhaps I should stop traveling every which way and pull over until I can join polite driving society.
Splat! Thwack! That’s the sound of a paddle hitting a ping pong ball, back and forth, back and forth. That’s the sound my brain is making too.
What am I doing? Where am I going? Is this the right thing to do? Well, I’m not turning back. Who walks out on…on what? Misery? Everyone in misery should walk out on it, if they can.
I’ll just call this mental ping pong my game of splat. At least that gives me the chuckles about it.
But also as I head down the highway, I ask myself, “What is that strange sensation I’m feeling?” Oh, it’s—what’s that thing called? Peace?
And what’s that in my stomach? Oh, it’s nothing. No thing again, but a good no thing. No knot. My insides seem to be finally starting to untangle and settle down, for the first time in many years.
Yes, despite the machinations of my brain, a true sense of calm descends. Sure, tremors of fear flutter as I realize where I am—meaning not in the jaws of the dragon snarling with the driveway tongue.
What am I doing? Am I actually leaving that whole social-media-perfect life?
But those social-media-perfect lives hurt sometimes. A lot. And those tremors are smaller than these other new, glorious gut sensations. A lot smaller.
What’s happening?
Chapter 2: Frigonomics 101
The sun starts to rise over the beauteous (okay, not really), bustling (hardly) boomtown (maybe?) of Bakersfield. I’m sure parts of it are beauteous, but that’s far from what it’s known for. Bustling, well, maybe a bit. Boomtown? Heading in that direction.
I’m beyond exhausted from my deep-circuitry churn throughout my days of preparation, then during my exit, and then from my time at the no-rest stop. But at least I can just sit here in Bakersfield, while the car charges.
And it’s definitely a beauteous sunrise. The warm rays shooting over the horizon caress my face like a loving being.
Love? Right. Cue the tears again. So much for the moment of peaceful calm.
Where am I going, anyway? I really have no idea. Except, maybe…hmmmmm. My college roommate. Have I even made a real friend since then? Melanie lives in Malibu, and maybe she could be my ultimate destination.
Somewhere around Santa Clarita, I give her a call. “Hey.” My voice comes out much softer and chokier than I intend it to be. “You in town?”
“Depends what town you’re talking about. My town, your town? Doesn’t matter, really, because the town I’m in is London.”
I snuffle back the tears that want to explode again. Yeah, right. Explosions don’t take well to being held back.
“Mar, what is it?”
Short for Mariella. I’ll explain more later.
I don’t know how much plain English she’s getting from my sob garbles, but it must be enough.
“Honey, just go stay in my apartment. I’ll call the doorman to let you in. I’ll be back about a week after New Year’s. Just don’t have sex in my bed—that gives me the icks. Go to his place if you meet anyone.”
Niiiiiiice. Classy. But I understand. And I certainly wasn’t aiming to meet anyone. Ever.
I turn off the phone—still no tracking allowed, unless the hub happened to catch that one minute of pings. Although do pings linger? Stick? I’m not up on these things. I head off in the direction of Malibu.
“Oh my goodness, gracious me,” I say out loud to no one, quoting no one I know because that’s certainly not the kind of thing anyone I know would say. Especially me.
But I don’t know how to get to Mel’s place from here, so I turn the phone back on and put her address in the GPS. The hell with the hub and his surveillance, anyway. Here I am. Somewhere out here. On my way to Malibu for the holidays.
By myself. What have I done?
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Melanie’s bed has a most magnificent vista: the Pacific Ocean. Like, all of it. Well, that’s all I can see, anyway, as I lie here staring out at the endless expanse of water and sky.
I order food delivered here and there, but basically lose ten pounds. And I didn’t have ten pounds to spare.
I check the news every now and then. Our new president was starting to preside. There! A new life all around. I’m not sure which man—the hub or the old prez—I was more grateful to have out of my life, and I’m not even kidding. Tie.
And I sleep. And sleep and sleep and sleep. Am I making up for not sleeping much over the last ten, fifteen years, or what? There must’ve been hundreds of all-nighters.
That staring at the endless expanse of ocean and sky turns into dreams of an emptiness—the good kind, new and delicious. Spaciousness. Room.
How in the world did it feel like there was no room in that mansion? Or in the hallowed halls of tech?
Yikes. Tech. I guess there is somewhere else I’m supposed to be? Oh, yeah. This job thing I have.
During the hub’s Thursday shower, I called my boss and told him I needed some time off. I thought I’d at least open my laptop within a week, but didn’t. Nor in two or three weeks.
Maybe I’d been thinking I could still work. But when I finally open my computer and see five thousand emails in my inbox, the tears explode again. I can’t, just can’t.
I suppose I have enough money for a year or two if I keep my lifestyle on the way low. It won’t be any farther down than I’ve felt.
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Ha! Turns out I don’t even have to submit a resignation letter to quit. I dictate a text to my boss—don’t want to tell you his name either because you’ve definitely heard it a few thousand times too many—just to arrange a phone call.
Unfortunately, I choose to do this while stuck in L.A. traffic. Someone almost smashes into me as he’s obviously in a hurry to get into the space in front of me so he can then just sit there and wait along with the rest of us. And why isn’t he on his phone like everyone else?
I’m not much into swearing, but some moments call for it. “You idiotic, fucking asshole! Are you just so beyond happy now? At the top of the world with all of us mere peons at your mercy?”
Of course the other driver doesn’t hear me, but my boss does! I hadn’t turned off the dictating mode before I shifted speaking modes. And after I’d accidentally hit send. Now that’s a catastrophic oops.
As soon as I notice my gaffe and while all of my blood decides to flood my heart, I immediately call him to apologize.
He actually picks up for once. “We’re done now.”
“Wait—”
“You’re fired.”
Click! Actually, there’s no click on a cell phone. Silence. Just—nothing. That no thing thing again. Kinda like my life right now.
I pull over and dictate another text, explaining what had happened. No response.
The rest of my body joins my heart in overthumping. And then comes a huge, long sigh of relief. Wow. Have I been holding my breath all this time, in addition to not sleeping? All this time meaning fifteen years?
Of course not, but OMG, it sure feels like it. And it sure feels good to breathe—alllllll the way to the bottom of my lungs—again.
Fine. Really. That decision has been made by the powers that be, whoever and whatever they happen to be. Makes it all a whole lot easier.
My boss is crazy and getting crazier. My husband is crazy and getting crazier.
And me too! Crazy and crazier.
I lived and worked with narcissists, whom I despise. I was in marketing, which I despise. I’m not too fond of social media, either. And as for marketing social media and hanging with narcissists? Well, that’s all just plain despicable. Who does that?
I do. I did. But not anymore. I have to find a detox for crazy.
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December lumbers along in a haze of orange sunsets and more takeout. And a whole lot more of that yummy sleep.
The hub starts texting. “Where’d you go?” “When will you be back?” Away. Never. “Just let me know you’re OK.” That I can do, so I do. Then I block him. He’s probably turning back to his new girlfriend as we speak.
Notice how I haven’t told you his name either? That’s because you might know him. Well, you would if you followed the activities of the tech-industry venture-capitalist titans in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. He’s made tens of billions and is ballistic it’s not hundreds of ’em.
When the rush and sense of peace from leaving lift, which they do from time to time, I find myself momentarily longing to return to our fourteen-room nest. Yes, the one I felt I had no room in, despite that large number of rooms.
So I make myself remember…things. Lots of thing-like things.
“I married you for your lips, Mariella.”
I do have really great lips, I must say. But what kind of person says that?
“And your name.”
I do have a great name too, I must say, thanks to my mom. Okay, here’s that story. Mom has a very plain name, and she wanted her daughters to have very lovely, elaborate names. Check. Okay, I’ll stop saying that before I drive you completely bananas.
My younger sister is Julianne. I’m not going to tell you what my mom’s name is because I don’t want to insult anyone with that name. Anyway, she’s Mom. That’s her name, at least in my story here.
“You can change your name, you know,” I once said to her.
“No. My parents gave it to me, so I’m keeping it. You two just go on with your wonderful names and live your wonderful lives,” she’d tease with a smile. But her eyes weren’t smiling.
Sigh. Mom really did have high hopes for my life too. What happened?
Hmmmm. Did she have high hopes for me? And was she teasing?
I put The Drifters’ version of “White Christmas” and then the Charlie Brown “Linus and Lucy” Christmas tune on repeat on my phone. That’s all I can handle. At least they’re about as merry as it gets, and that should get me some brownie points with some Christmas St. Peter somewhere.
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Under the covers in the Malibu penthouse
Christmas Day, 2020
I call my parents, but don’t tell them where I am. My sister and her family are on their way over, they say. What a surprise. Their wonder child, their golden child. Wait, you ask. Aren’t I the one with the big career in tech working in a company that’s a household name all over the world?
Well, my sister stayed nearby. That counts for a lot more than anything I could’ve ever done. Maybe I’m just making all that up because I’m very cranky and lonely and sad since it’s Christmas. As I alluded to, my husband probably found somebody else by noon the day I left.
The Drifters serenade me again. “May your days may your days may your days…” I’m sure looking forward to some days that are merry and bright. I don’t care so much about all that white stuff, though.
“Come visit us,” my dad says as we’re hanging up. But, speaking of the white stuff that makes up a White Christmas, they live in Colorado. All cold and slippery this time of year. Besides, I doubt he means it. He’s probably just being Christmas spirit-y.
Well, but maybe that’s not such a bad idea. Melanie’s going to be back from London soon anyway, and where else can I go?
Just what, exactly, are my intentions? I have no idea.
Yikes. Better be careful what you wish for, Dad. And so much for me avoiding all that white stuff.
I scrub down Melanie’s house, even though I’d hardly made a mess. When was the last time I cleaned a toilet? I’ve become super spoiled in my old age. The hub’s and my housekeeper is another one of those smiling-even-through-a-mask people. Maybe I should deliver packages or clean toilets.
Wouldn’t be worse than what I was doing.
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Barstow, California
Monday, January 4, 2021
Another beauteous, bustling boomtown (not, maybe, maybe). A whole lotta gas stations going on (Elvis just popped up on some random playlist of mine), but I don’t need one.
Driving from L.A. to Denver does take some planning when you have an electric car. And just why did I feel the need to get a car that needs to be charged like a vibrator?
To be green, to stop relying on fossil fuels. That’s why.
Speaking of this kind of car, there’s Elon, Tesla’s oddball dom and king of revenge. I don’t like the guy (and I do know him), just his cars. He’s another one to avoid. Don’t get him pissed off at you. He’s the kind who might have blood on his hands someday.
As my car is charging, my heart does its new favorite activity: lurch. Ouch. Yep. Every now and then as I realize what I’ve done and what I’m doing, my heart lurches, completely booting out the calm.
Alone. Jobless. And now going home to my parents. At age thirty-nine.
So melodramatic! Oh, don’t mind me, this refugee from Silicon Valley. What was that? I hear you: “Oh, poor baby. Such a rough life you had.”
But it’s true. It was rough. Toxic. Even evil. But I can’t go there quite yet.
So I’ll go back to the melodrama. I’m as old as you can be and still be a millennial. A geriatric millennial. Creak! I’ll be forty later this year. They used to say you really can’t be over forty in the tech industry, but here a whole bunch of us are, turning forty, and no one seems to be going anywhere except me.
So many women have told me the forties are quite the kick-ass decade, so I’m kind of looking forward to them, especially without that husband and boss.
Lurch. Sometimes my mind gets set on repeat like my Christmas music. Alone. Jobless. Alone. Jobless. Who is this person?
I’d grown up wanting to head west. Now I was heading east. Back.
What’s that great line? You can’t go home again?
Actually it’s the title of a Thomas Wolfe novel as well as a line in a song or two or three hundred. I never read the book or really listened to those songs, but I lived those words—until now.
Oh, frigonomics. What am I doing?
Chapter 3: No Country for Middle-Aged Women
Silver Lake Crossing, Colorado
Tuesday, January 5, 2021
Ah, yes. Home on the range—where the deer and the antelope play. And poop.
As I climb out of the car, the familiar ambrosia of manure wafts by. The wind gods must be against me today. Winter doesn’t kill that smell out here. It concentrates it. How do I always forget that might be the first thing to hit me?
People do get used to it, which I’m definitely not at present. It’s one thing to live here, and it fades beyond the background. It’s another thing to visit and have it smack you in the face, almost literally.
The Central Valley of California smells like this too—often, actually. Any place that has farms or feedlots smells like this. And I shouldn’t gripe about it—all this manure grows our food, as do all those fabulous farm folk.
“Trump Country,” a huge sign sings out from the side of the neighbor’s barn. Yep, that’s my hometown. Big, tough, savior dude riding in on his white horse.
And the bumper stickers I’ve been spotting! There’s one with the word Biden and a red circle and line through it, as well as one that’s a little more direct with its expletive.
Plus, what in the world is that skull thing with its demonic eyes that looks like it’s drooling teeth? It’s everywhere all of a sudden, at least when I arrived in this part of the world. Somewhere in my brain, a whisper reminds me it’s QAnon-related.
But wait—didn’t I see a little Buddhist statue in a yard down the road? They must be newcomers. Wonder how they slipped past the gates.
Home. My childhood home. Coincidentally, like the San Francisco digs, two wings stretch out and forward from the center part, but in this case the house looks like it’s reaching out to throw a hug around visitors, and this one wayward homecomer. Oh, just a bit more welcoming—unlike San Francisco’s, with all that teeth-and-tongue warfare.
My parents live in a sweet, rambling, old farmhouse—except there’s not much of a farm. A henhouse out back holds enough ladies for the daily supply of eggs. Or did—it seems a little too quiet back there now. What’s up with that?
And as for the bigger animals in the ’hood, several pastures join together out back, and ours as well as the neighbors’ horses get to have a daily block party. Plus, some locals rent out the area’s barns and pastures, which makes the party even bigger. What a sheer delight, all those majestic beings prancing around in all their glory.
Mom and Dad are by no means wealthy, but they’re comfortable. They’ve had this land for decades, bought back when it was super cheap. Also, they get a share of the money from the folks who keep their horses here, and they never have to do anything for those extra field frolickers. Someone around here takes care of them.
I never understood how it all works, only that it does. Plus, these two would go without eating to have their own horses fed and shoed and happy.
And that’s the extent of the animals on this particular farm—hens and horses and, oh, doggos. Where are the dogs? Mom and Dad always have at least two running around out here. Maybe they’re inside on this frigid day. Actually, it’s around 50, but it feels like Siberia.
An RV so huge it belongs in the obscene category sits alongside the barn, on a special RV port built just for that purpose. I shiver. My parents’ idea of a summer vacation was going away in that thing. It was like living with my family in the kitchen for two weeks. Not my idea of a grand time.
Hey, when did they get solar panels? And is that thing over the well a scaled-down wind turbine? Didn’t that used to be just a little windmill? Good for them, I guess.
One feature of much of the Colorado countryside is ranch rail fencing, made of flat horizontal boards/rails nailed to posts. Mom and Dad’s looks just as purty as a white picket fence, if you ask me. Many folks leave them the natural color too.
Only Dad’s old, vintage truck (will he ever get rid of that thing?) sits in the driveway, so I text him.
Hi. I’m here.
That might not be clear enough, so I type another line.
In Colorado.
Clear enough yet? Maybe not.
In front of the house.
The front door opens faster than immediately after that last line, but he’s clearly too surprised to say anything until I finally do.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, there!”
“Well, you did say to come visit.”
“I did, I did.”
He’s more than just a little flustered from surprise, and fluster is not his M.O. He reaches out and kind of hugs me. His version of a hug, anyway. Kind of a sidewinderish thing. Nothing too affectionate for this guy.
He looks toward my car and notes I’m by myself. “Come in, come in.” As he starts to open the door for me, he adds, “You don’t need a mask.”
“Humor me.”
“Okay. Consider yourself humored,” he chuckles.
“Besides, it’s for you as much as for me. You never know who I’ve encountered out there, and who they’ve encountered.”
No response.
And no dogs! Instead, the animal greeting committee consists of two beautiful, brown, fluffy cats lying on the kitchen windowsill, soaking in the afternoon sunshine. They blink at me, though, obviously wondering if I’m worthy of their consideration.
“Since when do you have cats?”
“Since the last dogs died. Your mom hadn’t been any too keen on having dogs again since the last pair kicked the bucket. She’d get so attached, and when they’d go on to the great hunting ground in the sky, she’d be acting like she lost one of you.”
I’m at a loss for words. “Huh.” Okay, that’s one word.
“Cagney and Lacey here keep the mouse population down, so that’s one good thing.”
“I guess.” I never thought of my parents as cat lovers, and they did not raise one. I suppose I can adjust, though.
“They’re good cats,” Dad says. “About seven now.”
Have I not been back in seven years? Or even a lot more, since those last dogs I saw were somewhat young? They were at least still in the single digits, age-wise. Time flies.
“Where’s Mom?”
Wow, not even a single cricket in this long, awkward pause. Plus, he’s still flustered, a very strange phenomenon for him.
Dad’s role model in life has always been Clint Eastwood. Looks like him too: tall, somewhat weathered, but very blond. But that’s not blond anymore; it’s white now.
To me he’s always been an exceedingly gallant Clint Eastwood crossed with Thor. I guess I went a little mythic about him way back when—in my young, nose-in-a-book days, as this was way before the Marvel movies came along. Although this version of the Norse god has put some years on.
And Thor married Snow White, as I always thought of my mom. And me too, as I got older, since I look just like her, raven hair and all. Hers needs some major help staying that way these days, though, and mine might start to any minute now.
So, Mom. “Dad? Where’s Mom?”
He finally answers, but it’s so soft I have to ask him to repeat himself.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? How could you not know?”
“It’s quite easy, actually. She walked out the door without telling me where she was going. Just said she was heading off with some girlfriends, and she’d be back in a few days. And that was already a few days ago, right after New Year’s.”
“Huh. There seems to be a lot of that going around. Pandemic-era disappearing acts. Except I didn’t even tell my fella I was leaving.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Guess you’ll be staying awhile.”
⛰️ ⛰️ ⛰️ ⛰️
My plan had been to gauge my parents’ reaction to my showing up out of the blue, and if it wasn’t a happy one, I was just going to stay a night and go…somewhere. But Dad’s wash of relief over having a houseguest fills the, well, house.
He helps me retrieve my suitcases and tote bags from the car and lugs them upstairs to the guest room. It used to be my room, but it’d been stripped of any me-ness.
Had that ever been here, anyway? Who and what was that me-ness? Who and what is my current me-ness?
Whoa, where’d all that come from? I leave my un-me’d room in a hurry.
The sun setting behind the Rockies fills the picture window at the end of the upstairs hallway. Orange beams shoot up from behind the mountains.
My sister’s horse-related trophies, medals, ribbons, photos, and newspaper spreads line the hallway. No sign of my high school Honor Roll or graduation awards or college Dean’s List. I guess that’d be some of my former me-ness. The nerd in the library. About as far from cowboys as you can get.
Horses they understand, Julianne they understand. Me, not so much. It’s not that I care about that kind of thing. It’s just that one daughter is celebrated—still, all these years later. And the other isn’t—not now, not then. But my throat tightens, betraying a major shortcoming in the sloughing-it-all-off department. Ouch. Maybe I do care, still.
Fox News blares from the living room. Ugh. Like a migraine in audio form. Remind me just exactly why I came back here again?
Because I do love them, that’s why. And I need a nest to rest in.
Dad’s riveted to the news while roosted in his old recliner. He’ll die in that thing—quite happily.
I look around the room and feel my jaw start to fall. Mom’s once-antiseptic housekeeping style seems to have transformed into “Okay, what in the world happened here?”
The kitchen seemed okay (didn’t it? I’ll have to look more closely), but not out here. Once-perfectly arranged pillows now slump under heaps of bunched-up blankets. The usually pristine coffee table overflows with…stuff. Magazines, bills, gadgets—a whole spate of stuff.
Dad’s sure not going to clean it all up. They maintain pretty traditional roles for the most part: Mom takes care of the inside of the house and the garden, while Dad maintains the rest of the property, usually atop a riding mower or with a plow attached to his truck. Mom handles the admin and customer schmoozing part of their business, while Dad does the actual home remodeling work. They never have to look for clients because they’re well known and in demand in the area. They’re happy with their business and system.
Or were.
“Dad, is something going on with Mom?” I don’t even have to wave my arms around the room to indicate what I’m referring to. He knows.
“No.” That word comes packed with hesitation.
Yes, there is, I don’t say. Well, if he doesn’t want to tell me yet, I can certainly wait. Who knew this would be such a good time to visit, at least for him? He seems unusually grateful for my company.
But…but…well, so much for waiting. My concerns and questions won’t sit still. “Dad, please tell me what’s going on with Mom.”
Shock of all shocks, tears spring to his eyes. Now, neither Clint Eastwood nor my dad has ever been one for having tears anywhere near them, let alone coming from them.
“Well, let me take you out to a nice supper. Looks like you could use one. Don’t they feed you out in California? We can talk about it tomorrow.”
Like I can wait until tomorrow to hear about what happened to the woman who gave birth to me? But I guess I’ll have to.
Chapter 4: Storm’s a-Ragin’ Out There
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
After a very quiet lunch, which is just a few hours after a very quiet breakfast, Dad shuffles off to his woodworking studio in the garage. When did he start shuffling?
He still hasn’t mentioned Mom. What’s been going on? Is she sick? Have things not been going well? Are they separating?
Questions flip and flop over each other in my about-to-burst brain, but something’s telling me to just let him bring her up on his time.
I set up my laptop on the table in the (dusty) formal dining room and start to attack the pile of non-work email I’ve pretty much ignored for nearly two months. When I hear Dad come in for something, I start to get up, but decide to check the news headlines real quick.
Wait—what? What the hell?
The images before me make me quickly turn on the live TV part of the CNN website, fingers fumbling. Scores of people are knocking over barricades outside the Capitol and breaking windows and crushing a screaming policeman in a doorway and…and…and…
Oh. My. God.
Can’t be.
“Dad! Mom’s on TV!”
⛰️ The headlines just came home. Find out what happens next.
If you want to know how Mariella handles the fallout when the modern world breaks the family tree, you can grab the full novel right now. Available on Kindle Unlimited.
