I remember standing outside our two-story home for the last time. It was winter, and in Utah that meant snow halfway up our shins. We had lived there for nearly the last five years; it was all our children had ever known. It was a good house—two stories, three bedrooms, a two car garage—but it was never a very good home, though I was sure it would be to someone eventually.
Our life here was more or less built on a lie. Art and I had gotten ourselves pregnant about midway through our senior year in high school, back when we still lived in Nashville. We did what we thought was right and got married after graduation, the week before my birthday and a month before Paige was born. Although we both said differently at the wedding, the last time we really loved each other was the day the strip turned pink. We both knew it at the time, but we didn’t know what else to do so we stuck together and made the best of it. Art was always a respectable man and he did right by us, even if he didn’t love us. So we moved in Utah, where Art attended Brigham Young University full-time and became a high-powered executive afterwards. When Art graduated, I started going part-time for a while until our second child, Austin, was born eleven months ago. I think we thought another child would bring our family together, but it didn’t. Art worked long days and rarely came home for dinner. I tucked the kids in before they even got to see him most nights. We knew it was time for a change.
I would love to say our divorce was rigorous and demanding, but that would be a lie. It was quick and painless, for the two of us anyway. Art let me have whatever I wanted and he didn’t fight on anything, including the kids. I know, however, that if I had wanted him to share custody with me, he would have. But I thought it would be better for all involved if we just broke it then and there; the kids barely saw him as it was.
Neither one of us really wanted the house. Art wanted to move to the city and I had decided to take the kids back to Nashville. So we put it up for sale. Art volunteered to buy me out of my part so he could handle the sale, seeing as how I would be two thousand miles away during the process.
But still, Paige and I stood in front of the house staring at its shingles, at the garden we planted, and the snow covered branches on the trees, at the memories we were leaving behind. Paige slid her small hand into mine, cocked her head up to me and gave me a small smile as if to say ‘it will be alright, mommy’. I bent down to her and kissed her forehead lightly, forcing a smile for her sake. She paused for a second and then turned, sliding into the backseat next to her brother and closing the door behind her.
I stood, taking one last glance to the house, “Well, I guess this is goodbye”. I felt as if the house gave me a slight nod of approval as the wind blew the snow from the gutters. I took my seat in the car, turned the key, and shifted.
There was no turning back now.
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