A rough draft written long ago…
The night air, heavy with humidity and for Rhonda, resignation, weighing down on her when the blazer roared into view as it squealed into the ballpark. The day had been long yet perfect—hours spent at the ballpark. Images of sun, laughing boys, t-ball, family, friends, hotdogs. These images would stay. His absence now seemed fitting, like it was meant to be that way. Her boys had played the last t-ball game of the year earlier that hot, June afternoon. Her dad had watched and cheered his Adam and Aaron superstars from the stands while she had coached and cajoled from the field. The five and four year old boys- bronzed, mischievious, smiling, bundles of look-at-me—had performed even harder for their number one fan grandfather in the crowd. Missing and noticed had been their father.
Now, forgiving and innocent, they looked to the blazer with joy.
“Dad!”
“Hey, Dad!”
“I hit a homerun today!”
“I did, too! Watch me ramp, Dad!”
Todd lurched to a stop and jumped out to the still screaming boys, “Hey, that’s great!” The next look was for her. “It’s 9 o’clock. What’s for dinner? It’s late, haven’t you fed them yet? What are ya’ll doin out at the ballpark still?”
The look on her face was unreadable, but saved and grateful, she listened to quick-witted Jennifer say, “Your dinner’s at the sonic, son!”
Laughs all around with Todd laughing the loudest, yet his eyes squinted with a slight arrogance as if to say, “not really funny. Do you know who I am?”
Rhonda, recovered slightly, smiled as well. “We already ate, of course. About 4 hours ago. Right after their t-ball game was over. You remember? Their last game?”
“Yeah, hon, I’m sorry. I tried to leave the club but got stuck in a game. I had to stay to make the 4th man. You know how it is!”
Anyone watching her closely might have caught a glimpse and wondered. To Rhonda, it came blaring through her head, the obviousness of it screaming to her.
“I hate him. I do not love my husband. I hate him.” The hate did flare in her eyes, then quietly and obediently hid behind her smile, her perfect facade. One would think that such a revelation, an epiphany, should be heralded with trumpets, shouts and screams to the heavens. Yet the momentous occasion, the signal for change to come, passed unnoticed by all but the main player, the heroine, newly finding her strength. It was true then—that thin line between love and hate did exist. She had simply and silently crossed over. “What now?” rang through her head as she passively watched her husband, the high school sweetheart she was supposed to love forever. He looked the same—beautiful, blue eyes framed with the thickest lashes, high cheekbones, brown bangs tossed carelessly back from his forehead, a smile to charm, well anyone—he could be a model, still. Yet to her, the beauty was now the ugliness. It spoke of his lies, his cheats, his late nights gone, with her the strong mother of the house left to wonder while she tended her angels. And, now her disappointment was also to be for her sons to share? “Who will they become then?” was her last, long thought as she turned back to her friends and monstrous husband, for that is what he had become in her eyes. How could she ever look and see the beauty? She couldn’t. She didn’t.
Donna and Jennifer looked on with sneers. No one had to guess what they thought of the man who had missed his sons’ last t-ball game of the year.
Todd called the boys, “Let’s go, kids! Get those bikes over here, now! Load up!”
To anyone watching, the perfect little family was loading up after a long day of playing and going home. Off to the happy, little home.
Forgiveness came easily to the two little souls who ran alongside Dad as he lifted their bikes with his sturdy, strong arms into the blazer, smiled, and said, “Load up! You riding with your Dad?”
“I’m riding with Dad!”
“Mom, I’m goin with Dad!”
That same forgiveness that had always found a place in Rhonda’s heart now turned and fled. No goodbyes, just the sudden absence. And her heart hardened to him and would open no more. She still smiled, waved to her babies and friends, and slowly walked to her old Chevy for the short drive to home. The heaviness, now lifted, was replaced with a gnawing feeling, a fear, and almost sickness in the pit of her stomach.
She put the Chevy in gear and slowly rolled into the dark of that country road.
