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Asunder

By Kathryn M. Haueisen

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Chapter One

Call for the wailing women to come; send for the most skillful of them. Let them come quickly and wail over us 'til our eyes overflow with tears and water streams from our eyelids. (Jeremiah 9:17-18)

June 1961
"For as Chester and Eloise have consented together in holy wedlock, and have declared the same before God and in the presence of this company, I pronounce them Man and Wife. What God hath joined together, let no one put asunder."
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June 1999
How did I get here?! Ellie wondered for the hundredth – no – more likely the thousandth time. She sat alone at a picnic table along the Atlantic shore. These final few moments by the sea brought to an end her first solo vacation. Coming here alone required more resolve than she realized she had.
She knew how she came to be alone on vacation. What she still couldn’t accept was why she was alone. It started after that kick-in-the-gut conversation with Cat, her oldest child and unofficial spokesperson for the other two. She let her thoughts travel back to three years earlier. Three years had passed and she could still replay that conversation with her daughter verbatim.
“My boss says she’ll fire me if I don’t take a vacation this year and she wants me to take the time off before mid-September when things get busy again. I was hoping that maybe if I rented a large enough beach house this year we could all spend the whole Labor Day weekend together. The kids are old enough now. They’d have so much fun together. I can afford the beach house if you and the others bring along the food. What do you think?”
Labor Day. The day we used to look forward to every year. Now it’s a day to survive. That phone conversation with Cat marked the day her newly divorced reality hit with full force. It gave her an unwanted preview of the single-again life. That day Cat dropped the news that crushed any remnant of hope Ellie clung to that the family life she loved would ever make a come-back.
“Oh, Mom. I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this. But someone has to let you know. Dad’s already with someone. He introduced us to her at a cook-out a couple of weeks ago. They’re getting married. Labor Day weekend.”
Ellie couldn’t breathe. She felt numb and disconnected from herself. A slow ember of anger began to build into a wave of fury that frightened her in its intensity. She clenched the phone tightly and forced herself to remain seated. Every muscle she had was twitching to do something— but do what? She didn’t know, but now she felt a surge of energy looking for release.
“Mom, you still there?”
Ellie nodded, and then realized Cat couldn’t see her through the phone. “Yes. I’m here.” She paused, dreading the answer before she asked the question. “Are all of you going?”
The pause seemed like minutes, but was in reality only a few seconds. “Yes, we are.” Cat started to offer other options for getting the entire family together—less Chet. Chet had left Ellie the previous summer –barely a year ago. He’s getting married and I’m getting left out. Ellie didn’t want to hear it. She felt physically nauseous with waves of humiliation and panic about having to face Labor Day alone.
“I have to go now. Someone just came in.” It was a lie, but she didn’t want Cat know how much Chet could still upset her when he wasn’t even there. She made a quick exit from her desk at the Caring Assistance and Relief Emergency Center – C.A.R.E.—as people in town called it. In the privacy of the bathroom stall she tried to sort out what she’d just learned.
Chet was getting married again. On the weekend that had always been their special family time together. The one weekend of the year that had been nearly sacred was now an emotional land mine to navigate without him. Last year she and the kids had gone through with the annual cook-out at the house without him. The adults all acted like something or someone might explode if anyone uttered one inappropriate word. Mercifully, the kids seemed oblivious to their missing Grandpa. They were too excited to have cousins together again to worry about adult issues.
It wasn’t just that she’d not have her family to lean on to get through those few days. She had to go it alone knowing that he would be with all of them. She felt the fury again at the unfairness of it all. He left. I stayed. I had to tell the kids. I had to let our parents know. And now he’s taking them away on what used to be our time with them.
Ellie felt like she did in her childhood when she got sent to her room without dinner after a fight with her brother.
When Chet left and filed for divorce, her vacation choices boiled down to:
Skip vacations - too depressing. Besides, her boss, Lynette, would insist on her not being at work for two weeks each summer.
Group travel - exhausting making small talk with people she barely knew.
Travel with family or friends – all seemed too busy with their own lives.
Or go alone? The idea sent ripples of unidentified fear through her. She had forced herself to do it anyway. Now as it was coming to an end she felt pride and actually did feel more rested. She’d broken up the long drive to the beach condo with stops every few hours. The slow walks around various small towns along the way distracted the relentless pangs of loneliness and dread that had become regular companions.
Last week would have been her and Chet’s thirty-eighth anniversary. Technically it still was the thirty-eighth year since they exchanged their ‘I do’s’ back in 1961. That date didn’t change. But since Chet left, the date transformed from an occasion to celebrate to one to endure. Three years earlier -- the first anniversary without Chet – turned out to be torture. That year the anniversary date approached like a stalker in the night. Her dread of facing it alone drove her to call her old college roommate, Amelia. Amelia - Ellie's matron of honor and friend extraordinaire ever since.
Back in Pre-D days as she now referred to the years before the divorce, she and Chet spent several laughter-filled weekends with Amelia and Thad. Ellie hadn’t seen them since her divorce. She broke the news to them—and everyone else she thought needed to know—in a Christmas letter. Amelia phoned to express her shock, dismay and sympathy. She offered an open invitation to come see them anytime. The first anniversary minus husband Ellie cashed in on the invitation. She closed her eyes and traveled back to the memory of that desperate call. Though that happened nearly three years ago, she still sometimes felt ashamed of her desperate fear of being alone.
“Ellie, you know we’d love to have you, but Thad’s travel schedule has been horrific. I’m not sure we’re up for company that weekend. What about later in the summer? The weather will be better then anyway.”
“Amelia,” Ellie said, trying to squelch her panic about being alone, “I guess this isn’t fair, but. . . .” The claw of pain creeping up her spine stopped her.
“What is it Ellie? Are you OK?”
Ellie sucked in another deep breath and tried it again. “Our anniversary would have been that weekend. This will be the first one since. . .” The throat lump stopped her again.
Amelia, God bless her, rose to the occasion. “Of course. I was there. I just didn’t make the connection. You come. I’ll tell Thad you and I need a girl's weekend. He’ll be happy to just vege out at home. We can do whatever you want.”
People really can be incredibly kind when given a chance, thought Ellie.
Amelia was a social butterfly. Ellie always loved and admired the way Amelia could enter a room of strangers and within minutes add a new friend or two to her large circle of friends. That weekend they checked out every activity available in Amelia’s small town. The constant activity didn’t erase the overwhelming sense of loss and confusion, but it went a long way toward providing support to endure it. It is so good to have people around who understand and care. How on earth do people get through this without them? Ellie wondered.
She spent a lot of time these days wondering. Wondering what went wrong. What she did that drove him away. Why he didn’t want the life they’d built together. Wondering what would become of her now. Wondering how to function as a single-again woman in the married world around her. Wondering if the pain would ever go away.
When their anniversary date approached for the second time without Chet, Ellie forced herself to tough it out at home alone. Amelia hadn’t thought to invite her. She didn’t want to make an annual event out of inviting herself to see her roommate. Ellie thought it would be an opportunity to finally put the past behind her and prepare for a new kind of life on her own. At first the time alone looked appealing.
That didn’t last long. She could almost see her unwanted roommate, Grief, smirking at her. Grief moved in after Chet moved out. Nearly two years later, Grief still showed no signs of moving out any time soon. Rather, Grief taunted her. "See, no one really cares about you anymore. You're washed up. You really are all on your own now." Ellie couldn’t think of a single place she wanted to go or anything she wanted to do. Instead she stayed home to confront Grief on her own terms.
She spent the entire week before and after the anniversary date stuck in what felt like a bottomless dark pit. Grief dredged up memory after memory of happier days when she and Chet would sneak off to rekindle the passion that brought them together their last year in college.
For her third pass through the valley of a mate-less anniversary Ellie took her first cruise as a divorcee with her college alumni group. It wasn’t bad. In fact, some of it had been rather fun. However, the non-stop conversations and lack of any quality alone time exhausted her.
At first Ellie thought she and the random roommate assigned to share the cabin would have much in common. Her roommate was a relatively new widow. They had grandchildren around the same ages. They’d gone to the same university, though at different times. She was a good enough roommate, but she was a nervous non-stop talker. Ellie just couldn’t offer the sympathy the woman seemed to expect. Her own wounds were too raw, and her emotions too unresolved. She spent most of the free time alone in the library reading her way through light-weight fiction.
Another mateless anniversary date was approaching. Ellie decided she wasn’t in the mood to make conversation with people she didn’t know well. She wanted a vacation with her children and their families, but none of them were available. Getting schedules coordinated enough to all take time away together was becoming increasingly difficult with each passing year. And, she had to reluctantly admit that Chet was their father and thus entitled to time with them.
Ellie didn't want to pressure her three adult children. But neither did she want to skip going somewhere on vacation. She was determined to learn how to be single again, and this vacation was one of the lessons to master. She decided finally to head to the beach, telling herself she’d like it. The beach always had a soothing effect for her. She never tired of watching the waves meet the shore. She loved it all—the wide horizon, the crashing waves, the salty scent. It was just the thing she needed to provide a welcome change of scenery.
Ellie had friends who did this all the time. They seemed to thrive on it. She feared, though, that it just wouldn’t be all that much fun for her. Extroverts crave people contact. She even had a terrier for a dog. She and Chipper shared a high need for people contact.
When another annual anniversary date approached, she packed her suitcase, checked that her neighbor would tend to Chipper, and headed for the shore. Now, at the end of her first week-long solo vacation, she gazed out at the Atlantic and let her thoughts meander wherever they wanted.
So what happened that I end up alone when I really do love people in general and still love Chet in particular? I hate what he did; but God help me, I still love him. Maybe it’s time to just savor the moment. I do love the water. No one can take that away from me.
 

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