Feels Like the First Time (23 page)

For me, time passed, but I never forgot those things. It was a life vow that I have kept sacred. Holding thoughts and feelings like that in my heart for 30 years has been detrimental to my other relationships. That may explain why the best relationships I’ve had in my life have been with my sister and daughters.

I found something with you–a level of trust and an emotional nakedness–that I never found again with another person.

Shawn

Less than an hour later, I heard from her again:

The time we were together was a very important time in my life. I have fond memories and some very sad memories that I blocked out just for my emotional survival. What we experienced was wonderful and terrible all at the same time. I would never want anyone else to go through what we went through. But, I don’t regret any of it. I cherish it all, even the worst times. It was real. It was raw. It was not puppy love. I would have forgotten you a long time ago if it was.

What we had was so special that I haven’t ever experienced anything like that again. I have been looking for it all this time. Whatever it is, I haven’t found it. Is it because we had it? If that’s the case, then how sad is that, having something people spend their whole lives looking for, but finding it oh so young.

Dawn

I was touched to finally get a peek behind the wall of silence that surrounded Dawn for so long. I could feel the warmth of the memories building in her words. I wrote back:

You blocked out the most painful stuff that happened between us. That was why I left you in the first place. I was having a negative impact in your life, and I couldn't stand that. I thought the only way your life could get back to normal was if I was completely out of it.
I never wanted to leave you, but it was the only integrity I could find in that horrible situation.

My biggest regret from that time was that I made that decision to leave you by myself. If I could, I would go back to that weekend and find a way to talk with you about it, so we could make that decision together. Even if we decided to do exactly the same thing, we would have made the decision together and I could live with it much easier today.

Shawn

I didn’t hear from her the rest of the day and by the next morning I was wondering what her response would be. When I opened her first email of the day I was floored.

I am not feeling that great today. It might be because I am sleeping on the couch and it is one of the most uncomfortable couches ever. We are broken up, but I am staying there and sleeping on the couch until I can figure out where I am going to go.

Dawn.
 

Everything was happening so fast. A month earlier, I had met with our marriage counselor to tell her I was throwing in the towel. Before I could share that with Adinah, Dawn appeared out of the blue, with a boyfriend and saying she was in love. A few weeks later, Dawn was unattached and sleeping on the couch. In the meantime, there was an inevitable conversation with Adinah coming, and I knew neither one of us was going to enjoy it.

Adinah had left for her annual summer trip to Arkansas and would be gone six weeks. I intended to sit down with her before she left and tell her our marriage was over. At the last minute, I realized that would delay her departure while we dealt with the fallout. I knew that was the right thing to do, but I took the cowardly way out. Once again, I chose to save that firestorm for another day.

After spending the previous eight years in a slow spiral, I wasn’t going to complain. With Adinah gone, I had the freedom to let my mask of indifference slip away and be who I was. I was awake most of the night, replaying everything in my brain, trying to gain some perspective on the new developments in my life.

I had one of those crazy real estate days that left me with no time to think about anything else, and it was after 8 PM by the time I got home. I thought about writing Dawn another email, but that didn’t seem like enough. I realized I needed to call her. It would be good to have a conversation where neither of us could read it over and edit our thoughts before sending. Several days earlier Dawn had sent me her phone number. I hadn’t worked up the nerve to use it.

I went upstairs, set my iPod to play Chris Rea’s
Road to Hell
album
softly, and opened the window to let in a summer breeze. The frogs living behind the house were already in full voice. I entered her number but it went to voicemail. I tried to hide my disappointment as I left a message.

“Dawn, it’s Shawn. It feels odd to be calling you after so many years. Anyway, I’m just home doing nothing and wanted to talk to you. Give me a call if you want to.”

My phone rang less than five minutes later.

“Dawn?”

“Hi. I didn’t recognize your number so I didn’t answer.”

“I figured. Are you still at work?”

“I’m at work, yeah. Am I working? No.”

“Have you got time to talk or should I call you back?”

“No, this is good. What do you want to talk about?”

She sounded older than I remembered, of course. Her voice was throatier and I began the process of connecting this Dawn with the one I had held in my heart for so long.

I started talking. I told her about Desi, Samy, and Sabrina–who they are, what makes each of them special, and how much I love them. The first time I glanced over at the clock beside my bed I was surprised to see that I’d talked about my girls for almost an hour.

I asked Dawn about her girls and I heard pride in her voice as she told me about them. There were sad things too. Her oldest, Connie, had been in a difficult and dangerous relationship that had been tough for her to get away from. She was doing so much better now, and had been in a good and healthy relationship for years.

Then she told me about her youngest daughter, Dani, who was sixteen years old and seven months pregnant. Dawn said that when Dani had told her she was pregnant, she had suffered extreme
déjà vu
, thinking of when she had the same conversation with her parents. Dani was a different girl than Dawn. When Dawn talked to her about what the options were and what they should do, Dani told her mom defiantly, “Don’t even talk to me about that. I’m having this baby and there’s nothing you can do about it.” That was the end of their conversation about options.

As she told me that, I was happy for Dani and how strong she was. But thinking about her made me wonder what happened with our own baby so many years before.

“Dawn, we never got to talk about what happened when you and I were in that same situation so long ago. Can we talk about it now?”

“I guess. What is there to talk about?”

“There are so many things that I never knew about. I got that phone call from Walt and Colleen telling me you were pregnant, then we met in your living room and I agreed not to see you for three years. We didn’t talk again for thirty years after that. I never knew what happened after I left you. After awhile, I started to wonder if you had ever really been pregnant at all.”

“I was.”

“Oh.”

The implication of those two words struck home and the sense of loss I had been holding at bay most of my life swept over me. The silence stretched out and sadness engulfed me. I was overwhelmed.
My voice cracked when I tried to talk again.

“Dawn… I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for you and I’m sorry for me and I’m sorry for everything we lost. More than anything, I’m sorry for our baby. I’m sorry I wasn’t smart or strong enough to figure a way to stop that from happening.”

“I… I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I mean I did everything I could to stop that from happening. When your mom and dad called me that night and told me you were pregnant, I told them I wanted to marry you so we could have the baby together. I told them that if they wouldn’t let that happen, Terri would give me enough money to take care of the cost of having the baby and money to help raise it. Over and over, they kept telling me I had two choices: pay for the abortion or go to jail. I did everything I could, but I didn’t do enough.”

Now the silence stretched out on her end. After an eternity, she finally said “You’re saying you wanted to keep the baby?”

“Yes, of course I did. Haven’t you always known that?”

“No. That’s not what Mom told me. She told me the abortion was your idea and you were glad to be rid of the baby and me. She told me you were living in Seattle, going out with college girls and happy to be away from me and the whole situation.”

“Oh my God. Have you believed that all these years?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Dawn. No wonder you hated me all these years. You thought I got you pregnant, paid for the abortion, and happily disappeared forever.”

“Yes.”

It was the ultimate moment of clarity. Everything fell into place.

“Dawn, I don’t know how to say this, except that your mom lied to you. When we lost our baby and I lost you, I lost everything. From then until right now, there’s been a hole in my life that nothing could fill. Shit. Shit. Shit!”

I felt my face grow hot with anger. Colleen had been dead for twenty-five years, but whatever peace I had made with her in my mind evaporated.

“Shawn.” Dawn’s voice was sharp.

“What?” I heard anger and sharpness in my own voice too.

“I think we need to sit down together and talk.” 

Dawn was right. If we were ever going to really know each other again, we needed to sit down and talk. I had driven myself insane for years trying to make that happen, but with the opportunity at hand, I was nervous.

Before I sat down and talked to Dawn, I needed to finally do the right thing and talk to Adinah. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, my cell rang. I saw it was Adinah calling from Arkansas. I took that as a sign that the universe was encouraging me to be a grownup. I answered on the first ring.

“Hello.”

“Hey, how are you doing?”

“I’m okay. The truth is I’m finally ready to talk to you about something I’ve been putting off for way too long.”

“What’s that?”

“Adinah, I want a divorce.”

“You are such a bastard. You are
such
a bastard.”

There’s an immediate difference between men and women. When I get mad, I just get quiet. When Adinah got truly pissed off, she could instantly recall every wrong thing I had ever done with perfect clarity and recall. I spent the next forty minutes listening to a recitation of my sins. I listened attentively and didn’t disagree.

In some obvious ways, I had been a good husband. I earned a good living, never had affairs and came home every night right after work. But in the ways that counted I failed every test. I was emotionally absent, unavailable, and unloving. I would have thought she would have been glad to be rid of me, and maybe she was. But she wanted to at least get a few parting shots first.

Eventually she grew quiet, and I was able to tell her what I was feeling.

“I really am sorry that I’ve hurt you. I tried not to hurt you for the last eight years and that only hurt you more. I won’t do it anymore.”