Transition Days

“When Dad gets his new job, he’ll get to keep us and he can move back in.  Then you’ll be gone and I won’t have to listen to you anymore,” Isaac spat at me. I didn’t say anything, knowing this mythical future job of Rex’s (my soon-to-be-ex-husband) was only more false hope.  My once energetic smiley little companion who had butted heads with his dad for so many years now made me his enemy in cahoots with Disney Dad.

It was Transition Day, the day their dad went back to the oil fields and my authority returned.  These were always fraught with emotional ups and downs.  Nothing had been done in my absence and I was tired from my Hard Days, where I worked both jobs, 6am-2pm fast food and my regular job 5-9pm as a dance instructor.  My weekends were free for the kids, but they always rejected me the first couple days after their dad left from his time with them.  Isaac had previously asked what our “fun plans” were today, since I had always reserved Saturday as family day in the past.  I’d wanted to take them to a fair in the park, but the house was a pigsty and I had errands to run.

When I checked my email for the first time in 3 days, I saw notices that games had been downloaded on my Kindle, time-stamped during my hours away.  The cord to the computer was back in my top dresser drawer, but the internet history revealed hours upon hours of access to kid websites.  I confronted the kids about breaking their tech-restriction when I was gone, and they lied straight-faced: “I don’t know what you are talking about.”  I gave them another chance before I would take away TV access as well.

Isaac (10) and Megan (11), stuck to their story, while James (14) looked down and admitted they had played on the computer all day.

“What are they supposed to do all day when you are away?” my future-ex asked when I told him I would appreciate it if he would enforce the consequences I gave the kids, or at least not undermine me.  I was dumbfounded that a man who had previously been a school teacher and grew up in the same tech-less era I did would say such a thing. Like the woman in the Yellow Wallpaper, I’d been trapped in my stay-at-home-mom world, shamed if I wanted to work outside the home or pursue any creative outlet that took time away from my family. Now that I had released the imprisoned wall-paper-woman, everyone resented my new role.

I found a new hole in the bedroom door I had just replaced, reportedly bashed by my daughter who had swung a barstool at her brother but missed.  I later found the barstool broken and stashed in the garage, and I mentally added the expense to the growing tally of destruction.

I gathered the kids and calmly told them I needed their help to get the house in order.  I gave them a pep talk about how we were a team, and I couldn’t run the house without them now that I was working.  Isaac shot back that that was my own fault and I shouldn’t have divorced dad and ruined their lives. 

“You can’t make me,” Isaac sneered.  It was that all-to-familiar challenge parents hate to hear. I was not going to fight that battle.  No, I was not going to make him.  Instead, I told him he was absolved of all responsibility.  I would take him off the chore chart and divide up his duties among the other two.  If he wanted to live in a garbage dump in his room, he could do so, as long as the mess stayed contained in there.  If he didn’t take a turn at doing the laundry, cooking dinner, or setting/clearing the table, he would not benefit from those services either.  Essentially, if he chose not to be part of the family, I was allowing him to forfeit his role. 

“Fine.  If you won’t move out and bring dad back, then I’m leaving.”  I recalled the scene in Beverly Cleary’s book when Ramona packed up her suitcase and tried to run away.  Instead of packing up, Isaac lugged the tent out from the garage and began setting it up in the backyard.  I watched from the window as he and Megan worked together in mutiny against me.

I fought back tears, knowing they wanted their dad rather than me, now that he suddenly started paying attention to them after my years of pleading.  How quickly they forgot he’d all but abandoned us for several months before claiming he wanted the kids. I said to myself over and over “hurt people hurt people.”  It was a mantra I picked up to help prevent myself from returning anger for anger. 

I went outside and asked them if I could help them or if they wanted a hug.  I said I was sorry things were the way they were and I was trying to do the best I could.  They told me to go back to my house and leave them alone.  Normally, “I hate you” is a phrase that earns soap in the mouth, but this time, the words felt so real, I just walked away.  I went to my room and cried.  I’d held it in for weeks, and it all came pouring out. I felt I had lost the battle I’d been fighting the last 6 months, and I wondered if it was worth it to try to keep my kids when they no longer wanted me and their dad was now fighting to take them from me.  Wouldn’t it be better to just surrender and let them have each other?  It would be so much easier to be the parent who walked away.

Twenty minutes later, I heard a knock on the door.  In a faltering voice, I heard Isaac ask “Mom, can I have a hug?”  I told him to come in.

Not a word was said.  He came to me and I held him for ten minutes while he cried.  Then, just as quietly, he let go and walked out.  He took the tent down and started cleaning his room.

“Can I have my chores back?”

***

Several months after Rex’s promise to find other employment, he quit his job when an acquaintance found him a position as a secretary for a plumbing company, a job that paid less than the previous one, offered no insurance, and was more suited for me than him.  Apparently, he lived up to his promise of getting a different job so he could have normal hours in town.  But he didn’t keep the promise of seeing his kids.

It was Isaac’s birthday, but I had not had the time to arrange for a party, so his real celebration would be later in the month.  Instead, I reinstituted our Saturday “fun day” as I used to do in the past, trying to find new experiences and places to explore.  Plan A, to go to the Hot Air Balloon Festival in Floresville fell through, but I still came through with Plan B: a play date with my boyfriend’s son (while he helped me fix my broken fence), a trip to the Aquarium which was one of Isaac’s favorite places (and free with my annual membership), concluding with cake and ice cream and his birthday subscription to Minecraft.  He had had a wonderful day until he realized in the evening he hadn’t heard from his dad.  Isaac started acting like a spoiled birthday boy, throwing attitude, rejecting his friend, and pestering his sister.  He was jumping on the trampoline with his little companion in the backyard while the rest of us were playing Frisbee when something triggered his sudden change of mood like his bipolar father and he pelted his sister with acorns.

I spent the next hour trying to play referee and finally settled the clan with a new movie I’d gotten for Isaac’s birthday so that I had the chance to cry in my boyfriend’s arms.  Rex had forgotten every one of his kids’ birthdays that year, not to mention Valentine’s Day, my birthday, and our anniversary while we were still “working on things” in our marriage. I was still outside, tears finally dried on my cheeks, when the movie was nearly over, and Isaac came out to me with a triumphant look and said he had called Dad who promised to make it up to him by coming to visit tomorrow after church.

Their dad was supposed to pick them up from church at 4pm when I had a meeting with the bishop.  He had not specified where he would pick them up at the building as he refused to communicate with me.  The kids waited.  And waited.  My meeting ran long.  The kids interrupted my meeting to get my phone to call dad, but he probably wouldn’t answer because it came from my phone instead of the home so he’d assume it was me.  They called Rex’s parents with whom he was living, but he was not there.  The grandparents tried calling him.  I took my disappointed kids home and fed them dinner and gave them ice cream for dessert.

I didn’t make excuses for their dad like I had when we were married.  Nor did I blame or tarnish his already sinking reputation.

“He’s probably with Lisa again,” Megan said bitterly.  She was beginning to see what her dad’s true colors were without me doing a thing.  “I knew someday she was going to become more important than us.”

I didn’t say a thing about Lisa.  This was the first I heard of his girlfriend.  I spent the next hour comforting my crying kids.  Two hours after their dad was scheduled to pick them up, he called the home phone.  Isaac picked it up, excited that dad had remembered.  He was elated that dad was going to come visit after all.  Immediately after Isaac hung up, their dad called my cell phone. 

“I’m so sorry, I lost track of time…” he began. 

“I don’t want to hear it,” I said flatly.

“I will be over in 45 minutes,” he said, the shame evident in his voice.

“You still must have them back by 8pm. They have school tomorrow,” I said sternly.

“I understand,” he said, the shame deepening.

When I hung up, James was pacing the floor.  “Mom,” he said reluctantly.  “Is it alright if I don’t go?  I’m kind of upset.”

“That is your choice James.  Your actions will teach him how you will allow him to treat you.”

The kids stood outside, waiting in the driveway for dad to come.  I told them that their dad still had to come to the door to get them, that I required that much courtesy from any visitor.  I replayed in my head the times their grandparents had forgotten to come for them and how I drew the line and stopped allowing grandparent visits.  Even Rex had been angry with his parents for standing them up or canceling last minute, and yet here he was doing exactly that again and again.  I felt like I was reliving my own childhood, being stood up by my own father, who I now refused to let into my adult life for that very reason.  “I am not like your dad,” my ex said angrily when I mentioned how hard this was on the kids months ago.  Oh yeah?

When their dad arrived, he came in as I required, but he refused to look at me.  In fact, he wouldn’t meet the eyes of his children either, even Isaac who bounded into his arms like a puppy who kept returning to his neglectful owner.  James stood there, uncertain, hurt in his eyes, confused because he still wanted time with his dad.  Rex noticed him hanging back and asked if he was coming.

“I don’t know,” James said hesitantly, his face contorted with consternation, the way he looked whenever he felt like he should do something but wanted to say no.  I ached for him, wishing I could encourage him to exercise his own will like I tried to teach him in spiritual matters.  “I am pretty upset about you forgetting us.”

“I understand,” Rex said in a hurt tone. “That’s your choice, but I’d like to see you and I don’t know when I’ll get to see you again.”

“I do want to,” James said.  He shifted from one foot to the other several times.  Finally he said he would go get his shoes.

Rex took them to get ice cream (double dessert that night!), then dropped them off without coming inside.

I was disappointed that Megan had been right about the girlfriend.  And Isaac never heard his dad say Happy Birthday or receive a present.  When I invited Rex to Isaac’s birthday party on Halloween and asked if he would like to take them trick or treating because he now had that day off with his new work schedule, he said he already had plans (with his girlfriend).

He quit his new job within 2 weeks of starting it and hasn’t paid child support.  He refused to coordinate with me about seeing the kids, and yet they are over the moon whenever the whim strikes him to show up.  Between my two jobs, fighting with Medicaid and trying to get them caught up on doctor and dentist appointments, I haven’t had time to take the kids to get winter clothes, and I offered to give them money if their dad would take them shopping.  But he wants to enjoy his time with them, not spend that time making them do chores or errands, so he takes them out to eat and buys them board games instead. 

When Megan asked if he was coming to take her to volleyball practice, I said, “I don’t know, he hasn’t told me.”

“He probably forgot,” she said without emotion.  I think she has accepted how he will be from now on.

“Don’t worry Meg,” I said, squeezing her in a half hug. “I have a backup plan.  You have a ride, and I’ll take off work to take you if I have to.”

Fortunately, Rex texted the morning before school and said he would be coming to get her, so I canceled the ride.  He is still unemployed but as of this past week, he is now an assistant coach for her team. 

The kids are better behaved lately and don’t cuss me out and tell me to go to hell.  They are more appreciative of what I do and know that mom will make sure things get taken care of.  I will enjoy their dad’s good behavior while it lasts.  They don’t know the winds will change, but I do.  And when they do, I will be here with my arms outstretched to hold them as they cry.  Because that is what I do on Transition Day.