I always knew that I would marry Robert. I knew it on our first date. Most of the time, first dates are pretty boring. You talk about the weather, maybe about what you do for a living or your favorite movie. You may even talk about current events, although you must be careful not to start a grave disagreement. When Robert asked me on a date, I didn't expect anything different. I had met him during a book signing, when my girlfriends and I had wanted to see our friend John, the first big author to come from our little area of London. We had grown up with John, but now it was different. He was a published author. Anyway since we all knew each other John had asked us out for drinks later on. He had his own entourage with him, including Robert and Jerry. Robert was getting his feet wet in the publishing industry and Jerry had a knack for finding raw talented authors to represent. After the night was over, Robert walked me to the cab and asked me to meet him for dinner the next night. I didn't expect much, especially not for him to be so completely honest. The next night at dinner Robert told me a story that hooked me. I couldn't wait to find out the end and I spent several years trying to write my own ending to his life story. That story is why I agreed to marry him 6 months later.
It was the end I never suspected. I never closed my eyes and saw him packing a bag and walking out on our life we had created. I never pictured him erasing himself from every photograph and every Sunday morning breakfast. They say that it is the little quirks that make you fall in love with a person and it is those same quirks that make you fall right back out of love. It wasn't my quirky way of biting my thumbnail when I was deep in thought that caused my divorce. It wasn't Robert's way of grunting while he read a menu, either. It wasn't even the fact that I fell in love with his best friend, Jerry. No, Robert started leaving me way before then. For me it all began and ended with a story.
It all started 35 years ago. Back in 1940 World War II was going strong and London was enduring bombings and numerous attacks. Robert's father, Edmund, was a pilot. When he was drafted it devastated Robert's mother, Katherine. Robert was five years old and his father had just left to fight the Germans. Robert was proud but also felt let down. Edmund had agreed to teach Robert how to play cricket, so that Robert could join a team the next summer. Unfortunately, not only was Katherine useless when it came to Cricket, she was pretty much useless as a mother after Edmund was gone. Robert's Grammy moved in to help take care of him, as Katherine spent increasing amounts of time in bed, mourning. Six months later, the day of the cricket tryouts, Robert came home to tell his mother that miraculously he had made the team. He was jumping up and down and was sure that this news would cheer his mum, to whom he had barely spoken in almost three weeks. He could tell she was becoming increasingly depressed, as she had stopped coming down even for dinner. Grammy had looked worried that morning, as Robert had left for school. When Robert returned to share his good news, he found Grammy in the living room crying and trying to speak with a constable. He tried to be quiet as he slipped past the living room and ran upstairs to the room his mother had barely left in months. There sure were a lot of constables around, but Robert managed to sneak into his mothers room unnoticed. That was when everything changed. All of a sudden, Robert couldn't remember the difference between a bowler and a batsman. Robert was standing about 1 meter away from his mother. He saw her feet first, as they were hanging in front of his face. She had tied a rope around a beam in the ceiling and had stood on a chair to reach the rope. Robert heard the constables discussing how his mother had killed herself before he ran out of the room. Apparently, a letter had come in the mail a day earlier explaining that Robert's father had been shot down and was killed. Katherine couldn't bear living without the hope that Edmund would return and she had left this world hoping she would be with her beloved husband in the next. After the funeral Robert had grown up with his Grammy but I don't think he ever let go of his mother or the fact that she would prefer a burial next to her husband over a life with her son.
The night of that first dinner when Robert shared his history with me, I couldn't imagine a mother ever leaving her son that way. I couldn't imagine a love that was so strong, that you couldn't go on without that person. I had never felt that way about anyone in my own short life. I had hoped that someday Robert and I could feel that way about each other. I had hoped that I could fill the void he had felt since his mom chose death over him, that I could heal the pain. I had no idea that I really would feel that way someday, though not for Robert.