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empty promises.
“Mommy, why hasn’t Daddy come home?”
The question stops me in my tracks, the dull ache of my husband’s absence forming into a full-fledged, undeniable heartbreak as soon as the words leave my daughter’s mouth. I didn’t want to put her through this again; at the tender age of four years old, Lilah has suffered an unreasonable amount of loss in the parent department. Her father, her real father, had died when she was one, and Ferg… well, I didn’t know what was going on there. A sigh exhales from my lips as I bend down to her level, my hands rubbing her small arms in an attempt to comfort her. I can see the sadness in her eyes, the confusion on her face. I didn’t have the answers she was looking for, though I so badly wish that I had. “Daddy is sick, baby..”
It wasn’t a total lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. I can see her ponder my response, her brow raising as she places her hands on her belly. “Sick? Like when I get sick? Did he go to the doctor?”
Her innocence tugs the corners of my lips into a small smile. “Yeah baby, he went to the doctor.. He may not be home for a while.” The admission of the truth twisted the ache in my heart with a knife, and it seemed harder to accept that there was a chance he may not come home at all. I knew my husband struggled with his addiction, that it ate at him every single day just like Stone’s addiction ate at him. Maybe I was naive in believing this wouldn’t affect us the same way my ex’s sobriety struggles had. Maybe I was naive for thinking he would be different… He was different. Is different. But the monster still chose him, and it pulled him away from us.
And now I’m left picking up the pieces.
“Do you think he misses me?” Lilah asks, a small frown on her little lips.
“Oh baby…” I sigh, pulling her into my embrace, lips brushing the top of her head. She was too young to feel so much heartache, and in this moment, I hated my husband for putting her through it. “He does miss you, and Apollo and Mikey, too. He’ll come back, Lilah. I promise.” It was an empty promise at best, but I didn’t want to disappoint her any more than he had.
I hate this part of addiction.
I hate that it stole my person from me. That it stole my heart. That it stole my children’s fathers and showed no f***ing remorse. I hate that it left me sitting in silence wondering when things would get better. I hate that I had no answers, and all I have left is hope that maybe he’ll come back to me.
To us.
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