I know what you were expecting—to hear all about the trip.

Carrie and her dad. To Argentina. And whether they could figure things out together.

Well, sorry to disappoint. Right now, it’s just another day in the grind, and what you’ll hear about exotic journeys is, most likely, the same as what I get—a message here, a Skype call maybe, some photos in an email. Or just watching planes fly overhead?

I’ve never been much of a traveler myself, so it’s not that which bothers me. It’s more about the loss of freedom as a dad to an autistic son, where 24/7 it’s about keeping the family afloat.

(And yes, I do hope Carrie and her dad can figure things out—I know from experience that holding a grudge against your old man isn’t healthy.)

But right now, I’m on my way home, stuck in lazy traffic, while the heat is barely bearable.

Good thing I just had the air conditioner fixed—that’s money well spent because Michael hasn’t freaked out yet in the back seat. I managed to get some bread and water into him (the only things he’ll eat) right after school to prevent a meltdown. And Emma’s keeping him occupied with a game on her new phone.

It shouldn’t be my 10-year-old daughter doing this, but there you go. I can only be in so many places at once. The new school and her dinghy course have done wonders for her.

We should have set that up long ago, but you know how it is—whenever there’s a big battle to fight, you hope you can avoid it. That’s how you get tackled from behind by bigger, nastier problems.

Today, I got tackled, too.

The only ones who know are you, me, and my thoughts while we sit at that damn traffic light they still haven’t fixed. Breathing in fumes, thinking about new shades, listening to Michael’s chatter. Is he going to be okay until we get all the way home?

So, what happened?

My shift finished a couple of hours before school got out. Been up since an ungodly hour, but that’s the deal. Department of Public Safety. We keep the roads safe, and our nights short, haha.

Afterward, I went to the supermarket where Sandy works.

We chat a lot—on the phone, too. It was her time off, and we ended up behind the big block of a building, back where all the trash is stored. A good place to smoke… or anything else, really. I guess it had been coming for a while, and I hadn’t made an effort to stop it.

She just got divorced and was really lonely. She’s told me as much. I’m not divorced yet, but I’m not really married either. As a special needs parent and the de facto sole breadwinner, you never get time off. So while Carrie and I are still good friends, we’re not exactly husband and wife. Sometimes, it feels like we’ve never been.

Long story short, we started fooling around, but I swear, I stopped it right there. Even though I wanted to keep going. Even though Carrie and I had talked about this before—about maybe experimenting with these things so we wouldn’t go crazy. But nothing formal. Nothing set in stone. We’re both scared to go down that road, I guess.

But I know it won’t work. It won’t solve anything.

And yet, I wish we hadn’t stopped.

As it was, it became something half-assed and awkward. I won’t go into details, but the beer I downed afterward at Daybreaker’s café—it was only a small one because in an hour, I had to pick up the kids from school.

Carrie’s mom is coming tomorrow, too. We have to be ready for that. Don’t know how much sleep I’m going to get alone with both kids until then, especially with Michael.

And Carrie? Well, she’s somewhere over the Atlantic, I guess.

Nobody would ever know. We’d never have to talk about it. Not until we decided to talk about it. And then I could pretend what happened behind that container had happened after Carrie and I had come to some kind of agreement.

But I chose to break it off. And so I feel like shit but have to put on my best face now that I’m with the kids.

The green light is coming on. Michael is starting to whimper, and soon he’ll scream about something we can’t understand while we’re still on the interstate. It’s probably his indigestion acting up, but we don’t have the meds in the car…

I guess there’s only one thing I can do to feel better about all of this.

Acknowledge that some wars ended long ago, like my father-in-law’s war, like Iraq… but the daily battles just continue. You’re not human if, at some point, you don’t get stressed out and do something stupid to get relief.

So, forgiving myself is my goal. Every day. And then doing better.

It’s not as far as the Falklands, but it feels even farther. Like a horizon that keeps moving ahead of you.

But you have to keep moving with it.

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JON, late September 2016

End of the story-in-stories “Pieces of Peace” – part V

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Cover Photo by Mika Ruusunen on Unsplash

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76B-190924

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Song: Rolling Stones – “Rock and a Hard Place”

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