“Dammit, Isa, I wish I was there, able to have this conversation with you in person, hold you in my arms so I can see and feel how you react instead of trying to guess your thoughts over the phone.” His tone was genuinely frustrated at our distance, which sent a warm feeling through my body.
“How about you start from the beginning and I’ll be honest with you about my thoughts and feelings.”
He huffed. “Not something I’m used to experiencing. Honesty from a woman, that is. Most especially Hope’s mother, my ex-wife.”
“So you were married? I kind of gathered from the bitterness in your tone that it wasn’t the best of experiences?” I guessed.
“Actually, at first it was the opposite. Veronica was my world. Met her my senior year in college. We hit it off instantly. Fell hard and fast for her. She had just started college when we got together. Was a freshman and worked at the local coffee shop I used to visit. By the time I graduated, and she was a sophomore, we were living together in a small place near the college. I went straight into working for a larger construction and restoration company and learned the ropes while she finished her degree. By the time she graduated college, I was ready to start my own business and my life with her.”
“What was she into academically?” I asked.
“Finance. Which was awesome because in the beginning she was instrumental in helping me get financed, set up with a bank loan and knew how to invest my savings and loans the best way possible. We felt like a team.”
He sighed and just the sound hurt my heart.
“I’m not exactly sure when it all changed with Roni. The same year she graduated and went straight to work for a big corporation in C-Springs, we eloped. Everything was awesome.”
“Why do I feel like I’m at that part in the movie where everything goes crazy and flips upside down?”
He chuckled. “Because that’s what happened. Though it wasn’t one huge thing that went wrong. It built up over time. By our first anniversary Roni was pregnant with Hope. We were both ecstatic. Sure, she’d just started her career and was only twenty-three to my twenty-six, but we were happy. Living our best lives, working, loving one another and then we were building a family of our own. Life was great. At least I thought it was.”
The sorrow in those last words were heartbreaking. I wished more than anything that I could wrap him up in my arms and hold him tight as he revealed something that was obviously very painful for him. “Then what happened? You had Hope...”
He coughed and took a deep breath. “Yeah, shit started to get strange shortly after she gave birth. She was acting erratic, depressed, sad all the time. Tired. Angry.”
“Postpartum depression?” I gathered.
“Yeah, at first. I eventually got her to go to the doctors. They set her up on some heavy-duty antidepressants but even after six months when she was back to work and Hope was in day care during the day, she didn’t bounce back to her old self. The woman was lively, energetic, fun and was excited about being a mom when she was pregnant. Each day I’d come home from a really long day at work to find Hope crying on a blanket on the floor, or in her crib while Roni would just sit there staring at her daughter. Sometimes she’d be crying with her. Sometimes she’d be devoid of any emotion.”
“My God, that’s horrible. Something was obviously really wrong.”
“Yeah, but she claimed it was work and being a new mom. I was a first-time dad running a brand-new company and working myself to the bone to make it successful. What did I know about women who were overworked and overwhelmed with postpartum depression? Nothing, that’s what.”
“You couldn’t. Don’t beat yourself up,” I shared softly.
“Easier said than done. When Hope was about a year, the day care called and said Hope hadn’t been picked up by Roni and it was already an hour after the scheduled allotment.”
I clenched my teeth and wrapped myself in my comforter, scared of what was to come.
“Veronica had disappeared. The first of many times I’d experience over the next two years. Sometimes it would be a week, sometimes two, then months would go by.”
“What happened?” I choked out the words, afraid to hear what might come next but needing the entire story.
“At first, she got hooked on the quick fix antidepressants in extremely high dosages. Then she’d go to the doctor and claim she had severe back and neck pain so she’d get pain medication. Once the doctors caught on to her prescription drug addiction, she started to drink. Only I didn’t figure any of this out because she was stellar at hiding it. Until of course she started disappearing. Which I later found out were full manic breaks where she’d lose herself in the drink, drugs and whatever else she could get her hands on. She almost bankrupted us with her addictions.”
“Oh, Ky, I’m so sorry. That had to be awful to witness from a woman you devoted your life to.”
He sighed deeply again. “Yeah. A couple times the family and I were able to get her into recovery programs. Supposedly, she kicked the pill-popping habit, but the drinking just got worse and worse. Almost as if she was substituting her other addictions with booze.”
“And what about Hope during all this?”
“Honestly, she spent most of the time with my mother. Veronica’s parents live in Kansas City, Missouri. They would come out to visit once or twice a year and we’d go out there but those trips slowed down when we couldn’t plan around Roni’s disappearances. I had no idea what to do. Here I was with a toddler who missed her mother. Needed her mother.”
“And you needed your wife,” I said gently.
“By that time the love I had for Roni died. Every day she chose her addiction over Hope and me, it got worse.”
Tears filled my eyes, but I sucked in a breath, trying to hold them back. He didn’t need me to be a sobbing, emotional mess while he was sharing his story. He needed a strong woman to listen to him.
“Understandable.” I swallowed down the desire to get mad and hurt on his behalf.
“I don’t know about that, but by the time Hope was three, Veronica had lost her job and been in and out of two different extremely costly rehabilitation programs, neither of which worked long-term. I sat her down and told her I wanted a divorce and I wanted full custody of Hope with only supervised visits allowed to her.”
I sucked in a harsh breath and covered my heart that was beating like a drum in my chest. “And what did she say?”
“She lost it. Screamed the house down, scared Hope, broke things and stormed out. That was the last time I saw her. Three years ago.”
“You’re kidding? You haven’t heard from her since?” I wasn’t able to hide the shock in my tone.