Chapter 7

Hope Can Be Like A Brittle And Fragile Boat, And Then, Sometimes, Hope Springs A Leak And Sinks

One Year Later

Shea

I knew this day was coming. I felt it like it was a frigid ice storm heading towards me, I didn't mark it on my calendar, it's written in blood and scar tissue across my heart and deep into my soul. One year ago today, my husband, the love of my life, War, left me in the hospital, broken in body, broken in spirit.   He went Nomad, he left our life, he left our club, he left his brothers, he left me, he rode off somewhere far and away from me and our life together. Then he disappeared into the ether.

By the time I was released from the hospital he had already taken some clothes from our house, packed up his saddlebags, and left on his bike. A week later in the mail I found a signed power of attorney from War, giving me all rights to everything we owned, our cars, our house and our bank accounts, and the right to make all legal decisions.

In the beginning, after he abandoned me, he would respond to my texts, never answer or return my phone calls, but he would text me back. His responses were short and terse, not the soft and loving messages he used to send to me. If I didn't know it was my husbands phone, I would have guessed someone else was responding instead of him.

After a while, he just didn't respond at all. I stopped calling, but I would message him daily, telling him I loved him, I missed him and I'm waiting for him to come home. That I want to fix us. I sent him messages on his birthday and our anniversary. He just occasionally replied that he was sorry, and that he was not good enough for me.

I received one call from him. In the year he's been gone, just one phone call. It was in the middle of the week on a Thursday night, 8 months after he left. My phone was on silent and I didn't hear it go off. I was in a movie with Suze and Kay, and a few other girls. When I got home and listened to the message it killed me.

War was obviously really drunk or on something, he was slurring and telling me that he loved me, and I was the best thing that ever happened to him, how he missed me. But that he was never coming back. Never. He wanted a divorce, he'd send me the papers, he was moving on and I should too. In the background I could hear a party going on, or maybe it was a bar. Then a womans voice came through, telling him to hurry up on the phone, she needed him, and that he needed to come to her.

Some woman needed my husband, and he hung up the phone while he was leaving me, his wife a message.  He hung up, so he could go to her.

It sounded like he had moved on.

I called him back, and of course he didn't answer, I told him I was waiting for him, that he was my life and I wasn't moving on, I needed him and I was going to fix us.

He didn't call back, but a week later he responded with a text.

War: Its over. Move on

Four words. Apparently that's all it takes to completely annihilate an already broken heart. My brothers are past angry, they're now starting to tell me I do need to move on. I don't know what's going on with War, what he's doing for the club. My brothers know, and they aren't talking, it's club business.

To be honest, I don't really care what he's doing, he's gone, it really doesn't matter what he's thinking, what matters is that he needs to come home to me.

Thank god for my family and the club. If I didn't have them and my job, I'd be a worse basket case than I already am. After he first left, everything went to hell. I couldn't eat, totally lost my appetite and was vomiting from stress all the time. After a few months, my brothers freaked out and had a come to Jesus meeting with me. They told me I looked like hell, I was a zombie walking through my life and I was scaring my nieces and nephews.

The truth was I did look awful and I felt worse. I'm 5'4, fairly petite. But at that point I didn't weigh 100 pounds. I was a pale pasty gray, my long white blonde hair was thinning from lack of nutrition and I had a cold I couldn't shake because my immune system was shot to hell.

I decided to take back my life. Although I still didn't have an appetite I started eating regularly, I even started trying to cook fun recipes, some even turned out to be edible. To deal with the sadness and stress, I began running and going to the gym. Rider and Hack helped me with lifting weights and doing cardio.

Physically I'm the healthiest I've probably ever been. I look better now than when War was home. I'm back up to my normal weight of 125, my hair is long, thicker, and healthy again, and with all of my running I now have a healthy looking tan.  On the outside, I look good, like I'm thriving.

On the inside, emotionally, I am improving, I'm not good though. Staying busy has helped. I'm teaching some after school classes and helping with tutoring at risk kids.  I hang with the girls more, I've made some friends outside the club, so I am getting out in a way I never had before.  I'm getting stronger, it's different, living a life solo, when I've always shared my life with War.  Progress.

What is really helping the most though is being with my family. Initially my nieces and nephews were sad War was gone, then the boys, Rockys sons, Rock and Tell were just angry. The boys are 15 and 13, they'd heard their dad and uncle talk and they felt protective of me. Jax' girls, Claire and Tess missed him, but he wasn't a big topic for them. They care most about dolls and movies, so he kind of fell off their radar.  Kay and Suze, and my girlfriends, are over him, and they're waiting for me to cut him loose too.

I'm just not there yet, I don't know if I want to be.  But I know for sure that I don't want to be the mopey and sad girl looking to her past as the happiest days of her life.  When I make the cut, remove him from my heart, it will be when it's right for me.  So until then, I go forward, perhaps not as fast as others want me to, but like a shark, I'm moving forward.

My brothers, along with Kay and Suze, are my lifeboat. They've kept me going, busy and positive. Kay and Suze especially understand the emotional aspect of this, the guys, they're just angry now.

The brothers at the club? They're furious with War, they don't talk about him around me, or mention his name if they see me. But I've heard them muttering their thoughts about their absent brother. After all, the club is a family, he didn't just leave me, he abandoned all of us. The guys all know what he's up to, sometimes I want to know, but I don't ask, and they don't tell.

I never received the divorce papers he said he was sending, so I guess that's something. But one year after he's left, I'm starting to think maybe he was serious, perhaps he really isn't going to come back home.

When I got out of the hospital, I asked the guys what happened with Mandi. I know that something big must have happened, she drugged and assaulted a member, hurt me and broke my arm. As an Old Lady, physically touching me was a major offense, the club wouldn't keep her after that. But the big thing was having drugged War. The tests came back for cocaine, GHB and X, just like Rider thought.

They asked if I really wanted to know the details of what happened to her, and to be honest, I don't care. She did her damage, she ruined my life. War is gone, doesn't seem like he's going to return any time soon, or ever. So as long as I never have to see her again, I don't care one f-ing iota what happened to her. I hate her, she did her damage, then slithered away.

I went through a period of time when I blamed War for giving in to her games. If he'd listened to me, none of this would of happened. But he did listen when it mattered, he stopped talking with her, stopped the drugs, but she manipulated the situation, drugged him and slept with him. Filled him with so much guilt and self-loathing that he left his entire family to escape his shame.

Meanwhile, here I am. Paying the penance for someone else's sins. Trying to love my husband into coming home. My communication limited to texts that he doesn't respond to and might not even read.

I fill my life with my family, Taco Tuesday at Rockys house. Pizza nights when I take Rock, Tell, Claire and Tess out so their parents can have some alone time. Nights when I hang at the club with the brothers and the occasional parties.

I love my family, I love my club, but honestly I love War so much that missing him is starting to wear me down.

So, I continue to text him once a week, I don't call him anymore, it's too hard hearing his voice on his message. I just want to fill him in on what goes on at home, what he's missing. I told him that it looks like Rider might be in love, Stoner fell off his bike and trashed it after racing with Jax. I told him about some of the new prospects that are kind of funny. Sometimes I tell him I love and miss him, sometimes I don't. I'm not sure why, maybe it's my anger coming out. I'm loyal to him, to the memory and the belief in us, but I'm angry he left. I don't flirt, I don't date, I don't think about or look at other guys. I've been out and men have shown interest in me, I couldn't care less, I'm not going to go there.

I've decided for now, I'm going to keeping doing this, and if I feel I need to give up and move on, then I'll deal with it then. But at this point, I still believe in us, in the words we've been saying to each other since I was 18 years old.

Only you, always you, forever you.

So, sitting alone in our house, on the front porch swing that we bought for our first anniversary, I look out at the stars. I close my eyes and think of War, remember sweet times, our first kiss, the first time I rode on the back of his bike. When we left the club on a Friday afternoon, rode on his bike to Vegas and eloped. Spent the weekend loving each other and planning the adventure that we'd started. I try so hard to send these feelings out into the world, so that wherever he is, he feels them, he feels me, and I hope that he remembers our love.