Wake up. Shower. Eat a breakfast bar. Take the subway to the office. Work. Eat lunch by myself. Work some more. And here's where the decision tree starts.
I'm a programmer. A decent one; I'd be a senior developer by now, if... well, if I could give a fuck. But I was good enough to not get fired, which was what mattered now.
Anyways, programmer. That's why "decision tree." "If Day In ['Tuesday','Wednesday'] Then Subway(Home)." Except life is never exactly that easy. Never that simple. The decision tree started before that, branched out in the morning, because if it was a Saturday or Sunday, I'd have slept in as late as my body would have let me, then vegged out playing videogames all day. And then there are handlers for special days: birthdays, anniversaries, holidays.
Valentine's Day.
Two years ago, everything was different, all my decision branches were different. A year ago, everything changed. I'd give anything to go back and make different decisions, to have flipped a few bits and sent my life on a different path. I'd say I regret what I did, but regrets are for people who can hope for forgiveness. For the rest of us, we just push on and through, putting the damage we've caused behind us as best we can.
My decision tree this Valentine's Day required special handling. Normally on a Tuesday, I'd go home and either drink, toke, or game my way to sleep. But tonight, there was a meeting of my support group, the one that normally only occurred on the Thursday branch of the tree. Valentine's Day was special, though. The folks that ran it knew that some of us would need the extra support today.
There weren't many people in the auditorium, just a handful of us in folding chairs in a circle. I was glad of some of the absences; Darius wasn't there, and hadn't been to any of the meetings in weeks. I smiled a little; I hoped he'd escaped the orbit of his pain, at least enough to start navigating to a new life. Margaret wasn't either, but I think she was just sick. She'd sounded terrible when she spoke last week. Hopefully she'd feel better soon. She was a real sweetheart.
And, of course, the bulk of the other usual attendees weren't here, either. They were using the group for the reason intended, to get better. Our group wasn't like AA; you were expected to leave someday. If you didn't, either the group wasn't working for you or you weren't working with the group. I was the latter; I had never spoken, other than to give my name, in the three months I'd been coming.
But the other four? Well, three were what I thought of as old timers. They each had their reasons to be here, beyond what brought us all to the group initially. Beyond the loss of our spouses at a young age. We were all, in theory, here to talk with other folks that could understand, that could empathize. My therapist suggested I come, and I did. But I knew I wasn't working with the group the way I should if I was going to leave. I was here to wallow.
Mary was here for that, too. But her wallowing wasn't the quiet kind; instead, she shared every few weeks, talked about what she'd done. Her husband was a clinically depressed man, and she couldn't manage it anymore. He had stopped managing himself, had lost his therapist and wouldn't go to a new one, wouldn't go to the ones she found for him. Started to lash out in his depression.
She couldn't get through to him, couldn't get him to get help, and she eventually fell in love with a coworker she had confided in. She left her husband, Sam, alone. She hadn't intended to; she had called his sister, but something happened and the sister didn't get there in the ten minutes she had promised. Didn't get there at all. He threw himself off of their apartment balcony.
I hated Mary. Not for what she had done, not specifically. For what I had done. For reminding me too much of myself. There was an uncanny valley between us, and her grief and pain looked like mine just enough that I recognized it and just different enough that it made me angry to look across it at her.
Ray had been here longest, and he was the oldest; technically past the age limit, but who was going to kick him out? He wallowed, too, but he tried to think of it as leadership, of giving back to the group what he'd gotten from it. His wife had died in a drunk driving incident. She had gotten just a little too lit and left a party that way, taking her car keys with her. The group, I'm pretty sure, had become his life, even as it prevented him from making a new one. He was like one of those guys that went to every home game shirtless and painted in the team colors; his only friends were here, and we weren't really his friends.
Gina was a lot like Darius, and they had been pretty close; she clearly missed her buddy. Their spouses both died from cancer. I think she was still here because, unlike Darius' wife, Gina's husband had lasted a long time, three years. He had gone into remission and then relapse, followed by a slow decline that chemo and radiation couldn't stop. There's a special pain in losing a loved one quickly, but there's also a special pain in losing them slowly, especially when you think they've made it past the danger.
The fourth, Ed, was one of the new guys. A really new guy, only here for a couple of weeks. He was still early in the process, just trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces and move on. His wife's death was simplest, and for that reason, somehow saddest to me: an aneurysm, a simple weakness in a blood vessel cutting short both a life and a love.
And that left me, Todd. My wife had died, too. The hows and whys? Well, that's a--
"Todd, do you want to share tonight?" Ray's earnest voice set my teeth on edge. It was the same voice a high school guidance counselor uses when they tell you that maybe if you'd just try to fit in, things would be better.
I'd zoned out when Mary had been sharing. I do remember that she said she'd met someone new. Even in my disdain, I could find a little happiness for her; hopefully she wouldn't fuck it up. But then it turned into another recounting of her husband's death and her role in it, only this time the spin was about how and when to talk about it with the new guy. That was like the blind leading the blind, and I had no interest in listening to a bunch of birds with broken wings give tips on how to fly.
I shook my head, and Ray, with his usual thin smile when I did that, started to turn to the next possible participant. But then, surprising myself, I said, "Yes. Yes, I want to share."
The old timers shared a glance among themselves; these meetings had a flow to them, and that flow didn't include me speaking. Even Ed seemed to catch that something strange was happening. But it had been a year, exactly a year, since Sandra's death, and three months I'd been coming here. There were only four people in the room; if I wasn't going to do it on this night of all nights, with this few people judging me, when was I going to do it?
"Um, I'm Todd. You know me. It's been... it's been a year since Sandra died. Exactly a year, since... " I looked at the floor, trying to escape the eyes on me. "Since I killed her." There was a gasp; Gina, I thought. The sound of cloth rustling as people shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.
Ray spoke. "Todd, perhaps-- "
Ignoring him, I continued. I was committed; I'd always been committed when it came to Sandy. "We married too young. I loved her, and she loved me, from sophomore year in high school on. We weren't like a lot of high school couples, the ones that broke up and got back together over and over. It was us, just us, all the way through high school. We got engaged the week we graduated high school, got married the week we graduated college.
"My folks, her folks, our friends, they all tried to tell us we got married too young. But that... well, you know how kids are. People telling them they're making a mistake just convinces them that they're star crossed lovers being torn apart by... whatever."
The floor was that kind of ugly speckled, mostly green linoleum that you only get in old auditoriums. The kind meant to hide vomit, or blood, or urine, until some guy with a mop and bucket can get there. "We were in love, though. Really in love. It wasn't just youthful arrogance or lust. I would have spent the rest of my life with her, happily with her. We made it five years that way, just happy as could be. Or I was, at least. I thought she was, too.
"We were starting to talk about kids. Really talk about it, I mean. She was hesitant; we were so young, me twenty six and her twenty five. I pushed on it a little bit, but she pushed back hard, and I let it lie. She was right. We were young. It could wait a few more years, and I wanted her to be happy."
Sitting back in my chair, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I put one in my mouth and brought the lighter up when Ray, voice pitched up just a bit and indignant, said "You can't smoke in--" Mary hissed at him. I looked around and realized I was kind of being a dick. But then Gina, whose husband passed from lung cancer, nodded to me, and I decided I'd been given a majority vote.
