On Friday night I had to drop off an envelope at the post office for Saturday morning pick-up.
I had a specific post office in mind because I know the Saturday pick-up schedule, and this was a piece of mail that required the 7:00 am postmark.
This is the story: Over two years ago, the man who was my husband came home from work one night, a night that seemed like any other night, and said, I have to tell you something, and I hope it's not going to be a big deal.
It turned out to be a pretty big deal.
It turned out to be an extremely different night, that night. I remember that it was October, and lovely. Not quite Indian summer, but close. Warm and cool at the same time. I want to say that this night was the beginning of the end of my marriage, but I don't know if that's true: I'm not sure it's so pinpoint-able. It was certainly the end of something, though, and it began in my kitchen on a beautiful, sunny October evening.
The story came out of my husband in small pieces, over the course of days, then weeks. It was a very long story; its tentacles stretched way back into our beginnings as a couple--back into our dynamic of man and woman. Years later, when we were in the process coming apart, he confessed that it had really all been my fault: I had wanted so badly for him to succeed that he'd had no choice but to fail. Perhaps this is true.
Anyway. There in our kitchen, the story began to unfold. It sounded fairly simple: an accounting error. Somewhere, somehow, there had been an accounting error; as a result, the government thought we owed it an enormous sum of money. In thinking so, they had frozen all of my husband's bank accounts.
I believed this. It seemed like something the government could easily get wrong--outdated systems, government employees, masses of paperwork. It seemed more like a glitch than a disaster.
It wasn't a glitch. The government wasn't wrong.
Like every woman scorned, as the full story unfolded would keep thinking, How could I not have known? How could I have been so stupid? This had taken years to grow into a disaster, and it had done its growing right under my own anxious gaze.
The world stopped gradually, for me. In stages. There were months of negotiation, months of lawyers and accountants -- and friends, friends who lent us money to pay for our mortgage, our electric bill, food. I stumbled through it like someone in a dream -- that is the closest I can come to describing my experience of those dark months. That voiceless, echoing horror you sense in nightmares, when you know that you are certainly about to die a monstrous death, yet you still have time to wave at a friend, admire her new haircut, straighten your skirt.
Somehow, finally, at the end of it, it became Spring. Spring really came, even that year. With Spring came an agreement with the government: In exchange for allowing us to live free lives, my husband and I would pay a monthy sum that was the rough equivalent of a jumbo mortgage on a Manhattan penthouse.
As if.
Only one of us was gainfully employed at this time. She had never heard of anything like the "innocent spouse rule", and even if I had, it wouldn't have mattered. We had gotten into this together -- albeit with one set of eyes closed -- we were going to get out of it together. It did not occur to me that this wasn't my boat. It only occurred to me to row, hard.
This is something I know how to do.
So I did. We were scheduled for over two years of monthly payments. If a payment was made late, the agreement would be nullified, and a new nightmare would begin.
In the beginning, I taped a calendar to the inside of our front door and put an "X" through every month, every payment made. Each month survived felt like an enormous accomplishment. I had no idea, from month to month, how we would survive one more.
We held together, my husband and I. We let the battle become us against the evil goverment. It was easier that way. Occasionally, when we fought, the truth was laid bare. We became experts at not fighting.
Much of the rest you already know. The months rolled into years, and we finally did come unglued. The debt, the government, our tormentor, became mine and mine alone. Not because it was fair, but because I could. As I said, I know how to row, hard.
So it crept up on me, this visit to the post office. I realized last week that the 2+ year mark had to be approaching. I called the government, and they confirmed it: one final payment. August 2010.
I wrote out the check with what will be my ex-husband's Social Security number on it, as I have for over two years. I had the same slightly bitter taste in my mouth that I have for the past over-two years, signing the check, putting his address alongside mine at the top. We live in two different places, now.
When I got to the post office it finally struck me: This is over. I was shaking when I slid the envelope into the slot. It was the end of something so bad, but too complex to sum up with "bad".
In a way, I loved it. In a way, I loved jumping to the rescue. It helped define me. It reminded me, every month, of what I'm good at: I'm good at rowing upstream. I'm good at rowing hard. I know how to do this.
There is so much I don't know how to do.
