A work in progress…

Today’s dispatch departs from my usual musings and wanders into a private, protected part of my soul: my creative writing.

I started this blog with a few purposes in mind:

• To find a creative outlet and honor the writer in me who was silenced almost forty years ago.
• To share my journey in the hopes that others might relate, find a moment of levity, and discover their own joy along the way.
• To build a community and an audience for the novel I am finally bringing to life.

Today, with shaking hands, I present a first draft of a first chapter.

It is raw, and it is unfinished, and it is entirely me.

Swimming in the Gray (working title)

Chapter One

There’s often a disclaimer in books like this: names have been changed to protect the innocent. I suppose I should do that.

But no one in this tale is fully innocent. No one is fully guilty. This is a story of divine beings who left the safety of whatever heaven resonates with you to return to a broken world—to embody human form, to gamble with free will.

It is with great hope, faith, and the enduring belief that we are all inherently good that a tapestry of generational trauma is woven. Each thread has a unique heartbeat, tethered to a mortal body and an eternal soul. Some threads are so tightly braided together they last a lifetime. Two souls weaving in and out of each other’s lives despite the cost. Others are snapped under the slightest bit of tension.

If you struggle with the concept of swimming through the gray, you might want to put this book down now. Nothing is black and white. Nothing. If your worldview does not allow for nuance, circumstance, and change, then this tale may not be for you.

You’ve been warned.

I am about to take you on a journey—written raw, honest, and in total vulnerability. Most of what you are about to read is true, with locations and names changed to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent. Some details are embellished or created to fill gaps in my memory, but by and large, this is based on a true story.

I am prepared for you to hate me, relate to me, cheer me on, or wish me dead. It is up to you to decide how you want to interpret this eight-year saga and hash it out with your best friends or book club over an amazing bottle of wine. I accept whatever conclusions you reach. Some will see the villain; others will see a woman who finally took her life into her own hands.

And so, our story begins.

It’s funny how the biggest catalyst for change is often birthed out of absolute chaos. October 20th, 2012. The day my life changed forever.

Beep, beep, beep, beep. The morning alarm rings harshly in my ear. I blindly hit the snooze button. I know I don’t have long to linger; it’s a school day, and I need to get the kids ready and myself off to work. I roll over and look at my sleeping husband, Raymond. My eyes narrow with worry. He hasn’t been the same since he was fired in January, and here we are in October with no emotional improvement. We are fortunate that my income is sufficient to carry us, but the loss of a second salary is the least of my concerns. I am worried about him.

He recently started counseling to fight the crushing depression and anxiety that has engulfed him for months. He was actually enthusiastic to learn of a new diagnosis they would be addressing in therapy: Borderline Personality Disorder.

I remember that phone call vividly. He was so excited to have a “working diagnosis,” feeling like the symptoms fit him to a T. As a mental health therapist myself, I felt a dark cloud consume me. BPD? In men? Really? How did I miss this?

I immediately started Googling, and sure enough, the symptoms fit. It was a crushing and relieving sensation all at once. All the attention-seeking from other women, the “not technically an affair” dalliances, the “we’re just friends” that resulted in 6,000 text messages in a single month—it all made sense. His behavior wasn’t my fault, despite how often he made it out to be. Unfortunately, we would never get the chance to see if long-term therapy or medication would help. The irony of it all.

I jump out of bed and the day starts “normal,” whatever that is. I rush around the house, taking care of two dogs and three kids on autopilot. Raymond used to handle these morning tasks, but as he slipped further into depression, I took on more of the household burden.

Every day is a battle between empathy and enabling—one that is exhausting, frustrating, and debilitating. Autopilot is easier, numb.

“Kids, get into the car, time to go,” my voice echoes through the house that I am desperately trying to make a home. A mere 18 months earlier we had walked away from a life to start fresh—a new chapter, hope for a better outcome. Moving 1,200 miles from my hometown to a tiny PNW enclave, sight unseen, was not enough.

I make one last dash upstairs to say goodbye. At the landing, I look into his office.

There he is, already gaming, engrossed in leveling up his pixelated Ogre. A still, soft voice hits my soul: Don’t get mad. It’s not worth it. I take a deep breath and walk up behind him.

“Hey, we’re headed out the door.”

I wait for him to acknowledge me. I get a nod, his eyes locked on the screen. “Uh-huh. Have a good day.”

I fight back that familiar urge swelling from the pit of my stomach. The sting of betrayal. Sometimes it was another woman; sometimes it was the computer and his imaginary world. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, lean over his back, and kiss him on the cheek. Little did I know how grateful I would be for the rest of my life for making that one small, poignant decision.

At 4:30 that afternoon, I would learn that he was dead on that very office floor.

The day at the community mental health office is hectic and trying, as per usual. Living in an area plagued with poverty, addiction, and high unemployment creates a never-ending demand for therapists. The day is filled with back-to-back counseling sessions, with only a small window to write case notes and decompress.

I close out the last session, part from my client, and make my way to the shared office space. I glance down at my phone: fifteen missed calls. As a mom of two teenagers and an eight-year-old, it isn’t entirely unusual to have the screen blown up. The last time this happened, the dog had gotten loose and was on the run.

The last missed call is from my oldest. I crack open my laptop, start my case notes, and press the green call icon to get to the root of the current emergency. My brain runs through the possibilities: a missing backpack, teen drama in the lunchroom, or a request to jump into Billy’s truck and go cruising the logging roads.

“Mom…”

I immediately detect the seriousness in her voice. She tries to talk but cracks with overwhelming emotion. Suddenly, her focus shifts away from me.

“Oh my God, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know!” My daughter is wailing in the background. I hear other voices, muted, a conversation in hushed tones.

My heart is beating; sweat beads on my forehead. My hands are clammy as the stuffy cubicle fills with a sudden, sharp intensity. The other counselors all stop and glance up, sharing this suspended moment.

Suddenly, I cue in on my mother’s voice. My mom isn’t supposed to be there. What is going on?

“Honey,” my mom says, now on the other end of the line. “There has been an accident, and you need to come home.”

The room starts to spin. I gasp for air. The office feels like an inferno as waves of nausea begin to crash over me.

“Raymond’s dead,” she says.

Without a conscious thought, I utter, “Did he kill himself?”

“It doesn’t appear so.”

“I’m on my way.”

I hit end as I hear my mother begging me not to drive the thirty-five minutes home. I grab my purse and run out the door, stopping briefly in my supervisor’s office to tell her I’m leaving—that my husband has passed away. Choking out those words, “my husband died,” is otherworldly. This cannot be happening.

Somehow, I end up in her car. The staff has sternly decided I am not to drive. I cannot adequately put into words the waves of emotion that wash over me on that drive. At one point, I turn to my supervisor and croak out, “Part of me is really relieved. Does that make me a bad person?”

She looks at me knowingly. “No, not at all. It makes you human.”

She and I had shared “war stories” of being both wives and therapists to our husbands during our off-hours. I am thankful for the camaraderie. I don’t have to feel guilty or explain the tidal wave hitting me from every direction.

By the time I get home, the medics and fire department are gone. I’m greeted by a slew of unfamiliar cars and a police cruiser. I steady myself, get out of the car, and walk into our home. Was it still going to be a home after this?

I lock eyes with my daughter, who discovered her stepfather on the floor. I grab her in my arms. “It’s going to be okay. I don’t know how right now, but it’s going to be okay.” Tears stream down her face as we hang onto each other.

I do a quick mental inventory. Nicholas is at Grandma’s playing video games, blissfully unaware. In the hours to come, I will have to shatter his eight-year-old heart. My middle child is at her volleyball game, expecting her stepdad and sister to be in the stands.

My mom seems to read my mind. “I’ll go get Lee,” she says.

“Mrs. Sterling? I’m really sorry, but I need to ask you a few questions.” A disembodied voice reaches me. I look up and see a local police officer. “This is just standard procedure for an unattended death. Are you up to that?”

Numbly, I sit at our dining room table. Our table. My table? In a matter of moments, I’ve gone from a “we” to a “me.” The officer is gentle. He asks the routine questions: Tell me about this morning? Was anything unusual? Medical history?

My mind spins. Suddenly, a huge wave of relief washes over me. I didn’t argue with him about the computer. I am so grateful I didn’t. My last memory of Raymond was giving him grace—wrapping my arms around him and kissing him goodbye.

“No, there was nothing unusual this morning. Nothing concerning.”

“I see there was a missed call from you on his cell phone. Was that out of character?”

My mind does a somersault. I had tried to call him at lunch. He hadn’t answered, but I didn’t think anything of it. What if I could have saved him? Was he already dead when I called?

“No, it wasn’t horribly out of character for him to miss a call. I didn’t think anything of it. I guess I should have?” My voice cracks. It’s getting harder to hold back the sobs.

“Ma’am, people miss calls all the time. Please don’t beat yourself up over that.”

I nod, but the guilt lodges itself firmly in my stomach anyway. We finish the questions and the energy in the room thickens. There is an air of compassion in the silence—a cosmic shift between two strangers.

“Would you like a moment to go up and be with him?”

Again, the morning exchange rolls through my mind like a movie premiere. I choose to keep that image.

“No, thank you. I am content with my last memory of him. I don’t need to go up. Would you mind if I have his laptop and cellphone? I need to make calls… start attending to business.”

“No ma’am, not at all. I’ll get those for you.”

He makes quick work of going up to the office where Raymond’s body lies. He returns with the electronics and then effortlessly helps me gather clothes for the kids, loading them into my mom’s car so I can get them to the security of Grandma’s house.

He leans in, his voice dropping below the noise of the room. It’s the first thing that feels steady since the phone rang. I feel safe and shattered, both at once.

“I’ll stay,” he says quietly. “I’ll wait for the coroner so you can head over to your mom’s. You don’t need to be here to watch this.”

To watch this. To watch a gurney bounce down my stairs? No. I look at him—really look at him—and for the first time, I take a deep breath and start to cry. He rests a hand on the back of my chair, a brief, solid weight that says he isn’t going anywhere.

“Yes,” I say, the word barely a whisper. “Please. Stay. Lock up for me?”

He gives me a short, somber nod. “Go, Mrs. Sterling. I’ve got it from here.”