From Moon Dust where the heroine is thinking back on the family's Thanksgiving dinner after she announced she and her husband were getting a divorce. She's home now and thinking about how the day had gone. Although I've not had a divorce, at her age, I did have a family that was not so different from Susan's. When a couple decide to separate, it impacts their family, friends, and community.
~~~
With
a sigh of relief, Susan sunk into the large, white chair in her living room and
stared at the lights of the city strung out far below. Thanksgiving with her
large family had been for the most part enjoyable, delicious and tiring.
Everyone wanted to know about her separation from Dane, to ask questions about
what he had done to make her leave him. Half of her family had approached her
at one time or another to try to either change her mind or get the full scoop
on what had really happened, but since she'd been expecting that, it had been
tolerable.
Kicking
off high heels, Susan rubbed her feet as she thought back on her conversation
with Sarah. Big sister Sarah, who always wanted to take care of Susan's hurts,
had wasted little time in zeroing in on this issue and putting pressure on her
not to get a divorce. "But how could you just leave him?" Sarah's
large blue eyes had been intent on Susan, her plump body effectively blocking
flight from the family room. "Don't you know divorce is a sin,
Susan?"
"Sarah,"
Susan had tried to explain, "you aren't going to understand any of this.
You've got a marvelous husband and three bright kids. With a life as full as
yours, how could you possibly understand the barrenness of what Dane and I
had?"
"Barrenness?
What kind of word is that? Are you reading those wacky psychology books, Susan,
is that how you got this wild idea from that psychologist pal of yours? That
stuff is garbage."
Susan
had felt stymied, how could she explain any of this to her down-to-earth
sister, who seemed satisfied with so little in life. Knowing it was useless, Susan had tried. "How can I
continue to live with a man who doesn't love me? Who closes me out of his life?
Who won't share anything with me? I mean, get serious, could you live that
way?"
"Frankly,
Susan, most men are not so good at sharing their feelings as women are, Do you
think Jack tells me when he's hurt or feeling down? I just have to be
understanding, not demand too much."
"But
what if that wasn't enough for you?" Susan had been determined somehow to
make Sarah understand. "What if you want a man to tell you how he feels,
and you don't want it to take a gun to make him do it. For that matter, with
Dane, I'm not sure that even at the point of death, he'd admit to being
frightened or in doubt."
"So
then that's just his way!"
"But
it's not mine!" Both their voices had risen with their frustration level.
"Susan,
divorce is wrong."
"Maybe
so, but sometimes so is marriage."
"But
you were joined by God. You can't divorce him."
“I
was joined by a contract, a piece of legal paper, and the same thing can end
the marriage." Susan had walked to the large bay window, to stare out at
the sheep and cows grazing in the pasture below the big, old farm house.
Sarah
had followed, and the two sisters, so alike and so different, stared from the
window. "Dane is such a nice guy... And something else. He does love you.
I'm sure of it."
"Sarah,
you’ve chosen the way you want to live your life. Can’t you give me the freedom
to do the same? I have to do what I
believe is right just as you did."
Sarah's
voice had lowered to little more than a whisper. "Was the problem in
bed?"
Susan
had laughed. "No! It was not in bed. Listen, this is something I'm not
going to argue about. I know you've always thought you know what's best for me,
but you have to let go of this. I'm not a kid in school. I'm a woman, twenty-eight
years old, who knows exactly what she wants." Or did she I? But that had
not been the time to admit that to Sarah.
"Don't
you love Dane?" Sarah had wailed.
"I
don't think that's the issue."
"But
do you still love him?"
Susan
had thought for a moment, not wanting to tell her sister, wishing she could
bring herself to lie because it would be so much simpler. She had looked across
at Sarah and said, "I do, but sometimes love isn't enough."
Sarah
had obviously been unable to fathom her sister's thinking. For a moment, Susan
had been certain she would walk out of the room without another word, but she
had reached out instead and drawn Susan into her arms. "I think you're
wrong, but you're my sister and I love you." And so the two had a good cry
before they returned to the others, who had peeked their heads in to see there
was an argument, but had stayed away to let them settle it.
As
Susan stared out into the black night of the city, lights twinkling to remind
her other people existed, she wondered, not for the first time, where Dane had
spent Thanksgiving. She looked through the darkness in the direction of their
neighborhood and saw the twinkling of the first Christmas lights. Moon Dust is a contemporary romance set in Portland Oregon. It deals with some tough subjects including the ramification of sexual abuse on adults and our education system as well as divorce as a solution-- or is it.
