Traffic slowed, and halted. Travelers began exiting vehicles, shielding their eyes from sun, and straining to see ahead. The family joined onlookers at the roadside. Her daughter cartwheeling, her son examining rocks, Mom gazed down at the traffic.  She turned back to the children. They were gone. 

She's only eight. She has gone camping with family friends, but this is different. Five days, four nights away from home.  Her eyes twinkle when she hears me read aloud her packing list. What to bring. What not to bring.  She gets to bring cash for the camp store.  It's just like the movies, except she won't meet her long lost twin, and they won't wear matching camp uniforms. 

I want to be excited for her, and not let the mild terror show on my face. I want to instill her with a sense of adventure, excitement for memories to be made. But inside I am calculating how fast I can drive there if she needs me (if I need her). Inside I have some bubbling anxiety worrying if she will sleep alright, if she will make friends, if there's a mean girl, if she can keep her occasional bed wetting on the down low. 

She is strong, hilarious, creative, and whip-smart. She will be more than fine. She will come home with stories. She will use all the words, because she has many. I will listen, smile, and laugh, and gradually let go of my white-knuckle concerns. 

   I stood in the kitchen shaking, staring at the patterned linoleum, and recognized my marriage was over. I had to be done excusing his lies, ignoring his addictions, allowing his selfishness to rule our relationship. Our children were napping. Blissfully unaware of the turmoil in the kitchen. Too small to recognize their father had been absent the past three days. Too innocent to discern his brokenness.  

     I called his phone, again, and left a firm and final message that he had to live somewhere else or go to treatment. That I loved him. That he can't deal and do drugs in our home with an infant and preschooler. I also texted him. A long message with all the same firmness and finality. Even in this tough-love-Mama-has-to-do-what's-right-not-what's-easy, I just knew he would choose treatment. In all of our years together, he always chose healing and moving forward. I always enabled him. But his little codependent was done helping him do the bare minimum. Just enough to get me off his back. Just enough to let him continue in his sickness. One foot in recovery. The other knee deep in his illness. 

    Although he did not reply to either message, I knew what was next and I began heaving his belongings into the garage. His clothes, his disc golf bag, his books he never finished reading, his WWII documentaries my Mom gave him. The sobbing subsided the more of him I threw out the door. I began to feel in control of my life, the life of the kiddos and I. I began to realize we did not have to stay in his wake. We could thrive.