a suburban divorce

You’d changed the locks, reset your password, but the effort was no match for the US Postal Service.

The first letter was innocent enough—like the pleas and musings of a lovesick teen. But with each new envelop, the words twist and darken, hinting at what’s to come.

Unsure what to do, you share the latest missive with your eldest daughter. A grown woman in her own right, she can’t understand how this could be the behavior of a post-middle-aged man, but it all seems harmless enough. A bunch of proverbial sound and fury, signifying fuck all.

You should have shown your youngest: the English major. Reading between the lines is a trick of the trade.

Then again, it’s hindsight that’s 20/20, not her. She probably would’ve failed to see it coming, too.

And she’s alone on the opposite coast. No sense worrying her over nothing, you think, as you push the letter across the table and try to edge it out of your mind.

He never signed the papers, but he didn’t contest it either, so when the deadline came and went, it was final. A quarter-century and change of marriage, and it all runs out on a technicality. You’d sell the house, move into a smart little condo, get a fresh start, but just your luck, the housing market crashed, so you lived together like estranged roommates, prolonging an already embittered and awkward state of affairs. But of course, it could have been worse.

That’s when the threats start. Empty, perhaps, but always escalating in intensity until the day he takes off with a loaded gun and you call the cops who find him pacing outside his parked truck, the remnants of several hours’ worth of chain smoking littering the ground at his feet.

It’s enough for a 5150, textbook danger to self and/or others, but they don’t keep him for the full hold. He always was a charmer and a damned good talker. Could sell ice to an eskimo and had a lifetime of passing under his belt. What’s one more con?

But that was the last straw. You couldn’t stay under the same roof, so you changed the locks, reset your password, and finally, after a lifetime of fights and tears and “I’m sorry”s and “fuck you”s, finally sent him packing.

But with no job, no money, no prospects, he simply had no place to go.

His mother had recently passed away, so he squats in her house while the power’s still on, but he knows he’s on borrowed time. He’d lost his job shortly before the divorce, after a failed attempt at rehab. And he thinks there’s only one way out, that everyone would be better off if he punched his own ticket. So he writes you letters and tells you so.

And eventually, he believes the truth in them. Knows it deep in his bones that it’s the only option.

And then one day, the letters stop.

It’s not long before his brother finds the body. Despite a lifetime together, you’re no longer next of kin, so your daughters go to sign the paperwork and claim the body.

The possessions are paltry, which is to be expected. A wallet with some photographs, some pocket change, a rope.

And then there’s the last letter.

It’s addressed to his brothers, trying to explain. To let them know that it’s alright. He says he didn’t want to hurt anyone, that he wishes everyone the best. Even you. Especially you.

But you’d already changed the locks, reset your password, and the well wishes of a dead man are as empty as the bottles you’ll be finding hidden throughout the house for months after he’s gone.