I woke for a terrible hangover, Sophie wasn't home anymore and so weren't the kids. The images of last night start popping up: Sophie's face, she's yelling at me, but I can't quite decide if it was a dream or reality. I still remember the unemployment center. Then I called Sophie and she didn't pick it up. At that time I was already at a nearby bar. I was shooting vodka after vodka. I sent a text with the bad news, then my phone went down. A guy was sitting next to me by the bar, I was complaining to him. He said I should go on sick leave, I can still do it. I yelled all upset that I'm not sick.
- Man, just take a look at yourself! - he said something like that.
I ordered more and more vodka, then I ran out of money. The last cut I remember is leaving to look for an ATM. And there the logical line of events breaks there. I faintly remember images, but only useless, cloudy details. Like if someone used the camera the wrong way, not taking the actual scenes just the set changes.
I got out of bed terrified, fighting throwing up. I was searching through my things, maybe I can find a sign, something to start from, to find out what happened to me. But I couldn't find anything, not even the folder I took with me to the unemployment center.
All my official documents!
I kept getting the face of a furious Sophie. Well that's why: I lost everything. I threw down my clothes and not caring about the vertigo I scrubbed myself clean. It happened on the outside, not on the inside though. The worst is that I could have done anything, I won't remember. I could have killed someone or gone behind the scenes with some woman. I don't know, and the worst is, I can't ask anyone.
I went to find the papers. I hoped that the familiar spots may help me recall where I wandered. I clearly remember having them upon leaving the office.
I was lucky. The bartender at the bar was waving at me from afar when he saw me. He had all the documents
- Cure a dog's bite with the dog's hair. Want a beer?
Not a single cell of me wanted it, but I didn't want to refuse the offer of the man who saved me from hours upon hours of red tape, or even worse. And also, I was hoping that the beer may dull the furious self-blame.
I only ordered a half pint and I left all the small change I had on me for him. I finally somehow shoved that beer down my throat, but it didn't make anything better.
I wandered around a little more in the area, but I didn't find out any more about my last night.
I came home and all afternoon I buried myself into the job advertisements. I wrote myself a new resume, trying to make myself look a little more appealing. Not much luck on that. And it's especially hard when my younger daughter stands in front of me, looks at me with her eyes all wide and asks:
- Daddy, how long will you be unemployed? Lilly's mom was fired too, but she is working again already...
I try hard not to show it, but a whole world just collapses inside me. And then Sophie steps in, sends the kids to their room and softly she says only this:
- Peter, I'm leaving.
Seventeen missed calls and a text message from Sophie, all throughout a single morning. My cell phone in the hotel, strictly silenced, I'm on a vacation.
Help me! - that's all her text says.
I call her.
- I'm getting a divorce - she says and starts to weep.
I try to comfort her, to no avail. Complaints just ooze from her. When she's not crying, she's talking so fast I can barely understand her over the phone, but I can see it's deep trouble: she wants to tell her husband that night that it's all over. I try to get her to think it over once more, leave some time for herself to ripen the final decision.
- No reason to. Not anymore.
I offer her to come up to me to the Mátra mountains for a day or two so we can look through everything. I can feel she would want to, but she hardens herself.
- Now I will play with open cards - she says.
I ask her how to mean that one, but I don't get any smarter from her answer:
- Mean it as you want it.
I look into my girls' eyes, I can see they know that something horribly wrong is going on, but they still don't ask anything, they just cry silently, without tears. "Your father is sick - I lied - and I have to go on a trip, for work. You will stay with Grandma for a while.” „ But I want to be with you two... always” - begs the younger one, and her tears start to flow. On the older one's face, bitterness. „ You won't get divorced, will you?”. „No.” - I lie again. I hate myself, I hate Peter. Where did we go wrong? Who is responsible for all this?
To my parents, I just routinely dish out the lies. Peter is sick, I have to go out of town. My father offers to go over to him. I reject it angrily. "Come, girl, let's talk it over!" - he pulls me by my arm toward his study, like in the old days when they made me pay the difference between the cheapie school bag and the trendy one in my freshman year in high school. If I can't get out of my parents' house, I will cry, and that's the last think I want to do. "Thanks, Dad, but I gotta go. I have some crap going on at my office and I have to be there." Lying goes easier and easier. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" - my father asks. He can see inside me, as always. "Yyyyyyyyyeah... I think so." "I hope you know you can always count on us?" "I know."
I say goodbye to the kids. They're crying. At that point, so am I. I try to calm then, best as I can, then I step out the door. Their teary eyes haunt me to go back and reverse all. But no, it's impossible.
In the car I ask myself the question I really tried to avoid so far: And now, where?
I think of my first love, the Mátra, where we have even been together. I almost take the highway M3 towards it, then I have a better idea.
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