All day I’ve been dreading this moment. All month, really. But I’ve been able to put it out of my mind because I didn’t have to speak the words yet. Now it’s time. I have to tell him that I’m leaving. Not for good, of course. Just for a few days. The details will matter. He will want to know exactly what time I’m leaving and exactly what time I will walk back in the door and exactly how many days and hours and minutes there will be in between.
I love to travel to conferences, but traveling means leaving my son, and leaving is devastating. Leaving is what moms do. Leaving is everything that’s wrong with him now. Leaving is what I try to show him every day that I’m never going to do.
He has tried in so many ways to make me leave, to control the rejection that he fully expects by choosing it for himself. He’s done everything he can think of. He’s broken windows and furniture. He’s spit on me, bitten me, hit me, cursed at me, screamed at me. Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone. Nothing works. Here I am.
“I’ve tried everything,” he told me a couple of months ago, sounding a bit weary himself. “And you’re still here. So I think I’m going to stop all that.”
And, mostly, he has. He is trying hard to stop all that, trying hard to heal.
And now I have to tell him that I’m leaving. I’m coming back, his rational mind knows that I’m coming back, that as long as I am alive I will keep coming back for him.
But his body remembers that moms leave.
I believe in pulling the Band-Aid off quick. He’s folding laundry and I dump the words on him.
“I have to travel for work later this week,” I tell him. No build-up. No “I have something to tell you” or “we need to talk about something” first.
I see his body go still. He holds his breath. He looks down at the towel he’s holding like he doesn’t know what it is.
I run through the details with him, but he doesn’t hear me. After I’ve finished explaining three times, he asks me, “How long will you be gone? A week?”
I explain a fourth time, and this time maybe he gets it. I see him set his shoulders and take a breath finally.
“It’s ok,” he says. “I’ll be fine. I know you’re coming back.”
He says it lightly and starts folding again. He looks up to catch me watching him.
“It’s fine, Mom, really. Don’t worry.”
But it’s not fine. Oh, it’ll be fine while I’m gone. He knows what to do with feelings when there’s no safe outlet. They get bundled up tightly inside, pressed down in the gut. There they will stay and fester until I am back home. I know what will happen on Sunday night when I walk in. He will see me and his face will light up with pure joy. I will watch him exhale fully for maybe the first time since I left.
And then he will get mad. So, so mad. Because he was alone. Because I left. Because he was sad and so, so scared. Because his rational mind was telling him one thing all week–she’ll come back, she always comes back–but his body was telling him something very different–moms leave, moms always leave, they leave because you’re unlovable, they leave and it’s your fault, they leave and there’s nothing you can do about it, you will always be alone, you will always be alone, no one will help you, no one can help you.
He used to hold onto the anger, but now it dissipates quickly. I name it, he acknowledges it or denies it, and then I sit with him. He moves away. But I keep sitting, and eventually he tells me to move closer. And then his arms will be around me and he will cling to me as if he’s drowning and I will save him.
I will save him.
the dirigible plum 
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