After much arguing and discussing and threatening between herself and her family, Mara agreed to fly down to Florida (where her parents were living, or soon moving to – the exact circumstance escapes me).  There she would become a short-term inpatient, followed by a longer-term outpatient, with yet another mental health facility.  Mara didn’t seem interested in the program itself, nor in moving to Florida.  But she knew that living with her sister was no longer going to be an option.  Living with her parents would be even less tolerable.  So, in some ways, this plan to enter the program would serve one purpose for her (as she wasn’t going to get anything out of the mental health aspect with the attitude she was carrying, and her past history): it would give her time to figure out what she would do about living somewhere.

The company I was working for at the time had a 1-800 number, so when she could Mara would call me on that.  But I didn’t hear much of her for a month or so.  The calls I did get were either simply calls looking for a friendly voice, or crying requests that she and I live together again, if only for a short time while she figured out what her next move would be.  I just couldn’t see any logical reason for her to come back to Dallas.  On the off chance that she was going to receive any support – financially or emotionally – from her family, moving back to Dallas would be the kiss of death.  After all, I was (in their eyes) the person responsible for all of her problems.  I was the one who turned her into the crazed adult she was now, instead of the happy child they remembered (funny that Mara never remembered being happy as a child).  Plus, I was trying to move on with my life, to make this on-again-off again relationship with my girlfriend Andrea either work or gather enough strength to end it once and for all.  So on these emotional occasions, I was forced to turn a deaf ear to her cries for help, and tell her that it wouldn’t be good for either of us.  Like it or not, she was stuck in Florida.

Eventually Mara was switched to outpatient status, but was lucky enough to make use of some kind of apartment facility they had for the initially discharged patients.  It was during this time that I heard about some new man in her life.  Mara wouldn’t give me a lot of details, but apparently they met in the program and now were attempting to conduct some clandestine relationship (as it would be against the rules of the facility).  He was recovering from drug addiction, and had other skeletons in his closet that Mara hadn’t felt comfortable revealing to me yet.  But she wasn’t lonely, and felt loved.  I didn’t see any real hope in the relationship, at first glance, but I’d managed to remove myself from the day-to-day structure of what she did and who she did it with that I didn’t find myself having nightmares or losing sleep over it.  Yes, I was bothered; but in the back of my mind I was still looking at the time Mara was spending on this planet as temporary.  Eventually – I was convinced – she’d kill herself…almost as if she was battling cancer and eventually it was going to eat her up inside.  It was just a question of when.

It was at about this time that I decided I needed to approach Mara about a divorce.  I no longer had any health insurance, so the main reason we had been staying married was gone.  I was providing some financial support, $400 or $500 a month, and she had her disability payments as well.  I told her I would continue to give her money as I was able, since I was making a lot less than I used to (this was after I’d lost my job in the series of events that would eventually lead me to prison a few years later).  With the potential for lawsuits against me, this was not entirely selfish on my part…I feared that if one of her relatives died, and we were still married, any inheritance she received could be somehow at risk.  And eventually one of us was going to want to get married again…I wasn’t planning on that on my end, but already Mara and her boyfriend had an eye to the future.

The divorce itself was very simple, since we had no children and basically no assets of value.  I filed the divorce and sent a copy to Mara, with a return envelope for her to acknowledge receipt of the filing.  The divorce paperwork simply stated we would no longer be married (I think grounds, if any, were abandonment), and that we accepted the fact that whatever personal property we now had in our possession was ours.  There was no financial support to be given (not legally required anyway; Mara knew I was going to help her when I could).  I had a few things in my storage unit which Mara wanted or considered hers, none with any monetary value.  I agreed to hold them and care for them until such time that she could have me send them somewhere.  (Funny, thinking of that reminds me of when Mara was leaving for her sister’s house for the final time, and her entire family seemed outrageously concerned that she be sure to “get the silverware” we’d been given as wedding gifts…silverware we had used once.  It was always about money for them, never about emotion).

I handled everything from my end, overnighting paperwork to Mara when necessary with prepaid envelopes to send things back.  Mara signed a decree that she did not with to appear or contest the divorce, and that she agreed with the terms.  I waited a month or so for my court date to show up, and drove to a building in Waxahachie which was serving as the courthouse at the time.  Sitting in the back of the courtroom, I could hear the two cases that took place before mine.  These were very angry people, arguing over kids, money, cars…so much hatred in their voices.  Relatives from both sides getting up to claim the other side of the marriage was Satan or Typhoid Mary.  It reminded me of my parents, and how badly things ended there.  The poor kids; I knew they’d suffer for the mistakes of these parents.

Finally it was my turn.  I went up, handed the clerk the paperwork, and waited.  The judge asked some questions, basically confirming the information on the pages.  “Mara Kent is not here today?”  “You have no children together?”  “No major assets, property, real estate?”  “Is there any hope for reconciliation?”  Five minutes later it was done. 

I walked out into the afternoon sun, and I felt completely empty and hollow.  It was as if the universe had just officially declared my relationship with Mara, and all the years that went into it, a complete failure.  I hadn’t expected to be upset by the divorce process.  It was clean, easy, and inexpensive (the forms cost me about $80, and no lawyers were involved).  We’d been apart for a few years, and this divorce was merely a formality; it was simply a question of when we bothered to go through the motions.  Once I’d lost my health insurance, there wasn’t any real reason to stay married.

I went back to work and shuffled through the rest of the day, dispatching drivers and confirming details of jobs for the next day.  I was sort of a zombie.  My boss and friend Patty asked me how I felt, and I just shrugged my shoulders.  I didn’t feel.  I was just empty.

After work I considered going across the street to Coyotes and having a few drinks.  But I didn’t want to see anybody.  Andrea and I were in a short “off-again” stage, so I wasn’t going to answer the phone if she called.  I drove the four blocks to my apartment, walked slowly up the stairs, and went inside.

I looked around.  The living room was nearly empty; I had no sofa, as my old one would not fit through the door, and it had smelled terrible when I pulled it out of storage.  There was no “living” going on there.  I filled the cat bowls in the kitchen, and gave them fresh water.  Tigger whined a hello, as always, and Whisper and Footy rubbed against me as they made their way to their meal.  Their companionship was a bit reassuring, but it wasn’t making me feel like anything was right.  Everything just felt wrong, and out of place.

The bedroom and the kitchen were the only two rooms left, and that’s where I spent my time.  I got undressed, and tried to find some music to listen to.  Nothing fit, nothing sounded right.  I just climbed into bed and pulled the comforter over my head.  One of the cats, probably Whisper, clawed at it, and then laid down beside me.  It wasn’t completely dark out yet, but in my cave it was black.  I was alone, and the world would never be the same again.  I realized then that the marriage hadn’t simply ended, or been declared over by a court document.  It had died.  It was dead.  Despite not seeing Mara since 1999 – three years earlier – life support had kept it alive.  Now, it was cold and stiff; a corpse. 

So I did the only thing that came naturally: I lay in bed and grieved.  And after a mountain of sobs into my pillow, I cried myself to sleep.