To My Ex-Husband

I'm an avid googler.

When I can't sleep I make a sport of it, and look up all kinds of people from my past. Most often it's old classmates from college. And you, of course, are one of those.

Last night I googled your name. You, the first of my two ex-husbands. My college sweetheart. How ridiculous that it all started between us with the musical production where you played a sperm and I was the egg.

We jumped into marriage fresh out of college, like so many of our equally misguided friends. It was only natural, right? College degree, marriage license. A no-brainer.

The baggage we carried into the marriage from our two families was more than just baggage. It was two separate 18-wheelers filled with boxes of toxic sludge, broken scissors, and Ziploc bags stuffed with quivering rattlesnake eggs itching to hatch.

Six weeks after the big festive wedding, things began to disintegrate. A year in, we separated. Then a few months later we reconciled. Then another separation. Then another getting back together. My mother must have been going insane watching this, never having liked you in the first place. Outdoing her in that department was your mother, who hated me from the start. Because I was female, and you had chosen me. Remember when your mom asked me what she could get me for Christmas? I said to her: "Well, I'm allergic to wool and I have way too much black stuff. Other than that, I love everything." She got me a pair of black wool pants. Yeah. Merry Christmas, rotten stealer of my boy.

My parents wouldn't speak to me when I came home with an engagement ring. They saw what a hideous match we were. But what do parents know?

Starting early in the marriage, in fact, back at that six-week mark, you starting slapping me in the face. I didn't blame you. When we fought, I had a vicious mouth.

Things ramped up. Lots of shoving, lots of me finding myself on the floor. Pots and pans flying through the air at my head, which caused me even at those moments to become that much more determined and pointed in my insults of you. I refused to run from you. For a long time. Until just before that third and final separation when you were tossing me over the couch or down the stairs of our apartment or grinding my face into the carpet. I started to catch on. I started to see that the combination of our anger was going to get one of us killed, and it probably wasn't going to be the rugby player.

One of our main conflicts was about children. I'd told you before we ever married that I would never have kids. That was OK with you. No problem. All we need is us, right? Fast forward to the day you were screaming at me while driving, and you ran us into a stop sign while yelling "Is one god-damned baby too much to ask for?!"

Somewhere in there, I met someone else. I sneaked around and started seeing him because I was the kind of weak, despicable woman who was too afraid to be on my own. I had to have the next trapeze to leap to clearly in my sight before I let go of the first one. I always had to have a man in the wings, just in case. A very healthy way to run a life, indeed.

After I left you for good, you demanded your old high school class ring back, (you had dug it out of a box and given it to me in a tender moment in college), and your favorite kitchen glasses. I was to bring them to you at your hotel security job. I brought the new guy with me. He stayed in the car. But you followed me outside and wanted to beat him up too. You backed down only when, with a slight push of his accelerator, he had you pinned between his car and the one in front of it, just like a big angry bug. I remember sitting in the passenger seat saying "What the fuck is wrong with my life?"

Ah, but that new guy was my hero. He protected me from you.

Your second marriage was a success. Your new wife even came with a two-year-old! Then you fathered two kids of your own. That's about all I knew about your post-Candy life, except for the fact that you were a "full time homemaker" which just about made me puke. Especially when I realized how happy it probably made you. Your potential happiness was on my shit list for a long time.

My second marriage? A huge mistake. A twelve year mistake. I used to actually wish he would beat me physically instead of the other ways he punched. Another terrible match.

And here I am, finally with the right person. And you are, too.

But when I googled your name last night, I also found out that you have Stage 4 melanoma. It was in an online church bulletin. I thought it had to be the wrong guy. I kept searching. Then I found the Facebook group your 15-year-old daughter started in order to solicit prayers for you.

Suddenly, after not talking to you for twenty years, all I wanted to do was to tell you I'm sorry. To tell you that I could see us both more clearly now. And to tell you that even with all the shitstorms we caused and endured together, I still care about you. I value every day of that impossible, exhausting trip.

I called your house and got your machine. You were upbeat and sounded healthy when you said "We just got this cool new phone for Christmas, and I actually read the instructions to figure out how to record this message." Christmas. Almost three months ago. Were you still alive?

I called your sister. Out of the blue of twenty years, she hears me say "This is your former sister-in-law, Candy." "Oh," she said.

I had to know how you were. She said your surgeon was very agressive, very determined to keep cutting things out of you as they became attacked by the cancer. He had even cut some out of your brain. But now he had to stop. He couldn't cut any more.

I told her I wanted to call and talk to you. "I don't think I'd do that," she said. "This is the toughest part emotionally for them."

You were going to leave the planet without knowing how much you'd meant in my life, and that I had forgiven us both for the mess we made.

I spent all afternoon reading every word of my journal from 1980, the year we met. I was all the way back there, reliving the Big College Romance and the drama and the technicolored tempest of being 20 years old with you.

I cried uncontrollably. I deliberated. I asked two people that I trust what I should do. Both said: call him. Leave a message on his machine if that's all you can do. Tell him what's in your heart.

I couldn't decide if that was too selfish. But I knew I couldn't live with the regret of not calling.

So I called. Dialing the phone was ridiculously hard. I was shaking and trying to get my shit together and failing. I left two messages because I was so nervous I left things out the first time. I had no idea if you were in the hospital or still at home or if someone would erase the messages before you heard them:

"This is a message for W. This is Candy. I accidentally found out on Facebook last night that you are ill. I talked to your sister today. I just wanted to tell you that I'm praying for you and your wife and your kids. And also I wanted to thank you for the time we spent together. It was a big deal. I'm glad you found the love of your life. I knew you would."

Second message: "Sorry for another message. I didn't actually find out accidentally. Something told me to google your name last night and that's how I found out. I also want to say I'm sorry for the way things ended with us, and for being so rude when we last spoke, 20 years ago. I hope this call doesn't offend anyone in your house. Bye."

Two hours later, you called me back. I was completely stunned. We talked for half an hour and it was really valuable for us both, I think. Your wife and my husband are very understanding people, and knew we needed closure. Your oldest kid is going to college in the fall and you're worried about it. But you also know you won't live that long.

"Yep, pretty surreal here," you said. "I feel good right now, which is what makes it all so weird. But things are going to get pretty crazy in the next few weeks."

Pretty crazy? Pretty crazy is when you have too much to do and your garbage disposal breaks and you forget to pay the power bill and the dog pisses on the rug. You are looking right down both barrels of death. And still understating everything.

We talked about God and our spouses and the many old college friends we never talk to anymore.

I didn't want to push my luck, but I gave you my email address. You said you'd write. You probably won't, but I'm so thankful that you called back, and that we got to linger in the mercy we'd found for each other, that I will try to make that enough.