It was almost noon by the time we had been to court, the judge agreed on Dennis leaving the house and we traded cars in the parking lot. Luckily there was no time for a discussion as I had a nine hour drive ahead of me to get to Riverton, New Jersey for the night.
Of all the people I could have stayed with in Riverton the invitation from Mark and Mary had sounded the most logical. Most of my other close friends were from the era where divorce was not an option and they had all stayed together through thick and thin. Mary had actually grown up in Birmingham, Michigan and was very excited about the fact that we would be living close to her home and her Mother. She and I were the same age and could look at the world and life differently than my plus sixty year old friends. Mark and Mary were not having a multitude of quests for Thanksgiving and that made the decision to stay with them a lot easier.
As the miles clicked past through Ohio I slowly began to feel a little more relaxed. It had been five and a half months since I filed for divorce and five and a half months of constant problems. I really wondered then and now how I managed to survive. There had been a lot of surprise reactions from my family. Mother, who could not stand Dennis, was filled with one negative comment after another. Somehow I had figured she would be dancing in the street but every phone call was some question as to how was I going to make it one my own. My sister-in-law said she could not imagine why I divorced Dennis as one man was as good as another. Friends that Dennis and I had as a couple were no longer there.
Sometimes when things look the blackest something good tends to happen. The last week had been pretty bad with Wally and I hiding out in a motel and then not being able to go home for another week. Maybe I should have gone to Mother's for Thanksgiving but that did not sound like something I needed to do. So it was Mary who said I couldn't get there fast enough for her and Mark. If the week had been hard on me I really had no clue how hard it had been on Wally.
It seemed the further we got from Detroit the happier that Wally got. He had always been such a good little guy, maybe a little quiet at times but then there was so much else going on that he sort of got lost in everything. Wes, being four years older than Wally, was not crazy about having his little brother hang out with he and his friends. Add to that the fact that Wes had demanded and gotten constant attention since the day he was born. With Wes everything was some dramatic big deal and little Wally just tried to stay out of the fray. When I first told Dennis I was divorcing him his immediate reaction was that he was going to take the boys away from me. Nice thought on his part but in the months that had passed it seemed like the boys had made their own decision and maybe Wes going with Dennis and Wally staying with me would be the ideal situation. Maybe being on "only child" sounded good to both of them.
Wally wanted to know as we flew down the highway if he was going to get to see all his old friends in Riverton. That may have sounded like a silly question to me as that was really what part of this trip was about. I assured him he could go see all of them, that he did not have to stay with me and this trip was really about having fun. From that moment on in the trip Wally really surprised me.
I’m I had learned from our camping trip up North that if you put Wally in the car he would tell you almost anything. From the minute he knew he could go see all his friends he never stopped talking the rest of the trip. I began to realize that this little eleven year old boy remembered everything he ever read or heard. We would pass by a town and he would tell me some point of history about it. For the first time he wanted to know what was going to happen when the divorce took place and where he would live. I couldn't give him all the answers but assured him we would find someplace neat to live and yes, we could get a dog that we would keep forever.
It was after 10:00 before we pulled up in front of Mark and Mary's house. It was a very welcomed sight to see every light in the house on and Mark and Mary out on the porch before we even got out of the car. They had been having an intense game of Scrabble before we arrived and had apple pie and ice cream waiting for us.
I snuggled into bed that night very tired but at the same time felt better than I had in months. The day had started with me feeling like I was running away but ended with me knowing I had picked the right place at the right time to come. Somehow I began to realize that whatever the next few months brought Wally and I would get through them.
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