text: “This never would have happened if you would have just-” “What! If I would have just what, Linn? Please oh please, enlighten me of all of my shortcomings up until this moment!” “Hey! I am trying my best over here! You think if I could go back and change everything I wouldn’t?” “Just admit that some of this is your fault too! It's not all me!” “Oh really? We’d be a happy family right now if you wouldn’t have always put work first all the time, and maybe you could have paid attention to the kids at all? Not just thrown presents and money at them as a sorry for missing every basketball game and birthday?” “At least I was doing something to support us! Sorry I couldn’t be there at e avery stupid little legue soccer game, I was busy making sure they didn’t starve!” “Don’t pretend we were ever going to starve! I bring in an income too, you know! And-” “Oh, now that ridiculous little Etsy shop is a source of income now? I thought we both decided a long time ago painting portraits for the internet wasn’t a reliable source of money!” “It became one! You just wouldn’t know because you haven’t even talked to me in weeks! Half that money went into the kids college funds.” “I thought we decided the kids wouldn’t get handouts when they went to college! That they would find scholarships or pay for it on their own?” “That was always a ridiculous idea and you know it! You were just too cheap to put aside money from every paycheck that you couldn’t use! Well now you have your stupid wish, you don’t have to put three kids through college anymore-” “Hey! That’s not fair!” “It is fair! Money was always more important to you. You didn’t go to Erica’s daddy daughter days at school, you didn’t see Tyler take his first step, you didn’t watch Alex start in his first high school football game, and now look! There's no more do-overs. You can’t go back in time and sit at his parent teacher conferences, or give him a hug when he graduates, you can’t pick him up from school and listen to him tell you about his day. Those opportunities are gone! You’ve got two other kids but hey, you can just pretend that this never happened and redeem yourself with them. But I’ll know. They won’t remember how you forgot they existed until Alex died, but I’ll know.” “I am not-I am not like that! I loved Alex! Just like I love Erica and Tyler and... it's not my fault that work is so time consuming! And it's not my fault that he died! Stop blaming me!” “No, it's not your fault that he died. You didn’t tell him every teenage boy goes out, drinks and has a one night stand, just don’t be stupid like you were, right? You didn’t tell him to take his car to impress the girls, or that being a teenager is the time to be crazy and have fun being irresponsible while you still can, before you hate your ‘life and your wife’, right? No, it couldn’t be your fault he died. You didn’t text him any of that, did you?” “You-you looked through his phone! You are not blaming me now, you’re just bitter you were a stupid teenage girl who got pregnant with a man you’d just met and you’re mad you're stuck with me. I could have left you and Alex with nothing but no! I worked for you two to survive while you grieved your lost childhood! I lost my childhood too!” “You were 25! You were almost done with college and I was a naive 18 year old college freshman! I was drunk! And don’t you dare switch this up on me. Alex didn’t get a girl pregnant, Mark. Alex crashed your precious mustang, sometimes I wonder if you’re grieving the investment you made in that dumb first car than you are for your own son!” “I am grieving the loss of my oldest child! I don’t care about the car! I don’t care about the $90 whiskey he took with him to that dumb homecoming party! I don’t care about anything other than the fact that my son is dead! And it is not my fault! How could I have known that telling him to have fun was going to kill him!” “But it did, didn’t it!” “You haven’t been a model mother either, have you? You’ve-” “No! I don’t want to hear about how because I was horribly depressed over dropping out of college to raise my son and marrying a man who has been involved with three women on the side since we got married 17 years ago! Don’t tell me about my shortcomings, I was there for every moment of their lives. Every scrape on the knee, every school project, every victory dinner after a football game. I have been living virtually by myself with a senior in high school, a 3rd grader, and a toddler and they made every day feel worth living! And yes, sometimes I would drown and forget to send Erica a juice box in her lunch or have to yell at Alex for not cleaning his room, but I was trying! And that’s more than you can say! I don’t blame you for Alex’s death, I just blame you for only deciding to show up after he was gone.” “Do you think I wanted it this way? Do you think I wanted him gone? That I wanted to be gone so much? I saw those women because you cared more about the kids than you did about me!” “Don’t you dare say that to me. I showed up first to that hospital to tell him goodbye. The moment I got the call. You were with her two hours away. You can admit it. Because I know.” “So what if I was! All that matters is that I left her! That I’ll be here from now on. Isn’t that what you want?” “No Matt. What I want is for you to get out of my life. I want a divorce. I want to bury my son, and I want you out. I don’t care if we have to split up the kids on weekends and weekdays and you fight to see them for holidays. Hell, I don’t care if you never see my children ever again, marry one of those women you love more than me, have children with them and pretend the last 18 years of your life never even happened. I don’t care! I just want to grieve my son!” “This never would have happened if you would have just-” “What! If I would have just what, Mark? Please oh please, ‘enlighten’ me! No. I’m packing the kids up and going to my mom’s until this is all figured out. For now, I can’t even look at you anymore. See you at the funeral. If you feel like that’s an important enough thing to go to. If not, I’m sure Alex would enjoy a gift with an ‘I’m sorry I’m working, champ’ text. I’m sure that will fix this." "Linn, wait," "Goodbye Mark."