Forced furlough
Between the boy’s issues since the beginning of the school year, and the problems with Beth, it has been a difficult year. It has been hard to concentrate, hard to get motivated, and hard to do any work. People what’s going on. I mean, my work colleagues knew before Beth did that I was moving out.
They’ve been flexible, up to a point. We reached that point this week. The options were resigning, going on probation (‘We’ll fire you in 45 days’), or taking FMLA leave. The choice was pretty clear.(1)
But before you go on that unpaid leave? You know that project you’re really sucking at? Finish that first, OK?
That was all yesterday. I was pretty raw and upset, worried, scared. I came home and couldn’t eat. Between feeling sorry for myself for being such a screwup and being angry at my boss for kicking out an element of my support system, it was hard to do anything but sleep. Which I didn’t do of course.
Sometime around 7:30pm the phone rang. It was the boy. He has a beautiful voice. When he was a baby I used to love to hear Beth tickle him because his laugh was a happy gurgle.
“Hello,” I picked up the phone.
“Daaaad?” he says in that rising tone.
“Hello sweetie, how are you?”
“You know what, Dad?” This is his business tone now. “You know what, Dad. I was doing so well in school, then it got hard. I think it was because you moved out.”
I’m already raw from the day. If I say anything, I’ll start to cry, so I swallow and say “Uh huh.”
“Yes, Dad. Things got hard for me after that. Do you think you could come back and live with us?”
Now it doesn’t matter if I say anything. My throat is clamped, and tears are streaming down my face. I try to breathe, but it’s not really possible. All I can manage is a whisper.
“It’s hard on all of us, sweetie, I know.”
“But maybe you could come and live with me and Mom and not argue. How would that be, Dad?”
“That’s not possible, sweetie. You know we tried and…”
“But I think things would be easier if you came back, Dad.”
“Some things are hard now, sweetie, and some things are easier now. That’s just one of the hard things.”
I try to shift the conversation.
“You know, sweetie, what happened between Mom and me is not your fault–”
“I know!” he cuts me off. “You’ve only told me that about a million million times!”
At that point Beth realizes what’s going on and takes the phone away from him.
I had told her earlier what was going on at work. She’s a little smug, I know, because she knows how these things affect me.
I have no idea how she manages to keep working through all this, without staring off out the window, without wondering what the hell went wrong. It’s good for her that she can do that, but it makes her appear heartless.
“You know that the first time you screw up after you come back, they’ll fire you.” She suggested that it might be a good idea to use the leave to find a new job.
I’ll finish the project. Settle up some stuff. Start working to get my life together again.
Someone told me I should buy a motorcycle.
This entire episode is very fuzzy. I have the memory that my boss’s goal was to get rid of me. Somehow what ended up happening is that I went on FMLA leave, got on my disability insurance, and ended going back to work some months later. Letters from my therapist were required.
No doubt this is all now in my permanent record. ↩︎