Unsteady

My hands are shaking as I read the note. Tears form in my eyes as I see the envelope on the counter between the refrigerator and the stove. Tears fall. It must be a joke. I open the envelope to find two twenty dollar bills and a ten. Fifty dollars. He left me and five kids with fifty dollars. More tears fall. I look at the money as if it is a sign of my worth. Someone new. He met someone new.

I think back hard in my thoughts and I remember. Jenn is the name of Gabriel's boss's daughter. The 19 year old girl who sits there and works as a secretary, as the whole office's secretary. I look at myself in the mirror and I can see my face swelling from my tears. My plain face, my plain hair, my average body. I step away from the counter, almost tripping on Jackson, my youngest son crawling happily behind me. I make my way into the living room and I see the tv is gone, along with Gabriel's favorite chair. His books are missing from the bookshelf and all the family pictures that lined them are turned face down. I walk into the bedroom and I see that his dresser and his nightstand are gone. The closet was empty of his clothes and in the bathroom he left nothing.

I pick up my phone and call his cell phone. Straight to voicemail. He's even changed it from his voice to the automated one. I leave him a quick message to call me, tears raining down by cheeks. I feel gutted. I bring my phone up again to make another call. The phone is fuzzy as I try looking through the names in my contact list. Finally I see my brothers name and I call.

"Hey sis, what's up!" He answers the phone excitedly.

"He…. He Left" I can't control myself anymore and I sob. I set the phone down with Ethan still on the other line and I just sob.

"Marie! Marie! Are you ok? I'll be there in 20 minutes" The phone hangs up.

I sit there with my palms in my hands I just cry. Memories flood, trying to figure out what went wrong. Everything had been fine. We were fine. We were comfortable. What happened?

"Mommy", Franklins voice shakes me our of my tears. " Are you ok? Why are you sad?"

I draw him close to me and I tell him that I was just having a bad day and it will be all better soon. It is a lie. Everything is changing. I go to the end table by where his recliner once sat, and I pick up the remote. The same cartoon fills the screen, and it causes me to think about this morning. Did he really have sex with me one last time before he left? Was this some kind of small victory for him.

"Marie!" I hear my brother shout in the kitchen and quickly appears in the doorway between the living and dining room followed by four more men. They are all dressed in their uniforms and they are all staring at me.

"Ethan" I run to him.

I wrap my arms around him and sob into his chest. I am tall for a girl 5'10, but Ethan still towers over me at 6'4. My big brother the soldier. I try to tell him what is happening, but I can't get anything to come out of my mouth. One of the soldiers sits down with the boys playing in the floor.

"You boys feeling like some chicken nuggets?" He says in a deep, yet friendly, voice.

"Yes", the young boys scream in excitement.

The man smiles and picks up the youngest two while gesturing the oldest three to follow along.

"I don't know him." I say as I try to break from Ethan's grasp.

"I do, He's one of my best friends. You remember Jake from my birthday party."

" I remember." Trying to wipe my tears on the sleeve of my blazer.

My brother walks be back to the couch.

"Look around the house, see if you can figure anything out." He tells his friends.

He just sits with me and tries to talk me though what happened. I leave out the sex, because there are just some things you do not tell your brother. I tell him about my promotion. How he had gotten me a cake the night before. I tell him about how he didn't say he loved me this morning before he left for work. Any detail I can think of. Then, one of his friends hands him the note. He reads it and I see the rage building in his eyes.

"I'm going to kill him. No, better yet I'm going to chain him to a tree and cut his dick off, shove it in his mouth and then I'm going to kill him" He shouts.

"7 years." I say in a tone that's barely a whisper.

" Yes, 7 years you have been married to that shit. Treated him like a king. 5 fucking kids and this is how he pays you back." He's ranting.

Ethan is only a year older than me, but he's protective. He's my half brother on my biological dad's side. Neither of us talk to our biological dad, but we've had a great relationship as soon as we found out about each other at 16. It's like we grew up together. He's pacing now and my tears have stopped. I feel like I am numb. My whole body is numb. Is he more upset than I am? I hear clanking in the kitchen and when I walk in there I see one of the men sweeping my kitchen floor. He smiles as me when I walk in and I see his name on his uniform.

"Rose." I say, reading the tag.

"Avery, you can call me Avery ma'am" he smiles

I look at him and I look at the broom and I am wondering if I have just turned a channel into some type of mom porn. Gabriel did not use the broom, or the mop. Even when he stayed home all the time he never cleaned the house. It was always me. I went to work, came home and I cleaned until it was satisfactory. Tears fell again.

My brother and his friends made sure the kids were taken care of. I went through my things searching for a password to the bank accounts. I never looked at them. Gabriel did all of that. I didn't have to worry about it. Now I do. Now I have to worry about everything. It's late and I'm tired. I try to keep searching, but eventually I just fall asleep in by bed surrounded by all file folders from the cabinet.