The Palmetto Expressway, known locally as “The 826,” which bypasses the center of Miami-Dade County, is about 30 miles long. Decades ago, I was only concerned with the nearly six-mile stretch between the exits for Kendall Drive and West Flagler Street, the highway distance between my home and the home of the man who had broken up with me.
His stated reason was that he couldn’t be sure of ever wanting a family. Meaning he didn’t want to be absorbed into mine with my two daughters: Vanessa, 7, who was born worried, and Veronica, 4, a people pleaser who would give me shoulder massages (“machaches”) and say, “Am I making you better, Mommy? Am I doing it good?”
We had come from Puerto Rico only three years before, when my girls were 4 and 1 and I was 25. I had been offered a coveted news internship in Atlanta that quickly turned into a job there which then led to a better job in Miami. As a single mother, I had been warned repeatedly about the difficulty of finding love with a man who was open to a long-term relationship, but at first he had seemed like he might be that man.
At the time of the breakup, he and I had been dating for 10 months. He lived in a modern townhome in the Fontainebleau neighborhood while my girls and I lived in a Kendall apartment complex, just steps from the ramp that would lift my Cabriolet onto the 826, where I would head north, racing to check up on him, to reassure myself that he wasn’t seeing someone new.
Nearing midnight, I would drive with the windows down, needing the din of the wind to quell my anxiety. To ground my giddiness, I would count lampposts and stare at the highway’s gray tar as if it were all that was keeping my white Cabriolet from flying away with me inside, so weightless it all felt, so fast and out of control.
Back then, I thought a lot about flying, driving, bicycling off, escaping. Motherhood weighed on me. At times, I would look at Vanessa and Veronica, so small and helpless, and feel exhausted at the prospect of all the years of child raising still ahead. When he left, it struck me as proof that having them had kept me from being the kind of woman a man like him would stay for.
I was 28 and in love, not yet able to regret dressing up my children, hair freshly braided and tied with pressed, crisp ribbons, for a man who could not love them or me. I didn’t yet know enough to cringe when remembering how I had made them audition for the role of stepdaughters who would be no trouble at all, would allow him to still be himself, exciting and free.
All winter, spring and into the summer, we had auditioned, my girls and I, and when in August he drove away and out of our lives, I took to asking the nanny to work extra hours, to return after she had finished dinner with her family, just so I could drive from one exit of the 826 to another, in search of him.
On nights when I couldn’t find someone to look after my girls, I would sulk, alternating between saying no to everything and complaining about how tired I was. Tired of their fighting and their toys lying around. Saying no to going out for ice cream and no to a walk around the block so they could see other people walking the dogs I was too tired to let them have.
Other nights, I would tell myself I was turning in early and have dinner, read bedtime stories, then rush and shush them to sleep so I could go to sleep, too, only to get up again as soon as I heard them snoring their little snores.
Minutes later, I would let the sitter in. Once or twice I even asked my next-door neighbor to look in on them under pretense of a breaking news emergency at the newscast where I worked. Then I would drive up the ramp, heart pounding, wondering: Would this be the night I’d see a car in his visitor’s parking space? What if he comes home as the guard is waving me in, as if I were still a welcome guest?
Would he be angry? Or would he smile and say, “Come here, you kook,” as he had that first night when he guided me into his bed and I lingered, filled with how soundly he had fallen asleep beside me, while my work beeper vibrated with calls from the nanny, who was justifiably furious I hadn’t come back when I said I would.
Why did I drive those miles? I want to say I was seeking relief, but there was none. It was more for the reprieve from knowing he was with somebody new. If his car wasn’t there already, I would park and wait, breathless with fear, until his headlights appeared at the turn, and he emerged, walking slow (tired?), pausing to look for his keys, and through my open windows I would hear his front door open and close with a light thud.
Once I was sure nobody would be showing up with a bottle of wine or a weekend bag, I would leave, promising myself this would be the last time. Up the 826 ramp I’d go, heading south, relief giving way to remorse, worry for my daughters overwhelming my delusion that I could make anything happen, even love.
I tried to stop. And for almost two months, I did. But by October I was at it again, driving that highway, smiling at the security guard, finding my ex’s car already parked and no car in his visitor spot, driving back and into my driveway, running inside.
And on and off it went like that until one night in early November when my neighbor, now wise to my ploy, did not come to her door. The nanny had family visiting. And yet I still tucked Vanessa and Veronica into bed and fled, promising myself I’d be back in 28 minutes.
Except that night I found no car. I had planned to stay only until 11:30, long enough to see him drive up, park and go inside alone. But when that cutoff time arrived without any sign of him, I began to worry about the likelihood of him being with someone else. I was also growing cold and hungry; I had forgotten to bring a scarf and had skipped dinner.
Thinking back, I realized I could not remember a single thing from that week or even that month. Only the gray tar, the lampposts, the adrenaline of chasing what I thought was love via the 826.
At midnight, some stranger’s headlights brightened the inside of my car, bringing lucidity.
What was I doing? What if Veronica woke and needed her mommy? What if Vanessa decided to sleepwalk and got lost? Working in news, I had seen it happen, a woman losing her children forever through some inexplicable act of negligence. And with that alarming thought, I started up my car and drove off, back up the ramp, hating the sight of my own hands on the steering wheel, hating everything about the woman who couldn’t stop doing this.
Minutes later, I slipped into our apartment and heard the vibrating murmur of my daughters’ gentle breathing.
I breathed too, closed the door to their room and dialed his cell.
“You O.K.?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Why are you up?”
“No reason.”
He sighed. “I’m fine. In San Diego for work.”
We were silent for a while.
“I’ve got to stop worrying about you,” I said. Because he knew me, it was the same as admitting to every drive, to every night of highway hope, to risking everything in order to hold on to nothing.
“It’s nice to have people who worry about you,” he said.
I didn’t answer, afraid of hoping again, my neediness like a beggar.
“But it sounds like you’re right,” he said. “You have to stop.”
“I know,” I whispered.
He stayed on the line, breathing. I wondered if he was lonely and missed me, but I knew I couldn’t let myself think that way anymore.
The whole awful episode made me sick with guilt. To this day, I cannot believe I ever left my girls alone. It has made me regard heartbreak as a dangerous thing.
It also seems like it happened in another lifetime, and in a way it did: My girls are now adults, and, 15 years ago, I found love with a kind, generous man. Yet I will always know the feeling of desperation when love walks out of your life. And I will always know the relief of letting go.
“I wish you every happiness,” I said, and hung up.
