Something smells off

Every year my daughter and I make the same trip — we pack up the car, and head to another state for the races. It’s our little family tradition. Something we look forward to all year.

But one year, when we left Kansas City, something didn’t feel right. You know that feeling when your stomach tells you something is off, even if you can’t prove it? That was me the entire drive. Richard and I had been fighting before I left. That part wasn’t unusual. But this time felt… different. Heavy. I couldn’t shake it. On the drive, the fight continued over the phone. He told me he had gone out with friends and ended up at a bar. The more we talked, the less his stories added up. So I kept calling. And calling. And calling.

Not a proud Mom moment because I tried to protect my kids and keep them from seeing and hearing the ick in my marriage almost on a daily basis. Distracting them some how. But sitting together in a car while driving at night was almost impossible and as much as it sucked for us both, she got to see some raw truth. My daughter was sitting right next to me in the car, listening to every word while I spiraled and tried to make sense of things from miles away.

At one point he stopped answering, and my mind went wild. When he finally picked up, he said he had pulled over on the side of the road because he was too drunk to drive home. “Stop worrying,” he told me. “I’m headed home soon.” I didn’t believe him,and chewed him out for drinking and driving. After a long period of him still not being home, I was getting super stressed and my mind was a race of its own. But there wasn’t much I could do from two states away.

Life moved on. Years later, after the divorce, my now ex-husband was sitting around a campfire with the kids telling stories. One of those stories happened to be about that exact night. According to him, when I kept calling over and over again… He wasn’t pulled over on the side of the road. He was in his truck with another woman.

Funny thing about intuition — it may take years to prove it right, but it rarely lies. Moral of the story? If your gut says something smells funny… it probably isn’t the truck’s air freshener.

Yep… Dude!!