I cried as I rolled up the sweater

It was one I gave him, a nice sweater in colors he likes and ones I love. I smiled every time I saw it on him.

Today, I rolled it up and squished it inside the Goodwill bag along with clothes too small for the kids, a black-and-pink party dress I probably won't fit into again (and who needs silk polka dots these days?), plus t-shirts I never wore anyway but always seemed to find their way into the wash again and again anyway.

He doesn't need the sweater, and if he did he would have taken it. Taken it on that day last summer when he walked out, thanks-but-no-thanks-for-12-years. Yeah, it was a "mutual" decision, but one I revoked almost immediately but can't seem to take back, even now.

I want him to come home.

I've been hoarding his clothes as they come up. A pair of pants, a favorite t-shirt, a funny one and a sentimental favorite. I keep them in a dresser drawer for when he comes home.

Today, as I fondled the sweater and sniffed it for a nonexistent whiff of him, I realize I can't keep his things holding indefinitely. Sure, I could give them to him on one of those many days when we pass the kids back and forth. But I wanted there to be a reason to come home, and the thought of seeing him in the t-shirt, clad in the sweater, just seem too much.

So I sort through the tangle of our bedroom, I mean my bedroom. I haven't really gotten to the bottom of the layers for months, and as I excavate, he comes up again and again. Today, I got a big bag and started packing his things up to give away. He has replaced what clothes he left, he obviously doesn't want me, I mean these clothes.

Every time I come across one of his shirts, a pair of his pants, I ritualistically bring it to my nose, then put it in the bag.

One of the things in the corner of the bedroom, sitting there since Christmas, is a box full of our ornaments. The lid came off and things are spilling out. I pick up his Christmas stocking, the one that matches mine and the kids, the one that didn't hang on the hearth this year.

I bring it to my face, then put it back in the box. I draw the line right here.