The

The In late August of 1996, when I was just 19 years old, I arrived home to find my mom sitting at the kitchen table.

I've been in a house party with my then-girlfriend the night before, and following one of my first real experiences with alcohol, I wasn't feeling my best.

I walked through the front door into a house so quiet that I thought my mom and sister were elsewhere, but when I walked into the

kitchen, I saw my mom just kind of sat there, very silent with a glass of wine in front of her.

It was so unexpected and I was so hung over that seeing her actually made me jump a

little. But then, that feeling of surprise was quickly replaced by one of dread. Mom never drank

in the daytime and she never just sat around the kitchen table, quiet like that. And so very likely I

started to suspect that I might be in for some very bad news she asked me

to sit down and when i did she told me that my dad was gone and that he wasn't coming back i asked if gone

she meant dead when mom shook her head and told me no, he'd just left, I remember floating on an island

of relief for a moment before sinking back into a sea of shock. And once I was able, I followed up

with a ton of questions asking how she knew where he'd gone when he'd left and stuff like that.

And the short answer to all of them was, she didn't know. And the harder she tried to come up with any substantial response,

the more upset she got. He hadn't warned her, he hadn't left a note, he just packed a suitcase,

got into his car, and then drove off to God knows where.

The conversation ended with my mom crying and me hugging her, while I told her everything was going to be okay.

But as I unfortunately came to discover, everything was not going to be okay.

For the first two or three months, no one really talked about my dad leaving.

There were routine calls and visits from relatives to check in on us, but the discussions focused

on our welfare, not why dad had left or if he'd be back. Anything further than that, anything

which rubbed up against the mystery of the whole situation tended to upset

...