Ninth of December

December 9th, 2009. It was like any other night; it started that way, anyway. My lovely wife, Chloe, and I were watching late-night television in the living room of our 4,200 square foot, inside-the-beltline Raleigh, North Carolina home, with our children, Elliot, 7, and Cate, 4, asleep in their rooms, maybe 10 feet away from us. We were an American fairy tale.

For the uninitiated, inside-the-beltline Raleigh, think Westchester County, New York; think Encino, California; Palm Beach, Florida; and the barrier islands of South Carolina. It’s where the Mayor of Raleigh lived. The guy who lived directly across the street from us was the longtime Athletic Director at North Carolina State University. There was this other guy; he lived around the corner and made a serious run for Vice President of the United States. It’s where old money congregated, and this middle-class kid from Central New Jersey managed to infiltrate that fraternity.

My name is Jason Rogers, I’m 54 years old. I’m of average height, I have brown eyes and brown hair, I’m not good-looking, but I’m not ugly; I have an average build. I’m not smart, and I’m not dumb. I long considered the average guy in the mirror to be a loser and consider him to be my greatest foe.

I met Chloe during the winter of 1995. I was working as a photographer who was hired to shoot a company Christmas party on Manhattan’s west side. Chloe, she was a “cater-waiter,” as she called it, at the same affair at which I was working. She was the girl in charge of serving food and drinks to the holiday revelers. Chloe stood 5 feet 7 inches, had short blond hair, and had the prettiest and saddest eyes I had ever seen. She had natural good looks that even made the tuxedo shirt and pants she was wearing look good.

This girl had confidence, too. She strolled right up to me that night, “Hey, my name is Chloe, can I get you anything?” “Nah, I’m working,” I sheepishly replied. “So what? You have to eat, right?” she quipped back as she sauntered her way through the crowd.

I hadn’t laid eyes on her for the next 30 minutes or so; that’s not to say I wasn’t looking. I had been sitting down in a chair not placed at a table, taking a break, when Chloe, decked out in her black and white, complete with a clip-on bow tie, approached me with a plate of food and a fresh bottle of Heineken.

“There’s supposed to be a blizzard tonight, you know,” she declared. “Yeah, I’m trying to get out of here before it gets bad,” I told her.

The room was filled with anticipation of the impending snowstorm and whatever else was in the air that night. Chloe and I instinctively and silently walked over to the front window of the establishment together and watched the first snowflakes pass by the streetlights and begin to cover the eerily quiet New York City street. Looking back, I’m pretty sure this was the exact moment I fell in love, roughly an hour after meeting her.

People began exiting the party quickly, in fear of getting stranded. The buses stopped running, black cars weren’t showing up, and cabs were nowhere to be found, and this wasn’t exactly the subway kind of crowd. Chloe and I, we were the hired help, and we stuck it out to the end. I don’t think either of us minded though, returning to the window to watch the snow fall together, every chance we got. It got heavier and heavier as the night grew longer. It was pure, unscripted magic.

“How are you getting home,” I asked her. Chloe waited a beat before responding, “I don’t really know,” she said it so slowly and so deliberately, with her head tilted to one side and with a smile on her face, as if she was actually saying, “I don’t really care, at this moment.” Picking up on her vibe and feeling very much the same, I make my offer, or better yet, my move, “I have a car service coming; you can hop in with me.” She offered no resistance.

That black car I had reserved didn’t show up for hours. Chloe and I effortlessly talked about everything and anything—religion, politics, family, hopes, dreams, and desires. We even sang Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” together to pass the time. I was actually disappointed when the car finally arrived, signaling the end of our impromptu date.

“Where am I taking you,” the driver asks. Chloe quickly leans forward as she brushes the thick, wet snowflakes from her hair, “79th and 1st, please.” Well, well, well, this is convenient I thought to myself, as I lived less than 10 blocks away on 88th Street.

Our chauffeured chariot wound us through the city as we watched its tires making fresh tracks in the snow out the vehicle’s back window. My arm was leaned against the seat, resting just inches from Chloe’s ear, occasionally brushing the ends of her short blond hair. I could still feel her breath on mine as we unintentionally, yet intentionally, had our heads leaned in towards each other and our faces just inches apart. We seemed to be as frozen as the streets we were gliding through.

Chloe, I, and our designated driver for the evening eventually made it through the winter wonderland that was New York City that night and arrived at her apartment building. Being the 20-something-year-old gentleman I fancied myself at the time, I asked Chloe to wait in the car while I got the door for her. She happily obliged. I walked carefully around the back of the car, gently opened the door, and took her by the hand. I helped her out of the car, up onto the sidewalk, and we made our way under the awning that led to the residence’s lobby. With the East River as our backdrop, the heavy snow still falling, and the building’s doorman and black car driver as our witnesses, Chloe and I kissed for the very first time. I can still remember the feeling tonight.

After watching her disappear into the building and up into the elevator carrying her to whichever floor she may have lived, I told the black car driver I’d be walking the rest of the way home and thanked him for his service on this horrible yet spectacular evening. I blissfully made my way between the snowflakes, with Chloe, and only Chloe, on my mind.

We spent New Years together in Times Square as 1995 turned to ’96. We spent Valentines Day together. That night we saw actor Abe Vigoda, you know, “Fish” from Barney Miller, in the Upper East-side restaurant in which we dined. We also found ourselves sitting right next to a young woman who was getting dumped by her man, right there at the table, on the one day a year that’s not supposed to happen. We eavesdropped, and giggled our way through the young mans lack of character, and the brokenhearted girls tears.

Chloe and I laughed together, we loved together, we cried together, and in September 1996 we moved to Raleigh, North Carolina together. Raleigh was Chloe’s hometown. Her grandparents, who pretty much raised her, were nearing the end of their lives, and she was determined to see them through and shower them with love as they made their journey to their final destination. This act of selflessness, repayment, and life coming full circle was so appealing and so attractive to me. So I joined her.

Chloe and I were married in 1997 with both her grandmother and grandfather in attendance.

Having children wasn’t an easy go at first. It just wasn’t happening for one reason or another. We occupied our minds with friends, dogs, vacations, and home remodels. In 1999, we went into business together.

The television news business is what we decided on; we owned satellite trucks. You know what they are: little vans with dishes on top that are often seen outside courthouses and at sporting events in your town. We’ve covered hurricanes, terrorist attacks, school shootings, and church shootings. We covered a story once where college athletes were falsely accused of rape by a hooker. I always used to jokingly tell people, “That one put the pool in my backyard.” We made a small fortune mostly off of other people’s misery and misfortune.

I remember, back in 2004, the business brought me to the moment where for the first time in my life I did not feel inadequate. The guy who lived around the corner, the one running for Vice President, CBS’ 60 Minutes was coming to town to interview him, along with the guy who was running for President and their wives. At one point in the night, the interviews stopped, and we broke for dinner. There I was, sitting in the living room of the Vice Presidential candidate of the United States, the Presidential candidate, their wives, a well-known 60 Minutes female anchor who still works for the show today, a couple of producers, photographers, and audio techs, all eating homemade fried chicken.

Politely, the wife of the VP candidate, the gracious host for the evening, was briefly asking each of the crew a little bit about themselves, as we casually enjoyed our meals. After listening to each person for a few minutes, she turned to me, and I could not wait to share, “I’m Jason. I’m your neighbor; I live over on St. Mary’s Street.” I almost burst telling her. From there, the conversation went from seemingly obligatory, you know, politician-like, to neighborly and familiar. We talked about schools and about roads and about construction and about what was happening around town. It was real, and for the first time in my life, I felt accepted in a place where I so desperately wanted admittance.

It’s at that exact point that I changed. Yet, I hadn’t realized it, but Chloe did.

So, I digress, December 9th, the title of the post: 2009, to be exact. December 9th, 2009.

Chloe just turned to me, looked at me, no yelling, no drama, “Jason, I want you out.” I didn’t question it; I thought she wanted space to herself for the night. I was halfway up out of my chair and declared that I was going to bed when she clarified, “No, I want you out, I want a divorce. Please leave.”

That was it, my breath was taken. In that exact instance, my world stopped. I was stunned. Shocked. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t fight for my wife, my kids, my business, my family, or my home, and a large part of me died right there, late at night, on December 9th, 2009. I packed what I could carry and walked out the door into the 40-degree Raleigh, North Carolina night, only to return to the St. Mary’s Street house once or twice more to see the kids.

Chloe has long since remarried, and I, I’m awake writing about the past at 2 a.m. nearly 16 years later.

That’s what it was like then. I hope you’ll visit the site again to see what it’s like now…

ninthofdecember.com