Before my fingers send out a sleepy SOS, I’m startled by a series of texts from Sojourn Simon that came in between my deepest REM sleep and the lure of unlimited caffeine and crullers.Where’s that globe twatter now?The last time I heard from him was four months ago from somewhere in Bali. He wanted me to share with Coco and Lou a blurry picture of him cleansing himself in a waterfall, arms outstretched likeJohn the Baptist washing away his sins. It would take a bigger splash than that.
6:18 a.m. (650-726-4100)
Namaste. I’m back in Palo Alto. Every sunrise is an opportunity for a new start.
I shoot up in bed, choked by Simon’s saccharine bumper sticker missive and his location. I snap my head left to right, surveying my bedroom as if Simon’s hiding in the closet, ready to jump out with a souvenir. Is this his new cell or the number of some guru’s phone that he borrowed? And what exactly doesback in Palo Altomean? After two years I had come to fully accept that Simon had settled in a meditation cave half a world away.
6:18 a.m. (650-726-4100)
I’ve returned to launch my next adventure. The joy and purpose I feel for this journey is truly why I was put on this earth. Check me out. www.bestuman.com
6:19 a.m. (650-726-4100)
And I would like to see you, Toni.
I know better. I know better. I know better.Tap.
Damn it.
I haven’t looked into Simon’s green eyes rimmed with heavy lashes since he walked out the front door and I packed up all the pictures I had of him, took them to my mom’s place, and had her hide them so I wouldn’t cry all over the images as I wallowed in misery. I would have tossed them, but I’m not a total monster, and I knew that one day thegirls may want a reminder of what their father looked like before he committed this selfish act that I didn’t know how to explain to them. At that moment, though, I needed it to be about me just trying to put one foot in front of the other, so I erased him from our house. Now here Simon is, crisp and clear on my phone, smiling back at me and anyone else trolling his newly launched website, Best U Man. I immediately see the irony that his company acronym is BUM.
Simon is staring back at me, well rested and relaxed, seemingly having taken years off his age. He radiates an enviable energy that I suppose anyone would have after a multiyear vacation doing whatever you want. I mean, can you really call two years of focused breathing “work”?
Expanding his picture, I’m reminded how good-looking Simon is in that slightly burned surfer kind of way. A handful of freckles dance across his nose and cheeks, highlighting a bone structure that should be reserved for women. His jawline is tight, and Simon has ditched the pierced ears he got at Claire’s days before heading off the grid. In a perfectly tailored checkered button-down, with his arms crossed, Simon oozes mastery on how to lead abest life. His sleeves are rolled up to highlight toned forearms. A billion chaturangas will do that for you. If it weren’t for the layers of teak mandala beads, I would swear I am looking at Simon the investment banker.
Life-affirming quotes fade onto and off the screen at a cadence meant to keep people on the page wondering if they read right. Simon’s eastern philosophy vocabulary and polished image are working hard to convince his audience that he is a blissful Eastern/Western mash-up of a middle-aged man high on life.
With no reference to any consumer goods he’s selling, I realize the product Simon is peddling is himself. If I didn’t know better and I was a purpose seeker deep in an internet self-help dive, I would want a piece of Simon’s magic. And even though I do know better, I can’t deny, staring at his picture, that what Simon is selling is compelling. Simon’s website displays a reinvention of himself into an intuitive life coach, business strategist, and inspirational thinker for men searchingfor meaning. A twinge of attraction shocks my system before I remember I am considering divorcing this cabrón. Who does Simon think he is, dealing in personal success as a deadbeat dad? And where did he find a pile of cash to launch this venture or even pay for a website developer?
At first flinch, all I can think is, How is this fair? Fair to me, fair to Coco and Lou. But I’m also wise enough at thirty-nine to understand that life isn’t fair. What I really want to know is how the hell this is possible. How has Simon been able to launch his own company, while all my ideas languish in notebooks and glass jars?
I start on the About page, planning to work my way through to the Power of Yes! tab, but cut my sleuthing short at first sight of a picture of Simon hugging Coco and Lou at their tenth birthday party, right around the time he turned away from engaging with his family and toward individual enlightenment.
Before I can calm my nerves enough to write back and ask Simon what it is he wants from me, because it’s clearly not going to be a testimonial, a fourth text comes in.
7:02 a.m. (650-726-4100)
Are you up? I want to talk about when I can see you and my girls.
I throw my phone across the room at a pile of laundry.His girls?!Talk about a couple of priceless possessions he will never get his hands on again.
“Mom! Lou put an empty carton of milk back in the fridge! What am I supposed to do for breakfast?!” yells Coco, who has a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios every morning, her day ruined if her milk-to-cereal ratio is not exact.
“Eat a bagel and get over it,” I hear Lou suggest. She is oblivious to things like empty milk cartons, empty shampoo bottles, emptying the kitchen garbage bin when it’s overflowing.
“Mom, I need you! Can you get up and help me?” Coco continues to whine, ignoring her sister’s apathy. “Why am I the only responsible one in this family?!”
I throw my legs over the side of the bed, feet right into slippers, and walk over to pick up my phone.That’s right, Simon, our girls need me. Not you. I’m the one who shared a queen mattress with Coco and Lou for a full year, their fear that I, too, would leave, driving them to my bed to hold on for dear life. The questions about where you went and why and when you would come home were relentless, and I didn’t have answers to satisfy their young hearts. Without you, I’ve been the one ushering our daughters through the transition from childhood to womanhood. Every fever I’ve snuggled away, every mediocre five-paragraph essay I’ve edited. I still have to remind Coco and Lou that you didn’t leave because you didn’t love them, you left because you didn’t love yourself.
I sneak one last look at Simon on my phone. I know that what I should feel is loathing, but instead I feel an aching familiarity. For the preservation of our family unit and my mental health, I detach from my emotions and write back succinctly.
7:04 a.m. (Toni)
I’m up. You can’t. Goodbye.
Whoosh. . .
As quickly as Simon has come back into my life, he’s just as quickly gone again.
