SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7
Somewhere between the dark of Thursday night and burying my head under the pillow on Friday morning to avoid the new day, my mom slipped into my room and whispered that she was taking my car to pick up Lou and Coco from the Antonellis’ and bringing them back to her place. She insisted that I needed the quiet to sleep. Other than a few restless nightmares reliving what transpired on the studio lot, sleep is exactly what I did until Lou and Coco sneaked into my room this morning.
Propping pillows against my headboard, I sit up and open my arms for a double hug. Both girls barrel into me, and we stay that way until Coco pulls back to inform me my breath stinks and quite possibly my scalp as well. Fair enough. I haven’t brushed my teeth or showered since Thursday.
Lou and Coco present me with homemade cards, reminiscent of the ones they constructed and brought to my room in the weeks following Simon leaving us when they were desperate to do what they could to turn off my waterworks. The drawings on the front of their cards haven’t improved much. Their genetic art code is hardwired to not evolve beyond daisies, sunshine, and stick figures, but the heartfelt notes inside prove their emotions have deepened, as has their empathy. I’m warmed by their sentiments concerning what transpired my lastforty-eight hours as described to them by their abuela. I hold the cards to my heart. Both Lou and Coco snuggle up as if shielding me from the harsh world that exists outside my bedroom door.
I think of the multiple child psychologists I have read over the past fourteen years who report that it’s often easiest to talk with teenagers about difficult topics when you are either driving and they are in the back seat, thus avoiding eye contact, or any scenario where mother and daughter are staring straight ahead. Apparently, truths are most easily discussed without having to witness one another’s reactions. Our three sets of eyes fix on the maple tree rooted outside my bedroom window where a familiar blue, black, and white bird is twittering around hunting for the perfect branch to land on. It seems the Steller’s jay is looking for a guarantee that her chosen twig won’t break beneath her. I know exactly how that bird feels. I, too, desperately want assurance that all will be okay when I land, but my wings are tired of flapping, and that type of certainty only occurs in the movies. It’s time for me to land regardless of the outcome.
“Girls, you know your father and I love you both more than anything,” I begin, pulling Lou and Coco in tighter, but not taking my eyes off the bird. My opening line sounds like I plucked it from aWhat to Expect When You’re Divorcingscript, and I bite my tongue to keep myself from adding my own flavor:Though obviously I’m the one who loves you more. Moms don’t leave.“But your father and I are getting divorced. I’m giving him the papers tonight.” I have cried out all my tears the last twenty-four hours, and I am now present and ready to wipe away theirs. I’m totally fine with Simon being the last to know my decision. I have been last to learn of plenty of his life decisions. Simon will have about thirty-two pages worth of nighttime reading this evening to help him grasp that our marriage is over and that I will be moving on without him and his seed Best U Man financing fromInnovation Nation. However, since California’s a community property state, any Best U Man income earned beyond the initial funding from the show, I get half.
“Obviously you’re getting a divorce,” Coco chuffs as if what she really wants to say isno duh.
“We can’t believe it took you so long to decide. We were beginning to think you were actually going to take Dad back,” Lou adds. “That would have been so dumb.”
Huh?Maybe their Saint Anne Catholic education was a little more progressive than I gave it credit for.
“Wait.” I push the girls and all the expert child development advice to the side and look directly into Lou’s and Coco’s faces. “What I hear you saying is you want us to get divorced?” I question, my voice suggesting disbelief.
“No kidwantstheir parents to get divorced,” Coco affirms. I knew it. I knew they would prefer that Simon and I stay together. And up until Thursday, I may have been able to pull the marriage off until the girls graduated from high school, but Simon’s messages that suggested I diminish while he expands solidified the end of us. “But we do want you and Dad to stop being so strange around each other. It’s weird ...”
“We’re happy Dad’s back,” Lou cuts in.
“We also know that was a total dick move leaving us for a couple of years,” Coco finishes off her twin sister’s thought.
“Hey, language,” I remind the girls. But Coco certainly did usedickin the right context. Krish must have instructed her swearing skills.
“Okay, but seriously, Mom, you need to get on with your life,” Lou declares.
“We want you both to be happy, and Dad seems to be doing a better job at making it happen for himself than you are. If you get divorced, then maybe you can focus on something else. Maybe someone else, someone more like all the stories about Abuelo,” Coco analyzes. “It’s got to stop being us, Mom. We’re too busy, especially with high school starting.”
I can’t help but let out a huge howl of laughter, the exclamation point to my truth-telling teens.
“What about that guy who stopped by when you and Dad were in the garage? He seemed into you,” Lou dishes, wading into the water of what is now, officially, my post-Simon life. I don’t reveal that “that guy” is the reason Brown Butter, Baby! has no funding and their mother has a musty stench. That “that guy” could have set my life on a whole new trajectory and he didn’t. “That guy” has also left me several voice mails and texts since Thursday afternoon, all of which I’ve ignored.
“He was kind of good-looking,” Coco ekes out, acting like she’s choking down a horse-size pill. “I mean, for an old, bald guy. It was sorta funny watching Dad get jealous.”
“He was a little jealous, wasn’t he?” I giggle, and the girls join me.
“Leave him jealous.” Gloria falls into my room, blowing the ruse that she has been in the kitchen cooking pollo guisado rather than listening at my door. “There’s no greater position of power for a woman to walk away from in a relationship.” The surprise counsel keeps coming, and for once I believe my mother is spot on.
“But Mom, you believe that marriage is forever. That it’s a woman’s job to stand by the man she married, to keep the family together.”
“No. No. No. I never said that.” Gloria waves her index finger at me, and I notice that in my forty-eight hours of grief she has had time to change her nail polish. “I said stand by true love. That true love is forever. If Simon isn’t that, then, mija, you don’t settle for less. I didn’t.”
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
Aside from the terrible decision to spend three stress-inducing hours in Target shopping for school supplies on the Sunday afternoon before the Arroyo family Labor Day cookout, life is returning to normal. Over the chai lattes that I ran out to the Cracked Cup to get the girls for a first morning of ninth grade surprise, Lou and Coco informed me that today would be the one and only day I am allowed to drive them to high school clear through graduation. Starting tomorrow they will be taking public transportation. Before I could protest, the rules of etiquette for parenting high school girls continued between slurps. I had to give my solemn promise that all kisses, hugs, and requisite first day of school pictures would be done within our property lines. There could be no more lunch box love notes. And then Coco brought up, for the hundredth time, moving into the extra room. I told her I would genuinely consider it, to which she replied, “Well, that’s progress.”
With the girls tucked in to their new academic year, looking the high school part in matching Lululemon leggings their Uncle David and Uncle Gabriel bought them, I have two hours to myself before I return to the airport after my week off that aged me a year. Even with the NDA that Mrs. Eisenberg, my mom, Zwena, and I had to sign saying we would not reveal what happened on the showuntil it airs, Zwena still made sure our shifts aligned this week in case Dieting Donna, Liam, or any other of our airport family gets up in my business wanting specifics. If I crack, Zwena’s there to have my back.
Reheating my chai, I hike up my joggers and sit down to be a grown-up. With Lou and Coco’s blessing, I delivered the divorce papers to Simon’s apartment on Saturday night. He was much more gracious and conciliatory than I was expecting. Maybe it was because I came around when he was emailing with a property manager for a three-year office space lease and was distracted. Maybe our kindhearted daughters had given him a heads-up. Or maybe he was content to be married to a noncompetitor, but he certainly didn’t want to be married to a loser. Who knows, but Simon took the papers from me without much fanfare and offered that he was free to pick the girls up from school on Tuesday and take them to their orthodontist appointments. I said that would be great since the days of our girls wanting to be seen in public with us are waning. We both let out a laugh, awash in the pain of knowing that with each passing day, our children, like all children, need their parents less and less.
Walking me to the door after my five-minute stay, Simon blandly offered his condolences that I didn’t get the outcome I was hoping for onInnovation Nation,and I met his lukewarm sincerity by inviting him over to the house for our Monday night cookout. If all Lou and Coco are asking for is that their parents work on their own happiness, then the four of us can gather as a family from time to time to enjoy each other’s company, remember what was, and celebrate with one another all that is to come. Maybe not me, but Simon, Lou, and Coco will certainly have new adventures as the weeks and months pass by.
While I have used up every ounce of my maturity with Simon these past few days, I have yet to face the endless stream of voice mails and texts from Ash that I have left unheard and unread. I place my phone face up in front of me, the screen saver of Coco and Lou laughingwildly on the swings when they were five egging me on to find out what’s behind their ecstatic faces. I take one more sip of chai and then swipe up and see that of the sixteen texts from Ash, four are from this morning alone. Figures a single guy with no kids wouldn’t realize that moms are busy the day after Labor Day, the most common date in the United States for the first day of school.
I stretch my fingers across my forehead and massage my temples, warming up my mind to face reliving last Thursday’s debacle clear through Ash’s waterfall of thumbed communication.
