And it was Sunday night, which meant he had a phone call to make. Not that it was likely to be interesting enough to distract him from his misery, but it was probably important that he keep to his routine. He found his phone, ignored his aching muscles, and made the call.
“Liam!” his mother gushed. “We just got in the door. We had an early dinner over at Charles and Martha’s. They have alovelynew pool—well, more than that, a sort of poolarea—an ‘outdoor room,’ they called it, with the pool and a cabana and a patio and some beautiful plants, although those are still a little small. But they’ll grow, of course! And your father is—it’s Liam, dear. Go get on theother line.”
“Sounds like a nice evening,” Liam managed. He’d hear about his father’s golf games and his mother’s dinners and he’d give them a watered-down version of the situation at work. He wouldn’t mention any peculiar building activities at all—and it would just be a typical Sunday-evening parental check-in.
Or so he thought, until his father got on the phone and said, “Liam. I’m glad youcalled, son. We were going to get in touch with you later this evening.” And there was something unnaturally grave in his tone.
Cancer. Heart disease. Bankruptcy?Suddenly Liam’s own complaints seemed petty. “What’s going on?”
“Well, it probably won’t affect you much, really. But we wanted to let you know before we made it public.”
“Okay….”
His mother broke in. “Your father and I are gettinga divorce. We’ve been talking about it for a while, and we just… well. It’s time.”
“A—what?” He took a moment, trying to make the words make sense, but it did no good. “I—I’ve never even seen you guys have a fight! What the hell are you talking about? You’re in your sixties, you’re living your perfect lives on the beach with all the golf and whatever—why the hell would you get a divorce?” Hewaited a moment, then demanded, “Is this a joke?”
“Of course it’s not a joke,” his dad said. “It’s something we’ve been thinking about for quite a while.”
“You’ve been thinking about getting a divorce? Why? You guys have always been solid.”
“But is that all there is to life?” his mother asked. “Being ‘solid’?”
“I swear to God, if you start talking about the importance ofpassion, I’m goingto hang up.”
“What? Why? What do you have against passion?”
“I don’t have anything against it, I just—” But his trials at work didn’t seem like something that would add to the conversation. “Never mind. But you guys don’t need to get a divorce! That’s really drastic.” Yeah, this was good. He’d be a problem solver, a mentor. “Why not do a trial separation or something? Take a trip without eachother? Just test this out without diving into it.”
“We’ve already done those things,” his father said. “We aren’t stupid, Liam. And we aren’t asking for your permission on this. We’re just telling you what’s going on.”
“You’ve already—what do you mean, you’ve already done a trial separation? When? What the hell? You didn’t mention that to me?”
“Well, there was no real point.” His mother soundedcompletely placid and content with the entire situation. “We didn’t want to upset you for nothing, if we decided not to go through with it. And before you suggest it, we’ve done counseling too. That was actually what made us realize we don’t need to be married anymore.”
“You went to marriage counseling, and it made you realize you should get a divorce? I think you should ask for your money back.”
“Not at all,” his father said. “It helped us realize that our marriage hasn’tfailed.It did what it was supposed to do. It gave us a stable family for raising our child, it gave a framework for us to merge our social and financial lives… it worked. But our needs have changed now, and the marriage won’t work for our new needs.”
“What the hell kind of counselor were you going to? You’re in SouthCarolina, not California—this ‘conscious uncoupling’ bullshit doesn’t make sense for you!”
“Conscious uncoupling,” his mother mused. “I like that!”
“Me too,” his father said.
“Of course you both like it—you share the same brain! You’ve agreed on every single thing I’ve ever heard you discuss for my entire life! Why on earth would you walk away from that?”
“Why do we need it?” his father asked.“Are we so weak that we need an exact twin to echo our thoughts on every matter? We can’t handle a little dissent, a little disagreement? We can’t let ourselves be excited by new ideas and new experiences, with new people?”
“Yeah, but—” But what? Liam needed to get a grip on this conversation. “Couldn’t you just join a different golf club or something? Find a new group of ladies to have lunchwith? Hell, you could make bigger changes than that—start volunteering somewhere, or maybe even start a little business or get a part-time job. There are lots of changes you can make and still stay together.”
“We want to date other people,” his mother said. “We want to have relationships—sexualrelationships—with other people.”
Liam fought the urge to drop the phone. “Okay, I’m not really readyto discuss your sex lives with you—”
“And we’re not inviting you to.” His father’s voice was firm. “This isn’t actually something that requires your opinion or your input, and it certainly doesn’t need your approval. We’ve made our decision, and we’ll be letting people know about it starting tomorrow. We’re both planning to stay in South Carolina, at least for the immediate future, so if youcome to visit, we’ll both be happy to see you. Your mother’s staying in the house for now, but we may end up selling it. I’ve got an apartment—I’ll email you the address and phone number.”
“Wait—you guys are okay for money, right?” They’d always been comfortable and had helped Liam quite a bit when he’d moved to New York. But maybe they’d overextended themselves, contributing to his flashy life?“You wouldn’t be selling the house because youneedto?”
