I set the papers down on the coffee table next to an ashtray brimming with cigarette butts.
“You’resmoking?”
Ben hadn’t smoked a day in his life. Not in college or in high school. Not even when he was drunk at a party. “You’re smoking in yourapartment?”
“Is there a law against smoking in your own apartment?”
I stared at him, unable to look away. I’d never seen anyone look so angry and sad at the same time. It was like a punch in the stomach. This was what my choices had cost him.
I slid the ashtray over to the opposite end of the coffee table. “Since when do you smoke?”
“Since when do you care? Are you going to take it all back if I promise to quit?”
A million tiny punches. The subpar apartment, when he certainly could have afforded a better place. His parents’ old couch. The cigarettes. This was what I had done to him. It had been my decision to drive the papers over, but maybe that’s what he hoped would happen by not signing the third page. Mailing them would have been less painful for both of us.
He sighed. “Where’s the page?”
Somewhere between the linoleum and the cigarette smoke, I’d almost forgotten. “It’s right here. I’m sure I have a pen somewhere ...”
He grabbed a pen on the coffee table. “Don’t worry, Sam. I’m ready for you.”
Ben never did sarcasm and couldn’t deadpan to save his life. Until now. He flipped to the signature page, signed, and handed it back to me.
“Sorry you had to come all the way over,” he said flatly.
I stood there trying to figure out if it would be best to just take the papers and leave or try to talk honestly to the man who had been my husband. Neither choice was going to change anything. I couldn’t flip a switch and feel less guilty, and he wasn’t going to be less heartbroken. There was nothing I could say or do to fix it.
He pushed his laptop aside without looking up. “Do you need something else?”
I fumbled around for words. “No ... thank you for signing. I’m sorry.”
“Okay.”
When he’d moved out a year earlier, he’d asked for space. We’d barely been in touch, save a few emails and texts here and there about bank accounts. Not seeing him had made it easier to convince myself that he was fine.
“Has it been okay living here?” I asked cautiously.
“Are you really making small talk?”
I flinched. “I guess I was trying.”
Ben turned to face the window. “Really wish I’d just signed on all the dotted lines the first time like any jackass would’ve.”
He turned back to his laptop, typing as we sat in silence. “Yeah, it’s been fine living here. I’m writing a book. I’ve got six chapters down.”
“A book? I don’t know what that means.”
“A book, Sam. With words and pages and shit.”
I laughed despite myself. He reached into a small drawer on the side of the coffee table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“I didn’t know you liked to write. What’s it about?” The question immediately felt intrusive. “If I can ask,” I added.
He reached over and cracked the sliding door. “Sure, you can ask. It’s calledSurviving a Baby Divorce.”
I felt like I’d stepped into a postmarriage twilight zone, where my ex-husband was a chain smoker writing self-help books.
“A what? What is a ‘baby divorce’? It sounds like I got knocked up and you left me.”
