“Did not!”
As Momma was saying, “Now, boys,” and Trina was saying, “William James, did you hide chicken legs in your pockets again so your brother couldn’t have any?” I decided I couldn’t take it a minute longer.
I cleared my throat and shouted, “I’m getting a divorce!”
The room was suddenly silent. Even the little boys knew this was more important than chicken. They ran back into the kitchen, the door between the two rooms swinging behind them.
“A divorce?” my mother said in a high, raised, outraged voice. I loved her, but she had this propensity to act so damnscandalized by every little thing. I mean, people got divorced. Constantly. Half the time. She acted like this was the first time she had ever heard the word. “Adivorce?”
It was out now, and I couldn’t take it back. I almost took joy in saying, “Yes, Mom. Turns out Thad is a little more interested in men.”
Her jaw dropped, and Daddy slammed his napkin down on the table. “No one disrespects my little girl,” he said. “I am outraged by this.”
Aunt Tilley was uncharacteristically silent. Then she almost whispered, “So what now, darlin’?”
Robby mouthedSorryto me across the table, as well he should have. He had been giving me so much crap earlier about registering to vote in Florida. But I’d lived there for thirteen years. It was a little impractical to fly home to vote. But he planned on running for mayor, and now mine was one less vote he would get. I wanted to point out that it didn’t much matter. He was a Saxton. He would win the election.
My dad was stepping down as mayor of Cape Carolina. His sister, the first female mayor, held the position for sixteen years. And their daddy was mayor before that, their granddaddy before that, and so on and so forth. If your last name wasn’t Saxton, you didn’t have much of a prayer in the mayoral race. We joked that people thought great-great-granddaddy Saxton was still mayor. In a world where politics were often dirty and self-interested, I was proud to have a family who stood steadfastly on the side of inclusion and doing what was right.
Daddy’s friends and political colleagues had asked him torun for higher office when he decided to step down. But he wouldn’t hear of it. His life, his obligation, and most of all, his true love—bless his heart—my mom, were in Cape Carolina. He didn’t want to be anywhere else. Even still, Mom and Daddy had driven the almost twelve hours to see me every other month since I’d moved to Palm Beach. They were proud of me. Well, theyhadbeen proud of me before this. But pride isn’t as pressing as plain, old-fashioned wanting your daughter home, where you can keep an eye on her.
“?‘What now?’?” I responded to Aunt Tilley, “is the big question, isn’t it?”
I set my napkin on the table, tears springing to my eyes, the weight of my situation hitting me. Now that I didn’t have to worry about telling my family, I had to worry about what came next. I had no husband. No house. But I did have a home. And as inhospitable as it was feeling at this current moment, it was here.
Mom and Tilley shared a look. I felt badly for Daddy. I honestly did. It was like he had married two of them. And they were two peas in a pod, two forces to be reckoned with.
Mom put her head in her hands, and Tilley patted her back andtsked supportively. “At least she isn’t pregnant,” Trina trilled.
I gestured at her. “Exactly. Silver lining.”
Everyone was talking all at once again, and I felt like I needed to escape.
Over the din, I could make out Mom saying, “There has never been a divorce in the Saxton family,” as I slipped outfrom the table. I couldn’t do anything about that now. I walked out the back door and down the dock, avoiding the planks that were sitting a little too high and needed repair. Even in my sorrow, I made a mental note to fix them and the pickets on the front porch the next day. I sat down, legs crossed, and took a deep breath. Out here, all you could see was water, with little islands of marsh grass interspersed. It was the place I had always felt the most alive, the freest. There is peace in the calm and quiet of the sound. And peace was what I needed more than anything right now. Tears rolled down my cheeks.
I imagined that, in some ways, having seen Chase with Thad would make my divorce easier. When I thought about the good times with Thad, I realized they had all been a lie. Our life and our love had been a total sham.
Why couldn’t life be like journalism? The story could take you anywhere, but the formula was tried and true. If you did the research, if you conducted the interviews, if you put in the work, the story would come. Why hadn’t my marriage followed that same pattern?
I wiped my eyes, and when I looked over to my left, I could see someone else sitting on the end of the Thaysdens’ dock next door, not twenty feet away.
“Is it done?” Parker asked.
The way the moon reflected on the water was so beautiful here. “Oh yeah. It’s done. I’m done. Everything’s done.”
“You are not done,” Parker said. “You’re just getting started.”
I nodded, even though, in that moment, I didn’t believe it. Not even a little.
“Hey, Park?”
“Yeah.”
“So are you.”
He nodded.
He didn’t say anything else, and neither did I. We just sat there, the silence washing over us. How had we gotten so far off course? I wished that, just for a minute, we could go back to being those same kids on these same docks, fishing with cane poles and swimming every chance we got. I knew I had to move forward. And Parker did, too. But sometimes in order to do that, you have to go back first. And I think that’s what scared us most of all.
