Now that I’d fed the cat, though, what should I do? What could I do since Mitch wasn’t here to answer my questions?
Should I stress-clean? Drag out all Mitch’s clothes to the yard and set them on fire?
You can’t repeat the Incident, Viv. Look what happened to Harriet. Besides, there could be a very logical explanation for all of this. Now is not the time to go allWaiting to Exhaleon the man.
That might be true, but dragging all Mitch’s clothes into the driveway and causing a neighborhood disturbance like Harriet had done last year had its cathartic merits.
Should I sit down and have a glass of wine?Ding,ding,ding, we have a winner from the divorcée cliché buffet.
Except I couldn’t find the corkscrew.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
No, there it was in the drawer to theleftof the oven. Mitch had put it there, even though I’d told him a hundred times that it made more sense to put it in the drawer to therightof the oven.
What did one pair with divorce? The sauvignon blanc in the fridge or the merlot on the wine rack? I would ask Rachel, but she was still at school. That and the thought of telling anyone about my discovery made my stomach flop, so I read the labels instead. The merlot had hints of blackberry and a velvety texture. This didn’t feel like a velvety time, so on to the second bottle.
I stopped reading the sauv blanc label when I got to “beautifully expressed acidity.” That described both my current stateandwould be a great punk band name. Sauvignon blanc it was.
Skipping the foil cutter, I plunged the corkscrew into the cork. With some work, I uncorked the bottle and poured it into my Mom Scouts tumbler.
My chest ached, and I reached up to rub the spot just over my sternum. Thank God it was Thursday. I didn’t want to see Rachel and Abi yet. I didn’t want to tell them that I, Vivian, the stay-at-home mom, would apparently be getting a divorce.
Oh God. Now you’llhaveto get a job.
That thing that had seemed like a good idea not too long ago now felt insurmountable. Where the hell would I start? The last time I’d made a résumé,Titanicwas still in theaters.
I drank too much wine in one swallow and coughed as it burned down my throat. Acidic, indeed. As I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth, I remembered something about my mother.
Clear as day, I could see her pouring bottles of alcohol down the kitchen sink back when I was twelve.
“Mom, what are you doing?”
She’d stiffened, then rolled her shoulders back and lifted her chin before turning around. “I guess you might as well know now, Vivian. Jeff and I are getting a divorce.”
Mascara ran down her red-splotched cheeks, and her eyes held an I’ll-show-you fire that I hadn’t fully understood until, well, today.
“Jeff’s not my dad,” I said.
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, looking upward as if asking an equally put-upon deity for patience. “No, no he’s not. But he’s still leaving.”
It was then, on the eve of my mother’s second divorce, that she gave me her rules for navigating the institution:
1. Don’t drink your feelings.
2. Never let him know he’s hurt you.
3. Don’t ever jump from one man to another. Ever.
4. Check all your joint bank accounts as soon as you find out, and keep records on everything.
5. Hire the best lawyer.
I took one sip of my wine and then another. There went number one. Number three shouldn’t be a problem. Number two was out of the question since I was a horrible poker player. That left numbers four and five.
With trembling fingers, I took out my phone and checked our bank balances and credit cards. Everythinglookedokay. I took screenshots as a record of how much money was in each account.
Lawyer.
