You do divorce your way, Mom, and I’ll do it mine.
Rachel put Lucky down; then she and Abi led me to her house. I was halfway across the cul-de-sac when I stopped dead in my tracks. “I don’t have my phone or my keys or my purse or anything.”
“We each have spare keys,” Abi said.
I followed them into Rachel’s airy foyer. David stood in the doorway to the kitchen, sleeves rolled up and drying dishes.
He was a good husband.
Maybe I should’ve made Mitch do more dishes. Maybe then he would’ve appreciated me more.
Suja, their thirteen-year-old daughter, didn’t even look up from the couch where she was doing homework. We took the door that led to the basement and descended the stairs. At the foot of those stairs was another living room that opened out onto a patio, but Rachel really did have a wine cellar. She’d converted the lone basement bedroom into a room with racks full of delicious wines.
Abi sat me down on the couch, and Rachel went to find a bottle. “All I got from Dylan was that his dad was leaving and—”
I sat up on the edge of the sofa. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. Well, he’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine, too. Mitch?” She left that last question unanswered, but her tone suggested she knew at least three good places to stash a body.
From the tiny kitchen area, a cork gave way with a pop. Rachel came with three stemmed glasses in one hand and a bottle of something red in the other. She set the glasses down on a coffee table that had been demoted from upstairs during her last remodel and then poured just a bit of wine into each of our glasses. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“When?” asked Abi, unable to help herself.
“I found the papers yesterday, but I had to wait for him to come home. I had no idea.” I took a sip of wine, unsure whether my stomach could support such a thing. My stomach liked it. I nodded my approval to Rachel.
“Oregon pinot noir.”
“Divorce papers?” asked Abi, itching to investigate.
I sighed. “It was a packet of forms and instructions for how to file for an uncontested divorce.”
She nodded and paused to take a sip of her wine. “Is there another woman?”
There’s always another woman.At least that’s what Mom always said. “He says there isn’t. I don’t know.”
“Thatcan be rectified,” Abi said, reminding me that she made a living from finding out secrets.
“Please don’t,” I said. “At least not yet.”
“What can we do to help?” asked Rachel.
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s think this through rationally,” Abi said. “Maybe he’s going through a phase. Maybe counseling would help.”
“I asked him. He wasn’t on board. I think he’s made up his mind. To hear him tell it, he made this decision when Dylan was a freshman in high school.”
Abi muttered an insult to Mitch’s parentage under her breath. His mother had died before we married, so I could neither confirm nor deny the allegations.
“I think it’s over,” I said.
“Not necessarily,” said Rachel. “It all depends on how you feel, and we’ll support you either way.”
“I don’t know how I feel.”
“Oh, baby. Just don’t make any rash decisions yet,” said Abi.
