Instead you behave as though you wish I were dead. Maybe so you can start a new life. Do you? Wish I were dead?
I know you’re sitting in your office, probably staring out the window, wishing you didn’t have to come home.
Soon, Alex, soon!
I’m writing to you to tell you that I’m putting a deadline on this nonsense. No more marriage counseling, there’s no point. We can still use Kevin to work out the financial logistics and co-parenting, but there is no “us” to talk about. We’re getting a divorce.
I don’t want to move the boys back and forth between two broken homes. I think we should get a bird-nesting apartment.
That is my request. In two weeks, by the end of the month, we have an apartment we share to use on our days without the boys. Hopefully we can both be grown-ups about sharing a space. I sent Kevin a schedule and looked at your request to be with the boys Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays. I wanted to argue about how convenient that would be for you to have your freedom on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, but I don’t care anymore. Freedom isn’t being away from the kids. I hope that’s not how you’re looking at it.
I won’t be available to you as a babysitter or bus driver on your days at the house with the boys, so you’llhave to figure that out. I don’t want to know about it, or be a part of it, unless it’s an emergency.
That’s it. That’s all I have. We have two weeks to get a place. It’s time.
-Dani
I sat still, quiet, my mind swirling, contemplating how to respond to her. I typed…
Dani,
You know what? Go fuck yourself.
I was hovering the little arrow over the Send button when I heard a knock on the door.
“Knock, knock,” Mark said as he pushed the door open to my office. I startled and then settled back into my chair. I moved my hand away from the computer mouse, leaving Dani’s message unanswered.
“Hey man, come in,” I said.
“The front door was unlocked. I just pushed it open.”
Mark and Alicia were our best friends. Alicia was Dani’s childhood friend. They had always been inseparable, even moving to LA from Seattle together during college. I met Dani and Alicia before Mark was in the picture. I knew it would take a rare breed to be married to bullheaded, tough as nails Alicia, and Mark is just that…rare. He and I fell into an easy friendship from the start. He’s a calm and cool person, which makes him a brilliant lawyer as well as a perfect match for Alicia’s intensity. She comes from a long family line of judges and lawyers who make an Olympic sport out of suing people. What is undeniable about Alicia, though, is that she is loyal and genuine tothe core. She represents good people who are suing bad people, and she always wins. Mark and Alicia are partners in life and at the firm, but they don’t have any children, so our boys are as close as they’ll come to parenting.
Mark and Alicia are major factors in why Dani and I have struggled to commit to divorce, but they know everything that’s going on. It’s ironic that now the commitment is in the divorce and not the marriage.
“Yeah, I was just about to leave, but come in, sit down,” I told him.
He smiled, glanced down at my empty desk and back up again. “I was picking up take-out and had to park three blocks away. Walking by, I saw your light on.” He held up a bag of Chinese food. “Hungry?”
“Starving.” I lied.
Mark pulled a chair out and sat down, leaving the takeout in a bag on the floor. “Well?” he said.
“Well what?” I chuckled. He wasn’t just in the neighborhood. “Was Alicia talking about us or something?”
“Honestly, Alex, Alicia doesn’t stop talking about you guys.” He smirked. I always thought of Mark as a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy. He didn’t have sneaky ulterior motives when he decided to stop in my office late on a Wednesday, but he also wasn’t walking by. He was checking in on me.
“What did she say?”
“Just the usual. If Dani and Alex can’t make it work, how can anyone else?”
I laughed, flippantly. “That ship has sailed. Alicia’s probably just scared. She’s been watching the death of a marriage for years now.”
“She’s also worried about what it means for us, Alex.”
“You guys are solid.”
“No,” he said. “Notourmarriage. Our couples marriage to you guys.” He laughed.
