“Everything will be fine with us,” I said, though I wasn’t convinced myself.
“The last thing Alicia wants is for us to have to choose sides.”
“No one is asking you to, Mark,” I said with a hint of irritation in my tone.
“It’s been years with threats flying between you and Dani. You’ve both asked us for names of lawyers, mediators, financial advisors. Alicia and I made a pact that we wouldn’t get in the middle of things, but it’s hard to see you like this, and it’s hard to see it affecting Alicia too.”
“Well, I’m sorry it’s affecting Alicia, but jeez, it’s like the last thing we have on our minds, I’m sorry to say.”
“I’m trying to be honest with you. It’s for everyone’s sake, not just Alicia’s. The weeble-wobbling, the emotional motion sickness, the back and forth, the ups and downs—”
“I get the point. No more weeble-wobbling,” I said and then laughed a little to try to lighten the mood.
“It’s for your kids too, man. You guys got lucky with a couple of rad kids, but aren’t you worried this will eventually take a toll?”
“Of course. We worry about that every day.” I felt like he was crossing a line even though I couldn’t deny what he was saying was true. “It’s hard to know what’s better for everyone. The amount of thought we’ve put into divorce is exponentially greater than the amount of thought we put into getting married in the first place.”
“That’s how it always is, because divorce is final and everyone knows marriage is not,” he said.
The statement struck me. It was true. Something no one likesto admit. We claim it’s forever as we stand up and take our vows, but in our subconscious we’re saying forever…unless x, y, or z happens. Some might say divorce doesn’t have to be final either, but there is no divorced unless x, y, z happens. We’re getting a divorce, not making a promise to each other. It’s final. It’s the end of a promise, a union. It’s a death.
I was trying to shuffle the seriousness of the conversation to the bottom of the deck, but Mark wasn’t letting me. “We’re trying to do the right thing for the kids,” I said finally.
“But in the process, you’re all putting everyone in limbo, including yourselves. Shit or get off the pot, you know?”
I laughed lightly. “God, I hate that saying. Can’t we just talk about golf or something?” I really wanted to change the subject but knew I wouldn’t get off that easy.
“Alicia wants her friend back. We miss you guys, the vacations…everything. What’s going on right now? Are you working on things? Now that Danielle’s mom is gone, is it better? Or are you ready to file the papers and sign that shit and be done with it?”
“We’re getting a divorce, Mark. There’s not going to be couples vacations and hanging out.”
“There hasn’t been in a long time. At least everyone will understand the boundaries though. You and I will always be friends. Alicia is not going to make you a pariah, okay? She knows Dani too well. She knows it was a culmination of things. No one blames either one of you—or your mother-in-law, for that matter.”
It felt easy for me to blame Danielle’s mom for the demise of our marriage. Dani and I had barely addressed the fact that, four years ago, the day we moved my mother-in-law into our house to take care of her, basically marked what I viewed as the beginning of the end for us. But Irene has been gone for a year now and things haven’t gotten better.
“It wasn’t just Irene, though I don’t think you could possibly understand what it was like to live with her. Her toxicity,” I scoffed.
“She had Alzheimer’s, man,” he said.
But he wasn’t there to see her nastiness, her disdain for me. I don’t think it was all the disease talking.
I also took Irene’s criticism while Dani looked the other way and it was just too much. After having Irene in our house for six months, I was a shell emotionally. I couldn’t take it. Dani was swept up in work…swept up in Lars. She would start fights with me every night over how heartless she thought I was. Sheactuallycalled me heartless while I was at home caring for her mother and reading on celebrity websites about how Dani was screwing her boss.
They’re not even celebrities.
Dani can deny it, but she was always going into the office when she didn’t have to, and she defended Lars. I knowsomethingwas going on. Constant late-night calls. The giddiness in her voice when she would talk to him. I couldn’t trust her, and so I stopped needing to trust her. That’s when, mentally, I left the marriage.
Mark was staring at me waiting for me to respond. He had the same look of disappointment Dani would get when she thought I was being insensitive. “I know she was sick,” I said finally. “It was sad and brutal to watch, but it’s the reason all our problems came to the surface. If we were meant to be, wouldn’t we have survived that?”
Mark shrugged, then picked up the food and started taking it out of the bag. “I think you guys should have worked through your mother-in-law issues with a good therapist. Taking care of an ailing parent is hard on any relationship. It’s been, what, a year since Irene passed?” I nodded. “And you guys are stillconstantly spiking serves at each other? You do know that kind of petty back-and-forth means you still love each other? You’re still fighting like kids on a playground.”
I paused, contemplating his statement. “Of course I love Dani. You can love someone and not want to be married to them anymore. We’re done. It’s over.” I glanced down at the email I had almost sent. “I promise we won’t drag you guys into it. I’m getting an apartment this week. Dani and I are gonna try the bird-nesting thing and I’m going to sign the papers.”
He looked up, surprised. “You think you guys can handle that…sharing an apartment?”
“Well, we live in the same house. And we won’t ever be at the apartment at the same time.”
“You’ve been in the same house but separate bedrooms, right? For how long?”
