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I check my cell phone but don’t click into Kellan’s messages. I feel guilt for having just had sex with my husband. I feel guilt for only doing it because I couldn’t stand the thought of him being with another woman and wanted to remind him that I am his wife. More than all that, I feel guilt for hating every second of it.
After a glance over my shoulder, I power up the computer and settle into the orthopedic rolling chair Shepherd insisted on buying. Two thousand dollars, and he gripes about me spending eighty on running shoes?
Banjo dips under the desk and curls into a ball at my feet.
When the browser pops up, I click into the search box and type: Emma, Allen Elementary, Blackbird Cove
A picture of Emma’s face fills the screen under the headline of “Faculty.”
I stare at the woman. A picture of perfection, staring back at me. In my mind’s eye, I picture her with my husband, straddling him as I just did. Was she better than me? Probably so.
In under five minutes, I learn that Emma is seven years younger than me, has no criminal record, is not married, and has no kids, though in an interview for the school newspaper she is quoted saying that she “can’t wait to have a soccer team of children of her own.” Emma appears to be single based on the lack of men in her social media feeds. She likes cats, shopping, Pilates, and mimosa-fueled brunch with her friends. There are several pictures of her and Amber, mostly sharing drinks.
In summary, Emma is my exact opposite.
I zoom in on an image of her arm. Though blurred, I can tell she has multiple tattoos, but can’t quite make them out. I can’t tell if any of them resemble the tattoo Shepherd recently got.
I scroll through her social media feeds for any link to the symbol of Zhiva, the Slavic goddess, that now graces my husband’s wrist.
I take a sip of my wine, stare at the screen, while scratching Banjo’s back with my bare toe.
I search for mythology quotes, anything Slavic, anything mystic. I find nothing.
After a few more fruitless searches, I click into history to delete all evidence of my searches, but pause, scanning the history tabs.
I set down my wine and lean in.
After a few link-clicks, the face of another woman fills my screen. Her name is Cora Granger, a former social worker turned stay-at-home wife. Cora has no social media, nor does her husband Jack, who owns the local plumbing company.
I lean back and stare at the image on the screen.
FORTY-ONE
AMBER
I’m drunk. Honestly? Not nearly drunk enough.
After my failed I-want-a-divorce speech, I pried a crying Conner from his father’s legs, scooped him into my arms, and carried him to bed. There, I had to read him two bedtime stories to get him to fall asleep again.
He asked why daddy was crying. Because Daddy doesn’t feel good, I’d said. Does he need to go have blood taken? he’d asked. No, I’d said.
Then, he asked why I wanted to rip the family apart (using the words he’d heard from Mark). Our family will always be together, I’d said.
I’m mad at myself. No, that’s not the right word. I’m disappointed in myself. I’m questioning all the times I thought my husband didn’t love me. If he truly didn’t love me, he would have simply let me go, right? He wouldn’t have gotten so angry at the mention of divorce. He wouldn’t have offered to do couples’ therapy. He wouldn’t have offered to “do better.” And he certainly wouldn’t have offered to get a night job.
How could I have been so unequivocally certain that I wanted a divorce—for years—yet in a short, five-minute argument, question everything?
Maybe Mark really does love me. Maybe there is a chance. Things would certainly be easier if we stayed together. Splitting up the assets and debt, living on my own, sharing custody—all that is hard. The lifetime of guilt that accompanies all of it? That’s even harder. Maybe we could make it work. After all, like Mark said, my life really isn’t that bad.
These thoughts war with the practical side of my brain that is telling me that I have, once again, allowed fear to stop me.
What would I tell my clients right now?
I would remind them that they have a choice, that they are not stuck. By not following through with the divorce (wimping out), they have (indirectly) made a decision. In choosing to stay in their marriage, they must try to do everything they can to make things better or simply accept that this is their life.
I once told a client who wanted to leave her husband, but couldn’t pull the trigger, to simply remove the expectations she had of her spouse. This way, she wouldn’t be so disappointed by him all the time.
As I sit here now, I think: how horrible is that? What kind of life is that?
