“He didn’t say anything about coming.” Ren shrugged. At the table next to him, Grant waved a bag of Gushers, beckoning him over. Ren abandoned his ring in favor of the fruit snack and joined Grant. “I still can’t believe your ex sent you here to have some time to yourself.”
I moved about the room, trying not to look like I was eavesdropping, but I couldn’t help it. It was impossible not to find yourself absorbed in one of the many engrossing subjects campers spoke about, and this was a conversation I was particularly interested in.
Grant twisted a piece of cream rope to start a macrame plant pot holder. “She loved her time here.”
Ren twisted one of Grant’s ropes absentmindedly. “But, like… How does that relationship work? You two go out of your way to help each other vacation? What else do you do for each other? Swap watching the kids when you’re going on dates?”
“How’d you know?” Grant ran his fingers over the terracotta container, measuring it against the string. “Though she’s with someone new now, and she’s a homebody, so she stays in more than anything. It makes her open to watching them when I goout myself. Her new boyfriend is great with our kids. I really like him.”
“I just didn’t realize you could have a relationship with your ex after…” Ren shifted in his seat. “My divorce has been contentious, I guess.”
My ears perked up at that.
“Why do you think that is?” Grant had stopped what he was doing and gave him his full attention.
Ren blushed at the eye contact and looked as if he was thinking about it for the first time.“He and I are just…” He sighed. “There are a lot of problems we couldn’t work through. And it’s only gotten harder with lawyers involved.”
Grant nodded as though he’d heard it before, his pot set aside as he faced Ren and put his hand over Ren’s fidgeting one to reassure him. “Is it about things? Pets? Friends?”
Ren nodded. “Things and friends, I guess.” He shrugged. “I wish it didn’t sound that petty. What happened with you two?”
Grant turned toward Ren. “Our tastes and feelings evolved. We did couples counseling when we started to feel the changes, but after ten years, we realized we weren’t happy together… Like that.”
Images of hand holding and stolen kisses flashed in my head, and I shoved them down. The situations couldn’t be more different. Jamie and I had only dated three years, and then we’d been separated for ten, not the other way around. There weren’t feelings anymore, no matter how weird I felt around him. It wasn’t justifiable for me to feel things after all this time.
“I think I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around you choosing to be friends with someone you used to be intimate with, especially after having painful memories together.”
“I get that a lot. Actually, I get ‘how can you be around her when she’s happy with someone else?’ a lot more. The fact of the matter is, I want her to be happy. I want us both to behappy, especially for the benefit of our kids. There’s just nothing romantic there anymore. I love her, but I love her more like a best friend.”
“Becoming friends with your ex…” Ren concluded. “What a novel concept.”
I looked down at the yarn I’d been rolling and realized I had tangled it into a bunch of knots instead. I tossed the yarn onto the table with dead mismatched crafts. Was it possible for Jamie and me to be friends? After all this time?
The mean voice in my head told me no and that he’d bail on dinner, too, because he obviously didn’t care about meeting my friends, or about me, or about anything but himself.
