We ended up staying at my in-laws until it was almost bedtime. Part of me wanted to stay even longer, but I knew I had to face reality. It was hard to think about walking into our house knowing this was the way it was always going to be. The hope of salvaging our marriage had been destroyed today. I was having a hard time getting his cold look and hurtful words out of my head. How could he say we were playing house? He talked like I was just this huge interruption of his real life. Had he always felt like that? I guess that part didn’t matter, it only mattered how he felt now, and he was loud and clear on that. I guess he had been for the last several months; I was just too in love to face it.
Saturday morning dawned and I was woken by a text from Michael.
“I just wanted you to know, I made it to California. I’ll try and call later.”
I picked up the phone and deleted the message. I had no intention of responding. The baby kicked, and I decided it was time for me to get up. As I sat on my bed, I looked around and everything reminded me of Michael, from the comforter to the deep brown color on the walls. I decided it was time to change things up a little. I didn’t know if I had it in me to paint my room in addition to the nursery, but I decided to buy some more feminine bedding and maybe change up the artwork and accessories in the room. I also took down our wedding photos and packed them away with all the pictures that had been hanging up in Michael’s old office. I didn’t even cry. Ok, maybe a tear or two, but that was it.
By the time the pictures were packed, my kiddos were up, and we decided on French toast for breakfast. Over breakfast, I told them of their daddy’s assignment. “Your daddy will be traveling for the rest of the summer. He won’t be back until it’s almost time to start school.”
Mia’s face immediately dropped. “He’s going to miss my birthday?” she practically cried.
I nodded my head yes. “Don’t worry, sweet girl. We are still going to have the best birthday party ever.”
Ashton was as pensive as ever. His blue eyes were as sad as I have ever seen them.
I reached over and grabbed his hand. “You and I will hit the tennis courts later today. Ok?”
He sort of grinned at me.
“This is still going to be the best summer,” I think I said it more to convince myself.
I kept telling myself I had been doing this single parenting thing for almost four months, and we had all survived. I could do this, right? It’s not like I had a choice in the matter anyway. I kept repeating, it’s not our circumstances that define us, but how we choose to deal with them. And lots of women had it way worse than me. At least I had family support nearby, and I had a large trust fund. I knew on Monday I was going to have to call the attorney in Colorado about how I could begin to access that and for a recommendation for a local attorney. That’s when a few tears came. I couldn’t believe I needed a divorce attorney. I wiped them away and sighed. No use in worrying about it until Monday.
Sunday we were back at my in-laws for church and lunch. I had a feeling this was going to be a tradition. It was a lovely one, so I hoped it would.
During lunch, Jack surprised us all. “I’ve filed my retirement paperwork. All I have is the next two weeks, and then I will become a man of leisure.”
I looked at Danielle to gauge her reaction. She was visibly happy. She wasn’t the excitable, overtly emotional type of person, but her demeanor and countenance radiated happiness. I was happy for them both. It was quite an accomplishment to have such a long lasting career and marriage.
“Congratulations, Jack. So what prompted your decision?”
He looked over to my kiddos. “I’ve decided being a Papa is a lot more fun than being an engineer.”
Both he and Danielle looked at me lovingly. “We’re here for whatever you need,” Jack said.
I reached across the table and squeezed both of their hands. “Thank you. You don’t know how much that means to me.” I didn’t tell them I was filing for divorce. I could barely admit it to myself, much less others.
Michael finally called that evening as I was preparing dinner. I let Ashton answer it. I listened to them talk to their daddy as they told him about their weekend and how excited they were about having a baby sister. Mia talked about her birthday party and how sad she was he wasn’t going to be there.
Mia brought the phone over to me. “Daddy wants to talk to you, Mommy.”
“Tell Daddy I’m busy making dinner and can’t talk,” I said while draining the pasta.
I knew I couldn’t avoid communicating with him forever, but I just needed some time.
“Daddy says he call you later, Mommy.”
Thankfully, I knew he would probably be too busy to make good on that. And sure enough, I was right. He never called back that night.
I woke up early on Monday and made a list of all the things that needed to get accomplished before the baby came. I probably had fifteen to eighteen weeks before that blessed event. First on the list was to call my parents’ attorney that handled my trust fund. I would call him during swimming lessons. It also dawned on me, with a third child, I would need a new car. I loved my 4Runner; it was the first car we had bought together as a couple, but it would be a tight fit to squeeze two booster seats and a car seat into that back seat. I needed something with a third row, but I was dead set against a minivan. I would have to do some research on SUV’s with third rows and high safety ratings. Maybe Jack could go with me to the dealerships and do some test drives with me. He knew a lot about cars.
Getting a personal bank account was also a must. I had set up a business account, but I was still using our joint account for everything. As I kept writing, I realized just how entwined our lives were and the effort it was going to take to sever those ties. For so long, we had functioned as a unit, now we would be separate departments, no longer “playing house” as he put it. I still couldn’t believe that’s how he saw our marriage.
I held out my left hand and I looked at my wedding ring. It was a beautiful white gold band with a small solitaire round cut diamond, simple but elegant. I had always loved the way it looked on my hand. When Michael gave it to me, I remember him apologizing about the size, but that never mattered to me. The only thing that mattered was that he loved me and that it came from his heart. He had loved me once, right? I contemplated removing the ring. I even took it off for a moment, but it made me feel bare, so I quickly put it back on. Why couldn’t I just fall out of love with him as easily as he had with me? Why did my heart still ache for him?
With those thoughts, I crawled out of bed and started another day by myself. Gratefully, I had a busy day on tap: swimming lessons in the morning and a photo shoot in the afternoon. Michael called on the way to the pool; again, I just let Ashton answer it. It was the kids he wanted to talk to anyway. And I was driving, it was unsafe, right? My car was old enough not to have Bluetooth technology. He did ask to talk to me, but I declined, citing the aforementioned safety reasons. It was a bunch of BS I know, but I just couldn’t yet.
By the time we got to the pool, I had a text from him.
“Is everything ok?”
What a dumb question, I thought. Of course it wasn’t ok, but he didn’t really care, so I just waited several minutes and texted back.
“Yep.”
As soon as Ashton and Mia hit the water with their instructor, Shawna, I called Mr. Flinders in Denver.
“I was wondering when I would hear from you,” he said. “Tell me how you and your family are.”
“Well … I’m expecting again and …”
“Congratulations to both you and Michael.”
“Yeah … about that. Do you perhaps have any connections in the Atlanta area? I’m in need of a d…divorce lawyer.” I could still barely say it or admit it.
“That is certainly a surprise. I’m sorry, Carly.”
Believe me I was too.
He thought for a moment. “I don’t have any direct connections, but I will check with my associates here and get back to yo
u,” he offered.
“Thank you.”
“I just need your email address where my assistant can send you the necessary documents to begin drawing on your trust. I will also send you information on the tax situation this will invoke.”
“Ok. Thank you again.”
“And Carly, don’t forget this trust was set up to prevent Michael from gaining access to it, whether married or divorced.”
I sighed. I remember being upset when I found out my parents excluded Michael, but I guess they knew what they were doing and now, even in death, they were still protecting me.
After I got off the phone, I added a task to my list to create a monthly budget, so I knew what amount I should draw each month. I also wondered if I should take on more clients. I quickly decided that would have to wait until after the baby was born and I had recovered. If I was smart, I could live off that trust for many years to come, so I decided working extra was an unnecessary stress I could do without at the moment. I had plenty of others to deal with.
One of my new stresses was coming up with ways to avoid my husband. It was like he knew I didn’t want him to call or contact me in any way, so he decided to do just that. I mean, what happened to the ‘I’m on assignment and not to be bothered Michael’? But by Friday, I knew I couldn’t keep putting him off. His texts were becoming annoying and angry. I couldn’t understand why he wanted to talk to me so much.
The phone rang late Friday as I was up watching my new favorite movie, “Something to Talk About,” a movie about a man that cheats on his wife. The wife gets him back, and one of her tactics was using a little food poisoning. I wondered where I could get some of the stuff she threw in his food. I thought maybe a little food poisoning would be good for Michael. Then he could see what it was like to puke and take care of the kids all by himself, all while feeling like death.
I begrudgingly answered as I sat there on my bed with just the glow of the T.V. “Hello.”
“You answered.”
“Looks like.”
“Am I interrupting anything? I know how busy you are.”
He didn’t sound pleased at all, but I found I didn’t really care at the moment.
“Actually, you are, but I suppose I can hit pause.”
And I did just that. I didn’t want to miss the part where her sister knees the lying cheating husband in the groin. I bet Melanie would do that for me. Maybe I should call her and tell her about my situation.
“Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You know it’s not like I’m not busy, and calling is kind of inconvenient for me at the moment.”
“Then don’t call. Goodbye.”
“Wait, Carly.”
“What! I would hate to inconvenience you.” Especially since that’s all I had been to him our whole marriage.
“Please, I didn’t call to argue with you. I wanted to see how you and the baby are doing.”
“We’re great. We’re all doing great here.”
“Ashton and Mia sound happy. Ashton said you were teaching him how to play tennis.”
Did I hear a hint of regret? It was probably my imagination.
“They are happy.” I wanted to add in, no thanks to you, but I didn’t. “We’re enjoying all summer has to offer.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Ok. Well, it’s late. Goodnight, Michael.”
“Goodnight, Carly.”
Chapter 13
Michael kept calling on a daily basis. I gave up ignoring him, I just kept the conversations brief and sterile. I limited the topics to the kids and their activities. I also refused to talk about his assignment. He attempted on several occasions to talk about it, but I either ended the call or switched back to the kids. I wasn’t in the mood to play the role of supportive wife, and I figured why bother, I had failed miserably at it.
But for some reason, Michael seemed determined to engage me. When he was in Colorado, he sent several texts with pictures. The texts were reminiscent of when we lived there. We just happened to get married there, so he sent a picture of the Brown Palace where we said “I do” and spent our first night as husband and wife.
“Remember this place?” he texted.
“Vaguely,” I responded.
It was a lie, I know. I remembered every detail of that cold December day over ten-and-a-half years ago. I remembered the way he looked at me as I walked down the aisle with my dad, like I was the only one in the room, and I remembered how both the men in my life had tears in their eyes. I remembered my desire to comfort my dad, but it was overruled by my anxiousness to be given to Michael because I wanted nothing more than to be bound to him and for him to be bound to me. I remembered how he kept a hold of me all night, even if it was just my hand. We even ate holding hands. I especially remembered how impatient he was for the reception to be over and how we almost missed our flight to Tahiti the next morning because … well, just because. Believe me, though, it would have been worth missing.
I wiped my eyes as I stared at my screen. I hadn’t cried in a week.
He texted a picture of Coors Field where we had gone to see the Rockies play the Braves. Michael was a huge Braves fan and I didn’t really care, but I showed my state loyalty by rooting for the Rockies and wearing their jersey. Michael had worn his Braves shirt and he was unmercifully razzed the whole night, but he had the last laugh when the Braves won.
“Go Rockies,” I texted back.
“We’ll make a Braves fan out of you yet,” he responded.
The text surprised me. Or maybe I was just reading more into it than he meant. He was probably just making small talk, and even if we were divorced, we had kids together so we would always have to be in each other’s live in some way. I’m sure it didn’t mean he wanted to get back together. And besides, things couldn’t and shouldn’t continue on this way.
As that second week wore on, he began asking me to text and email him pictures of the kids. I was happy to oblige him. I was glad he at least missed his children.
At the end of that second week, I made an appointment with a lawyer. Mr. Flinders had finally gotten back to me with the name of a local attorney. Meanwhile, I had set up my own bank account, and I was set to take my first draw from my trust on August 1. I think the lady at the bank thought I was going to have an episode. My eyes kept watering the entire time, and I kept hesitating as I signed the signature card and paperwork. Signing those papers just meant I was closer to really being on my own. And even though I had always been fairly independent, I had loved being a couple. I remember how giddy I was when we received our first boxes of checks with both of our names on them. I was such a dork.
In the midst of banks and lawyers, and of course kiddos and the house, I began working on the nursery. Jack came over and helped me move the two book cases and filing cabinet left in the room to the walk-in attic. He also helped me tape to get ready to paint. He felt like I shouldn’t be on a ladder.
As we taped, he above and me below, we talked and as always the conversation ended up on Michael.
“How are you dealing with his absence this go around?” Jack asked me.
“Better than I expected. I guess I’m just growing accustomed to being on my own and I’m trying to stay busy, so that helps.”
Before he laid down the blue tape in his hand, he looked down at me. His eyes were full of concern. He didn’t say anything verbally, but for some reason I felt really loved. I appreciated how he and Danielle were staying out of the marriage portion of my life. It was nice to be able to talk without feeling judgment. I had really grown to love them both over the last four plus months. They were part of the reason I was still somewhat sane and why Mia and Ashton were so happy.
There was hardly a day when they didn’t stop by or invite me and the kids over. Sometimes Jack would just come by after work on his way home and mow my lawn or take down the trash. Those were other things he felt like I shouldn�
��t be doing in my condition. I teased him that women walked across the plains pregnant, but he just smiled and kept on doing what he was doing. Danielle was also helping me with Mia’s birthday party. We had been making goodie bags and decorations. Mia was still on the butterfly kick, so we made large paper lanterns with small butterflies attached. We even had butterflies on the straws and a butterfly shaped piñata and cake. Ashton was not impressed at all. It was way too girly for him, so Grandpa promised they would do something manly while we entertained ten or so of Mia’s friends.
The day before Mia’s birthday party, I had an appointment to meet with the attorney, a Mr. William McRae. He specialized in divorce. What a thing to specialize in, I thought. I almost canceled. I just didn’t know if I could face it, but what choice did I have? Guiltily, I dropped my kids off at my in-laws. I just told them I had an appointment, but I was dressed nice in a pantsuit. My mother in law looked at me like she knew, but she didn’t ask. I hugged the kids extra tight before I left. What am I doing? I thought.
On the drive over, I kept reminding myself this was the right thing to do and I didn’t choose this. Then I kept hearing the voice of the pastor repeating the phrase, “for better or for worse.” And I felt my baby move. I was a wreck by the time I made it to the handsome brick building near the courthouse. I found a parking spot and got out and paid the meter, but I hesitated to walk into McRae and McRae. Then I remembered what Michael said about playing house before he left, and I propelled myself forward.
I signed in and sat in their stately looking waiting area. The waiting area seemed too large to me. How many people needed their services? I couldn’t sit, so I got up and paced. My fellow patrons must have thought me odd, but I thought they were odd. How could they be so calm about dissolving their marriages? But maybe they were there for other reasons. I didn’t know. All I knew was that I had never been so uncomfortable in my life.
The Girl in Seat 24B Page 11