Falling Apart in One Piece

by Stacy Morrison

  Every working mother knows that business trips are a strange combination of guilt and pleasure. It’s hard not to be the one putting your baby to bed, but there’s no denying it’s nice not to be the one waking with the baby at 5:45 a.m. Plus, you can go to the gym without asking and have some time for yourself, some time to just be. I talked to Chris and at Zack every day while I was there. It was easy for Chris and me to be focused on talking about how Zack was doing. We had just hired a new nanny, Sezi, who was already changing our lives with her heart and good-naturedness and her sweet, loving personality. She and Zack were a match made in heaven, so hearing all about how wonderfully the two of them were getting along was music to my ears. It all felt very normal.

  After my presentation, I called the office to check in with Kim, the magazine’s managing editor as well as a great friend. After I had related the highlights and shared a few people’s positive responses, she said, “Cool, sounds great,” and then paused.

  “What’s next?” I asked, figuring she was going to tell me what pieces of copy had been faxed to me at the hotel and needed to be approved by me right away.

  “Have you thought at all yet about what you and Zack are going to do Saturday?”

  Oh, God. Saturday. Saturday, Saturday, Saturday. I hadn’t thought about it at all. Chris was moving out on Saturday, the day after I returned home from London.

  “You can’t be there when he moves out,” she said. “You don’t want Zack to see that.”

  No, I didn’t want Zack to see that. Zack was so young that we hadn’t had to explain anything to him yet; Chris was going to be around almost as much after he’d moved out as he had been when he was living with us. We planned to stick to our weeknight schedule of Tuesday and Thursday nights being Chris’s nights to come home and relieve the nanny and put Zack to bed, and now Sundays were going to be Chris’s, too. We’d been sort of living this schedule for a month or two, so not much in his schedule would actually change for Zack right away.

  I was still thinking about all this when Kim said, “You guys just come over to our house in the morning and play”—she had a daughter, Julia, who was about two years older than Zack; they were pals and look-alikes, with blond hair and big blue eyes. “Plan to spend the day with us.”

  I thanked Kim and hung up, more than a little thrown by the fact that the date had slipped through the cracks, had gotten lost among all the openings and closings of the shoji screens in my mind. I wasn’t even sure there was a way to prepare for the day your husband backs a truck up to your house and loads it before driving away for good. Thank goodness Kim got there first.

  On that Saturday, Zack and I got up and had our breakfast as if it were a normal day. Chris was on the phone, rounding up the friends who were going to help him move. I dressed Zack in a red T-shirt that said “Mom Rules,” as a small act of defiance, and I packed a diaper bag. “I’ll call you when it’s all done,” Chris said, as if he and I were running separate errands and would meet back at the house for dinner. “Okay,” I said, and Zack and I left the house before Chris went to pick up the truck.

  Zack and Julia spent all day playing in Julia’s playroom, while Kim and I sat on the sofa and alternately talked and didn’t talk about what was happening. Chris finally called just a bit after dark and said, “I’m out.” I hung up and let out a big exhale, not really sure what I was thinking or feeling. I started packing up Zack’s toys. Kim’s husband, Stephen, walked into the room and suggested that we all head out to dinner and then to the Brooklyn Museum for one of the free activity nights called First Saturdays. I didn’t live far from the museum, but I’d never even heard of First Saturdays. We drove over and entered the museum in a happy throng of parents and children, spiced up with hipsters with complicated hair (which made me feel old) and a good smattering of old folks (which reminded me I was young), and were greeted by music. Up on the third floor was the Beaux-Arts Court, a huge square space lined with pillars, the surrounding walls hung with art. Stationed in the middle of the square was an Afro-Brazilian band, blasting happy music through big speakers. Zack immediately began running around the big square hall, sprinting past the paintings and the sculpture, and egging me on to chase him. I bought a plastic cup of red wine and sipped from it between jogging spurts, trying to keep my eyes on my blond bomber, letting the music get into the space in my chest that was tight.

  Julia caught Zack and took him with her to the dance floor. She whirled him around, her blond hair flying out behind her like ribbons, her black dress with hearts on it flaring at the hem. Zack had a huge grin on his face as he absorbed the energy in the room. He has always loved to dance, and when he turned toward me I called, “Do the chicken dance!” This dance was one of our favorite jokes. Zack promptly put his hands on his waist, bent his knees, and began flapping his legs open and closed, open and closed, all while trying to keep himself from cracking up. When Stephen caught sight of it, he burst out laughing, and Zack followed suit. I sat on the sidelines loving my son and watching other people love his big spirit, too. I could see that almost before my eyes my baby was turning into a boy, that time was indeed marching on, even though life felt stuck. Kids were spinning around with their parents, or wiggling in big groups with their friends. Couples were dancing together, impressing each other with their moves. I was caught up in the sheer joy of it all, the delight of sharing in a public spectacle of celebration for no reason in particular.

  As I looked at the mosaic floor my son was joyously dancing on, I was reminded that what you see in your life isn’t one thing, one picture, one thought. Life is a thousand little pieces, sliding and moving, like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. You may get a moment of suddenly taking in a pattern whole, and then it’s gone again in a flash, changing, shifting into something else. As I sipped my wine, I felt calm and . . . happy. There was no longer any denying that my marriage was coming to an end. But being able to feel so good and so loved on one of the saddest days of my life gave me strength to face whatever might be coming next.

  5

  Anger Hides Everything

  You Need to Feel to Get

  Past the Anger

  The first few days after Chris moved out, I waited for sadness to come rushing into the empty place where he used to be, but what I mostly felt was . . . quiet. After eight long months of being on guard in my own home, it was a relief to have an hour or two every night to be by myself, and not be the object of Chris’s rancor or indifference. A soothing silence was starting to take shape in my mind in the place where my self-criticisms and self-admonishments had lived, the voices that had been trying to help me save my marriage—a tentative blank spot where I was just me.

  Weeknights after I put Zack to bed, I’d sit at the kitchen table and do my work and enjoy the hush of the house, the television dark for the first time in years, since Chris wasn’t there to turn it on. I’d grown up in a house where the kitchen radio was always on, then lived with roommates who always had music playing, then married Chris, who felt the TV noise was a good constant companion. I felt guilty for enjoying the silence because somehow that meant I was pushing my marriage even further away, but it was liberating anyway. At night at the table, with my stacks of manuscripts around me and that quiet spot in my mind, I felt focused and industrious, as if I had tidied up my messy life and put it into those neat little piles.

  Mornings were a little less orderly. I’d get up when Zack awoke at 5:45 and take him downstairs to feed him breakfast, while I nursed the coffee that I needed to get me started. Then I’d take him back upstairs with me into the bathroom so I could hop in the shower, trying to wash my hair or shave my legs at the speed of light, while entertaining Zack at the same time. We’d play hide-and-seek with the shower curtain, or we’d slap the curtain to make the water droplets jump. This part of the morning routine reminded me every single day that I was now a single mom, and I felt achingly alone. Once out of the shower, it was back downstairs to station Zack safely in his ExerSaucer so he cou
ld watch Sesame Street and I could blow-dry my hair and put on my makeup while I ran up and down the stairs in various states of undress to keep tabs on him and Bert and Ernie & Co. Promptly at 8 a.m. Zack’s nanny, Sezi—upbeat, cheerful, and seemingly unfazed by the chaos in the basement and in my relationship with Chris—would come in the door and head directly to Zack to lavish him with hugs and kisses. I would give Zack a final squeeze and shoot out the door, heading to the subway, falling into the rhythm of the week, one day at a time.

  But I dreaded Friday nights, which set me apart from the rest of the world. During the week cashiers and coworkers constantly referred to the coming weekend—“It’s almost Humpday”; “Just two more days to go”—counting down the hours until they could be released into the freedom of two days off. I felt trapped by weekends, tied as I was to the house due to the cold weather and the realities of a toddler’s schedule. Zack’s early rising, three meals, two snacks, two naps, and early bedtime defined the shape and schedule of each day, permitting us only short sorties into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where none of my friends lived. On weeknights I was busy with work; on weekends I was busy with nothing, and couldn’t even remember what I’d done for pleasure before Chris and I were married. I had no hobbies, no outside interests; I didn’t watch TV or listen to music, and I didn’t have the attention span for movies or books anymore. I would waste two or three free hours surfing the Internet, drinking wine and trying to avoid feeling the dullness and depression that were creeping into my psyche. I’d mindlessly fill online shopping carts and abandon them, or search for words on Text Twist until I had replaced that feeling of anxiety that was always present with a flattened boredom. But despite my best efforts to numb my senses, there were many nights when I’d curl up on the couch for a long cry, wondering how many days in a row I could keep on feeling so empty.

  One weekend I decided to try to take a break from this sad monotony, and Zack and I headed down to my brother Gregg’s place outside Philadelphia. I love being at Gregg and Melissa’s house, filled as it is with Melissa’s big, welcoming spirit and Gregg’s no-frills, no-nonsense demeanor—as well as all the delicious snack foods I normally don’t allow myself that are tucked away in every cabinet. I feel a hundred percent at ease with them, free to be in whatever mood I am at the time, and I can talk to them about anything. Gregg and I are close, in an indefinable way not created by long phone calls or constant e-mails, but rather by a deep trust; I feel my connection to my family most strongly through my brothers. And feeling connected to something, anything, was what I needed now.

  Gregg and Melissa’s three dogs made every arrival a coronation, a lunging, rumbling wagfest that was the opposite of walking into my silent house. Just minutes after Zack and I arrived, I could feel myself relaxing into the easy comfort of being in a house full of people, all of them wanting to spend some time with Zack, hold him, make him laugh. And Zack is a child who thrives on attention, who was performing for crowds before he could even crawl. He pulled all the pots and pans out of a cabinet and spread them around the kitchen floor, making music of the clatter. He found a box of cereal on a low shelf and sat right down on the floor, stuffing his chubby toddler hand into the box and feeding himself. Upstairs, he and I played around on the guest room bed, rolling back and forth and giggling. Zack was aiming to impress me; he got a glint in his eye, rolled over and over and over, and—ack! Before I could get to him he rolled right off the high bed, bonking himself on the night table and giving himself a big lump over his right eye. I scooped him up and rocked him as he cried, soothing him. I calmed him, feeling calm myself, musing that all of this dailiness-of-life with a child—the bumps and bruises, the snacks and naps—was so much easier to handle with other bodies in the house. I tipped so easily into a crisis when I was alone, reeling as I still was from the grief of what was gone. Parenting is hard stuff, and it needs a witness, I thought, not for the first time since Chris had left. Not being able to share Zack’s small moments with someone on a daily basis was feeling like one of the greatest holes in my life.

  After Zack was safely ensconced in the crib that night, Melissa and I settled into an epic conversation about what was happening with Chris and me. She peppered me with questions: When did I first know this was happening? What did Chris say when he started the conversation? What did I say? Did I think there was any chance we would get back together? We talked for three or four hours, over many glasses of wine. I kept waiting, hoping, for that nice, fuzzy detachment that three or so glasses of wine can offer, but I felt stone-cold sober as I walked Melissa through everything I was feeling: the loss, the grief, the confusion, the total emptiness, the financial panic, all of it. I told her everything I thought I knew about why Chris felt he had to leave me. He had told me some things himself, I said. And so I shared the story of the Christmas card he’d handed me a few weeks before.

  Chris and I had given each other Christmas presents, exchanging them awkwardly under the bright light of the kitchen lamp one random weeknight. I hadn’t intended to buy him a gift, even though it felt strange not to. But I had been in a bookstore shopping for Christmas cards, and I’d stumbled across a blank book with a beautiful quotation printed on the cover that had stopped me in my tracks. The words really spoke to me about Chris and where I thought he was in his attempts to get answers in his life, but after I bought the book, I hid it in a drawer, feeling like maybe it was too personal a gift to be giving a man who was leaving me, and definitely feeling that I didn’t know what any of the rules were anymore. But when I came home one December night when he had been at the house with Z, there was Chris with a huge wrapped present sitting on the kitchen table and a tentative smile on his face. I said, “Oh, I . . .”

  He said, “I know, I know, it’s weird, but I wanted to get you something.”

  I said, “Me, too. I have something for you, but I didn’t wrap it. I wasn’t sure I should get you anything.”

  I ran upstairs and found the notebook, still in the bag from the store, and I brought it downstairs and handed it to him.

  “It’s kind of personal,” I said. “But I thought it made sense for you. And for me, too.”

  He took the notebook out of the bag and read what was emblazoned on the cover in tight rows of ocean blue type against a black background. It was this quote from Rainer Marie Rilke, one of my favorite poets:

  Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, for they could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps, then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

  I had written the quote down for myself on a piece of paper and put it into my wallet after I had bought the book for him, since the words suddenly seemed to relate totally to my life as well. I stood across the table from Chris, holding my breath as he read it, wondering why I was making myself vulnerable to him like this. When he finished reading it, he looked up at me, nodding, with soft eyes, and said, “Thank you.” I exhaled.

  “I got you a book, too,” he said. I tore the wrapping paper off my present to reveal a gigantic volume of New Yorker cartoons. I had read the magazine cover to cover every week for years, and had always shown Chris my favorite cartoons so we could laugh about them together: a man on the phone looking at his datebook and saying, “Tuesday’s no good for me, either. How about never? Is never good for you?”; or two elephants standing in a field, one of them saying, “Does this field make my butt look big?” I even used the cartoons to express complicated things about our relationship, like the one that showed a couple in bed, both reading, the man saying to his wife, “Sometimes I close my eyes and pretend that someone else is denying me sex.” Chris and I had laughed knowingly about that one.

  “Wow, thanks,” I said, paging through the
volume. Then Chris handed me a card.

  In the thirteen years we’d been together, Chris had been buying me the goofiest cards. Ones with dogs, and punchlines with exclamation points, or cartoon characters with oversize teeth and pithy observations. I’m an introspective, emo kind of gal myself, and so I tended to hand-make valentines or write out bits of poetry on blank cards. But since Chris has always prized his own “silliness,” I had gotten used to receiving anniversary cards in primary colors. And so I was surprised when I opened the envelope he’d handed me to find a plain ivory note card embossed with flowers. And even more surprised when I opened the card and saw that it had no preprinted message, just Chris’s angular, uneven handwriting. I could feel him standing and staring at me as I started to read it, and the room suddenly felt too small. As I read the first line, my breath caught in my throat and I had to turn away from him to finish reading the note, not able to let him see what my face might show.

  Stacy,

  I will always be your friend and I will always be Zack’s father, and so I hope someday you will be able to forgive me. I have to try to become the man I am meant to be. I will never forget the love we shared. It will stay with me forever.

  Love,

  Chris

  No, no, no, no, noooo! I felt myself recoiling in my mind, and I bit down on my lip to try to keep from crying. It was so painful to get such a beautiful note from him, a note filled with honesty and love. It seemed impossibly cruel that he was able to find words for sentiments like these only now, as he was walking away from me.