“I’m just fine, Nick,” I assure him. “I was protecting Emma. He tried to take her picture.”
“I don’t know, Max—you looked kind of insane. Do I have to worry about you around the kids? Do we need to get into a custody battle?”
I interrupt him. “A custody battle? What the fuck, Nick?” I whisper, so no one can hear me, except Nick.
He completely ignores me and keeps talking, “Because here’s the thing, I moved into Sloane’s house today. That’s actually the other reason I called, to tell you to drop the kids off there tonight. We decided why wait? It really didn’t take long to move my stuff in. I didn’t have much, since you know—you pretty much threw me out with just the clothes on my back.”
Oh my god, it is so hard not to scream at this man. “I did not throw you out with just the clothes on your back,” I snarl. “I told you to take whatever you wanted, but the efficiency hotel you moved into had everything, so you said that you didn’t need dishes, silverware, towels, sheets—anything. I’m sure Sloane has everything you need now. But if you’d really like, feel free to come to the house and take the dishes. Take the towels. Take the sheets and blankets. I don’t care. I can buy new stuff. It’s all as old as our marriage anyway. Maybe it’s time for a fresh start.”
“I don’t want anything, Max. I was just making a point. Anyway, you’ve gotten off track. I hate when you go off on tangents. Stay on topic, which is the fact that I’ve moved in with Sloane. So, if you’ve really hit rock bottom, the kids can move in with us for a while. Sloane would welcome them with open arms.”
“I bet she would. No fucking way,” I say under my breath. It’s barely audible, but I’m sure Nick catches it. “Oops, there I go again—cursing at you. You have this way of bringing out the worst in me, Nick. It’s so sad after all of our years together that this is what we’ve become. Good-bye, Nick. I need to go now. I’m at the park with Sam and I need to go push him on the swings. Much happiness to you in your new home with Sloane.” I click end before he can say anything else to me.
Andi is looking at me sympathetically. “Tough conversation, huh?” she asks softly.
“You have no idea,” I say sadly. “It’s like Sloane engineered this whole thing. It’s not bad enough that she stole my husband. No, she had to launch that video and it became a game of dominos—every little thing knocked over something else, until I feel like my life is just in ruins, everything collapsed around me,” I sigh and decide that I’ve got to pull it together. I’ve got to get past this. “Listen to me—having a big pity party for myself. Ugh. It’ll all be okay. I’m stronger than I think, right? I just cannot stand playing the victim, and it seems like I’ve done it too much since my marriage fell apart. That’s not who I am.”
Andi puts her arm around me and gives me a hug. “I know it’s not who you are. You’re just going through a hard time. But I’ll keep listening no matter what, if that makes you feel better.” I rest my head on her shoulder and just breathe slowly in and out for a moment, trying to head off hyperventilation and the full-on panic attack I know is brewing. I feel the grip in my stomach and the sweat start to bead up on my forehead. My heart gets a bit faster and I know it’ll be galloping soon. I had panic attacks through my pregnancy with Emma, and on and off since then. It’s been more off for the past five years, at least, but I always remember how awful it felt, and I’m always fully aware of how tenuous mental health can be. I know that my hyperventilating is just one step away from a panic attack.
I continue. “You know, I’ve almost lost my daughter, my son got suspended, another son got tormented at school, I’ve been stripped of my PTA duties, but this—Nick thinking about suing for sole custody—is bigger than all that. I have to be stronger than I ever have, because I can’t let that happen. Never, ever. There’s no way in hell that Sloane is getting her hands on my babies. She may end up being their stepmother, but they will never live with her for more than every other weekend and once a week.”
“Wow,” Andi says. “I’ve never heard you sound so venomous before. Don’t worry—there’s no way that a man who cheats on his wife will get full custody, unless you’re a drug addict. And it would be a long drawn-out court battle that I’m sure he’s not willing to endure.”
“You don’t know that—a judge might take my video and all the unflattering coverage of me into account more. How do I know if he’s seriously thinking of trying to get custody, or if he’s just spouting off about it?”
“Just ask him outright. Send him a text or e-mail if you feel like you can’t talk to him.”
“That’s a good idea.” I start texting him and Andi says, “I didn’t mean right now. Right now he’s apt to say anything because you snapped at him. Give things a bit of time to simmer down.” I decide a text is a bad idea at any time, and make a mental note to ask him at the drop off. A text can be saved and somehow used against me. He could say that I was threatening him or that I’m desperate.
I can feel the panic attack start to swirl its way through my body. My head’s suddenly in a vice and I really feel like I might faint. I never had panic attacks before I was pregnant with Emma - it suddenly seemed like there was so much at stake, and I was terrified that something terrible would happen to me. I had a husband and a baby on the way and I just could not bear the thought that I wouldn’t be there for them. I was afraid of car accidents and cancer, of food poisoning and even the flu, but mostly I was terrified that I would die during childbirth.
An old woman in our apartment building in Queens put her hand on my arm one morning by the elevator and said, “Dear, please make sure you’re healthy for labor. Go to the doctor and get your ticker checked out. My poor niece, god rest her soul, died giving birth. Her heart just gave out. Poor thing had no idea she was even sick. Young girl like you, picture of health, and then just gone.” She snapped her fingers.
The old hag’s words followed me throughout my pregnancy. Instead of wondering if maybe she was senile, suffering from dementia or just plain mentally unbalanced to say something so terrifying and just inappropriate to a pregnant woman, I was sure she was giving me a warning—that she was some sort of witch or clairvoyant who could see the future; a future that left my husband a widower and my baby motherless. I made an appointment with my obstetrician and made him listen not just to the baby’s heart, but mine, as well. “I’m not a cardiologist or even an internist,” he protested. “I’m really not the one to do this.” But he listened and then he wrote me a prescription for an anti-anxiety med, assuring me that it was safe to take while pregnant.
As soon as I stepped out of the building, I ripped up the prescription and threw it in a garbage can on the street. I was certain that it wasn’t my brain, but my body. But, even going to a cardiologist didn’t really calm me down. My internist gave me a referral to ease my fears, but of course anxiety doesn’t understand logic. Just because the cardiologist said I was fine didn’t mean that I wouldn’t drop dead with the last push.
I was so happy that I was pregnant, but the happier I was, the more terrified I became that something would take that happiness away. The fear I feel right now, that something completely out of my control will take my family away, is exactly how I felt back then. But unlike now, I’m pretty sure I must have known that I wasn’t being realistic. I must have known that just because that woman’s niece died, I wouldn’t die. But this, this is real. Nick could conceivably get my kids in a custody battle, especially if he’s living with Sloane. Those damning photos that came out yesterday wouldn’t help matters either.
I tell Andi, “I’ll just talk to him later—better than to have a record of our conversation. But I’m really nervous. Really nervous.” I grab the crumpled paper bag I keep in my tote and breathe in and out of it slowly. It’s not working, so I put my head between my knees. I must look like a crazy person. Of course it’s just that moment that I see the photographer snap my picture. Great, one more insane shot of me.
“I can’t do this, Andi. I
just can’t take the way my life feels completely out of my control. I’ve realized I’m a total control freak—and this, all this, is just so out of control.”
“What about your new mantra, I just don’t give a fuck?” Andi whispers.
I try it, “Okay, I just don’t give a fuck,” I whisper back. “But, I do give a fuck about whether or not Nick gets custody of my kids. I don’t give a fuck about what people think of me, but I do give a fuck, a great big flying fuck, about my family, my kids,” I whisper, glancing up to make sure the boys are still out of earshot.
“Okay, I get that. So, how about focusing on the good stuff? The stuff you can control. I know the whole Ben thing is stressing you out, but you can control that—you can choose to ask him about Rebecca. You can choose to let him into your life. Do I sound like a broken record?”
“Kind of, but I am calming down a little thinking about him.” I sit back on the bench and try to summon up my happy place. It’s actually something that’s been my happy place since college. It was a night that Ben and I made love in the middle of a cornfield. It was during harvest, and we stopped by a field on an empty rural road on our way home from dinner, since we just couldn’t even make it back to the bed. Ben barely stopped the car before I jumped out of my seat onto his lap. “Do you want to go in there,” he whispered, tilting his head toward the field, a wicked grin spreading over his face. “It’s harvest time; no one will see us.”
Ben was right. The stalks were so tall there was no way anyone could see us from the road. He grabbed a soft blue blanket from his trunk and laid it on the ground in between the rows of corn. I could barely get my jeans and underwear off quickly enough—I tripped as I pulled them off and landed against Ben. He scooped me up in his arms and gently lowered me to the blanket. And ever since, that’s been my happy place. Even with Nick, sometimes I would conjure it, especially when we were fighting.
Andi interrupts my reverie. “You seem calmer now.”
“I am. I went to my happy place.” I sigh.
“And your happy place is? If it calms you down so quickly, I want to go there too.”
“Um, it was a night Ben and I had sex in a cornfield. It sounds kind of dirty when I say it out loud.”
“No, it sounds kind of amazing—really amazing. This seems like a good time to finish our conversation that Nick so rudely interrupted.”
“There’s really nothing else to say.”
“Yes, there is. There’s always more to say. If a man can make you daydream like that, you need to say more,” she admonishes me. “You were about to do pros and cons.”
“Okay—I’ll do the cons first.” I root through my bag for a scrap of paper and a pen. I pull out a Target receipt and a stubby miniature golf pencil—the best I can do. He may be dating another woman is first. Then, Won’t get over him a second time is next. It takes me a while to come up with a third and Andi says, “See, you can’t even think of a third.”
“I can,” I insist. “Just give me a moment.”
“Think for a second about the first two,” Andi advises. “You won’t know for sure if he’s dating Rebecca or not, unless you ask. Didn’t you say the photo wasn’t on his page anymore? Don’t you think that if he were dating her, she’d be pretty pissed if a photo of the two of them suddenly disappeared? Why would he do that?”
I just shrug. “He could have only hidden it from me. You can do that, you know.”
“As for the second,” she continues, completely ignoring me. “Fear is never a good reason not to do something—unless it’s something like sky-diving or bungee jumping. You can’t avoid a relationship because you’re afraid it won’t end well. You know that, right?”
“Hold on,” I say, lifting up my index finger for Andi to give me a minute. “I’m trying to figure out the third con. I know there’s one. It’s on the tip of my tongue.”
“Forget about the freaking third con,” Andi says, clearly running out of patience. “Just do the pros. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble getting to three and beyond.”
“Okay, pro number one—he’s Ben. Plain and simple. He was my first love—and in many ways my best relationship—and I thought I’d never have another chance to be with him. We just connected when we were together. It was like we shared a brain. We were so close it was that old cliché—we finished each other’s sentences.”
“Kind of like you and I do, but you know—he has a penis, so there’s that added benefit.”
I laugh. “I guess there is. Anyway, we talked for hours. I never talked to any other guy the way I talked to him, even Nick. We never got bored with each other. We may have had stupid fights, but we never got bored talking to each other.”
“That’s a huge pro,” Andi says.
“Oh wait, I just thought of con number three—he lied to me twenty-two years ago, and let me walk out of his life, rather than admit that he lied.”
“Really, you’re going to hold something against him from when he was twenty-two? I thought you said you were over this? I think you’re just grasping at this point. Go back to the pros, please.”
“Fine. Pro number two, the heat between us—even for the five minutes we rolled around on the floor—is; how shall I put this? Scorching,” I share with a sigh. I gave up writing the list after the cons and now I’m just saying it. I’m glad—I really wouldn’t want what I just said lying around on a Target receipt for my kids to accidentally find. In fact, I take a crayon I find in my bag and color over the list. I don’t need anyone seeing the cons either—and realize that I may actually need to return something on the receipt. How embarrassing would that be, if the clerk turned it over?
“Scorching—I like that,” Andi shares. “That’s a good pro. What’s next?”
“Before I go back to the list—speaking of heat, did I tell you that we almost had phone sex, but I chickened out?”
“No! When did this happen?”
“Before our date. It was just so incredible—the connection between us. It felt like we were twenty-two again, but back then I could make myself completely vulnerable and completely open. I think as you get older it’s harder and harder to be like that—especially if your marriage falls apart. Do you think anyone can be completely open and trusting after that? After being cheated on?”
“I don’t know. I mean you hope that you can. I think if the right person comes along and you love each other, then trust will come eventually—even if you’re damaged.”
“Well, I’m damaged goods for sure now. But, I’m also stronger than I ever thought I’d be. I thought I wouldn’t survive if Nick cheated on me. I thought I wouldn’t survive if I got a divorce and had to share custody. I definitely would have thought that I couldn’t survive a naked video of me floating around out there, if that thought would have ever even occurred to me before it actually happened.” I pause and just stare out at Sam playing. I have to be strong for my kids. I have no choice. “But, I’m surviving,” I say quietly. “I’m okay. I’m even optimistic about the future, whether it involves Ben or not—as long as Nick doesn’t get full custody. I don’t know if I’d survive that.”
“You would—you’re one of the most resilient people I know, even if you haven’t always believed that yourself. But, it won’t happen.”
“Okay, I’ll tell myself that. What makes you say I’m resilient?”
“Well, you lost both of your parents at a fairly young age. Weren’t you just out of college when your dad passed away?”
I nod.
“And I know you said you’d just had Emma when your mom passed away. Even though you were an adult, that’s still incredibly hard to get through. And didn’t you care for your mom when she was ill and you were very pregnant?”
“I did.”
“Plus, I know you got pregnant unexpectedly when you were only with Nick for six months. I didn’t know you then, but I’m pretty sure that you embraced it, instead of freaking out like a lot of women would.”
“I loved it, even though I
had panic attacks through a lot of my pregnancy. The panic attacks were because I was so happy and I was so afraid something would happen to me when I suddenly had so much to lose. I never freaked out about having a baby—I knew that was what I always wanted.”
“So, aren’t those enough reasons? You’ve always been strong—you’re just first realizing it now.”
Suddenly, I’m sure Andi’s right. I can handle anything Nick throws at me. I can also handle asking Ben about Rebecca. I realize that I’m acting a bit childish, hindered by my fear of being hurt again. I need to just get past it, if I’m ever going to be happy again. “Yes, they are. Thanks. You’ve given me the guts to ask about Rebecca. But first, I’ll finish that list of pros.”
“Definitely. I want to hear.”
“He’s talented. At least he was, and I don’t think musical talent is something you lose, whether you’re playing in a band or haven’t for twenty years. Plus, he teaches music and gives private lessons, so he must still be good. I know that sounds shallow, but it’s so sexy. Speaking of sexy, that’s pro number four—he is just gorgeous and sexy and yummy and adorable. Looking at him makes my stomach flutter into my throat,” I sigh.
“That much I can tell even from his thumbnail,” Andi says.
“You know, Nick is gorgeous, but this is, well it’s different. Nick is objectively gorgeous—anyone looking at him would think so. But Ben is gorgeous to me. Like I said he’s gorgeous mixed with adorable. I don’t know if anyone else thinks he’s gorgeous or even adorable and I don’t care.”
“Hello,” Andi waves at me. “I just said that I think he’s gorgeous—even from a tiny picture.”
“I know you did, but you kind of have to say that. I don’t know if other people would think he’s gorgeous. But to me…” I pause for a moment. “Something about his face just speaks to me. I remember reading once about how every person has this one unconscious face type that appeals to him or her—it’s like an archetype or something that we’re drawn to and we don’t know why—it’s responsible for love at first sight. I think Ben is mine. Does that make sense?”
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