by Jodi Picoult
Every few steps, I hear a bird.
I stop walking, look up, and notice the speaker and the motion sensor. The courthouse has some weird nature recording following me with every step.
It's kind of fitting, actually, to be headed in to file for divorce and to learn that something I thought was real is just smoke and mirrors.
The clerk looks up at me when I enter the office. She has curly black hair--and that's just her mustache. "Yes?" she says. "Can I help you?"
These days, I don't think anyone can. But I take a step toward the chest-high counter. "I want a divorce."
She flattens her mouth in a smile. "Honey, I don't even remember our wedding." When I don't respond, the clerk rolls her eyes. "Just once. Just once I'd like someone to laugh. Who's your attorney?"
"I can't afford one."
She hands me a packet of papers. "You own property?"
"No."
"You got kids?"
"No," I say, looking away.
"Then you fill out the paperwork, and bring it to the sheriff's department down the hall."
I thank her and take the packet out to a bench in the corridor.
In re: the Marriage of
Plaintiff: that would be me.
And Defendant: that would be Zoe.
I carefully read the first item to be filled out: my residence. After hesitating, I put down Reid's address. I've been there for two months now. Plus, the next item is Zoe's address. I don't want the judge to get confused and think we're still living together and decide not to grant the divorce.
Not that it works like that, but still.
Number three: On _____, in _____ (city), _____ (country), _____ (state), the Plaintiff and Defendant married. An official copy of the marriage license is attached to this complaint for divorce.
Zoe and I had gotten married by a justice of the peace with a speech impediment. When he asked us to repeat our vows, neither of us could understand him. "We've written our own," Zoe said, in a flash of inspiration, and, like me, she made them up on the spot.
On the divorce form, there are four spaces for children, and their birth dates.
I feel myself break out in a sweat.
Grounds for No-Fault:
I have only two choices here, and they are listed for me. Carefully I reprint the first option: Irreconcilable differences that have caused the irremediable breakdown of the marriage.
I do not really know what all that means, but I can guess. And it seems to describe me and Zoe. She can't stop wanting a baby; I can't stand the thought of trying again. Irreconcilable differences are the children we never had. They're the times she would sit at dinner, smiling, when I knew she wasn't thinking about me. They're the baby name books stacked for reading by the toilet, the crib mobile she bought three years ago and never unpacked, the finance charges on our credit card bills that keep me awake at night.
Just above the spot where I sign my name is a vow: The Plaintiff prays for an Absolute Divorce.
Yeah, I suppose I do.
I'd worship anyone and anything who could turn my life around.
In a way, I get along better with my sister-in-law than with my own brother. For the past two months, every time Reid asks me if I have a master plan, a goal to get back on my feet, Liddy just reminds him that I'm family, that I should stay as long as I want. At breakfast, if she cooks an uneven number of slices of bacon, she gives me the extra, instead of Reid. It's like she's the one person who really gives a crap whether I live or die, who either doesn't notice that I'm a colossal fuckup or, better yet, just doesn't care.
Liddy grew up with a father who was a Pentecostal preacher, but when she's not acting all churchified, she can be pretty cool. She collects Green Lantern comic books, for example. And she's totally into B movies--the more outrageous the better. Since neither Zoe nor Reid ever understood the attraction of this kind of pulp film, Liddy and I have had a tradition of going to a midnight showing each month, at a dive of a theater that does crappy-director film festivals honoring people you've never heard of, like William Castle or Bert Gordon. Tonight, we're watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers--not the 1978 remake but the 1956 original by Don Siegel.
Liddy always pays for my ticket. I used to offer, but Liddy said that was ridiculous--in the first place, she had Reid's money to spend and I didn't, and in the second place, I was keeping her entertained while Reid was at some client dinner or church meeting and so this was the least she could do. We always got the biggest bucket of popcorn--with butter, because when Liddy and Reid went out, he insisted on being heart-healthy. That was about as rebellious as Liddy got, frankly.
I've been out drinking three times this week--just a quick beer here and there, nothing I can't handle. But knowing I was meeting Liddy for this movie is what kept me dry tonight. I don't want her running back to Reid, telling him that I reeked of alcohol. I mean, I know she likes me and we get along, but she's my brother's wife first and foremost.
Liddy grabs my arm when the main character, Dr. Bennell, runs onto the highway at the climax of the film. She closes her eyes, too, at the really scary parts, but then demands that I tell her every last detail of what she missed.
They're here already! the actor says, looking right into the camera. You're next!
We always stay for the credits. All the way to the end, when they thank the town that allowed filming. Usually, we're the last ones out of the theater.
Tonight, we're still sitting in our seats when the teenage boy with zits comes in to sweep the aisle and pick up the trash. "Have you ever seen the 1978 remake?" Liddy asks.
"It sucks," I say. "And don't even get me started on The Invasion."
"I think this might be my favorite B movie ever," Liddy replies.
"You say that about every one we see."
"But I mean it this time," she says. She leans her head back against the seat. "Do you think they knew what happened to them?"
"Who?"
"The Pod People. The aliens. Do you think they got up one morning and looked in the mirror and wondered how they got to be that way?"
The kid who's sweeping stops at our aisle. We stand up, walk into the dingy theater lobby. "It's just a movie," I tell Liddy, when what I really want to tell her is that no, the Pod People don't ask what's happened.
That actually, when you turn into someone you don't recognize, you feel nothing at all.
Seventy-seven.
That's how many days after filing the divorce petition I'd have to show up in court. That's how long Zoe would have, after being served this summons by the court, to join me there.
Since I filed the divorce papers, it's been hard for me to get back into the swing of work. By now, I should be putting up my flyers for plowing. I should be cleaning and storing my mowers for the winter. Instead, I've been sleeping in, and staying out late, taking up space in my brother's house.
So when Reid asked me to help him by picking up Pastor Clive at Logan Airport the next morning after a red-eye from an evangelical conference at the Saddleback Church, I should have said yes immediately. I mean, it wasn't like I was busy. And after everything Reid had done for me, the least I could do was repay him with time, if not money.
Instead, I just stared at him, unable to respond.
"You," Reid said quietly, "are really something else, little brother."
Liddy came up to the kitchen table, where I was sitting, and poured me a glass of orange juice. As if I needed any reminder that I was just a black hole in the middle of their home, sucking away their food, their money, their private time.
I may not have been able to say yes to my brother, but I couldn't say no to her.
So now it's dawn, and I'm fully planning on driving to Logan to meet the 7:00 A.M. plane arrival, but as I'm heading past Point Judith, I notice the waves. I check the clock on my dashboard. I've got my board and wet suit with me--they're always in my truck, just in case--and I'm thinking that there's no point in getting up this early if I'm not going to ge
t in fifteen minutes of surfing on my way to Boston.
I pull on my wet suit, hood, and gloves, and head toward a bar that has proven itself in the past for me--a fairy godmother made of shallow sand that can take a long, low wall and turn it into a screaming curl.
Paddling out, I pass a pair of younger guys. "Jerry, Herc," I say, nodding. Fall and winter riders are a unique breed, and we mostly know each other simply because there aren't many people crazy enough to head out surfing when the water is fifty degrees and the air temperature is forty-one. I time it just right and catch a decent six-footer. On the way back out I watch Herc's wave go vertical, see him skirt the inside break.
I can feel my triceps burning, and the familiar icy headache that comes from being slapped in the face by a freezing, teasing ocean. It's harder to pull myself up on the board, easier to nod to the others to take that particular wave while I wait out the next one. "You sure, Gramps?"
I am forty. Not ancient by any means, but a relic in the world of surfing. Gramps my ass, I think, and I decide I'm going to catch the next wave and show these toddlers how it's really done.
Except.
No sooner have I pulled myself upright and stuck my first turn than I suddenly lose my footing, tumbling backward. The last thing I see is the flat hull of my board, coming at me with lightning force.
When I come to, my cheek is pressed into the sand and my hood's been yanked off my head. The wind has turned my wet hair into icicles. Jerry's face slowly comes into focus. "Hey, Gramps," he says, "you okay? You took a hard knock."
I sit up, wincing. "I'm fine," I mutter.
"You want a ride to the hospital? To get checked out?"
"No." I'm bruised and battered and shivering like mad. "What time is it?"
Herc lifts up the neoprene edge of his wet suit to check his wrist-watch. "Seven-ten."
I've been surfing for over an hour? "Shit," I say, struggling to my feet. The world spins for a moment, and Herc steadies me.
"There someone we should call?" he asks.
I can't give them the number of one of my employees, because I've laid them all off for the winter. I can't give them Reid and Liddy's number, because they think I'm picking up the pastor. I can't give them Zoe's number, because of what I've done to her.
I shake my head, but I can't quite bring myself to say the words: There's nobody.
Herc and Jerry head back out one more time, and I walk slowly to the truck. My cell phone has fifteen messages on it. I don't have to call voice mail to know they are all from Reid, and they are all angry.
I call him back. "Reid," I say. "Look, man, I'm really sorry. I was just about to hit Ninety-three North when the truck broke down. I tried to call, but I didn't have service--"
"Where are you now?"
"Waiting for a tow," I lie. "I don't know how long it's going to take to fix."
Reid sighs. "I'll get Pastor Clive a limo," he says. "Do you need a ride, too?"
I don't know what I did to deserve a brother like Reid. I mean, anyone else would have written me off long before now. "I'm good," I reply.
Zoe had wanted me to quit surfing. She didn't understand the obsession, the way I couldn't pass by a beach with a rip curl. Grow up, Max, she had said. You can't have a child if you are one.
Was she right?
About everything?
I picture the sheriff showing up at her house. Zoe Baxter? he'd say, and she'd nod. You've been served. Then he would leave her holding the little blue folder, the one she must have known was coming sooner or later, and yet still would feel like a kick in the gut.
In the truck, I am still shivering, even with the heat turned up high. I hesitate . . . and then reach into the glove compartment. The bottle of Jagermeister is really just for medicinal purposes. You see it all the time in movies--the guy who's got frostbite, the one who's fallen off a bridge into the water; the fellow who's been left out in the cold too long . . . they're all confused and frantic until they take a nip to get their blood flowing again.
One sip, and suddenly they're healed.
Two months later
If not for the garbage truck, I would have missed my court date.
I wake with a start when I hear the high-pitched beeps, jumping upright and smacking my head against the roof of the car. The garbage truck backs toward the Dumpster I'm parked beside and hooks its teeth into the metal loops so that it can lift the receptacle. All I know is that it sounds like freaking Armageddon.
The windows are steamed up and I'm shivering, so I turn on the ignition and blast the defroster. That's when I realize that it's not 6:00 A.M., like I figured, but 8:34 A.M.
In twenty-six minutes I am getting divorced.
Obviously, I don't have time to go back to Reid's and shower. As it is, I will have to break the land speed record to get to the Kent County Courthouse on time.
"Shit," I mutter, throwing the car into reverse and peeling out of the parking lot of the bank where I must have fallen asleep last night. There's an Irish pub around the corner, and last call is 3:00 A.M. I have a vague recollection of a bunch of guys having a bachelor party, of being invited to do some tequila shots.
Fortunately, there's no snow yet, or for that matter an overturned truck on the highway. I park illegally in a spot that isn't really a space (not a bright idea at a courthouse, but really, what am I supposed to do?) and run like hell into the building. "Excuse me," I mutter, my head pounding as I run up the stairs to Judge Meyers's courtroom. I bump into a woman with her two kids and a lawyer reading a brief. "Sorry . . . pardon me . . ."
I slide into the back row of the benches. I am sweating, and my shirt's come untucked from my pants. I haven't had a chance to shave, or even wash up in the bathroom. I sniff my sleeve, which smells like last night's party.
When I glance up again, I see her staring at me.
Zoe looks like she hasn't slept in seventy-seven days, either. She has dark circles under her eyes. She's too thin. But she takes one look at my face, my hair, my clothing, and she knows. She understands what I've been doing.
She turns away from me and fixes her gaze straight ahead.
I feel that dismissal like a hole punched through my chest. All I ever wanted was to be good enough for her, and I screwed up. I couldn't give her the kid she wanted. I couldn't give her the life she deserved. I couldn't be the man she thought I was.
The clerk stands up and begins reading through a list. "Malloy versus Malloy?" she says.
A lawyer stands up. "That's ready, Your Honor. Can we have the process on that, please?"
The judge, a woman with a round, sunny face, has decorated her bench with seasonal items--Beanie Babies dressed like Pilgrims, a stuffed turkey.
"Jones versus Jones?"
Another attorney rises. "Ready, nominal."
"Kasen versus Kasen?"
"Your Honor, I need a new date on that. Could I have December eighteenth?"
"Horowitz versus Horowitz," the clerk reads.
"That's a motion, Your Honor," another lawyer replies. "I'm ready to go."
"Baxter versus Baxter?"
It takes me a moment to realize that the clerk is calling my name. "Yes," I say, standing up. As if there's a thread connecting us, Zoe rises, too, all the way across the room.
"Um," I say. "Present."
"Do you represent yourself, sir?" Judge Meyers asks.
"Yes," I say.
"Is your wife here?"
Zoe clears her throat. "Yes."
"Are you representing yourself, ma'am?" Judge Meyers asks.
"Yes," Zoe says, "I am."
"Are you both ready to go forward with the divorce today?"
I nod. I don't look at Zoe to see if she's nodding, too.
"If you're representing yourselves," Judge Meyers says, "you are your own attorneys. That means you have to put your case on if you want to get a divorce today. I highly recommend watching these other nominal divorces to see the procedure, because I can't do it for you. Is that clear
?"
"Yes, ma'am," I say, but she might as well be speaking Portuguese for all I understand.
We are not called again until over two hours later. Which means I could have showered, since, even though I've now sat through five other divorces, I have no idea what I am supposed to do. I walk past the gate at the front of the courtroom into the witness box, and one of the uniformed bailiffs comes up to me holding a Bible. "Mr. Baxter, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"
From the corner of my eye, I see the clerk directing Zoe to take a seat at one of the tables in front of the bench. "I do," I say.
It's funny, isn't it, that you have to speak the same words to get married as you do to get divorced.
"Please state your name for the record . . ."
"Max," I say. "Maxwell Baxter."
The judge folds her hands on her desk. "Mr. Baxter, have you entered your appearance?"
I just blink at her.
"Sheriff, have Mr. Baxter enter his appearance. . . . You want a divorce today, Mr. Baxter?"
"Yes."
"And you're representing yourself today?"
"I can't afford a lawyer," I explain.
The judge looks at Zoe. "And you, Mrs. Baxter? You're representing yourself as well?"
"I am."
"You're not fighting the divorce today, is that correct?"
She nods.
"Sheriff, have Mrs. Baxter enter an appearance on her own behalf, please." The judge turns back to me and sniffs. "Mr. Baxter, you smell absolutely pickled. Are you under the influence of alcohol or drugs?"
I hesitate. "Not yet," I say.
"Seriously, Max?" Zoe blurts out. "You're drinking again?"
"It's not your problem anymore--"
The judge bangs her gavel. "If you two feel like having a counseling session, don't waste my time."
"No, Your Honor," I say. "I just want this to be over."
"All right, Mr. Baxter. You may proceed."
Except I don't know how. Where I live, and whether I've lived in Wilmington for a year, and when I was married, and when we separated--well, none of that really explains how two people who thought they'd spend the rest of their lives together one day woke up and realized they did not know the person sleeping beside them.