Ten Years Divorced (Part 2 of 2)

2010

And so, the papers come through.

And I still can’t believe you really meant it, when you said that.

And I just go through my life, through my memories, trying to puzzle it out. Trying to work out where I went wrong, and what I missed, and why I didn’t see this coming.

I stand with the papers in my hand, not knowing what to do.

#

I find a little flat, one I can afford on my own. It’s not much. Both bedrooms are tiny. I give Lucy the (marginally) bigger one, while wondering if that’s wrong, if that sends a message: am I setting her up to feel entitled, to feel too important, like the way they all say kids are today?

The views from here are all just dank, moss-grown, lichened roofs. We’re too far away from the park. Lucy walks into her room and tells me how much she hates it. She bursts into tears and won’t be comforted, and tells me over and over again that she wants to go home.

Home. That home anyway. Home is gone.

 

2011

You get weekends. I get week days.

It’s not satisfactory. But then, nothing would be.

You’ve got yourself a beat-up old car, and you come to pick her up in it on Friday nights.  You come up the stairs and tell Lucy to wait in the car for you. You tell me this shithole is a crappy place for a kid to live, but you don’t say anything about helping me out with that – so there: I can’t afford better. I don’t know what your place is like these days, anyway. Probably just as crappy. But you’ve never allowed me to see it.

You say, “Look, it’s probably easier if I just pick Lucy up from school on Fridays.”

“Okay,” I say.

I know this means you won’t have to see me. I wonder at what point you went from not loving me to hating me. I wonder at what point you stopped loving me to begin with.

You still drop Lucy off on Sunday nights. You still have to see me then.

 

2012

The world didn’t end this year.

Oh, well.

Maybe next year.

Lucy comes home from school and tells me about all the things she’s done, about her friends and what they’ve been up to. I wonder at what point I stopped having friends. She likes to draw; she likes to go skating with her friends on those roller skates you bought her for her birthday. And she tells me, sometimes, about all the funs he had in the weekend. It should make me happy for her, I should be glad to know that she’s adjusting, that she’s finding her way, that’s she’s going to be all right. I guess I’m a bad mother, because I go into my room after she’s gone to bed and just sob into my pillow.

Then I get up the next morning, put on that wretched uniform, and I go back to the supermarket. I serve up ham, shredded chicken, salami; I stack shelves; I take my turn running barcodes over the scanner and reminding customers to press ‘enter’ after they’ve keyed in their pin. That little ditty continues to run through my head, until one day I think: no, this can’t be my life. Not anymore.

 

2013

I’m scared as all hell, that day I sign up for polytech. I can hardly believe I’m doing this.

“Are you sure you can handle this?” you ask me, “Lucy, and this, and a fulltime job?”

“Yeah,” I say, “I got it.”

“I’m just thinking about Lucy…”

“Yeah, me too.”

 

2014

And then the wheels fall off.

Lucy comes home and tells me casually about ‘Dad’s girlfriend’.

What?!

I ring you up. I don’t say hello. “What the fuck?!”

“It’s none of your business,” you say coolly.

“Bullshit. I’m still Lucy’s mother.”

“Yeah, but you’re not my wife.”

“And what about her, is she going to be your wife?”

“Her? Her name is Sophie.”

“Yeah. So, I heard. But not from you.”

“Is that what this is about? That I didn’t tell you?”

I don’t know what it’s about. Seriously, I don’t. I mean it’s relevant to me, of course it is, if Lucy’s going to have this new mother-figure in her life. It matters how that’s going to make her feel, how she’ll adjust, if she’ll be okay. But…

But…

Viscerally: Being honest: this is about you and me, and about jealousy, and about how much it hurts that you’ve found someone else, and that you can go on, move on, be without me, be with a different woman, roll around between the sheets with her like you used to do with me. This is about being replaceable.

 

2015

I love jogging. I like the stillness of the morning. I even like the sparkle of the frost along the edges. I feel as if I’m flying.

Is this a revenge body I’m building here? A revenge life?

I don’t know. And I don’t think it matters. Whatever it’ll be, it’ll be me.

 

2016

I graduate.

You come to the ceremony, and so does she. This is the first time I’ve seen her, and it’s difficult not to feel jealousy. This Sophie: she’s pretty. She’s small and thin, and has slightly curly dark hair, she’s seems to be part Asian, maybe with a hint of African. I don’t really know. But the point is: she’s lovely, she’s exotic and a little strange, and she has the kind of face that makes you want to look at it twice, maybe three times. She engages, she draws people in.

And to make matters worse, she’s nice.

Why does she have to be nice?

But this is my day. I don’t intend to let anything scrub the sparkle off it. I wear a new dress and I rock on up to the stage and I collect my degree, I get my funny hat put on my head and I shake the dean’s hand. I feel like a million dollars.

Sophie decides to hug me.

“I’m so glad to meet you,” she says.

“Uh, yeah. Me too.”

“Congratulations. Congratulations. You’ve done so well.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“Oh, Lucy, she’s such a love. She’s such a good girl. You’ve done so well with her.”

I want to hate this chick, but she’s really making it hard.

Lucy envelops me in an eleven-year-old bear hug. Apparently, she’s proud of me too.

Even you, coming up to me grudgingly. “Well done.”

Didn’t think I could do it, eh?

“You look good.”

Yeah, I do, don’t I? But you, buddy, you had your chance.

 

2017

I start my new job. I’m nervous as hell.

I think to myself: what do I know about counselling disadvantaged, abused, lost children? These kids are going to take one look at me and see me for the weak, out-of-touch, clueless fraud that I am.

But the first kid is a boy named Eric. He’s gotten into trouble since his parents split up. And I can see how hungry he is for attention, how he just wants everything to go back to normal. He comes from very little, but I remember: I did too. I remember Mum after Dad left, and I remember all the days of waiting for Dad to call and how he didn’t. I remember that time the power got turned off, and the exams I couldn’t sit that year because we couldn’t stump up the fees.

I realise I know exactly what I need to say to Eric.

 

2018

You say, “It’ll be good for her.”

I agree.

“I can help with the money.”

“Sure. And she’s fundraising.”

“Yeah. So, she keeps saying. I don’t know how many packets of lollies I can buy; or how many times I can drive the car by to get washed.”

I laugh out loud.

You say, “how’s work.”

“Good,” I say, “rewarding.”

I’ve moved to a different part of my life. I can look at you in different ways. You’re still struggling on down at the yard, washing and moving buses around, fixing stuck doors and changing tyres. You probably think about a different life too, you just don’t know what it should be. I find I can feel a little bit sorry for you.

“I like your hair,” you say. I’ve recently had it cut.

“Thanks,” and I see how I could so easily slide into wanting you again, into being with you. Except that there’s Sophie now, and even if there wasn’t Sophie, there’s me, and me just isn’t the same as the me who lived back then.

 

2019

We move into the new flat.

Lucy loves her room.  She’s texting away on her phone of course to this boy I’m not convinced is a good idea; but when she looks up from her screen, she’s full of praise for the new digs. She loves the little alcove in the back, with its little triangular window, and she’s already planning where everything’s going to go, and where her posters are going to hang.

And it is nice, this new place. The walls all matching, the carpet’s not stained and threadbare; the kitchen has a dishwasher and the big window ensures that the lounge gets a heap of sun.

It costs a bit more.

But my pay is nearly double what I got at the supermarket.

Is this possible? Have I made it?

This can’t be my life, I think, and yet here, full of sunshine, standing on nice vermilion carpet, this is my life.

I’ve finally learnt how to fly. And I’m flying on my own, earnt wings.

 

2020

Ten – nine – eight – seven - … seven again, we’ve lost time with the clock – six – five – four - three – two – one.

Fireworks go off.

We can see them from the office window.  Jeffrey, two offices down, is balancing a beer can on his forehead. Sue from reception is laughing at him hysterically.

A rendition of Auld Lang Syne is just starting up somewhere behind me.

I recognise the figure who approaches: Dennis… Stapleton? Sandringham? I can’t remember, but I know he’s good-looking, and charming, one of the managers. But he’s dressed down casual for the New Year’s party. He comes and stands beside me at the window.

“Hey, Karen.”

“Hey, Dennis.”

And there’s no mistaking what’s glinting through the smile he offers me: “Happy New Years,” he says, raising a glass.

And aren’t I free? After all these years, the tan-line gone from the ring-finger? I smile back at him. “Happy New Years, Dennis.”

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work