I took care of the funeral. I took care of everything. It made my family relieved and angry, the sort of paradoxical double-bind that I was force-fed until I left home. My husband brought our children to the funeral. He got up and said a few words. I choreographed the affair with music, and damn if it didn't rain while people dropped single-stemmed white roses onto his grave to Ani DiFranco's version of "Amazing Grace."
A week later, the husband wanted a divorce, and I absent-mindedly nearly burned my house down. That one was for real. Funny what death makes you think of or not think of, how it makes one pause and ponder. For my husband, he wanted a divorce, a fresh start, an end to the madness that might somehow be contagious, an out.
A week after that, I met the man who wanted to become my next husband. I'll call him Joe. My terms for agreeing to "date him seriously" were thus:
- I will not file for divorce. My husband can file for divorce, but there are 200 sheets of paper to get divorced and I hate paperwork. Had I known, when I signed my name to the ONE sheet of paper it took to get married that I would have to complete 200 pieces of paper and sign about a hundred of them to get divorced, I would never have gotten married, so if my husband wants to file for divorce, I will sign off, but I will not sit down and fill out all the forms to do it myself.
- I will not get remarried, so stop telling me you want me to be your wife, that you want a title, that you want a tradition, that you want a family. One can be family with anyone they choose, and a covenant does not have to be a legally binding document. Plus, my tax benefit at the moment is going to be better for me if I'm single, and I am not even divorced, so stop asking me to marry you.
- I want a baby. Not a fuck-you-ex-husband baby, but a baby. It doesn't matter if you think I have good reason to want one or not; I am 40 and am not interested in wasting time with a man who does not want to have a child with me. Don't even answer me now. If you say yes, I will assume it is a lie to get what you want; and I don't think you will say no because you think, at this fragile new and wonderful time in knowing me, you want to marry me. Think about it. Seriously. I don't want to go too far down the line with someone only to find out that they have been wasting the shelf life of my eggs, and then run out of time.
He agreed to the first two, and a month later, he said he definitely wanted a baby with me. He wanted to knock me up, kill the wabbit, fuck the shit out of me and make me have his baby. He said he never said that to anyone before. He said it was a big deal because he was never so forthcoming. And he wasn't even afraid, where normally he would hold back and be fearful.
We have our baby, and we are nowhere. I live in my house, and he occupies the empty vessel that used to be our house--no children, no laughter, no anima. His children left him; my children left him; I left him; our son lives with me.
He creeps in and out like a lone wolf looking for shelter. I cannot miss him, as he has never been here, never been mine. All the words he offered to me as "firsts" and major declarations, all offered before to women he eventually would hang out to dry for being "needy," "empty," "greedy," "materialistic," "boring," "crazy," or "insipid." Now I am mean and vicious, and he has never been afraid of anyone before, but he is terrified of me. He believes I mean to destroy him. He believes I would make up anything I had to to vilify him.
Let me tell you this: I do not lie, and I do not suffer fools. I speak the truth, and if that truth frightens a man used to getting what he wants and having his way at all costs, then to him, I am mean and vicious, but it does not necessarily make it so. Logic 101.
There is a kernel of an idea that a person might have that niggles and pushes its way to the forefront. I wanted this world to have a shot at another person like my brother. I wanted his place in this world occupied. I wanted to raise a child to be kind, compassionate, thoughtful, irreverent but soft-spoken, and also open and free to think their little thoughts and express them without fear or reprisal. I wanted this world to have a sprite or an angel--someone with a deep emotional IQ, and someone who would be brought up to see a global view, not a rural run-down backyard scope.
I protected this boy from the moment he was conceived. I put a cocoon around my body and his; I brought my older children into it, and Joe's older children. I isolated myself and ate all the things one should not eat while pregnant--things I generally dislike, but listened to those cravings because the baby wanted them. Things like bloody beef, salmon, halibut, and shrimp. Orange peels. Orange juice by the gallon. Kale and spinach in all things, from side dishes to smoothies. Yogurt. Live yogurt cultures. Blueberries. Stinky cheese. No bread--yucky. No chocolate. Low sugar.
I walked 2-3 miles a day. I did heated yoga 3-4 times a week. I biked through my 9th month, and I played tennis through my eighth.
I thought of names, playful names, thoughtful names, kooky names. Each one made Joe angry. He insisted I was "fucking with him," which made me want to add to my list ones that I knew he would veto, but nothing vindictive. He would not think of names. He said his favorite name was his 17-year-old son's name--his ex-wife's great-grandfather's name. He would never love another son like his first son. On occasion, he would come up with names that were a variation on his first son's name, or he would free associate, freestyle, and riff on names in a stream of consciousness: spider, legs, bellybutton, asshole.
"Asshole? This is our baby. Why would you think of calling him asshole? What you suggest into the universe, you make so. Why would you say that about our son?"
"Oh, relax! I'm just saying names. You're such a drama queen!"
This was one of our nicest days while I was pregnant with my son. It was a day when he actually laid on the bed and thought for a moment about the very realness, although still not real, of a baby coming. It was the seventh month. He thought he was being loving and playful, and probably for him, he was. I wanted him to be different. I wanted him to "get it." I wanted him to be the same guy who promised he would love me forever and treat me with kindness and respect. I wanted him to be the guy who said he needed me to have his baby, that he had to impregnate me, and that we would raise our child in love with each other so he would never want for security or trust.
This was not that man. That man never existed except in the dream world in which he resided where he was a great man. This was the man he wanted to be. This was the man I hoped he could become.
He did not.
I had that baby alone, even though he went to the hospital with me. His stamina for the 38 hours it took to bring our son into the world was impressive, but there was nobody occupying that vessel. As my good friend, Suzanne, used to say, "Beautiful house; nobody home."
We named our son at breakfast on the way to the birth center.
I spiked a fever in the last phase of delivery and they told me they would have to take him immediately to the NECU upon his arrival. I was so tired and so sad about this that I simply sobbed one sob. I told Joe that he needed to go be with our son up there so he would have a parent with him, so that he would not enter this world and be without one of his parents.
Moments after Joe left with the baby and hospital staff, I nearly bled to death.
It is interesting that in this day and age, a woman can still die in childbirth, at a hospital, and while in, if not her prime, then at least the best health of her life. It is interesting that a man can be so removed from all this.
Six days later, Joe left for the beach on the East Coast to visit with college friends and to take his first son to college. He was gone 10 days. He left the mother of his child, vulnerable from childbirth and the added strike of losing half her blood, and his infant child, who was sturdy but vulnerable because, uh, he was six days old.
Six months later, in the middle of a school year, I would leave our house with a baby and two pre-teen children, and move to a rougher neighborhood and a much smaller house because it was a better option than trying to keep the cocoon over my children and myself while someone was beating on its shield, like when Lord Voldemort storms the castle and cracks the magical shield that McGonagle and the others have cast over the castle.
This blog shall chronicle a working mother's experience and guide to shielding her children while life is throwing daggers.
Welcome.
