But about six years later, when I was eleven, I learned how closely the two emotions are aligned. That was the year that my mother had an “alleged” affair (she still denies it) with my elementary school principal, Mr. Higgins. I steadfastly maintain that short of being orphaned or severely disfigured, it is about the worst thing that can happen to a fifth-grader, particularly when you’re the very last person in the school to hear about it. I never had any illusions that either of my parents was perfect, as I frequently compared them to the ideal parents in books. I wished that my father were a little more like Atticus Finch, and that my mother would occasionally behave like Ramona Quimby’s nurturing, understanding mother in my favorite Beverly Cleary books. But overall, I was happy with my parental lot. I appreciated the way my father always took us to do fun things on the weekends, rather than doing yard work or watching football like the other dads in my neighborhood. And I was proud of how beautiful and funny my mother was and how much my friends admired her fashion sense.
And for the most part, I didn’t think too much about my parents one way or the other. Most kids don’t. If things are going well in life, parents are more of a backdrop and safety net than central characters who, say, take center stage during recess. Which is actually what happened on the playground one day when Chet Womble, a boy I hated for his nose-picking and name-calling, decided to break the big news of my mother’s affair via chalk graffiti. He drew two large stick figures, complete with some vivid male-female anatomy, and the words CLAUDIA’S MOM DOES MR. HIGGINS. (The video cover for Debbie Does Dallas had just been passed around the cafeteria the week before, so even without Chet’s clever graphic, there was no confusion about the word does.)
I remember staring at my mother’s loopy, lopsided boobs, then desperately trying to rub out my name with my heel, all the while thinking that no matter what, I would never get over it. I had become a pathetic victim in a Judy Blume novel (although, at that moment, I would rather have been “Blubber” than my mother’s daughter).
It didn’t help that Chet was suspended for a week or that very few people saw the drawing before it was hosed off by a janitor. All that mattered was that upon one glimpse I knew in my gut that it was true: my mom was , indeed, doing Mr. Higgins. The pieces came together for me in a rush of shamefaced horror: my mother’s sudden and uncharacteristic flurry of volunteering at our school; the care she took applying lipstick during carpool, followed by her excuses to come in the building with me; the fact that Mr. Higgins knew my name and seemed to go out of his way to smile and greet me in the halls.
The night of Chet’s stunt, I went home and somehow made my way through my homework and a particularly horrible chipped beef dinner. I debated on when exactly I should confront my mother, and saw some merit in doing so with the five of us seated together around the table. She deserved as much. But for my dad’s sake, I waited until dinner was over and he retired to the family room to watch his beloved Mets. My sisters stood to clear the table and load the dishwasher when I came out with it. “Mom,” I said, “why are you cheating on Dad with Mr. Higgins?”
Maura dropped a plate and Daphne burst into tears while our usually brazen mother shushed me, looking frantic as she glanced toward our family room. I kept talking, saying that it certainly wasn’t a secret, thanks to Chet Womble’s vivid portraiture. Of course my mother denied everything, but she did not do so convincingly or strenuously enough to change my mind. Instead she sent me to my room. I obeyed not because I felt that I had to, but because the sight of her made me sick.
Over the next few weeks, I found myself remembering Jimmy’s mother in the grocery store as I vacillated between anger and grief. I’d be sobbing one minute and then scribbling furious cursive in my journal the next, calling my mother names I had only heard uttered from boys like Chet. Slut. Whore. Bitch . Real healthy stuff for a fifth-grader.
Throughout that ordeal, I learned that getting mad was easier than being sad. Anger was something I could control. I could settle into an easy rhythm of blame and hate. Focus my energy on something other than the ache in my heart.
I think my mother and Mr. Higgins stopped seeing each other a short time later. But other affairs followed until she met Dwight, a tanned plastic surgeon who wore a pinky signet ring and ascots on special occasions and always conjured a rich, tacky character on The Love Boat . My mother was so smitten with Dwight and the lavish lifestyle he promised that she left us for real, giving up custody to my father when I was thirteen. Of course, that is a whole nother story (Ha! Screw you, Ben!), a far more serious in our family lore. But somehow nothing that followed was as hurtful as that day on the playground, gazing down at my mother’s white chalk breasts.
That brings me, of course, to the elephant in the room. The thing that Jess and Ben and my sisters all are thinking, but won’t come out and say altogether: the fact that I don’t want children because I have such issues with my own mother.
My first instinct is to deny these charges as I have always thought it a tiresome cop-out to blame your current predicament on your bad childhood. Everyone has a messed-up family to one extent or another but we all have an obligation to rise above it. Live in the present and stop sniveling about the past. I mean, who believes, for example, that an excuse for a child abuser is that, he, too, got cigarettes put out on his arm as a kid?
Still, I guess I can’t deny that there is a life-shaping stigma in having a mother who cheats on her family and then finally leaves them altogether. A stigma that gets buried in your psyche forever. And those feelings must be playing at least a small role in all of this, just as I think my sister Daphne’s obsession with having children has a lot to do with wanting to erase the pain my mother caused. On one level, Daphne’s approach makes more sense. Yet the thought of a redo is not only unappealing, but terrifying. I don’t want that kind of power over anyone. I don’t want to be something that someone has to overcome. After all, I think everyone would agree that it’s far worse to be a fucked-up mother than it is to have one.
So in the following days and weeks, I find myself spinning my hurt into anger. Anger about the whole situation. Anger toward Ben for turning his back on me. Anger that propels me along quite nicely, all the way to a fancy divorce lawyer on Fifth Avenue.
six
I can’t decide whether the next few weeks pass too quickly or impossibly slowly. In some ways, it feels like Ben and I are breaking up overnight, way too easily. I keep thinking that only shallow celebrities end their marriages as easily as we are. Or young, stupid kids who get hitched on a whim and change their minds as soon as the hot-and-heavy period ends, thinking nothing of the sacredness of their vows and believing that do-overs in life are simply a given.
In other ways, though, the days leading up to our divorce seem to take a lifetime. I wake up every morning with the sick realization that my life is unraveling. That I will never really be happy again. Despite my best efforts to stay busy and distracted, I feel like I’m being punched in the stomach a dozen times a day. I find myself praying that Ben will change his mind.
In the meantime, I decide to move in with Jess. Living with her is a bit of a comfort, but it also feels like a setback. It’s almost like moving back in with your parents once you’ve left home. I’m reverting to an earlier point in my life, and that never feels like a good thing. I recognize that it’s a temporary measure that eventually I will get my own place but I still feel like somewhat of a loser. I also feel guilty for invading Jess, although she insists that she’s thrilled to have me back. I offer to pay her which is an awkward arrangement considering that she owns her apartment. She tells me not to be ridiculous and that she’s never home anyway. “Besides, what are friends for, Claudia if they can’t pick up the pieces a man has left behind?” she says.
Still, I make a point to pay for our groceries and food deliveries. I also try to do more of my late-night reading at the office so that Jess still has some time in her apartment alone. I have always worked a lot of hours, but I’ve never been this inspired, this on top of things. I catch up on all of my reading and scratch through to-dos that have been languishing for months. Even my desk is neat for the first time in years, which my longtime assistant, Rosemary, marvels over.
“What’s the special occasion?” she asks me.
“I’m getting a divorce,” I tell her.
“I’m sorry,” she says, which will be the extent of her commentary. Rosemary is as discreet as she is neat.
“Don’t be,” I say. “My office needed this.”
Of course I am kidding, but I do find that throwing myself into my job and working crazy hours is therapeutic. I tell myself that there are benefits that come with being single again. I will be like a person who loses a loved one and, in turn, sets up a foundation. I will find the good in this loss. I will make something happen that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. I tell myself to dream big, aim high. Maybe someday I will have my own imprint Claudia Parr Books . Something that wouldn’t have happened if I had had a baby with Ben. Something that might not have happened if I had stayed with Ben, even without a baby. I rather like the thought of Ben perusing the shelves of bookstores and seeing the spine of a book emblazoned with my name. Maybe I’ll even acquire a coffee table book on architecture. Then he’d be sure to see it.
Meanwhile, during those early weeks apart, Ben and I talk very little, and when we do, neither of us says too much. There are a lot of awkward silences, fumbling questions about mail and bills and our respective schedules. It’s clear that we don’t want to be back at the apartment at the same time. We toss around a few “How are yous?,” both of us answering curtly and quickly that we are fine, just fine. We are both prideful, stubborn, and eerily distant. It occurs to me that maybe we are both stonewalling, stalling, calling the other’s bluff. At least I hope that’s what is happening, but deep inside, I know we are becoming irreversibly estranged, and I can tell Ben knows it, too.
At the end of one conversation, Ben sighs and says, “I just want you to be happy, Claudia. That’s all.”
It is a total non sequitur as I’ve just told him that I checked the messages at the apartment, and his aunt called twice.
“Right,” I say under my breath.
“Come again?” he says, an expression that has always annoyed me. Ben only uses it when he knows exactly what I said, but doesn’t like it.
“Clearly that’s not the only thing you want,” I say, picturing him with a squalling newborn.
He says nothing back, and as we both register that there is nothing he can say to this, I feel a strange little rush of victory and satisfaction. It’s always a good feeling when you can produce just the right one-liner to prove your point so tidily.
“Well, see ya,” I say, to drive it home.
“Yep,” Ben says flippantly. “See ya.”
I hang up and promptly schedule another visit with my lawyer, Nina Raden. Nina is striking, hard-edged, and abrasive, the kind of creature you envision when you hear Billy Joel’s “She’s Always a Woman.” Her lips are pumped up with collagen, and she smiles a lot, which is in stark contrast to her obvious desire to make my divorce as contentious as possible. I can tell her bread and butter comes from playing cheerleader to wronged women all over Manhattan. I’d wager that she’s said, “Let’s get the bastard” more times than she’s said, “Good morning.”
During our second session, I have to tell her three times that I do not want to hire a private investigator, and that I’m sure there isn’t another woman in Ben’s life. She clearly is unaccustomed to breakups in our peculiar genre.
“You can never be sure of that,” she tells me.
“I’m pretty darn sure,” I say. “Unless, per chance, he has already selected a vessel to carry his baby.”
She gives me a long look that says, That’s exactly what he has queued up . Then she licks her thumb and flips to a fresh page in her notebook. She tells me that, based on what I told her in our first meeting, our grounds for divorce will be “constructive abandonment.” It is a term that makes me sad as much for its formal sound as for the actual meaning.
I nod as Nina becomes all hyped up about our assets, telling me I should go for the gold, ask for the moon. She gestures a lot, her thick, enamel bracelets sliding up and down her long, slender arm. I give her a blank stare, insisting that Ben and I don’t have all that much to divide. “We’ve only been married three years. And we rent, remember?” I say, grateful that Ben and I never took the plunge into New York real estate.
“Okay. Okay. But what about cars? Furnishings? Rugs? Art? Crystal? Stock? Time-shares?” she says, her palms facing up. Her Botoxed face strains to frown but can’t quite get there.
I shrug. “We have a ‘99 Honda Civic. It’s a piece of junk.”
She gives me an exasperated look that says I can do better.
“I’ll work on it,” I say.
“Good. Good,” she says, glancing at her watch. “In my experience, you only regret asking for too little.”
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“So shoot me an e-mail with anything, anything at all that you can come up with. I’ll attach a list of all assets in Schedule A to the Separation Agreement.”
I have never thought of our “stuff” as assets. I never thought Ben and I would be dividing anything; I thought we’d always be about sharing everything. Still, I decide to take my homework assignment seriously. I call my soon-to-be ex-husband and tell him I need to be at the apartment for a few hours that evening. Ben says fine, he has to work late anyway.
That evening, I walk through our apartment, poking through cabinets and drawers as I drink a bottle of wine and take notes on a sheet of paper. The whole exercise feels surreal, almost as if I’m seeing certain items for the first time. As I inspect all of our joint belongings, I realize with a mix of relief and pride that I want almost nothing. I try, but I just can’t get myself too worked up about furniture, linens, and silver. I do linger briefly on our only expensive piece of art, a gorgeous Geoffrey Johnson cityscape in warm sepia tones. I love it and can’t imagine not being able to look at it again, but Ben and I bought it together for our second anniversary, so I don’t want that daily reminder.