When we were married, Jon rarely stayed out late. On the few occasions he did, I would enjoy my evening until about two, then lie awake staring at the ceiling, thinking about all the things that could go wrong. What if the power went out, and I needed to know how to interact with that big box in the basement? Our back door was rickety and unreliable. No matter how carefully I closed the bolts, checked and double-checked that I’d done it, fear would keep me awake. I’d get up to redo it ten times in the night in case someone was about to break in and kill me. I didn’t worry about that anymore. Maybe someone will break in and kill me, I’d think. Perfect.
Emails
To: j——@gmail.com From: m——@gmail.com Sent: June 28, 1:12 am Hi Jon— I know we’re supposed to be “giving each other space,” and I get that, I’m only emailing because I spoke to Lauren’s aunt’s friend, who I maybe mentioned is a divorce lawyer . . . it turns out to get a divorce, we need to prove we’ve been legally separated for a year, which means we can’t file for one until next spring. There’s also a bunch of other paperwork etc. that I’d hoped we could avoid since we don’t, like, own anything of value, but apparently not, so there’s a lot to do in the next few weeks/months, and you probably do have to email me back at some point.
I’m sorry if this email feels abrupt, or overly businesslike, but I think it’s important to get the ball rolling, especially with this waiting period I didn’t know about. This is, obviously, not the ideal situation for either of us, but I keep thinking about what you said when you moved out: I want us to do this the nicest way possible. I hope this email can count as an official declaration of our intention to divorce, a kind of start date for our year of separation.
. . . . . . weird, right? Life is so weird.
I love you, I’m sorry, M
Sent from my iPhone
To: j——@gmail.com From: m——@gmail.com Sent: June 28, 1:16 am Oh my god, I just realized I left the “sent from my iPhone” thing on the bottom. I promise I took the time to actually compose this email on my computer, I just sent it from my phone because I was sitting on the toilet looking at it in my drafts and thought, “you have to send it, right now, or you never will.” I’m really sorry and I hope you don’t think I was leaving it in there as, like, a casual-guy power move. Same thing for telling you about the toilet, it’s just where I was at the time. It’s just the truth.
This has been one of the most difficult periods of my life, and I know it’s hard for you too, and I just would hate to think that you think it’s not a big deal for me. It is.
Sent from my iPhone
To: j——@gmail.com From: m——@gmail.com Sent: June 28, 2:40 am Fuck. Sorry.
Chapter 3
It was a real blow to learn you couldn’t just have a divorce—there was a waiting period and many forms and some business involving tax returns to wade through first. Further blows from the same meeting included: finding out how much a lawyer cost, bringing a cup of cold water to my lips and missing, and having to show my bank balance to a woman who charged $215 an hour. I told the lawyer, a kind-faced, soft-spoken family friend of a friend called Lori, that I supposed Jon and I could use some of the money we’d been given as wedding presents to cover our various legal fees. She laughed—a short, sharp honk—then grew very serious: “Ah, you’re not joking.”
Lori opened one of several folders as a young woman wearing the kind of pants that are begging to be called “slacks” brought her a coffee. “Thanks, Lindsey,” she said, taking a sip. Lindsey left, grabbing a few folders as she did. From my limited time at the offices of Janson Parker Stevenson, LLP, it seemed that the legal profession was essentially a very sophisticated folder management system. Lori’s walls were lined with shelves displaying certificates and leather-bound books and photographs of smiling children I took to be hers. I shifted in my chair, trying to appear competent and grown up and like I wasn’t wearing a stretched-out tankini top as a bra.
“Well, I suppose that’s one benefit of separating, what is it . . . two years? After the marriage? Less than, oh dear. Well, not to worry,” she said. “You know, they say the average person files for divorce about two years after the first time they think about doing it. Sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”
After the lawyer visit, I spoke to Merris about taking on some extra work. She promised to ask around, though demand for someone with my specific set of skills （reasonably proficient with JSTOR, ability to tell the difference between a long S and minuscule F, almost nothing else） was not, shall we say, through the roof. I reminded her I was also good at making copies of things and tactfully telling undergraduates when it was clear that they had plagiarized their essays from the introductions of easily searchable books on the same subject, and she said she’d see what she could do.
I missed the occasional copywriting work Jon used to wrangle for me, coming up with slogans for running shoes and frozen pizzas and “offering a woman’s perspective” on fiber-packed weight loss cereals. Initially, I’d been annoyed to discover I was alright at this sort of thing, that it felt similar, somehow, to coming up with reasons anyone should look twice at a seventeenth-century play where all five senses went on trial after the concept of language challenged them to decide who was best. In many ways, it was easier to see the value in explaining to women ages thirty-five to sixty-five that with Earth Eve’s fiber-packed weight loss cereal, you’ll be surprised what you gain.
At home alone I ordered Night Burgers, browsed rental listings, and had nightmares about Jon’s parents telling me I was a bad person before morphing into two girls I’d worked with at an ice-cream store the summer after ninth grade. Most days I felt like a wrung-out old dishcloth, but then out of nowhere a good day would take me by surprise. They were rare, but they happened. I would say I was operating at about 98.9 percent long, bad, lonely days, then once in a while, despite the restless sleep and all-beef diet and nights spent sitting directly in the glow of my phone, I would wake up and feel calm—like things would be okay, even if I didn’t know how.
On these mornings I often became what Amirah had started to call “dangerously reflective,” stretching and putting lemon in hot water （to . . . alkalize . . . it?） and going on tearful, meditative walks. I’d been reading a lot of books I’d seen on stylish women’s Instagrams, propped up in the sun next to a crystal. They were full of long, descriptive sentences and whimsical digressions about old movies I had never heard of. Normally I found these books kind of corny—all that vulnerability, all those florid descriptions of sunlight—but these days I couldn’t get enough of them.
I would open one and put a flower on top of it, then take a picture and imagine changing everything about my personality and core friendship group to allow myself to post that image online. Then I would read something like “You are not broken because someone tried to break you” and think, wow, exactly, despite not having even one single life experience to relate to a statement like that. The books were very much the gateway to the creative efforts that followed, and to several other soft blunders besides.