She turned around, and Josh could see that her eyes were filled with tears. “I don’t have them because I haven’t filed yet.”
“Why not? I won’t give up a single minute of my time with Sasha. I want you to know that.” He said it calmly, but inside his heart was pounding.
“It’s not about Sasha,” she cried as the tears ran down her face.
He didn’t have to ask her what it was about, because suddenly he knew.
He’d spent half his life with her. He knew everything there was to know about her, and the only thing he didn’t know was why it had taken him so long to clue into what was causing the delay. His anxiety and fear over losing time with his daughter had overshadowed any other concerns.
Kimmy was crying louder now. Because she was upset, his first instinct was to comfort her the way he’d been comforting her since they were eighteen, but then two thoughts popped into his head. The first was that comforting Kimmy was no longer his responsibility, and the second was that it was hard to comfort the person who’d informed him on an otherwise normal Tuesday evening that their marriage was over and that she wanted a divorce.
* * *
He’d come home from work and found Kimmy in the living room staring off into space. The TV wasn’t on. There was no music playing. Her face wasn’t buried in her phone, and that should have been the first indication that something was up.
“Where’s Sasha?” he asked.
“She’s at your mom’s baking cookies with the cousins.”
“Nice,” he said, because that was something his mom did often—invite all the grandchildren over to make a giant mess of her kitchen and then return them jacked up on sugar but bearing a plate of sweet treats that Josh would help himself to.
Kimmy had a pained look on her face, and she got up from the couch and paced the length of the room, turning on her heel, back and forth.
“What’s up with you?” he asked.
“Don’t you want things?”
What in the hell kind of question was that? “Like what?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Different experiences. More life choices.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” he said. “You had plenty of choices. We both did. You made yours and I made mine and there were plenty that we made together.”
“I mean like seeing what’s out there. When I went to college it made me wonder about other things I might have missed.”
“What exactly are you looking for out there?” She was starting to piss him off, because it almost sounded like she blamed Josh and their marriage for limiting those choices.
“I don’t know,” she cried. Now, in addition to the pacing, there was hand wringing.
“Are you cheating on me?” That would certainly explain why they never had sex anymore.
“No!”
“Then what is this really about?”
“I don’t know if I want to be tied down anymore.”
“Tied down as in married to me?” he asked. She didn’t answer and she wouldn’t look at him. “Wow, Kimmy. I’m sorry this marriage is such a hardship for you.” Hearing the anger in his voice made her cry, which made him even angrier.
“It’s not a hardship,” she said.
“Sure sounds like it is.”
“We were so young,” she said.
“Yep,” he agreed.
“I’ve changed. You’ve changed.”
“Yep,” he said again. “But what about our daughter? Has she changed? Because she will. This will change her forever.” It broke his heart to think of the ways in which Sasha’s heart would shatter, and at that moment he understood why couples stayed together for the kids.
She recoiled visibly, because he’d stabbed her right in her heart by mentioning Sasha, and the pain he inflicted felt good, felt justified. She didn’t answer him, because what could she say? And what were they supposed to do now? Was he supposed to move out? Was she?
They decided to go to marriage counseling, but after three sessions, Kimmy said she didn’t want to go to counseling anymore.
She just wanted to go.
* * *
Once again, Kimmy could barely look at Josh. “I want our family back. I want you back. I hate what we’ve done to Sasha.”
“So, now that you regret your decision, we should just give it another go because look what it’s doing to our daughter? To you? Have you conveniently forgotten the complete shit show this marriage devolved into over the last couple of years—which our daughter definitely noticed, by the way. Do you think breaking up our family was easy on either of us, because it wasn’t easy on you and it wasn’t easy on me and it sure as hell wasn’t easy on Sasha. Is this what you want her to grow up seeing? Us fighting and then getting our act together and going through periods where we both have to try harder than we’ve ever tried before to do something that should be, if not effortless because marriage is a lot of fucking work, but at least enjoyable? Because that’s the last thing I want.”
“It was my fault,” Kimmy said. “I was wrong. There was nothing I wanted that I didn’t already have at home with you and Sasha.”
“You wanted to sow those oats. You wanted to see what was out there. What happened to that?”
She remained silent, because the grass hadn’t been greener and they both knew it.
“You’d been holding me at arm’s length for a long time and I wasn’t happy, either,” Josh said. “I hadn’t been truly happy in years.”
She looked like he’d slapped her across the face. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I tried to. I tried to talk to you and connect with you and show you I was unhappy and when it didn’t work, I gave up for the same reason you are now sitting across from me thinking we could give it another go: I didn’t want to break up our family. I love you, Kimmy. I will always love you. We have been together way too long for me not to feel something toward you for the rest of my life. To want what’s best for you the way I always have. But now that some time has passed, I realize that I want what’s best for me, too. We’re young and there’s a lot of living left to be done, and it should be done in the happiest, most satisfying way we know how. Sadly, this is something Sasha will carry with her for the rest of her life. But we can’t help her adjust and heal if we keep giving her false hope. That’s what a reconciliation would be, and it’s a reconciliation I don’t want. I think you’re scared to go it alone, but you shouldn’t be. You’ll be fine and we will always be linked because of our daughter. We don’t have to burn the house down just because we don’t all live in it together anymore.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t a better wife to you at the end.”
“You just outgrew me. And I outgrew you.” Kimmy got up and came back to the table with a box of Kleenex. Eventually, her tears subsided, and she took a deep breath.
“I’m going to file the paperwork myself,” he said. “I’ll make the call today.”
“Have you started seeing someone?” she whispered.
“That’s not what this is about,” he said.