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Authors: Lisa Verge Higgins
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the place. She’d sat trying to process what had just happened. She remembered that she didn’t feel quite right . The walls of the room bowed and shifted as if she were in a Salvador Dalí painting. Her head was a helium balloon, and the string was slipping. At one point, she’d shuddered in the seat and glanced down, only to realize that she’d lost control of her own bladder.
Nicole’s voice, unexpectedly reedy. “Oh, no, no, Jenna. Don’t tell me he’s asking for full legal custody of Zoe?”
Jenna pressed her thighs together and felt the same dropping queasiness as when Nate had spoken those same words aloud.
“He’s the primary caregiver, isn’t he?” Nicole spoke to herself, as if she were just beginning to grasp the rapid tumbling of the consequences. “It’s the same as if a full-time mother requested legal custody of the children in a divorce. Only here, the genders have been reversed.”
Jenna’s purse rattled on the table again. She waited for Nicole to insist that she answer it. Like every other therapist she’d ever spoken to, Nicole would certainly implore Jenna to face what she feared instead of collapsing back into her shell. That was what all the therapists always told her, and always in a tone of voice that suggested this should be the easiest task in the whole wide world.
Instead, she raced ahead of her fear.
She stood up so fast she felt the blood rush from her head. She reached in her purse and pulled out the phone. She rounded the sofa and strode toward the window. She pushed aside the billowing sheers and glanced at the photo lighting up her screen. It was a picture of Nate in the garage workroom. Black grease streaked his forehead just above the strap of his face shield. The pulled cotton collar of his work T-shirt revealed the sawdust-flecked hollow of his clavicle.
After Nate had left her alone last Saturday, she had scrolled desperately through the contact list of this phone, pausing once on her mother’s name, considered the conversation that would arise when she told her mother about the divorce, and then continued swiping. The names flew by—the clients she called for algorithm updates, the work colleagues she could occasionally be dragged to lunch with, the carpool moms she exchanged brief, to-the-point changes-in-plans with, the cable company, the newspaper subscription number, the electric company, Zoe’s soccer coach, and yes, even Sissy Leclaire—all the while searching for someone she could talk to. Someone to take her and shake her and tell her it would be all right. A three a.m. friend, an I’ll-bring-the-wine friend, a true friend.
“Turn it off, Jenna.”
Jenna started. Nicole stood so close that Jenna could see the little starbursts of gold edging Nicole’s pupils.
“You’ve been hit by a sledgehammer,” Nicole said. “You’re still seeing stars.”
The phone vibrated in her hand.
“You’ll have to face him eventually.” The breeze from the window blew up the fringe of Nicole’s hair. “But he has absolutely no right to choose the schedule. That’s something you get to do.”
Claire moved behind Nicole, closing in, nodding in agreement.
Then, in one quick motion, Nicole pushed a lock of Jenna’s hair behind her ear. Nicole did it so fast that Jenna wasn’t sure if it had really happened or if she were only imagining the fading pressure of her touch.
“So go ahead and shut off that phone.” Nicole nodded in encouragement. “You were right to run away.”
Lucky made a high whining noise and leaned his weight against her ankle. Jenna glanced at Lucky, then glanced at the phone one more time, taking a deep breath of the Chinook wind as she absorbed the sight of Nate’s face.
She shifted her grip. “You’re right. I’m going to need a lot more than thirty days.”
Then she leaned back and hurled the phone out the open window, watching it spin in an arc that cleared the near sidewalk and reached the yellow midline of the street,
Nicole’s voice, unexpectedly reedy. “Oh, no, no, Jenna. Don’t tell me he’s asking for full legal custody of Zoe?”
Jenna pressed her thighs together and felt the same dropping queasiness as when Nate had spoken those same words aloud.
“He’s the primary caregiver, isn’t he?” Nicole spoke to herself, as if she were just beginning to grasp the rapid tumbling of the consequences. “It’s the same as if a full-time mother requested legal custody of the children in a divorce. Only here, the genders have been reversed.”
Jenna’s purse rattled on the table again. She waited for Nicole to insist that she answer it. Like every other therapist she’d ever spoken to, Nicole would certainly implore Jenna to face what she feared instead of collapsing back into her shell. That was what all the therapists always told her, and always in a tone of voice that suggested this should be the easiest task in the whole wide world.
Instead, she raced ahead of her fear.
She stood up so fast she felt the blood rush from her head. She reached in her purse and pulled out the phone. She rounded the sofa and strode toward the window. She pushed aside the billowing sheers and glanced at the photo lighting up her screen. It was a picture of Nate in the garage workroom. Black grease streaked his forehead just above the strap of his face shield. The pulled cotton collar of his work T-shirt revealed the sawdust-flecked hollow of his clavicle.
After Nate had left her alone last Saturday, she had scrolled desperately through the contact list of this phone, pausing once on her mother’s name, considered the conversation that would arise when she told her mother about the divorce, and then continued swiping. The names flew by—the clients she called for algorithm updates, the work colleagues she could occasionally be dragged to lunch with, the carpool moms she exchanged brief, to-the-point changes-in-plans with, the cable company, the newspaper subscription number, the electric company, Zoe’s soccer coach, and yes, even Sissy Leclaire—all the while searching for someone she could talk to. Someone to take her and shake her and tell her it would be all right. A three a.m. friend, an I’ll-bring-the-wine friend, a true friend.
“Turn it off, Jenna.”
Jenna started. Nicole stood so close that Jenna could see the little starbursts of gold edging Nicole’s pupils.
“You’ve been hit by a sledgehammer,” Nicole said. “You’re still seeing stars.”
The phone vibrated in her hand.
“You’ll have to face him eventually.” The breeze from the window blew up the fringe of Nicole’s hair. “But he has absolutely no right to choose the schedule. That’s something you get to do.”
Claire moved behind Nicole, closing in, nodding in agreement.
Then, in one quick motion, Nicole pushed a lock of Jenna’s hair behind her ear. Nicole did it so fast that Jenna wasn’t sure if it had really happened or if she were only imagining the fading pressure of her touch.
“So go ahead and shut off that phone.” Nicole nodded in encouragement. “You were right to run away.”
Lucky made a high whining noise and leaned his weight against her ankle. Jenna glanced at Lucky, then glanced at the phone one more time, taking a deep breath of the Chinook wind as she absorbed the sight of Nate’s face.
She shifted her grip. “You’re right. I’m going to need a lot more than thirty days.”
Then she leaned back and hurled the phone out the open window, watching it spin in an arc that cleared the near sidewalk and reached the yellow midline of the street,
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