“Here you go,” says Amelia, tossing the papers onto the kitchen counter. “It was nice, but it’s time that we finished this, once and for all.”
I stare at my wife. Or should I say ex-wife? After all, once these divorce papers are signed, we’ll be done with one another, forever.
It’s a little sad, come to think of it. Amelia and I have been together since freshman year of college, which was about twelve years ago. Back then, we fell head over heels in love; she with the handsome, strapping young jock, and me with the pretty blonde with the sweet smile and nerdy glasses.
Life progressed as you might expect it to. We were together for all four years of college, and after graduation, we tied the knot with family and friends in attendance. She was beautiful in her white wedding dress with a wreath of flowers in her hair and a gentle way about her.
But now, Amelia’s different. She’s still beautiful, but she’s hard. Her beauty has taken on a glassy effect, and it’s a little scary sometimes, to be honest. She’s still slim, but that blonde hair is now highlighted within an inch of its life, and her blue eyes often look like impenetrable marbles to me. Sometimes, I try to initiate small talk, but more often than not, she stops the conversation in its tracks.
“Dane, I’m busy,” she’ll say in a short voice. “Not now.”
It’s not like I was asking her for sex, although we don’t have much of that now either. It’s more that I was trying to re-kindle the intimacy in our relationship. She’s supposed to be my soulmate, and yet I have no idea what goes on in her head anymore.
So yeah, the last two years have been hell. I’m married to an ice princess who seems to place more emphasis on work than anything else. I get it. She’s a professor at our local community college and just got tenure last year. But still. It seems foolish to sacrifice your marriage on the altar of academia. After all, are those books going to keep her warm at night? Or the scholarly articles? Or the endless faculty meetings?
To be honest, I suspect that my wife’s been having an affair, although I have no proof. Even worse, I suspect that it’s with an older professor at the college who’s in her department. Gerry Ludlum is in his sixties, and he looks like your regular, rumpled professor with his tweed jackets and brown scuffed shoes. He’s pretty unimpressive in my opinion, but I guess Amelia finds him attractive. Maybe it’s his “incredible intellect” and “awe-inducing conversation.” Hardly. It’s more that somehow we’ve just lost our spark, leading to this divorce.
I glance at her.
“So after that last minute friendly-fuck, you still want this, don’t you?”
Amelia yanks the belt of her silk robe even tighter around her narrow waist.
“Please Dane,” she says tiredly. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. We agreed to this divorce months ago. We’ve been living like roommates ever since, and yes, that was just a last-minute nookie that didn’t mean anything. I mean, it felt good but there was no emotional connection.”
I let out a snort. There was no emotional connection because Amelia hasn’t given a flying fuck about our relationship in years. She’s too obsessed with her career and that geriatric-looking Gerry at the university with his smoking pipes and stained shirts. What does she see in him? I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.
Leaning down, I sign my name on the dotted line, and then flip a few pages to sign again. Then I sign again, this time on the last page. I guess a divorce is complicated and it takes a couple signatures to complete the packet. But at least it’s done now.
“Okay,” I say in a harsh voice. “You’re no longer Mrs. Jones.”
Amelia rolls her eyes.
“I was never Mrs. Jones,” she says in a haughty voice. “You know I never changed my name legally and have always professionally been referred to as Ms. Tinsley.”
I nod.
“Your maiden name suits you. And it suits me just fine too.”
She rolls her eyes.
“I have no idea what that even means, Dane. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. After all, you have your goals and I have mine. They’re no longer compatible, and this is for the best. I realize you didn’t want to be divorced at age thirty, but trust me, neither did I. Life sometimes just leads us in different directions.”
I stare at her. Does she even hear herself? I did so much to support this woman, including working overtime while she got her Ph.D., and putting food on the table as she went onto a years-long postdoc. In fact, she only just got this job at the community college, and it’s the first real job she’s ever had. Her lack of appreciation astonishes me.
Yet, as crazy as it sounds, I was willing to overlook all that if she would give me a child. That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back in our relationship. When I brought up the idea of starting a family, Amelia drew back in horror.
“What?” she sputtered as we sat at the kitchen table. “You can’t be serious.” This was during her post-doc, so we were living a frugal student lifestyle in a cramped apartment with linoleum counters and hand-me-down furniture.
“I am serious,” I said in a tight voice, gesturing to our living room. “I know we don’t have much right now, but we could put the baby’s crib in that corner,” I said, pointing to a space by the couch. “And in the beginning, he or she could even sleep in our bed.”
Amelia squinted, her mouth open, as she stared at me.
“Dane, you can’t be serious. I’m still studying,” she said.
“No, you’re done studying,” I said, my voice firm. “You’re doing your post-doc now, so there aren’t classes, so to say. You’re doing research and in charge of your own schedule. You can schedule a baby in there.”
“Yes, but it would be difficult!” she gasped, her blonde hair held back in a severe ponytail. “I mean, I work a ton of hours on my research, and you work a ton of hours too at your job. Even if we had money, how would we raise a child? What kind of support would we provide for a baby?”
I grimaced.
“Although it may shock you to hear this, plenty of people with less have children. People at the border, who are undocumented immigrants, manage to have children. People in Syria, who live in a war zone, manage to have large families in fact. So it can be done, with a little spit and shoeshine.”
But Amelia just throws me a disgusted look.
“Dane you’re out of your mind. You’re literally comparing us to war zone refugees and undocumented immigrants. Do you hear yourself? They can’t provide for their kids, and their children will likely be stuck in poverty their entire lives. Is that what you’d want for a baby?”
This time, I roll my eyes.
“No, of course not. I’m just saying that we’re not them. We both have college degrees, and I have a full-time job. Soon, you will too so we’ll have two solid salaries. It’s enough to raise a child with. Plus, we’re getting older Amelia. We’re fucking thirty years old now! How much longer are we going to wait? Until your eggs dry up?”
She shot me a frigid smile then.
“My eggs are nowhere near drying up, I assure you,” she said in a cold tone.
But that’s where I begged to differ.
“Female fertility peaks at age twenty-three,” I said in an equally cold tone. “You’re already seven years past that, and frankly, I’m getting tired of waiting. Why are you so hesitant? There’s never a “right” time to have a baby. You’ll never be “fully prepared.” So why not now?”
Amelia merely shut her book with a loud bang and stood up.
“I’m not talking with you about this anymore,” she said in a clipped tone. “I’m not ready to have a baby and that’s that.”
I sat there at the kitchen counter, stunned, as she stalked out and locked herself in our bedroom. Was my wife serious? Was she refusing to talk, as if her decision was the end all-be all? There are two people in this relationship, and I wasn’t going to let her get the last word in just like that.
But Amelia eventually got the final laugh. That encounter was two years ago, and our relationship only went downhill from there. My attempts to bring up the topic were shut down immediately, and pretty soon we didn’t kiss or hold hands anymore. We didn’t talk about anything really, and were basically two ships passing in the night between our two very different schedules.
Thus, the divorce proceedings. My wife initiated them about six months ago. It was bad timing because we’d put an offer in on a house in the burbs by then, and the offer was accepted at around the same time the divorce was initiated. But what can you do? Some things just aren’t mean to be. As a result, we moved to this homey suburb, knowing we were getting a divorce. Frankly, I was beaten down at that point. It was easier to go with the flow, and I honestly didn’t care that much anymore. As a result, we’ve never occupied the same sleeping space in this house. Instead, I moved straight into the guest bedroom while Amelia took the larger master. No one was crying any crocodile tears.
So yes, I suppose we’re divorced now despite living in the same house. With a satisfied smile, Amelia gathers the papers and shuffles them into a neat pile on the table.
“Thanks Dane. I’m sad about this too, but you just have to go where life takes you right? I’ll be out of your hair by next week, I promise. You’ll have this place to yourself.”
I lift an eyebrow at her. This was news to me.
“Oh really? Where are you going?”
My ex-wife goes red and yanks the tie on her silk robe even tighter.
“There’s some faculty housing on campus,” she lies while biting her lip. “I’m going to stay there.”
Yeah, right. It’s more like she’s going to move straight into Professor Gerry’s bedroom. Well, good riddance. At this point, I was completely done with the cold-hearted bitch.
“Great,” I say carelessly. “I’ll see you around then,” I utter over my shoulder while stalking back to my room.
Amelia doesn’t even say anything. She merely shrugs and goes back to her room as well, probably to pack her stuff.
Once I’m alone in the darkness of my room, I sit on the bed and let my shoulders slump. Fuck. That was much-needed, but it still doesn’t make things any easier. A divorce is a divorce, and I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be divorced at thirty. I thought I’d have two kids by now, with a loving wife by my side, as well as a dog and a cat prancing around the house. What the hell went wrong?
But then, my mind whirs and a small smile creeps onto my face. There was that girl from our neighborhood who’s been giving me the hairy eyeball. Okay, maybe “hairy eyeball” isn’t the right way to describe it. More like she’s been staring at me like I’m a cool drink of water that she desperately needs after walking fifty miles through the desert. She’s cute and round, with a big bottom and even bigger breasts. Even more, I caught her looking through the window as I pounded Amelia for the final time, and the new girl liked what she saw.
Maybe with my divorce, it’s time to get to know this mystery girl. After all, I’m a single man now, and as free as a bird. The Ice Queen is gone, and I’d like to meet a curvy, gorgeous girl who’s warm, wet, and willing.