“Where do we go from here?”
Unsure, she was asking me to respond to an impossible question. Divorce comes easy to no one, or at least I imagine, as I’ve only gone through a divorce just this once. It sucks doubly when you have kids together.
“We do our best, for the kids. One day at a time,” I responded, and it felt lame coming out of my mouth, but it had already escaped.
Tim grunted as we spoke, the poor kid. It broke my heart, it truly did, as he has gotten to that age where he starts to know more about the happenings of domestic life, to inquire of his parents about the occurrences involved in being an adult. All parents can attest to some iteration of this in their children, I’d imagine. But what Sarah and I were doing was as much for his own good as it was for our own.
“What if that’s not possible?” she asked me, and I saw she had to stifle her tears as she said this. It was the way her voice wavered, one of those small characteristics, the tiniest idiosyncrasies that one picks up after a decade of intimacy, laughter in shared beds that is embedded in sadness and grief and loss that seems to adhere to it, stick to it so profoundly as though a shadow cast on the whole relationship.
I wanted to comfort her, so I responded with, “It will have to be. We have to move on.” As though she understood the implications of this, Bev started crying. I could at least be grateful that her understanding would be limited to that of a 9-month-old. She wouldn’t know what was happening, and that is one of few blessings I can count.
Sarah went to comfort Bev, but I shook my head. We had many arguments about just this. I’ve always maintained that independence is difficult to cultivate in a child. When they cry, you want to comfort them. Of course you do. But it’s better, according to all available research, to let them alone, to allow them to develop self-soothing strategies for themselves. Sarah never agreed, and she remained firmly believing that such an idea amounts to exactly jack. Fortunately, she only shot me a resentful look before seeming to drop it.
She went to the kitchen in silence, returning a moment later with matches in her hand. I was struck by how, suddenly, this all felt really and truly real, this was all happening, and the knowledge of that fact could have elicited tears right then and right there, but instead I reflected on that resentful and bitter part inside me that had been happy when she had almost been brought to tears, and so my own never came.
She flicked her hand, the one now holding a match, and struck it. It burned.
“I’m not quite sure how the money situation will work, Theo.” I was no more sure than she was about the financial outcome, of course, but I didn’t say as much. It was not really the time to discuss this, as we’ve found ourselves far past the point of no return where such discussions would have a purpose. Tim grunted again, and his eyes seemed to dart back and forth between us. I could feel in my chest the love I have for that child.
But she wanted an answer, and her hand was inert, the tip of the match slowly evaporating in ribbons and crumbling in piles. So I gave her an answer.
“It’s been enough time with Tim, with Bev too, and it’s far more ordinary to take out life insurance policies for all members of your family these days. The world – or perhaps this is simply the perception of it – is more dangerous than ever before, the times tough for so many. We waited enough time.” I paused, considered, then added, “I waited enough time.”
She gave me a slight sneer at this addition, and dancing under the surface of it was the held belief that I would never change, that I would be one of those men who would go late into their 70’s as a hallowed out but wholly eternal and unchanging form, one of the man I was at 35 as I stood before her and spoke.
“Sure, Theo. One day at a time.” Her response is brief, and Theo’s eyes – which were fixed on our faces – had lingered on Sarah’s hand, the one with the lit match, and were now fully popped open, frantic. He looked back at Sarah, into her eyes, into the ones he inherited.
Bev cried louder now, a cry approaching shrill, and it pierced the air as the rope, doused in the gasoline that Sarah and I had poured on our children, on both Tim and Bev, lit ablaze. How hard it was for Sarah and I to see them like this. I wished only to comfort her, a feeling which rose above my resentment, which conquered it, if I were the poetic sort. I succeeded in tampering it, and did not move towards her. She looked at me, and I felt (no, knew) it would be the last time her and I spoke without lawyers present and in front of the cast and characters that represented the American Justice System. Tim’s gag had almost fallen out of his mouth, a mouth which had extended widely as though he were silently screaming, and he began convulsing in his chair in rapid flails. I was satisfied at least that Bev had stopped crying, that it was over for her. Sarah seemed to relax a bit at this as well. I was glad Tim’s scream was silent, too, for both of our sakes. It would be a noise no mother or father should ever hear of their children.
Finally, Tim was still, and the fire could be put out. Sarah taped the faux suicide note in between the foul-smelling and black sludge that seemed to barely resemble Tim and Bev just moments prior. The note was from the “kidnapper” who had been leaving us ransom notes and threatening to harm our children if the sum was not paid or if we spoke to the police. The sum was a ridiculous number, of course, one that we could never pay. But, unfortunately, it seems something had gone awry, and one of his colleagues had begun feeling as though perhaps law enforcement involvement was a matter of when and not if, and this was a conservative state where they were liberal with the needle, and he had decided in the throes of his paranoia it was best to burn Tim and Bev alive. Out of guilt, the kidnapper would take his own life. Such a tragedy.
Sarah and I had taken such time, such consideration, in crafting these letters, her taking the creative lead – her vision that of an artist and always far surpassing my own – and I taking steps to ensure each word chosen was perfect in its placement. Tim and Bev wouldn’t have to see their parents separated or grow to hate either parent, they would know nothing of preferences in spending the night with one parent over the other, and this was for the best. I knew that. I’m glad Sarah did, too. And I could add to the shortlist of blessings that our children would be involved with the last thing Sarah and I did together. If it had to end, at least it ended with our children.