Sneak Peek
Prologue
A note on the contents of this novel:
If you know me, or think you know me…
No, you don’t.
If you think one of these stories is about you, or someone you know…
No, it’s not.
Similarities are purely coincidental.
In a world where life imitates art, and the truth is stranger than fiction, this is a memoire based loosely on real life events that happened to a real person–the author–names and places have been changed to preserve anonymity.
Chapter 1 - Invisibility
It is May when I finally find the courage to say the words. They tumble from my mouth and splash into our bedroom like icebergs calving from glaciers in the arctic. “I’m done! We are getting divorced.” My heart is racing, and I feel it beating in my throat. I am beyond angry but the words, for as violent as they are, come quickly to rest in icy stillness. I have rehearsed them a million times in my head over the years, sometimes fantasizing, or perhaps strategizing, to tell him on a quiet night lying in bed when we aren’t fighting, and things feel good. I can casually tell him then, rather than risk telling him during an argument, but this argument is different.
No one is yelling, it is just me stating facts, and his agreement. He is knowingly and intentionally being cruel to me, yet again, on Mother’s Day no less, because he enjoys it, immensely. It is such pleasure for him to make me invisible, miserable, repeatedly, every day, but especially on Mother’s Day. He offers no explanation other than his own enjoyment, and suggests he never means for me to take it personally, but he really doesn’t like me and never has. For 15 years, ten of them as the mother to his children, we live like this. The invisibility is the worst part.
It takes a few months to pull the paperwork together after a brief attempt at therapy and a few weeks of consideration. In early July after a difficult Fourth of July camping trip with the kids, the paperwork is complete and ready to file. The ongoing response to the COVID pandemic prevents me from entering the building where he works, so I call him to come downstairs to the back entrance of the historic building when I arrive. I ask him to bring a notary from his office along to witness the signatures. We both know her as a spin instructor at our gym; it’s unnecessarily awkward as we sign, and she notarizes the documents. I drive to the courthouse with the notarized petition for divorce and slide the documents through a makeshift delivery slot in the door. COVID has closed the courthouse, too.
We are officially done. I am exhilarated and terrified in equal measure. I am free to pursue happiness and a life worth living, which includes navigating the dating scene in 2020 during the peak of a global pandemic, at a time when isolation is recommended. The trouble is, I am already post-menopausal and suffer with the uniquely troublesome issues of an aging woman’s body. Despite being a young, and otherwise healthy 43-year-old, sex is a “use it or lose it” activity and I have no intention of losing it, so in mid-July, a few days after filing the divorce petition, I log on to Tinder and set up my first profile. I use my laptop, so the app won’t be on my work phone, which, at the time, is my only phone line.