CHAPTER 2
KENDRICK KELLER
“You can’t just have the house. I spent all the time here raising our kids while you paraded off up north with your job,” Natalia repeated for maybe the ninety-seventh time.
“You can have the house, Natalia. I already said that. It’s in the divorce papers,” I remind her.
“You’re suddenly in such a hurry. Do you have a second family up there? Is that why you suddenly want a divorce after all this time?”
I sigh. “No. There’s no one else. I’ve never had an affair.”
She continues to rant for what feels like the millionth time. I listen. That’s the least I can do. However, I suppose ‘listen’ might be a little strong of a word. I don’t truly need to listen to Natalia rant. She’s not saying anything new that she hasn’t already said over the last eight months.
I rub my face as she carries on and then let my eyes wander around my office. They snag on a picture—the last picture I have of my family together. My youngest, Tabitha, was thirteen. It was over Thanksgiving. I wasn’t there.
Natalia sits on a stool with Tabby in front of her and our two sons, Seth and Briar, over her shoulders. They look happy. Nothing about the picture looks like someone is missing.
Behind the picture is the last one that I was in. Tabby was three. Fifteen years ago. Sometime after that, I stopped making a regular effort to go home.
All this time later, I’m still not sure why. Despite what Natalia thinks, it’s not because I have a second family. It’s not that I’m interested in someone else. It’s not because I’ve had affairs and they’re weighing on me.
It’s because I fell out of love with Natalia years ago and never knew what to do about it.
Obviously, the decision to remain in my job eight hours north of where my wife and kids live wasn’t the smartest option to fix the situation.
Considering it did exactly what I knew it would—make the void between us exponentially bigger—I’m not in the least bit surprised by this development.
Natalia isn’t even wrong in demanding I give her a reason. When I told her eight months ago, once Briar graduated from high school and Tabby was in her last year, that I wanted a divorce, Natalia, of course, went off the deep end.
Shocked. Ridiculously so, I might add. She sobbed. Then she turned irate, and accusations flew. That’s where we are right now. Still. Almost three-quarters of a year later.
I waited for her to make demands and file for a divorce. I wanted her to ask for what she wanted. It was made clear some time ago that she had no intention of doing so. As if ignoring it would make me forget I mentioned wanting a divorce.
Her fury only increased after I served her with divorce papers two months ago.
So here we are, in this endless cycle of her calling me and demanding that she keep the house.
The house, which I paid for, mind you. I don’t care, though.
I haven’t truly lived there in years. So I agreed.
Called my lawyer and had him adjust the paperwork.
I agreed to maintenance money for the next three years—AKA alimony. Of course, this just sent her off the deep end again, insisting that I waited until the kids graduated from high school before filing so I didn’t have to pay child support.
That wasn’t consciously the reason behind the decision. If anything, I waited for them to graduate so I wouldn’t disrupt their focus on their studies. In fact, I don’t think I even truly considered a divorce until a year ago.
I’m not entirely sure why Natalia is so upset.
We can go an entire month without talking.
No phone calls. No emails. No texts. Not even a random tag on social media.
We’re essentially strangers. I can’t even say we’re nothing better than roommates because I haven’t lived in that house since Tabby was a toddler.
Apparently, Natalia enjoyed being the wife of an absent husband. Maybe this is her idea of an ideal marriage. I don’t know. I’ve yet to hear an actual reason behind her endless anger.
A light knock on my door makes me look up. I’d been pinching the bridge of my nose. Natalia’s voice has reached a register that’s giving me a headache. Sighing, I drop my hand and meet Byndley’s eyes as she peeks into the room.
I wave her in. Her presence is reason enough to end this call. “Natalia, I need to go.”
“Oh, your girlfriend show up? No more time for your wife?”
“No. I need to go because it’s two o’clock on a Thursday and I’m at work. I’ll speak to you later.”
She doesn’t answer. The line goes dead, and I sigh.
Byndley gives me a sympathetic smile. “Still angry, huh?”
“Endlessly. I don’t understand where it’s all coming from and what she’s using to keep it fueled. Would you have been surprised?”
Byndley has worked for me since I was hired at Rainbow Dorset University as the public relations manager almost twenty years ago. She was my secretary then. I’ve kept her at my side as I moved up within the school, and now she’s my personal assistant.
She’s also my best friend. It’s difficult to work with someone for twenty years and not establish a relationship of some kind. We’ve seen each other through everything; witnessed all the triumphs and supported through all the defeats.
“Honestly,” Byndley says as she leans against the side of my desk. “I’m with you on this. Maybe I’m biased, but I can’t imagine someone harboring this much animosity that it’s still burning like a damn sun eight months later. It’s wild to me.”
I shake my head. “I get it. I screwed up. I was an absent husband and father. There have been a million times over the last fifteen years that I should have done any number of things differently. Do you know how long it’d been since Natalia and I had even communicated before I told her I wanted a divorce? ”
“I’m guessing several weeks.”
“Almost seven months, Byn. Months, not weeks. Seven months! I hadn’t talked to my wife in seven months!
And she’s somehow devastated. You can’t tell me that her anger stems solely from hurt and her love for me.
I don’t believe that for a second. I’m not even sure about the last time either of us said I love you. ”
Byndley shakes her head. “I don’t know what to say. I wish I had an answer to offer you.”
Sighing, I shake my head. “No. It’s fine. Really. I’m always a little frazzled when I get off the phone with her these days.”
“Shocking, since she only screams at you,” Byndley muses.
I grunt in acknowledgement. That’s true enough.
“Have you talked to your kids?”
And there’s the part that’s difficult. I’m not close to my kids, though not because I don’t want to be.
I’ve tried to get them up here to visit me a lot over the last fifteen years, but they haven’t been all that interested.
I talk to them as often as I can, though admittedly, I’ve stopped calling them weekly since they never wanted to talk.
Every question I asked was met with something vague and radiating disinterest. Yep.
Good. I don’t know. Those were the most common answers.
I’d once tallied my call with Seth, and I received eight I don’t knows, three goods, and a dozen yeps.
Only three other words were said by him: hi, Dad, and bye.
This is the part that’s bothered me most. While I try not to put any of my thoughts and feelings into words or give them much space in my mind, I have to wonder what Natalia was saying at home. She had to have been, right?
Or was it truly just my absence in their lives that made them uninterested in me?
“Seth will be here for the week I’m gone to watch Martha.
Otherwise, no. Briar is busy with school, and so is Tabby.
When I call, it generally goes unanswered, and I’ll receive a text a while later along the lines of ‘busy, what’s up?
’ and that’s it. I think Seth only grudgingly agreed to watch Martha, so I didn’t have to kennel her. ”
Martha is my three-year-old golden retriever. My sole companion. The one topic my kids will give me half a minute to talk about with any sort of interest at all. However, even Martha couldn’t facilitate my kids keeping in touch.
“That’s something, at least,” Byndley says.
“Mm,” I agree. “He’ll be here a few days before I leave to get to know Martha and let Martha get to know him, so hopefully, we’ll have a chance to bond a little.”
“And learn you’re not the man your wife has made you out to be.”
Like me, Byndley has always wondered what Natalia has been saying to our kids about me.
It seems unnatural that my kids would have such a deep indifference toward me, especially when I constantly make an effort to know them.
It would be different if I didn’t. If I were absent in all ways instead of only just physical.
But even now, when all three kids are adults, it’s me who reaches out. Always. No exceptions. I think only Briar called me for Father’s Day this year, and I received a text from each of them on my birthday over the summer.
That’s it. That’s the extent of my kids acknowledging my existence.
“Anyway,” I say, shaking my head and taking a seat. “You didn’t come in here to listen to me lament.”
“No. I came with the Companion Alliance Program information. This is the final read-through. I’ve included applications for you to consider.
I’ve weeded out all but eighteen. You need to choose ten.
” Natalie placed two folders in front of me.
One was for the program itself, and the other was for the eighteen student ambassador applications.
“This one has the remaining applications if you care to look.” She placed it on the corner of my desk, keeping it separate but accessible.
“Very good. Thank you.”
“I have accommodations being looked at, though it seems the only place near tóreargleei University is Reykjavík Domes, which are within our price point, and I think the kids are going to love them. They’re amazing.
There are a few pictures in the folder for you.
I’ve been in touch with Magnus Albertson at tóreargleei to finalize a schedule, and that’ll be ready soon. ”
“This is really happening,” I muse as I open the folder to look at the course catalog for tóreargleei. I’ve studied it a dozen times since reaching out to suggest a tentative partnership.
My goal has always been to create a safe space for all those who need one.
Primarily, that means members of the queer community at large, a community that is still facing hate, hostility, violence, erasure, and discrimination all over the world.
The endless stupid justifications this hateful world uses never cease to amaze me—the vast majority of which are based on organized religion.
God says…
No, dear. A book tells you what your god says. Has this god ever actually spoken to you in a physical form that everyone around you can hear as well? I don’t think so.
But this isn’t here nor there. I don’t care what anyone believes. I’m happy to support that belief if it makes you happy, but that support ends when you use it to condemn, bully, harass, attempt to erase, and hurt others. That’s when I become an enemy.
I’ve worked endlessly to build RDU as a beacon of hope. The groundwork was already here when I joined the RDU staff. I believe the reason I became provost at a rather young age is my constant leaps forward regarding progression.
RDU was advertised as a ‘safe space’ for young queer people. That wasn’t enough for me. I needed it to shine like a lighthouse. Every suggestion I ever made was with this in mind. I didn’t want RDU on a steady, slow-growth plan. I wanted it to explode onto the scene.
In my decade-plus as provost, I think I’ve accomplished a lot of what I wanted.
We have an exceptional athletic department, one I’m currently focusing on growing.
I’ve just recruited the most amazing individual to build a trades department from the ground up, and he’s doing some fantastic work.
RDU boasts some of the most brilliant minds in many fields teaching our young people.
More than that, this place is the queer capital of higher education.
Now it’s time to expand. Always expand. I’d like to do something for the K-12 grades, but I’m stuck on that idea right now, unsure how to make that happen. However, there are queer people all over the world and oftentimes, they don’t have the funds to support their education overseas.
Thus, my sisterhood program was conceived. My goal is to partner with a school and mirror our advances while making it another queer capital of higher education. One on every continent. I believe I can see that happen in my lifetime. In the lifetimes beyond mine, I hope to see one in each country.
However, baby steps. Right now, we’re focusing on Iceland. Iceland is already a very LGBTQIA+-forward country with many progressive laws and protections for queer folk.
“It is,” Byndley says, placing a hand on my shoulder. I’m so lost in thought that I can’t remember what I said last. “It’s going to be great. I need your ten finalists by the end of the week to make sure they have plenty of time to prepare for this trip.”
“Sometimes I’m not sure if you work for me or if I work for you,” I say.
She grins, squeezes my shoulder, and heads for the door, her high heels tap-tap-tapping on her way out. I smile and push aside the top folder so I can take a look at the applications.
Byndley has removed the first page with all personal identifying information.
The rest of the application is set up in a way that even pronouns are missing.
I’m judging blindly. Which I think is how it should be.
I want a person who represents RDU, who embodies what this school stands for, and will represent the student body well.
I want someone who has fully embraced this campus.
Someone who truly loves the courses they’ve taken.
I can put the stats and supporting figures on paper all day long to prove what we’re doing here is legitimate and advanced. But that’s not as potent as listening to the people who benefit from it.
At first, I just flick through the applications and grin when Byndley also managed to get faculty recommendations using only they/them pronouns or the first letter of the applicant’s first and last name.
True blind judging. I’m excited. My heart is racing. This is going to be life-changing. I can feel it in my soul.