Chapter One
Jenna
I knew it was coming. I knew the envelope would land on my doorstep one of these days, and I knew I would have to open it and flick to the last page to see our signatures side by side for the last time.
I'd been thinking about it for weeks and envisioning it for much longer.
In some ways, I think I've been preparing for it for years, possibly always, which is as depressing as it is strangely comforting.
Even so, as I bend to pick up the envelope along with a bank statement and a local estate agent's flyer, I do so with shaking hands and short, unsteady breaths. My fingers don’t stop trembling as I open it and flick through until I find one of Robert’s signatures.
I stare at the great loop and kick of his R and behold the peaks and troughs of his surname that follows.
The name I never took.
At the time, it was something I did as a small and probably pointless act of feminism, but recently I have been questioning my motives; did I always know?
On the rear of the last page, I trace the imprint his pen left with his final signature and marvel at how familiar the shape of it is, and yet how it is now so very foreign, so very other. A single tear lands on the paper.
“Jesus, Jenna, get a grip,” I say to myself because there's no-one else here.
There's not been anyone else here for seven months, and I have become frighteningly comfortable talking to myself. Possibly because I’m still adjusting to both the silence of a single occupancy house and the noises that interrupt it.
Noises I never noticed before like the foxes howling at night, the cranking of our - no, my boiler - when it switches on, and the howl of the wind through every crack in the Victorian brickwork and window frames.
I carry the papers and post into the kitchen and sit at the small table in the corner, pushing the divorce papers to one side and picking up the paint swabs I’d collected the day before.
There’s a sunshine yellow I was thinking about using on the stairs, a pastel terracotta orange I would love in the guest bedroom, and a lush, earthy green that would make my bathroom look like a jungle, but they don’t distract me.
If anything, they make me feel worse, because I really shouldn’t be spending any more money on decorating, not until I’ve figured out what I’m going to do about my job.
As a freelance sex and relationships columnist, I have never had a “proper job” as my father would say.
Even aside from the topics I specialise in – intimacy, dating, sexuality, desire and pleasure – there are no set hours, no office for me to clock into, and I don’t even have real colleagues, as in the same set of people I check in with regularly.
Sure, I’ve often worked with the same editors multiple times over the years.
But to them, I am one of many, and to me, they are people I have to be on my best behaviour with so I can never be my potty-mouthed, innuendo-loving self.
And it suits me fine. At least it used to.
Because I don’t think I can do this job anymore.
How can I keep advising others on how to connect with their partners – physically, emotionally, sexually – when I lost all those connections with my husband?
What kind of ‘sexpert’ am I when it’s been nearly two years since I last had sex?
How can I claim to know what makes love last, when it didn’t for me?
A few of my friends who’ve recently become parents for the first time have told me how lost they felt at the beginning because there’s no manual for parenting, no guidebook or road map to follow, and I can finally relate.
Where’s my map for this new journey? How do I navigate being single for the first time in over a decade?
With no guidebook and what feels like fast-disappearing hope, I do what I think any woman would do upon receiving their signed divorce papers.
After briefly checking the time – 10:56 am - I stand up, move to the fridge and pour myself a large glass of wine.
Then, I sneak my hands under my T-shirt and take off my bra, followed by my earrings.
I leave them all lying on the kitchen counter, as I take my wine back to the table.
Finally, I pick up my phone and call my brother.
“Jenna, I was just going to call you-”
“Jakey,” I interrupt with a deep sigh.
“What’s happened?” he asks, panicked.
“It’s done. My divorce papers just landed.”
“Signed?”
“Signed, sealed, delivered. I’m not his. And he’s not mine. Not anymore.”
“Congratulations! That’s fucking excellent!”
His words are like a slap in the face, and I don’t know why.
“Yes, yes, it is. It just also hurts like hell.” I bring my hand to my mouth to catch my sudden sobs.
“Oh, Jenna, what is this? What are you feeling? Is it regret? Is it guilt? Is it fear?”
I smile with blurry eyes. “Jakey, those are perfect questions. I should write you a report for your therapist.”
“Don’t deflect, Jenna. Tell me what’s going on.”
I pull in a breath and think about it for a few seconds before replying, “It’s a bit of everything. But mostly, I just feel very sad and like I have lost something more than a perfectly decent enough husband.”
“So, you do have regret?” Jake asks tentatively.
I pause again. I know I’m feeling regret, but I can’t pin it on the divorce or losing Robert. Maybe it’s from not doing it sooner? Maybe it’s about my work? Maybe it’s something else? I just don’t know, and I hate not knowing.
“You know you can tell me, Jenna,” Jake continues. “I know I’ve been Team D.I.V.O.R.C.E for a while now, but I will never judge you for however you’re feeling.”
“I don’t know how I feel,” I waver. “I just think I miss him sometimes. He wasn’t all bad. I mean, he put the toilet seat down and never left dirty socks on the floor...”
“You’re right, you know.” I recognise his new tone of voice. It’s defeat mixed with reluctance, wrapped up in his best hospitality voice; the one that is designed to make whoever he is in conversation with think that they’re right. “Robert was decent enough, I suppose.”
There’s something about hearing my words in his voice. And not just his normal voice, but his people-pleasing, disingenuous voice.
“No.” I sniff. “I don’t want decent enough. And I don’t want a man who can’t talk to me about his feelings, or mine, no matter how well trained he is domestically. I don’t want a man who is afraid of change. I don’t want a man who is afraid to grow... or for me to grow.”
“Well said, buttercup.” Jake’s normal voice is back.
“The thing is,” I pause to take a deep breath, “what if I never find a man who is? What if this thing I tell all my readers to wait for, to work for, to have faith in... what if it just doesn’t exist?”
My brother’s groan reverberates in my ear. “You’re asking the wrong person, Jenna. I’m the king of failed relationships.”
“Maybe we’re just doomed to lose in love, Jakey? Ugh. I never expected to be thirty-six and divorced.”
“Oh, Jen. You know it’s very trendy to be divorced these days. Everyone’s doing it at least once, if not twice. You should really try to keep up.”
I mumble out a quick laugh and then shake my head as I spot my divorce papers again, more tears still slipping down my cheeks.
“I’m so angry at myself for feeling this way.
I tell people all the time to never feel any shame for doing what’s right for them, and my brain, it knows this is right for me.
.. I just hate not feeling it in my heart too.
That’s the part of me I normally trust the most and it doesn’t feel very trustworthy right now. ”
“That’s because your heart is still broken, Jenna. You need to give it time to heal.”
I close my eyes. “It’s been months, Jakey. Years really, if you think about how long it was since we... since we were in a good place.”
“I’m so sorry you’re hurting, Jenna,” my brother says, and despite the physical ache in my chest, I feel a rush of love and gratitude for him.
“Thank you, that means a lot to me,” I whisper back.
“Did you download the apps we talked about?” he asks with an upswing in his voice.
“The dating apps?” I shudder. I wish I didn’t have such a vehement reaction to Internet dating. I know it may be the only way I do find love again. If I find love again.
“Yes, I wrote you a list in order of Dana’s preferences,” he says, referring to his friend who did indeed find her husband on an app. “And I’ve been mentally brainstorming a bio since you separated.”
“Ugh, maybe. One day.” I take a large swig of wine. “But not yet. First, I mourn, I grieve, I hurt.”
“Sounds absolutely delightful.” Jake groans.
I look at the kitchen shelves above my head and find the framed photo of Jake and me as children together, playing on the swings in the back garden of our childhood home. “We have to mourn our losses, Jakey, we both know that,” I say softly.
“I know,” he says, and then he coughs. I am not at all surprised when he then quickly makes light of what I just said. “No pain, no gain, eh?”
“I think it’s more a case of no pain, no love. And no love, no life. We’re not here to feel good all the time. We’re here to love one another, and as so many have concluded, grief is love. They are two sides of the same coin.”
“It’s almost like you know what you’re talking about,” Jake says, and it makes me smile until he continues. “You should write a book about these things.”
“That’s a conversation for another day,” I say quickly, not feeling brave enough to even think about work. I realise then that I’ve finally stopped crying. I jokingly toast myself in the reflection of the oven door. Here’s to wine and my brother!
“So, back to dating apps,” Jake says. “I’ll send you that photo I took of you in Lisbon. Your tits look fantastic in that top.”
“No, Jake, not yet.” I chuckle with him.
“Although please do send over that photo, my ego could do with a little boost right now. But seriously, I think first I need to do some therapy, some crying, lots of reading, exercising, writing, and probably a lot more crying and then maybe I’ll try to think about dating again. ”
“Well, could you keep a week free in that depressingly busy crying schedule so you can come to Greece next summer?”
I blink as his words land. “What!? You got the job?”
“I got the job!” he squeals.
And just like that, while I still feel my pain, my grief and my uncertainty, I also feel excitement and delight for my brother who has worked so hard for this opportunity.
It’s another helpful reminder that it’s possible to feel good and bad things in the very same moment.
It’s possible for our heavy, breaking hearts to be buoyed and bolstered by the happiness of others.
“Oh, Jake! I’m so proud of you!”
“So, you’ll come?”
“Sunshine, sand, sea and sexy Greek men? You try and stop me, baby brother!” I say, and I hope by then I’ll have some of the mess that is my life tidied up.