2. Hank #2
Brody being across the country would be like an empty nest on steroids. It hurts to only see him for part of the month with the joint custody agreement. With him in California, it’d be a handful of times a year. The loneliness that I don’t let creep in too much could suffocate me.
“What do you think?”
But I can’t let him know any of that. This isn’t about my sadness of watching him go or being alone. This is about what’s best for Brody. And if Stanford is the best, then Stanford it is.
“I support whatever you want to do.”
His face lights up. “Really?”
“Really.”
He pulls me into a hug. “I love you, Dad.”
“Should we sign you up for surf lessons?”
“Again, that’s Southern California. But I haven’t gotten in yet. Stanford rejects most people.”
“Well, you’re not most people. You’re smart, accomplished, and a good person. I don’t know how much that last part counts, but I think it should.”
“Are you going to be okay here? By yourself?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
“You have the Comebacks,” he says of my recreational hockey team. “Maybe you could take up another hobby like woodworking or shuffleboard?”
“Shuffleboard? How old do you think I am?” I once played shuffleboard on a cruise, and honestly? Pretty fun time. “What does your mom think about this?”
“I’m going to tell her when she picks me up. I don’t think she’ll care. She’s focused on the wedding.”
“Wedding?”
“Mom didn’t tell you Oliver finally proposed?”
“She didn’t.” I give a little surprised shake of my head.
Not too big. Cathy’s been with her current boyfriend Oliver for four years.
And while she’s been through many men since we divorced (and while we were married, too, but let’s not get into that), Oliver’s been her longest relationship.
He’s also the most financially successful guy she’s dated, though I don’t know if that’s just a coincidence.
“How are you feeling about it?”
Brody shrugs. “Oliver’s fine. He loves boats. I’ll be glad to be away at college.”
Now Stanford makes a little bit more sense. Brody always seems a little down when he has to go stay with his mom. When we got divorced, Cathy’s main mission was to find a new husband; mine was to make sure our son grew up okay.
“This’ll make her happy. Your mother loves throwing parties and receiving presents.”
He looks up at me with his big, tentative eyes. “It’d be cool if you got remarried, too. I’m just saying…”
A laugh shoots out of me. There’s divorce, and then there’s whatever the hell I went through with Cathy.
I felt like Bill Paxton running from an F5 tornado at the end of Twister.
We were young and rushed in. She was the most beautiful woman who’d ever shown interest in me.
The fact that she noticed me, and not one of my better-looking teammates, was a shock that I didn’t question.
After watching all my friends get girls throughout high school, it was finally my turn.
Things soured as soon as I put a ring on her finger.
I don’t say any of that out loud. I never speak badly about his mother in front of him—though she doesn’t always return the favor.
“I’m happy with how things are,” I tell him. It’s best to ignore the impending loneliness coming for me this fall.
“Are you sure?”
“Are you trying to be a matchmaker on top of being a world-renowned scientist? Eat your leftovers.” I shovel a scoop of my stuffing onto his plate.
After dinner, I convince Brody to give his brain a break and watch some TV with me.
In the middle of SportsCenter, Cathy honks from the street.
Ten years in, and she still won’t come to the door to pick Brody up, lest she relive any detail of living in this house.
She called this neighborhood Fisher Price housing.
Cathy sits in her newly leased Lexus. No matter what our financial situation was, she always leased a new car.
Driving a new car was like regularly showering to her: something all adults in society should be doing.
She taps her long fingernails against the steering wheel.
As usual, she’s wearing a full face of makeup and a fitted, fancy coat.
She always believed she was too big for this town.
“Evening.” I knock on her window. After a second of deliberation, she lowers it and offers a polite smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Hi, Hank. Is Brody coming out?”
“In a second. He’s just finishing up something with his science project. I wanted to congratulate you. I heard the news.”
Her diamond engagement ring catches light off the lamppost, sparkling in the darkness.
“Thank you.” She raises her hand to gaze at her new jewelry.
The thing is at least twice the size of what I proposed to her with, though in my defense, I was in my twenties and didn’t have a lot of money.
“I feel like this marriage is the do-over I deserve. We were young and stupid, Hank. We rushed into things before we had the chance to realize who we were.”
“Wise men say only fools rush in,” I begin to croon.
“Ever since Oliver proposed, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Hank.
Thinking about us and what happened.” The sparkle of the jewel ignites a flash of restrained anger in her eyes.
“My life coach made me realize what the problem was, why I kept running into the arms of other men. I’m a main character.
Oliver is a main character. And Hank, as nice as you are, you’re a side character. ”
She says it sweetly, as if diagnosing me with something.
“That’s why we never worked. You’re the funny best friend. The fun sidekick. You don’t have, as my life coach says, main character energy.”
I should be used to Cathy’s snide comments by now—Lord knows I’ve been catching strays from her for damn near twenty years—but this one manages to burrow under my skin. It’s an attack on my entire essence.
“Cathy, I think your problem is that you see a life coach. Do they even have a degree?”
“Cassandra has a podcast,” she shoots back passionately.
“Maybe you should look into seeing an actual therapist again.”
She bristles at the suggestion. “They’re too depressing.”
I saw a therapist for a bit after the divorce. She helped me realize that Cathy is the type of woman who prefers to split her time between reality and la-la land and nothing will ever change that.
“Cassandra says some of us are born to be the supporting characters. But with Oliver, he is the type of man who people listen to, who makes things happen. He’s a CFO.
Chief financial officer. He has a beach house.
That’s the type of person I’m supposed to be with.
Not someone who, I’m sorry to say, comes off as kind of a slob.
” Her demon eyes rake over my shaggy hair, down to my sweater stretching over my gut, then further down to my scuffed up sneakers.
“I’m not a fancy guy, but that doesn’t make me a slob.”
“Maybe it’s finally time you lay off the beer.
” She turns to stare out the windshield, lost in her preferred kind of nostalgia.
“For years, I was living a side character life, and I started to believe that that’s who I was.
I married a goalie,” she says, the word bitter on her tongue.
“Not a quarterback. A goalie who became a plumber. I was the wife of a plumber. Plumbers and goalies are not main characters.”
“We had a good life.” My jaw tightens, a rare burst of anger flushing through me. I can only take so much of her bullshit. “I made us a good life, and you decided to ruin it.”
I say it with conviction, but I have trouble believing my words. Cathy is landing every blow tonight. And here I thought getting engaged would put her in a good mood.
“I know I’m being blunt,” she says finally, breaking from her spell. “With Brody going to college and me getting remarried, I think it’s time to fully move on. We’ll see each other at his milestones, but otherwise, distance is probably best.”
Finally, something we agree on.
“Hey bud!” I turn on my happy face when Brody approaches the car. I give him a massive, bone-crushing hug and kiss him on the cheek. If he’s taken aback by the emotion, he doesn’t show it.
“Night, Dad.”
“I’ll see you on Wednesday at your Quiz Bowl game.” I open the passenger side door for him.
“It’s a match,” he says, getting in.
“Right! Match. I’ll get it right one of these days. I love you.”
“Love you,” he says over his shoulder.
I close the car door. He’s fully capable of doing it himself, but every so often, I like to still feel useful.
I stand in the road, in a patch of slush, watching them drive away. And I can’t help thinking… what if she’s right about this whole main-character energy stuff?
Maybe I’m destined to be the funny side character. The best friend. The comic relief. That’s been my role throughout my life. Where do they wind up at the end of the story? Probably where I am right now: alone.
I guess Mario is the only plumber who gets to be the hero of his story.