Chapter 2
“Hey Han,” Tanner says on the other line.
“Were you sleeping?”
“No, no, just got off work and sitting on the front deck. How was today? Did it go okay?”
“Yeah.” I pause. “It went as expected.”
“Still feeling a lot of nothing?”
“Yeah. Did I tell you Winnie wants to quit dance?” It’s not my smoothest topic change, but anything is more pleasant than my hours old divorce.
“How do you feel about that?”
“Sad. I always loved dance. My dad hated it and made my mom pull me out and put me in soccer instead. I always imagined having a daughter who would dance since I couldn’t.”
“Well, it sounds like you managed the next best thing.”
“What do you mean?” I veer off toward Mom and Paul’s house.
“You gave her the choice that you never had.”
The thought makes my throat tighten as I glance back in the rearview mirror and see her rosy cheek pressed against her shoulder. She snores softly and I wonder if maybe he’s right. If giving her the choice that I didn’t have was the best choice I could have made.
“Tell me about your day.” I blink away the tears in my eyes and focus on the traffic lights guiding the way.
“I got some more chickens and added a new section to the garden.”
I stare at the road, unsure if I heard him right. “You got more chickens?”
“Yeah, Dollie, you know the bookshop owner? She’s downsizing her animals, and she gave me a few.”
“Does more imply you already had chickens?”
“Oh yeah. A whole coop full.”
“Tanner,” I say. “We have been friends steadily for over a year, and especially the past six months and you never thought to mention you had chickens?”
He laughs. “Friends? Is that what we are?”
“Well. If I lived any closer, you would be my egg dealer, but since I don’t, friends will have to do.”
His chuckle on the other side is soft. “I can do friends for now then.”
“Wait, you said you added a new part of your garden. Tell me about it. I’ll live vicariously through you until I can have my own garden.”
His smile is almost audible. “It’s this little wildflower garden around the chicken pen. It’s kind of a mess, but I love it and it’ll be good for pollinators.”
“Send me pictures tomorrow.”
“I will.”
“Alright. I’m home. I should let you go. Goodnight Tanner.”
“Goodnight Han.”
I throw my phone into my bag and when I open her door, Winnie is stretching in her seat, looking younger than she did just an hour ago. Eyes squinting and mouth pursed. It reminds me of those early days after she was born.
I got pregnant my senior year of college and at his parent’s insistence, Ethan and I got married that summer.
He had just passed the bar, and his parents didn’t want to bring any negative attention to the family business which was rich considering that was their entire business.
The Forrest Defense Attorneys at Law are known for their massive billboards lining the freeways in and out of Chicago and for representing people in the most damned of situations all over the midwest. Often guilty criminals looking for loopholes in the justice system.
Ethan would come home late and claim he couldn’t tell me about his day because it was confidential.
Even the mundane things I would beg to hear about, he would brush off.
He would take a whiskey into his office and leave me with the messy house that was a result of being a single parent of a newborn.
“Mommy,” Winnie grumbles now, eyes blinking open.
“What’s up bug?”
“Who’s Tanner?”
I unbuckle her belt. “It’s Uncle Rhett’s friend.”
“His name is on your phone a lot.”
“It’s just Uncle Rhett’s friend,” I insist.
Her little face crinkles in confusion but she doesn’t ask any more questions. I barely even get her into her bed before she is sound asleep again, still in her too small dress.
After my shower, there is a glass of wine waiting for me on the counter, my parents have Dateline paused, and my life continues, as usual. Dull. Flat. Gray. Numb.
The only difference between today, and every other Friday night for the past six months, is that I'm ending this night divorced. My bare left finger no longer feels misleading, but like another bit of baggage. Legally lonely, with no idea what’s next.
After the credits roll, I find Winnie, in my bed, with her face smooshed into my pillow.
“Mommy,” her voice croaks as I crawl in next to her.
“What, baby?”
“Is Daddy going to get better?”
“Better?”
“You know, be a better daddy? Like Grampy?”
“Grampy is a good daddy, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.” She snuggles into my side. “And you’re a good mommy.”
Tears well up in my eyes, but I just place more kisses in her hair and thank God that even with all the hell Ethan has put me through, that at least I got the greatest human to ever exist out of it. I would go through it a million times over just for this moment alone.