My former mother-in-law is sitting on the cafeteria floor when I arrive. She’s come to watch Bug’s karate class. I slide down next to her. She leans over and touches her head to my shoulder. She smiles.
We have not seen each other in 6 years.
Category: Co-Parenting
The Spoils of Civility
The transformation of the heart is a wondrous thing, no matter how you land there.
–Patti Smith, M Train
Tee’s face fell when I told him my Mister and I broke up. “That’s a bummer,” he said. “He’s a really good guy. What happened?”
I kept it vague. It would take a steadier hand than mine to fill in the fine detail of our shared briar patch. Attending to the perennial questions that twine their way through our story has worn me out. It’s all a little too bright and raw inside me at the moment, and anyway, it would be a mistake to cast my ex-husband in the role of confidant. He’s kind though, and he held the news gently. He told me he was sorry, and that both the boyfriend and his two kids were a positive influence on Bug. Tee seemed genuinely disappointed that our son would miss out on having that family in his life.
If you Stop to Put Out the Fire, Turn to Page 8
My eye keeps tripping over the red square on the Google calendar. It says “Class Assignment Surveys Due” but I can’t recall if it’s for work or Bug or something else entirely. While I’m trying for the fourth time to re-arrange the month of June, my weary brain gives me a nudge. Remember? Yes. The survey is an annual collection of parental insight into our kids’ quirks and métiers. These descriptions supposedly help the school determine class assignments for the coming year. Our perspective is mere garnish on the overfull plate that our precious darlings serve up to teachers and playground monitors every day, but it must add some texture to the mélange.
I get on the horn to call Tee. “Surveys are due next Friday,” I say. “I think we have to pick them up at the office.” He doesn’t recall the email so we bounce around about the details before finding the PDF online. I ask Tee if we could each jot down some ideas and then combine them to submit to the school. He hedges before asking, “Why can’t we each just fill one out? I’m sure they won’t mind getting one from each of us.”
We have come to this juncture so many times, the page is coming loose from the binding. If you disengage, turn to page 47. If you try to collaborate, turn to page 82.
Continue reading “If you Stop to Put Out the Fire, Turn to Page 8”
Who We Are Now
To accept your circumstances radically simply means that you do it from the depths of your soul and in every bone in your body. It does not mean that things will never change or that you are not affected by the realities of your life. Radical acceptance just means that you acknowledge reality for what it is.
From Marsha Linehan’s work on Dialectical Behavior Theory
These friends of ours, they say they are envious of our relationship. We seem to get along so well. We both flex to each other’s needs as we raise our son separately but together. I am as baffled by our success as they are. Does some quirk of chemistry allow my ex-husband and I to pull this off? Is it a blip already fading? Maybe all we’ve built will whoosh down the toilet as soon as something really life-altering jiggles the handle.
Or do we help smooth the way together by making some concrete choices about how we engage each other? If this final possibility contributes to our so-far success as co-parents (which it surely must), what are we actually doing? How can we bottle it to bolster our compatriots as they enter into their much trickier dealings with exes?
Rough Cut
We stand at the edge of the playground. A throng of racing children and chattering parents presses us to chain link. He asks about the house and I give him the latest update. Good news, for once. When the celebratory chaos has melted away along with the popsicles, Bug and I will head back to my office to print and sign 44 pages of loan documents. The seller’s bank has approved an extension and my sketchy but efficient new loan officer is pushing for the end of the month. Tee listens and asks polite questions. Neither of us ever bought a home before and I am now tackling this with the help of a huge circle of friends and family which does not include him.
He says that he’s heard about the housing market around the place he is considering. Four-bedroom homes there are going for about what I am paying for this cramped condo. He has dreams of a fixer-upper and his father swooping into town in a van packed with a table saw and hydraulic nail gun to help turn the place into a masterpiece.
No Fixed Address
In the parking lot of the state college campus where Tee was staffing an exhibition table, Bug nursed. We sat in the back seat with the door open to a spring afternoon. Tee came around the corner to meet us, concern folding in a face usually at full sail. He moved to block us and pushed the door partway closed.
“What are you doing?” I asked. In my lap, Bug raised his eyebrows up and back to get in on the action. He didn’t lose his grip. Besides the perfunctory drape in an airplane or shopping mall, modesty had rarely factored into Bug’s mealtimes.
Tee shrugged and shuffled. “Everyone can see. We don’t know people here.”
Deposed
It is almost 6:30 pm. Congestion on 66 West backs it up all the way to Falls Church. After a grind of a day, a co-worker saves me a metro trip by letting me hitch a ride back towards home. My car waits near the station, a stack of overdue library books in the trunk alongside a bag of clothes destined for Goodwill. Somehow I will have to make room for the giant sack of special Active Maturity dog food I hope Target has on the shelf because PetSmart is in the wrong direction. The dog’s bowl has been empty for nearly two days.
In an hour, friends will be gathering for Team Trivia at the bar. As for dinner? The leftover apple banging around in my backpack will have to suffice. As we sit in stop-and-go traffic solving the problems of the world, my phone rings.
Noisy air when I pick it up. Then, “Mommy?”
“Hey, buddy. What’s up?”
“Can I stay with you tonight?” His sing-y, plead-y voice spills into the car. Sweetness bomb. My friend rocks from the blow.
I Just Called to Say
Today, I call up Tee to thank him for our friendship.
“Last night, I learned all over again that if you look for what’s wrong, you find it,” I say. People defeated by chance are out there bashing their exes as we speak. I have done my share of this. Now it makes me cringe.
Tee and I have something more precious than I ever knew. Some of it is the luck of the draw, and I breathe a sigh of relief for the hand I hold. Some of it, though, is a choice we make every day.
On Zero
In November, Bug had to visit the clinic for his flu shot. The kid was stone-faced, shivering, and mighty pissed off at me. I had failed to inform him of our destination until we were already buckled in and halfway down the street. When we finally made it into the exam room, the nurse rolled up his sleeve and said, “Okay, on three, I want you to yell out your name.”
“Why three?” Bug asked, twisting his body away from her.
“Because it’s over much quicker that way. Okay? So, on three, just . . .”
Happy 100 Days: 17
It is only this: When the terrible thing happened, Tee and I reached out to each other several times during the endless afternoon to talk through how we would respond to Bug’s questions. When Tee picked up Bug after school, I called and spoke with my kiddo. They were at the supermarket and everything was a-OK.
Today, my phone rang while I was out having breakfast. Bug’s voice: “Mommy, can you send Daddy the advent calendar that’s on your computer?” I told them both where to find the website for it and learned that my kiddo was sick with a tummy bug. I asked if I could pick anything up. The request was made for Gatorade and seltzer. Thirty minutes later, I dropped by, delivered the fizzy drinks, hugged my kid, and sat on the bed in Tee’s room while Bug showed me the alpine village on the laptop.
Animosity is a whisper from the distant past.
We are co-parents. Our son is in our shared care. This small good thing is much bigger than I could have ever imagined.
Shannon E. Williams 