How to Be Single (44 page)

Georgia looked over at Dale. He looked odd, a bit disheveled. He hadn't shaved for the big day. He managed to throw on a blazer, but didn't bother to put on a tie.
Finally,
Georgia thought to herself.
It's finally hitting him. What he's done to me. What he's done to his family.

Mark Levine had just opened their file. Georgia and Dale sat there in silence; Dale had his hands in front of him on the table, picking at a cuticle.

“So. As you know, I've had a chance to speak to both of you, individually, as well as speaking to your children. It's my recommendation that—”

But before Mark Levine could finish, Dale interrupted.

“I think the children should stay with Georgia,” Dale said, with his eyes still on his cuticle.

Georgia, startled, looked at Dale and then looked quickly back at Mark Levine. Did she hear correctly? She had to make sure.

“What?” Georgia said.

Dale now looked up at both Georgia and Mark Levine. “She's a really good mother. She's just been going through a hard time. So, she made a mistake. I don't think she would do it again. Would you?”

“No. Never.”

Mark Levine took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He looked at Dale. “Are you sure about this?”

Dale nodded, his head pointing down again toward the table. Georgia thought she noticed his eyes welling up with tears. She decided to engage him in conversation so she could see for sure.

“Really, Dale, you're positive?” Georgia asked. She didn't really care if he was sure, she just wanted to see if he was crying. Dale looked up at Georgia for a split second and mumbled, “Yes. I'm sure.” He was, indeed, all teary. Dale quickly looked down again. Georgia felt a wave of all sorts of emotions well up inside. She felt sorry for him, how sad he looked, gratitude for his change of heart, regret for how everything turned out, and when it all mixed together like that in this one giant surge, it felt exactly like love.

“Well, I believe I can agree to that,” Mark Levine said. “I was going to recommend—”

“Do we really need to know?” Georgia interrupted quickly. “I mean, if we're in agreement. Do we need to know what you were going to recommend?”

Mark Levine pursed his lips, and said politely, “No, I guess you don't. But I do feel it's my duty to encourage you to find a way to manage your anger. It's absolutely unacceptable to ever show your children anything but a supportive, cooperative relationship between you and your ex-husband.”

“I absolutely agree, Mr. Levine. Thank you.”

“Do you want to talk about visitation rights?” Mark Levine said to Dale.

“Can I have them every other weekend?” Dale said. “And dinner once a week?”

Georgia nodded, and said, “Of course, and if you want to see them more often than that, I'm sure we can figure something out.”

Dale almost smiled and then looked down again.

Mark Levine got up from the table. “Well, I'm glad this ended so amicably. I'll have them draw up the papers.” Mark Levine began to exit the room and cast a look backward, at Georgia and Dale still sitting there. “Will you two be all right in here?” Georgia and Dale gave various facial assurances that they would not in fact start choking each other the minute he walked out of the room.

The door closed behind him and Dale put his head in his hands, his elbows on the table. Georgia leaned over and touched his elbow. Dale was truly crying now. The only time she had seen Dale cry like that was at his mother's funeral. At that time, she found it profoundly sweet. She remembered she had stood there, rubbing his back as he cried in the parking lot of the funeral home. She felt an overwhelming love for him at that moment; an understanding that this is what a husband and wife go through together, births and deaths and tears, and she had been touched and proud that she was able to be there for him. Similarly, today, she felt a deep love for Dale. In that little conference room, she understood that history is something not to be underestimated, and even if the present was gone, a shared history must be respected and, she would go so far as to say, cherished. As she touched Dale's elbow, trying again to comfort him during a moment of intense grief, she knew that he must be having a similar experience. The weight of the dissolution of their shared history and the fracturing of their family was finally being felt. And although she felt great tenderness for Dale at this moment, she also felt vindicated. Finally, there was reflection. Finally, there was regret. Finally, there was gravitas.

“She left me,” Dale suddenly blurted out, as he lifted up his face and flashed his big wet soppy tears to Georgia. She thought, hoped, prayed she hadn't heard him correctly.

“Excuse me?” Georgia asked, with a little of her old contemptuous tone sneaking into her voice.

“She left me, Georgia. Melea left me.” Dale grabbed Georgia's arm and squeezed it as he turned his head away from her. “She said she didn't want to date a man who had children. It was too complicated.”

Georgia took a breath and asked him, calmly, “Is that why you didn't fight for the kids? Because you had wanted to raise them with her?”

Dale, in his vulnerable state, was too weak to lie or even avoid.

“I thought she'd be a great stepmom.”

There were a lot of things that Georgia felt entitled to do or say in this moment. She could have screamed at Dale that he had merely seen his children as props in his imaginary dream life with Melea. She could have screamed that he should be thinking about the dissolution of their twelve-year marriage, that by their failure they had now added their children to the statistics of children of divorce. That, because of what was going on right this very minute, there might be psychological repercussions for their children that they might not see until years from now. And that he didn't seem to be noticing any of this, because he was too busy crying over some Brazilian whore—yes, in her mind she could call her a whore, fuck Mark Levine—whom he'd known for just a few months.

But Georgia knew that now was not the time to think about Dale or their lousy love lives. Dale was busy enough thinking about Dale. Now was the time to think about her two gorgeous children of divorce, and how she could make their lives filled with as much joy and stability and discipline and fun as possible. That's what it was time for. That was all she was entitled to—that and only that.

Oftentimes, morning brings better news. The sun rises, people are rested, and the brightness of the day helps things look less bleak. But there are those horrific times in a person's life when things are so bad that the morning just brings a fresh hell of pain, or a new sobbing realization of the doom that has befallen you. For Serena and Kip, that's how this morning began. Kip was sprawled out on the couch, his head still in Serena's lap, when he woke up crying. Then he stood up suddenly and screamed, “I want to talk to my mother! I want to talk to my mother!”

“I'll call her right now,” Serena said, jumping up and grabbing the phone. It was six in the morning. She could only imagine what Joanna had been through that night. Kip stood there, tense, breathing heavily, his eyes watery, as Serena dialed the phone.

“Joanna? It's Serena. Kip wants to talk to you.” Serena passed the phone to Kip. He took the phone slowly, as if it might blow up in his face.

Kip listened, quietly. Serena had no idea what Joanna was saying to him. Was Robert all right? “Uh-huh,” Kip said. “That's really great, Mom.” And he hung up the phone.

Serena stood there and looked at Kip.

“Dad's coming back home,” Kip said, relieved, and went back to the sofa and sprawled on his stomach. He picked up the remote and started watching a movie Robert starred in where he played a cowboy looking for his lost son.

Robert is coming home? Is that good news or bad news?
Serena had no idea. She just started doing the only thing she knew how to do in this situation.

“I'll make you an omelette and some bacon—does that sound okay?” she called out to Kip.

“Yep, thank you, See,” Kip said, staring at the television. Serena quietly went to work.

At nine, Joanna called Serena and filled her in on the details. His breathing had not improved and he had been put on a ventilator, which definitely was not good news. Joanna told her that Robert's mother and brother were flying in from Montana, and Joanna's parents were flying in from Chicago. She hoped Serena wouldn't mind letting them in. Serena didn't. She just wanted to be of help; anything she could do was fine by her.

The phones began to go crazy. Joanna had started making calls at the hospital and when people couldn't get her on her cell, they started calling the house. Close friends, acquaintances, colleagues, agents, managers, were all calling. Unfortunately, news had gotten out to the press as well, and photographers started to camp out in front of the building. Flowers began arriving; food, too.

By noon, Joanna's parents had arrived. They were an unassuming elderly midwestern couple, both short and gray and cute, wheeling in their little suitcases and taking off their coats. Kip met them at the door and they must have both stood taking turns hugging him for about fifteen minutes. Eventually, they looked up and saw Serena.

“Hi, I'm Ginnie,” Joanna's mother said as she stretched out her hand. “Joanna has told us so much about you, Serena.”

Serena shook her hand. “I'm just glad I could help.”

“Oh, you've been much more than that,” Joanna's father said as he stretched out his hand. “I'm Bud.”

“Now,” Ginnie said. “What can we do to help?”

Serena saw that these were two sturdy people who dealt with grief and hardship with good old-fashioned hard work. So Serena had Ginnie do laundry. She asked Bud to be in charge of the buzzer. In the meantime, Serena kept cooking nonstop and answering the phone. Kip kept watching the movie over and over again, comatose, mummified.

At two o'clock, Joanna called from the ambulance and told them they'd be home in five minutes. Everything was ready. Their bedroom was spotless, thanks to Ginnie's polishing and vacuuming. There was food to last them for days. And the throngs of photographers outside were under control because Bud got fed up and called the cops, so now there was a police presence outside. Go, Bud.

No one knew exactly what to expect. They all just sat around, waiting until Joanna and Robert came home.

Theirs was an industrial-size elevator, one that opened up directly into their loft. When they finally arrived, a whole new reality entered the home. Robert was on a stretcher rolled in by two paramedics. There were two women dressed in white scrubs who followed, as well as one man in green scrubs who was apparently the doctor. Joanna came out in the middle of the crowd. She was stoic, pale, and looked much older than she had when she left the house twenty-four hours earlier. They all filed toward Robert and Joanna's bedroom. Robert was unconscious, and no longer had a breathing tube down his throat. There was only one IV in him now, rolled along by one of the nurses as they all walked away.

They've brought him home to die.
Serena finally allowed herself to think it. She wasn't the only one. Kip began to wail the moment he saw his father rolled out.

“Is he going to wake up? WHEN IS HE GOING TO WAKE UP, MOMMY?”

Joanna went over to hold him but he ran away.

“NO! NO!” Kip ran into his room and shut the door.

At two thirty, Robert's mother arrived from Montana. She was a frail woman, in jeans and a turtleneck. Her little feet were in New Balance sneakers and her thin hair was in a light brown, tight little perm. She obviously had had a long, sad flight, and seemed to be reserving every ounce of energy she had left for her son. When she walked in, she kissed Joanna hello, nodded to everyone else, and went into Robert's room.

By five o'clock, friends had started to arrive. Not just friends, but intimates. The inner circle. The inner, inner, inner circle. It was about twenty people; twenty lovely people who were all, every last one of them, deeply appropriate, speaking quietly, somber but not morbid, occasionally joking and idly chatting, but never without sensitivity.

Serena did crowd control, not with the guests, but with all the food they brought with them. With each person that came, a cake or a bottle of booze or a platter of something was given. Serena unwrapped everything she could, found places to store the rest, and began operating as if she were suddenly the hostess of an impromptu party. She ordered in paper goods, set up a buffet table, and by seven o'clock had set up a full bar.

By nine, Serena had put soft jazz music on the stereo (jazz was Robert's favorite) and it didn't look as if anyone was going anywhere. Serena had not witnessed anything like this before and she was struck by the weight and depth of what she was experiencing.

Moreover, this was no normal group of people—there were recognizable actors and actresses, a newscaster, and a writer who had won an Oscar for best screenplay. Serena began to understand that what she was witnessing was primal. This was a tribe, these show biz folks; one of their own had fallen and so they gathered. Because that is what human beings have done at times of grief since the dawn of man. They gather. They hold one another, they cry, they eat.