Solo Mother

The ex visits…

by christina on September 2nd, 2007

When we first were married, neither of us could remember what life had been like before ‘us’. Now that it has all fallen apart, I can’t remember what brought us together in the first place. I have no idea who that man sleeping in our daybed is.

Our son is glad to see his papa. We have all made an effort to be kind, and polite, and inclusive. We even had dinner at my parents’ house one night, just the five of us. My son was so excited to be sitting at the formal dining table that he insisted we throw a party. I thought it was because his papa was here, and indeed, the party was for Papa. But the occasion was simply sitting at the formal dining room table, where all our parties take place. The ex has been vigilant in his determination to accompany us to school in the morning and to meet my mother to pick the child up afterwards. They have gone off and had adventures, just the two of them, but the Kid is also happy to be at his Grammy’s house with his papa, and doesn’t feel any wild need to GO DO SEE. There were no histrionics when Papa went out for dinner Friday night without the King of Everything… because the boy and I had plans of our own, to meet up with friends at the fountain and listen to Jazz, same as we’d done to kick off the summer over Memorial Day weekend.

The Kid had a blast, Friday night. We met up with our friends, old and young. I was amazed to watch him become part of a wide-ranging pack of children from three to five years old… kids who would take off tearing around the fountain (large enough to become an ice skating rink in the wintertime) and no one worried. My heart lept to watch that blue-eyed boy fly in a blur of determined forward motion in an arc that took him small and far away from me, then brought him back, time and time again, and I felt an instant flash of joy for the pure, extraordinary pleasure he must have taken in being so young, so vibrantly, carelessly alive.

When we arrived back to our humble abode, the ex still had not returned, and the boy and I tumbled into a dirty footed pile in my big mama bed. The King of Everything fell asleep with his hand on my cheek, halfway through his goodnight kiss.

Saturday morning, his papa drove off to the beach with the boy in the back, and I cried. Only a tear or two. They weren’t going far, they were going with friends, they were going to be all right. The King would learn how to fish. The Ex would learn how to love. The mama would learn how to let go.

And miracle of miracles, the King of Everything even caught a shark.

I hope he got a good picture with it.

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POSTED IN: love, separation, sharing the load