The Overdue Life of Amy Byler

by Kelly Harms

  “Who said anything about a one-night stand?” he asks me with a faux-innocent smile. “Based on this date, I would say we’d want to aim for something closer to, say, a six-night stand. Think of the fun we could have while you’re on your little adventure in the city.”

  “I’m flattered,” I say. “But I . . .” I fumble for the right way to tell him what I’m not even sure I understand myself. Here is a very handsome, very fun, very uncomplicated man wanting to give me exactly what I thought I wanted.

  But . . . he’s not Daniel. He reminds me of someone else. I can’t put my finger on it.

  “You know what?” says Travis softly. “Don’t say another word. I’m just going to have to take you out again another night and do a better job of convincing you that you cannot resist my charms.”

  I smile. “I certainly won’t stop you from trying,” I say. “But in the meantime, thank you for understanding. Tonight as I lie alone in my cold bed, I’m sure I’ll regret it terribly.”

  “I do hope so. May I ask, before I spend too much energy barking up the wrong tree, is there someone else?”

  Is there? I ask myself. Every day I’m getting a bit more comfortable at the thought of finally filing for divorce. But then there’s Daniel, who I cannot seem to relegate to the friendship category in my mind. And at the same time I think of the server, the knowing nod she gave when Travis rattled off his practiced date order, the wink when he picked a bottle of wine just a bit too deftly. I sigh. “Isn’t there always?” I ask, looking him hard in the eyes so he knows I am not just talking about me.

  Travis nods, and I have no question in my mind he knows exactly what I am saying. “New York is a smorgasbord,” he tells me without a bit of sarcasm. “And like it or not, we’re all of us on the menu.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Dear Mom,

  Never come home. Just kidding about that. Mostly. But seriously, whenever we talk you sound like you’re having fun with all your museums and baseball games and Flywheel stuff. And we are beyond having fun. I never want school to start up again.

  Oh! And Dad suggested this AMAZING book. It’s called Mountains beyond Mountains, about this doctor who saved a gazillion lives, and I really, really like it. He told me that he wanted to join you in supporting my reading because you’re right about how important it is and how a lot of life’s challenges will be made easier by reading. I told him your book choices aren’t always my thing, and he said that not everyone likes fiction and he was going to start giving me some true stories that pushed me to think about what I believe and who I want to be as an adult.

  Also Dad says e-readers are soulless and he’s buying me all printed editions for the rest of the summer. I told him paper books are dust collectors and to give me the fifteen bucks and I’d go to the library, and he said, “Here’s thirty bucks. Buy the book and then buy whatever it is you actually want, and we both get to be right.”

  So I’ve been reading for like two hours every day since I got the book, and I cannot stop thinking about it when I’m not reading it. I’m sending that extra fifteen bucks to the doctor’s charity.

  OMG and I almost forgot about the big news, which is weird because it is literally all I think about: So you know how Dad told me I could go to diving camp and Joe would go to Space Camp? Well, Dad didn’t just mean any old college sports camp. He got a spot for me at the Team USA diving camp at Binghamton! I’m going to be coached by the Olympic diving staff! I am, like, Mom, I am exploding with excitement about this. I cannot even express. I am going to be the ONLY one my age there—the rest of the girls are rising seniors, and they are coming from crazy elite programs and getting ready to dive for the best colleges. I don’t know what kind of strings Dad pulled, but he swears they saw my tapes before they agreed to let me in and said I was good enough to hang. He said the coach who processed my application said I would be right in the middle of the pack. The way Dad told me is he sent flowers to my diving practice to arrive right as we were coming out of the weight room, and then he told me to FaceTime him on the card that came with the flowers, and then on FaceTime, he and Joe were holding a banner that said “Congratulations” and they said the news super loud and my entire team heard and everyone started cheering like crazy. I didn’t even know I was being considered—Dad did it all in secret!

  I am. Freaking. Out. Mom. I’m going to email you right now even though it’s like five a.m. I hope you’re coming home before I go. I need you to help me pack.

  Love,

  The happiest diver in America, Cori

  —

  The next morning I get up early, see a flurry of over-the-top excited texts from Cori about Team USA dive camp, and text her a quick congratulations, then text a high-five emoji to John. I had an inkling that if we tried for that camp she might get in, and I told him so, but it’s him who did the work of sending the application and the videos, and him who will foot the bill.

  Then I put my phone on silent and head out for a long walk through Talia’s neighborhood. It’s a perfect summer morning—the cafés are spilling out into the streets, and the sun is finding its way through the buildings, but it’s not yet hot enough to turn the trash cans into Glade odor diffusers gone terribly wrong. This is Nora Ephron’s New York, and I think of her perfectly suited couples and happily ever afters and of Travis, Daniel, Dylan of the perfect teeth, and yes, John. The man who hurt us all so much. The man who is suddenly making my kids so happy.

  When we were struggling near the end, after he’d let me down, after I’d stopped looking to him for emotional support, I was utterly in the thick of American Motherhood. John was only a dabbler in the harder parts of parenting at the best of times, but we had the illusion of marital equality because of his success at work. With the mistaken premise that my stay-at-home work and his accomplished career required equal emotional energy, I couldn’t understand where he got the vigor to worry about his ego being rejected or his sex drive being ignored. For me, it was all hands on deck, between our kids and our house and our work. Sex, passion, romance, I thought, could certainly wait. And maybe some part of me reasoned that when I had suffered a loss, he had been too busy to support me. So what could he possibly ask of me now?

  But now, in the fresh mental air of my momspringa, I start to understand the kind of neglect John must have felt when I fell asleep in one of the kids’ beds every night or stopped kissing him hello and instead threw a preschooler into his arms the minute he walked in the door. At the moment I’m walking in his shoes: my children are cared for by someone else, my days are spent in rich mental exercise, I get plenty of sleep, and I go to the gym every day. In other words, I have the emotional energy to think about desire and how good it feels to be wanted.

  Yes, John had clean pressed shirts without having to ask, and yes, we had family dinners together that looked perfect and tasted as good, and yes, he never had to be on call when Joe started getting bullied for the first time or when Cori’s tampon leaked at a diving tournament. Yet while I was bending over backward to meet his children’s every need, his own were going ignored. And was it the chicken or the egg that started that ball rolling? If he had, only once, driven the carpool in my place, would I have suddenly wanted to greet him at the door in Saran Wrap? Or was I so incredibly consumed with the worry-work of motherhood that no contribution from him would have made me look up from my kids?

  I don’t know. I only know that in this month, when I have gotten time with friends, time for myself, positive attention from men, and yep, a couple of nice new bras, parts of me that were asleep for far too long are starting to wake up. I am seeing my children with a new, longer lens and seeing how grown up they are, how capable. I am seeing John as the lonely, troubled man he was when he walked out on us and understanding, for the first time, what part I played in that. I am seeing Talia’s lifestyle choices—singlehood, careerism, passionate pursuits—as less outrageous and more reasonable than ever before.

  And most startling of all, I am seei
ng myself looking down the barrel of another six years of single parenting, martyrdom, and self-neglect and feeling very, very conflicted.

  —

  Amy:

  Guys. I’m worried

  Talia:

  . . .

  Lena:

  What’s the score, Petit Four?

  Amy:

  I’m starting to worry that I’ll never want to go back to my real life after this.

  Lena:

  Oh Amy. Don’t be silly. You got a new haircut, not a lobotomy.

  Talia:

  . . .

  Amy:

  Are we sure about that? It was an awfully long time at the salon. And I’ve started to have all these weird feelings about my old life. I’ve even started having empathy for John.

  Lena:

  !!! John? Ruh-roh! Where is Talia? We need her right now.

  Amy:

  Her three dots keep appearing and disappearing. She must be carefully considering what to say.

  Lena:

  That doesn’t sound like Talia. It’s two p.m. Three-martini lunch maybe?

  Amy:

  Passed out in her Miami art deco hotel room that looks like a set from Scarface?

  Lena:

  Or Dexter.

  Amy:

  Egad.

  Lena:

  Talia! Are you there Talia? Are you partying with serial killers?

  Talia:

  DAMMIT GUYS I’M TRYING TO WORK

  Amy:

  It’s Sunday!

  Lena:

  Send us proof of life so we know you’re not tied up in Dexter’s basement.

  Talia:

  I’m turning off my phone now.

  Amy:

  But what about my existential crisis?

  Talia:

  I doubt you’ll have it solved before I get this photo shoot bagged and stop paying these idiot people $500 an hour.

  Lena:

  She’s right, you know. These are some complicated things. Freedom and family responsibilities. Past loves and new lovers. Forgiveness and compassion for John—that’s not so bad. In fact, it’s really healthy.

  Amy:

  No. You’re friending wrong. You’re supposed to say that there’s nothing to worry about, John’s a disgusting slime just as always, and my kids can’t live without me.

  Lena:

  Well . . . they can.

  Amy:

  How dare you.

  Lena:

  I’m not saying they’d like it. But, well, let me think of how to say this to you. Is it possible that a lot of your sense of self comes from being needed by your kids? And maybe you secretly always thought they would fall to pieces without you? And the fact that they’re fine with John is making you feel threatened?

  Amy:

  I repeat: how dare you.

  Lena:

  Ok, take some time to process it.

  Amy:

  I will not.

  Lena:

  Maybe Talia will have a different perspective.

  Talia:

  I don’t.

  Amy:

  I need new friends. Dumber friends.

  Lena:

  Just remember you chose us for a reason.

  Amy:

  Forgive me if I’m having trouble remembering what that reason was.

  Lena:

  Looks. It was definitely looks. TTYL girl. Your kids are here.

  Amy:

  What the—

  —

  It turns out that John has started dropping the kids at Lena’s house for two dinners a week. Just knowing that actually makes me feel a lot better. Things may seem to be going smoothly back home, but he’s not running the entire show alone. My neighbor Jackie has been driving them to the pool every Wednesday, and then they’re eating with Lena on Monday and Thursday so that John can do international conference calls in a quiet house. For a moment I feel smug—he can’t do this solo like I can. What a wimp. Then soon after that, I feel silly. Jackie is retired, and her husband is still at work all day. Her kids are off in grad school. It never occurred to me to ask her for help despite the fact that she’s offered it more than once. It never occurred to me to take the kids to dinner with their favorite adult, Lena, and then leave and go do my own thing for a couple of hours. I’ve certainly heard that it takes a village to raise a child, but that doesn’t apply to me, does it?

  Should it?

  I decide to talk all this over with Matt the next time we have lunch. I haven’t let on, but the truth is Lena and Talia thrashing around in the undergrowth of my psyche can actually make me feel a little too vulnerable. I find myself getting defensive (hey, neither of them has kids; they couldn’t possibly understand) and hurt (I don’t joke about their cosmic foibles) and even a little bit abandoned (if I’m such a mess, why haven’t they stepped in before now?).

  Either way, I want to avoid the subject with my girlfriends, but it hasn’t stopped plaguing me. So I ask someone who can’t possibly give me a helpful answer: a twentysomething man.

  Matt just shrugs. “I’m so far out of my pay grade with this stuff, you know,” he admits easily.

  “Just try,” I tell him. “Make uh-huh noises when I talk.”

  “Ok,” he says gamely. “Talk.”

  I inhale. “Basically, you’ve ruined my life. I liked my life before I came here, and I didn’t notice that it was kind of . . . sad and lonely. Now I’ve been on a few dates and taken a little better care of myself, and I guess I am not exactly looking forward to going back to sad-and-lonely town in a few weeks.”

  Matt scratches his chin and tilts his head in thought. “I think you should probably date more.”

  I guffaw. “I tell you I’m abandoning my children and responsibilities and having too much fun doing it. You tell me to . . . have more fun?”

  Matt nods. “Actually, yes. I’m willing to bet you have some wild oats to sow. Get them out there in the dirt, so to speak, and you might find going home to be much easier.”

  “But what if by then I’m not needed at home anymore?”

  Matt shakes his head. “I’m sorry; I can’t answer that right now. I have to call my mom to ask her how to boil water.”

  “Ha. Point taken.”

  “They’re going to need you, if they’re anything like me,” he says. “For, like, ever, or at least until it’s kind of annoying. You gotta get the fun in now while the getting’s good.”

  “And fun is dating?”

  “Well, you seem to like it.”

  I think for a second. He’s right. I do kind of like it. Especially if you count the “friend dates” I’m having with Daniel. He and I have seen each other twice since the bridge walk. Once we just did iced coffees and a walk through Central Park. Another night we went to hear a reading of a favorite author of his and had a late dinner after. Both times it was easy conversation, goofy jokes, and the constant underlying nagging in my mind that I have seen Daniel naked and would enjoy seeing that again.

  “You’re right,” I tell Matt. “I do need to date more. Maybe even more than date.”

  “Hey, hey! Look at you! Got anyone in mind?”

  I pretend my brain doesn’t flash the word DANIEL in my head like a theater marquee. “Nope. The first guy was too arrogant for me. The second one wasn’t feeling me. The third was charming but seemed like a player. I’d love to meet someone that wasn’t so smooth I felt I was on a conveyor belt, you know?”

  Matt nods. “So someone down to earth, knows he’s not perfect, and also a bit more genuine around women?”

  “Exactly,” I tell him. “I think those are hard qualifications to judge based on photos and Twitter feeds.”

  He shakes his head. “But not impossible. Let’s take a look at who we have.” He opens up his Pinterest board. “Who were your vetoes again?”

  “Him,” I say, pointing to his phone. “Him and him. And him too. And he’s one I went out with. Look at those amazing chompers.”

  “Wow!” says M
att. “Those look costly.”

  “And distracting,” I tell him. “I had to practice looking away.”

  “Ok, so let’s add ‘reasonable teeth’ to the wish list. How about this guy?”

  He points to a handsome man with dark-brown skin and gorgeous eyes named Randall. His Twitter feed is earnest and often political, and based on a picture of his apartment bookshelf, we share a lot of the same favorite authors. It’s not a lot to go on.

  “Sure,” I say. I’m very not sure.

  “Great. I’ll set it up. Ok, who else?”

  “One isn’t enough?”

  “No. One isn’t enough. We gotta get those oats sowed, girl.”

  “Ok. Sowing oats. Got it. Then what about him?” I indicate a sexy-yet-rumpled-looking guy with a crooked smile and jet-black hair. He’s got the cutest pair of glasses.

  “Mario,” says Matt. “Thirty-one. Is that too young?”

  “Yes,” I say quickly. Then add, “No. Is it?”

  “I think it’s totally fine. But you have to remember he won’t have grown kids or, like, a retirement plan.”

  “I had a retirement plan at thirty-one.”

  Matt puts his hands up. “I’m just preparing you for reality,” he tells me.

  “Fair enough. But it’s wild oats time. So let’s do it.”

  “Momspringa!” says Matt by way of agreement.

  “And maybe one more?” I say.

  “At least,” Matt says. “I like this one.” He points out a white guy with a silver-fox look. Salt-and-pepper hair, a slight tan, sexy crow’s-feet when he smiles.

  “Ooh,” I say. “That’s a new one.”

  Matt nods. “We did a few more tweets about hashtag momspringa, and you got another round of interested parties. This guy is a partner at a law firm. Hardworking, well traveled, sounds like a fascinating guy.”

  “Ok, then. One too young, one my age, one too old. I like the symmetry.”

  “I’ll get them booked. I take it most of your nights are free?” asks Matt.