by M. E. Carter
Drew lets out a big breath and a wide smile crosses his face.
“Thank you, Victoria. Drew,” Anne says, “Look at Victoria and tell her what you think.”
“I didn’t tell you this, but last night while you were in the shower, I already made contact with one of those groups, and I’m supposed to go to a meeting tomorrow.”
Victoria’s hands fly up to cover her mouth.
“I want us to stay in therapy and do that class you talked about and go to this group at least once a week. I love you, Victoria. I know I can get a handle on this, I know I can. And when I do, I know you’ll get a handle on your fears, too. I’m all in if you are.”
Victoria nods and throws her arms around his neck, hugging him tight. We give them a moment to bask in their joint victory. When Victoria finally breaks away, she wipes the tears from under her eyes and Drew tucks her under his arm. I smile seeing my new friends save their marriage. They deserve it.
Over the next hour, we watch as all the couples in our group stand in front of each other and make some hard decisions regarding their relationships. It’s not always happy. Some of them are sad. Carrie and her husband Stephen refuse to make eye contact and keep their arms crossed, both stating they want out. Several members of the group sniffle as Carrie and Stephen say their goodbyes. No one wants to see a marriage break apart, but sometimes, sometimes the damage is just too much to come back from.
“Mariana,” Anne says, and my eyes snap up to hers, “Santos, are you guys ready?”
Santos takes me by the hand and leads me to the middle of the group. This is it. The moment of truth for both of us.
“Santos, why don’t you start?”
He takes a deep breath and smiles at me. “Mari, I have never loved anyone as much as I love you. And I know I never will. I want to make this work. I’m committed to you and our family. I vow to you I will give you total transparency from now on.”
I close my eyes as I feel the tears well up. He takes my hand in his.
“No more parties. No passwords on my phone or email or anything. You have total access to all of it. I want to get into therapy, not just marriage counseling but individual therapy, too, so I can figure out how I got to this place, so I never go there again. I will spend my entire life making it up to you and proving to you that you are the sexiest, most beautiful woman in the entire world. I’m all in, baby.”
I look up at him and smile at his sincerity. He looks so happy. So relieved. So complete.
“Thank you, Santos,” Anne says. “Mariana, look at Santos and tell him what you want.”
My heart is pounding and I feel flushed. I don’t want to do this now, but I’m out of time. I take a deep breath and before I lose my nerve, I speak.
“Santos, I love you, so, so much. There is no doubt that you are the love of my life. No one would ever compare to what we have had as friends, as lovers, as family.”
His smile widens, and I feel a pang in my chest.
“But love isn’t enough.”
His smile falters as I pull my hand out of his grip. “Mari?” he breathes.
“I know you feel regret, I know you do. And I know you have the best intentions for it to never happen again. But it’s easy to follow through with your newfound commitment when you’re in the height of the drama. What happens, though, when things return to normal? How can you guarantee you won’t fall back into the same patterns then?”
He takes a step closer, and I hold my hand up to stop him.
“No. Hear me out.” I close my eyes and take a moment to re-organize my thoughts. “Transparency is great when you’re in town or in the off-season. But what happens when you go on road trips? I’m not saying you’ll fall off the wagon. You might not. But not knowing if you’re drinking and making bad decisions, or what women are throwing themselves at you, Santos, every time a little piece of me would die.”
“You want me to quit soccer? Will that make it better? I’ll do it.” He sounds frantic.
“And have you resent me for making you choose between me and your passion? No way. I would never do that to either of us. Look, I’ve thought a lot about what you said the other day, about watching some other man raise your kids from a distance. That won’t happen. I’ve resigned myself to being alone from now on. Because I will never, ever be able to find a love like this one. It was once in a lifetime.”
My breath hitches and tears slide down my cheeks.
“But for my own sanity, for my own emotional well-being, we have to stop this.”
He swallows. “What about last night?” he whispers.
I feel my lip quiver and I sniff. My voice, barely above a whisper. “Last night was goodbye.”
A sob escapes Santos’s throat and he grabs me, hugging me to him. I wrap my arms around him knowing it’s the last time I will be hugging him like this. The last time I will hug my husband. We stand there, crying in each other’s arms for minutes, maybe hours, grieving for ourselves, for our children, for each other. All under the watchful eye of our group, who silently protects us in our last intimate moment together.
“OOMPH!”
The sheer force of my entire body meeting the ground causes me to forget everything else outside of this moment of pain.
“Again!” I yell and take my position back on my knees and Daniel lobs kick after kick at me. Trying to block shots from the position is almost a guarantee that I’ll end up with bruises up and down my body, but that’s the point. Pain on the outside makes me forget about pain on the inside.
“OOOMPH! Again!”
“What the fuck, man?” Daniels yells back, as he sets up for another kick. “I can’t pepper these at you that fast. There’s no way you’ll be ready. It’s a waste of our time.”
I get in position, ignoring his concerns. “I said again!”
“Santos!” I look to the sidelines as Coach waves me over.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath, stumbling to my feet and trudging in his direction.
It’s been three weeks since Mariana dropped a bomb on the life I thought I was rebuilding, and obliterated it all. It goes without saying that things have been tense between us ever since. I’m not sure how to talk to her or what to even say. She knows how I feel. But she knows that’s not enough.
Once the shock wore off and I stopped being so upset, I got angry. Angry that nothing I can do will change Mari’s mind. Angry that she won’t accept my apologies and believe me when I say things have changed. Angry that she gets to just walk away from this marriage with my entire life in the palm of her hands, and I walk away with nothing. Nothing of importance, anyway.
So I spend my days working my ass off doing drills during practice and being aggressive on the field. It’s the only thing that helps, however small that help is.
“What the hell is the matter with you, Santos?” Coach asks. “Your form is off, you’re killing yourself on drills that aren’t even effective with the way you’re doing them, and it’s obvious your head isn’t on straight. You having problems out there?”
“No sir,” I pant, hands on my hips.
“You having problems in here?” he asks, tapping my forehead once. I’ve got to give it to the man. He can read almost all his players like a book. He just rarely admits to it.
I scratch my jaw and shuffle back and forth on my feet to stay warm. “I’ve got mediation this afternoon.”
“Shit,” he mutters. “Final orders?”
“Yes, sir.”
He sighs. “I’m sorry, Santos. This kind of situation is never fun.”
I nod once but refuse to look him in the eye. I don’t need anyone’s pity, least of all my coach’s. He needs to know I can still do my job, no matter what’s going on off the field.
“What time is your meeting?”
“1:00.”
“Shit, boy, that’s in just over an hour.”
“Yes, sir.”
He sighs. “Were you just going to not go?”
“No sir. It’
s just a couple minutes from here. I was just gonna leave right after we’re done with drills.”
“I think you need to go ahead and leave now.”
I finally make eye contact. “I don’t need to do that. It won’t take me that long to get ready.”
“No, it won’t. But your head isn’t where it needs to be, and you’re training your body the wrong way with every badly formed play. Hit the showers.”
“Yes, sir,” I say sheepishly and head for the locker room to shower.
And hour later, I’m sitting in the mediation room, dressed in a fucking suit, waiting. I stare out the window, looking at nothing, remembering everything. The way Mari felt that last night we were together. The way her eyes closed and she clung to me as she orgasmed. The smile on her face as she kissed me. I rub my chest, trying to get my heart to stop hurting so badly.
I look up when the door opens and Dennis walks in and sits down at the table.
“Santos, Ron,” he says, greeting me and my attorney. “With the way things ended last time, I was hoping we wouldn’t end up back here. I take it the RYM conference wasn’t as successful as we’d hoped?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I thought it was going to be, but I was wrong.”
He glances at Ron, who says nothing, nods once, and continues.
“Well then, let’s get started.” He shuffles some papers and clicks open his pen. “If you’re still agreeable, we’ll put in the standard order on custody, where she maintains physical possession of the children, but you get them a minimum of every other weekend and every Thursday night.”
“That’s not how we usually do our visitation.”
“I understand that. And you can continue with whatever schedule you both already agree on. This just goes in the order so a judge can enforce it if for some reason the current agreement ends up not working out for one, or both of you.”
Ron leans forward in his chair. “Santos, it’s just a protective measure to ensure you are able to see your children, even if Mariana were to stop being so amicable. That’s all it is.”
“Ok. That’s fine.” I run my hands through my hair. “Just make sure she knows I want to continue with what we’re doing right now.”
“I will. What about all the assets?” He shuffles through more papers. “I see you have a savings account, a retirement account through your job, and you’re in the process of selling the house?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t going to, but I don’t need that much room and Mari doesn’t want it. Just give her half of everything. That’s fair, considering she put her own career on hold to support me in mine.”
“That sounds reasonable enough.” He gathers the notepad he’s been writing on and his papers and stands up. “I’ll go see what she has to say and be right back.”
He leaves just as quietly as he arrived.
“I’m sorry the conference didn’t end the way you wanted it to,” Ron offers. “At least you can say you have no regrets now.”
“I guess. Or I can say I wasted two thousand bucks just to have my wife call it quits at the last minute.”
“You sound bitter.”
I scoff. “I am. I’m sitting in a fucking mediation I don’t want, for a divorce I don’t want, so I can be a bachelor again, which I really don’t want. Yeah. I’m fucking bitter.”
He sits back in his chair, not willing to engage me in any more conversation. Wise decision on his part. I’ve held myself together for this long, but there are no guarantees how long my self-control will last.
My thoughts drift off again to the last night Mari and I were together. I thought we were reconnecting. I thought it was her way of showing me that she forgave me and trusted me again. I was so wrong and I can’t help but feel duped.
The door opening once again breaks me from my thoughts.
“I’m not sure you’re going to like her response,” Dennis warns, as he takes a seat. “She agreed to the custody arrangements and standard child support. You are always welcome to give her more, but that would be considered a gift. It’s not actually what you’re ordered to pay.”
I nod in response so he knows I’m listening.
He pushes his glasses up his nose before speaking again. “Mariana thinks that all the liquid assets need to be divided amongst the family, not amongst the two of you.”
“What does that mean?” Ron asks, saving me the trouble.
“She believes since she has physical custody of the children, and they are expensive to raise, she needs to ensure they’ll be cared for no matter what.”
“I’m not understanding what you mean,” I admit. I feel like he’s talking in circles.
“She wants to divide all the assets equally between you both and the children. And she wants eighty percent.”
“Now wait just a minute— Ron begins.
“Done,” I interrupt.
“What?” Ron looks stunned.
“She has spent the last ten years taking care of me and taking care of them. And she’s going to spend another seventeen years raising my children. Give her eighty percent. I don’t care.”
Ron looks at me and shakes his head. “Santos, I don’t think this is a wise idea.”
“I don’t care what you think about it,” I snap at him. He reels back and wisely says nothing else. “I agree to it. Are we done? Can I go now?”
“I need to type it all up and get your signature. But as soon as you sign, you’ll be free to go.”
“Ok.”
“Remember, Santos. This is the only time you’ll get to negotiate. Once you sign this, you’re signing away your right to negotiate again. These are the permanent orders that will be on your divorce decree.”
“Good. That means I won’t have to do this again.”
He pauses momentarily, presumably to get his bearing straight. As he pushes his chair away from the table, he concedes, “Ok. I’ll be right back, then.”
For the next ten minutes, Ron and I sit in silence. He’s unhappy with me for basically giving Mari everything, but I don’t have it in me to give a shit. At this point, I just want this divorce over. I’m tired of living in limbo, and since Mari has made it clear there is no chance for us, I want to get it over with.
When Dennis finally returns, fourteen minutes later which is fourteen minutes longer than I wanted to wait, he hands me several papers.
“Read through these and make sure it’s what you want.”
“I don’t need to. I trust you.” Ron scoffs but I ignore him. “Where do I sign?”
Pointing the areas out with his pen, Dennis directs me on where to sign.
“You’ll need to initial in the bottom right corner of every page. This is to say you’ve read each individual page.”
I ignore him as well and scrawl my initials.
“And you’ll sign on the last page, on the line above your name.”
Quickly, I make my way through each set of initials and sign my name where he told me. Tossing the pen on the table and handing him back the papers, I stand.
“We done here? Can I go?”
Dennis nods. “Your part is finished.”
“Cool. Thanks for your help.” I turn to my attorney. “Ron, let me know if you need anything else from me.”
I charge out the door, not bothering to close it behind me and stride out of the office, leaving my marriage in shambles behind me.
“Don’t worry. You’re not the only one who is going to be a few minutes late. These elevators always take this long.”
I look around before realizing he’s talking to me. The tall, very handsome man in a suit is talking to me.
“I’m sorry?” I ask like I’m completely disheveled, which I guess I am so it’s not a huge stretch to come off that way.
“The elevators.” He gestures toward the lifts. “You look nervous and keep looking at your watch. I just thought it would make you feel better to know everyone runs late. They’re used to it upstairs.”
“Oh. Actually, that does make me
feel better. Thank you.” I smile at him and look back up at the indicating numbers, willing them to come down faster.
“What court are you headed to?” the tall, handsome suit asks me.
“Um, the five-oh-seventh.”
“Ah.” His face changes subtly. “Divorce court. You’ll be fine. They schedule a bunch of cases at once. They’ll never even know you’re late.” I can’t tell if he’s feeling bad for me or was initially flirting and now… now he’s just not.
“Thank you. I’ve never done this before so I’m a bit on edge.”
He nods in acknowledgment and the elevator doors finally open, people spilling out. I never know how that many people can fit in one of these things. As the crowd thins, the rest of us clamor on, trying not to miss it, knowing we’ll have to wait again if we do.
Almost all the light-up buttons are glowing, which makes for a long trip up to the eighth floor. By the time I get out, I’m fifteen minutes late for my scheduled hearing time.
“Where have you been?” my attorney, Cheryl, asks as she rushes toward me.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t find a parking lot or parking garage anywhere. I had to circle about twenty times before I found one, and then I had to park on the roof and it didn’t even have an elevator.”
“Oh, I’ve parked there before. I hate that one.” She leads me to the double wooden doors. “I’ve already signed us in so we’re on the roster to go any time now. Since we’ve already done our mediation, this will be very cut and dry. When we stand in front of the judge, don’t say anything unless she asks. You ready?”
“No. But yes.”
She shoots a sad smile at me. “That’s the best you can possibly be right now.” She pulls the door open and ushers me in. “Go ahead and have a seat. They’ll call us in just a second.”
The court room is noisier than I expected. It’s not loud, but it’s just not silent like I thought it would be, especially with the judge already sitting on the bench. There is a line of people, I assume they’re attorneys, that appear to be checking in with someone behind a computer. A couple dozen people sit on the benches. I sit quietly like Cheryl instructed and just observe.
