Yeah, well, that stops now. The sadness, the self-doubt, and most definitely the regret evaporate in the heat of my ire. I may have let him bully me our entire marriage—and pretty much our entire divorce, for that matter—but I’m not about to let him bully me about these papers.
I have no fucks left to give, and it feels glorious—so good that I’m ready to break out into a full-on Christmas mass Handel with its eighteen-syllable gloria.
“You know what, Karl?” I interrupt him as he continues going on about how much he and whatever-the-hell-her-name-is want a spring wedding and there are only a few more weeks of spring left to make that happen. “I will take as much time reading—and signing—the divorce papers as I would like. And there is not a goddamn thing you can do about that fact. You’ll get them when you get them, which might just be the first day of summer, the way I’m feeling right now.”
Karl starts making choking sounds about halfway into my diatribe, and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t feel damn good. Whereas the old me might have stopped and checked to make sure he’s okay, the new me doesn’t give two flying farts.
In fact, the new me ends the call while he’s still in mid-splutter, and then I down my nearly full glass of wine in one very unladylike and completely satisfying gulp.
I did it. I hung up on Karl.
I’m a new woman who is broke, yes, and in a world of shit, yes, but I’m a new woman. There’s only one thing to do in a situation like this, and Aunt Maggie must be looking down from above because it’s at that very moment that the record starts over and the needle hits “Come Together.” So I dance right there in the kitchen. All by myself. Drinking straight from the wine bottle. Practically floating on fermented grapes and freedom.
The new me decides to hell with money, to hell with repairs. I’m not selling this house. I’m not moving back in with my parents. And I’m sure as hell not signing the divorce papers until I have an equitable settlement that reflects all the work I put into building Karl’s law firm, not to mention paying for his law degree. The shock has worn off, and I’m no longer the little mouse who let that bastard lock her out of her own apartment without even a squeak of protest.
I fucking ROAR.
If he wants a quick divorce, he’s going to have to pay for it—with my share of what we saved and earned in our marriage.
I add find a killer divorce attorney to my to-do list for tomorrow. I have no idea how I’m going to pay for said divorce attorney, but that’s a problem for another day. As is Mikey’s construction bid and the piles and piles of junk I have to sort through in this house.
Tonight, I’m going to revel in the fact that for once, I’m on the offensive and Karl is the one who is going to have to scramble to make things right.
The thought cheers me up immeasurably—although, not going to lie, my newfound happiness might also have something to do with the amount of wine I consumed in a very short period of time.
Regardless, I drop my phone on the kitchen counter and open more wine. I meander back into the family room without even bothering with a glass.
I put on “Here Comes the Sun” at top volume and move the dance party from the kitchen to the living room with every ounce of energy and determination I have inside me.
It turns out that there’s a lot more than I thought there was, because I dance through half the album—“Because,” “You Never Give Me Your Money,” “Sun King,” “Mean Mr. Mustard,” and “Polythene Pam”—without taking a break longer than the few seconds it takes for me to swig another sip of wine.
But when “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” comes on—my favorite song on the whole album—I stumble to a stop. Holding the wine bottle to my lips like a makeshift microphone, I belt out every word along with Paul, John, George, and Ringo as I twirl and twirl and twirl around the room with my eyes closed.
I don’t stop until the song does, and when it finally winds down, I take another sip of wine, push my now-wild hair out of my eyes, slowly open them, and