He sighs on the other end of the phone. “Fine. This time, we’ll do it your way, but I’m going to talk to my lawyer about a set visitation, holiday, and summer schedule for Tommy. And the divorce. Have you gotten a lawyer yet? We’re going to need to sell the house and divide our assets and money. You can’t just keep everything.”
“I’m not trying to just keep everything. You left. I didn’t have a choice, remember?”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just stressed out.”
I laugh sarcastically. “Stressed out from what? All the fun you’re having with your new girlfriend?”
“Look, this has been hard on me too, Ivy.”
“I’d like to feel bad, Paul, but I can’t because all of this was your choice. The kids and I are the ones who have had to deal with the side effects of your affair.”
“I’m not going to argue with you, Ivy. We never used to fight.” I can’t believe he just said that to me. It’s true, though. Paul and I rarely ever fought the entire length of our relationship. We always talked things over calmly and reached decisions together. Neither one of us were ever the type to get mad and yell at each other. It wasn’t until he started to ‘work late’ that the arguing began.
“Isn’t that strange?” I ask him. “We never fought and were always happy together, yet you still had an affair and left.” I know I should stop making comments, but I can’t seem to control myself.
“Ivy, please.”
“Fine. You can pick the kids up the day after Christmas. You’re supposed to have Tommy this weekend. Are you picking him up today from school? He has a bag of clothes with him.” Macy has decided she doesn’t want to spend alternate weekends at her dad’s house, and I’m not making her. She’ll be going to college soon; I can’t be forcing her to spend weekends with Paul and his girlfriend.
“Yes, I’ll be there to pick him up.”
Biting my lip, I’m not sure if I want to ask him what I’m thinking about. “Paul . . . How is Tommy when he’s with you?”
He takes a few long moments to answer me, which fuels my suspicions that I’m not going to like his answer. “Well . . . he seems confused. He asks me to bring him home a lot. He asks me why I won’t come back home. He’s only seven, Ivy, so he really doesn’t understand what’s going on, but I think in time he’ll be okay. Charlene is trying really hard to be nice to him.”
I empty the bag from the beauty store onto the coffee table. “Trying to be nice?” I repeat. “Is it hard for her?”
“She’s not really used to kids. She wasn’t expecting to have a seven year old every other weekend. We’re working it out.”
I want to smack both of them for being so selfish and thoughtless. “She was having an affair with a married man who has two kids,” I say to him, trying to keep my tone calm. “Obviously, she thought, someday, she was going to get you to leave me. What did she think was going to happen to your children?”
“I don’t know.”
“I suppose this is what happens when you date someone so much younger without any children,” I reply, and immediately turn those words around on myself. Would I be getting into the same mess by dating Lukas?
“Charlene likes kids. It’s just a lot all at once.”