Agency

He hung up. I just stared at my phone in shock, wondering where the nice guy I had married had gone.

When I saw reconciliation was going nowhere, I finally thought seriously about signing the divorce papers. It was a fair split of property without any alimony. The one wrinkle though was that, after our last call, my husband filed an emergency motion for full custody, arguing that I did not really want to be a mother in the first place, as evidenced by my time away from my daughter working and by my abortion, and that my admitted mental illness demonstrated that I posed a danger to the child. That goaded me, so my attorney and I immediately opposed the request and filed my own motion for primary custody, arguing that I was receiving treatment, that my condition was easily treatable, that my depression was now under control, and that I was devoted to motherhood 150%. The day after I filed, his attorney withdrew my husband's custody motion and informed the court that my husband had no objection to me having primary custody, which the court promptly granted, while giving my husband liberal visitation rights. I realized then that he had suckered me into stepping up to a parenthood I was still ambivalent about. At that point, I gave up and signed the divorce papers. It was all over but the waiting. Fortunately, the waiting was not that long.

At work one day, I learned that was Rick Margolis and his wife were getting a divorce. Rick blamed me, which made work even less pleasant. Seems my husband shared his suspicions about my lack of fidelity with Rick's wife. She unleashed a private investigator on Rick. Of course, she found nothing involving me, but it seems Rick actually did have a girlfriend on the side that no one knew about, so poor Rick just became collateral damage from the explosion of my marriage.

I eventually quit my miserable job after finding another position that had better hours and lower stress, and that made parenting less of a hassle. I actually started to enjoy parenthood, especially when my mother stepped in to help take care of my daughter, which kept costs down. My ex-mother-in-law helped, too. I could tell that neither one ever got over what I did, but we didn't talk about it.

Now, as my daughter runs around the house after a fun weekend with daddy, talking constantly and bouncing off the walls, I think about how much easier still it would be, if he were here chasing along behind her as he probably would have been otherwise. I also think about how it might have been nice for her to be an older sister but realized those thoughts and feelings were coming to me far too late.

I hear my ex is enjoying his free agency. My daughter, now four and quite the talker, tells me how pretty her daddy's friend Miss Julie is and that Miss Julie and her daddy have their own bedroom in his apartment. I guess my daughter might have some younger brothers or sisters one of these days anyway. Just not with me.