Page 34 of Due At The Same Time
I didn’t think I’d be getting that Chair position and now everyone knew that I was obsessed with my ex and she had moved on.
To complete my misery, on the way home I passed by Indi and Finn, walking hand in hand on their way to the park. He had a picnic basket on his arm and her Stanley cup cradled in his biceps, and I was stricken with such insane jealousy that my eyes clouded with bitter, regretful tears.
Astrid was sitting on the porch when I got back, sipping a big glass of milk.
She looked angrily over at me.
“Your baby is taking up so much space even milk gives me heartburn and I’ve got the squirts from your horrible cooking and I can’t walk to the mailbox without getting Braxton-Hicks contractions andyou,” here she paused to take a deep breath, her bloodshot eyes glaring at me as she struggled for words. “I heard about your stupid poetry,” she finally spat. “What is wrong with you?”
There was silence for a minute as I tightened my hold on my briefcase.
“I’m still in love with Indi,” I said.
“Fuck you,” Astrid said, beginning to wail. “Stealing youawayfrom her was supposed to be fun and awesome and exciting. Not this.”
I had nothing to say, because I couldn’t believe I had cheated on Indi.
And I had compounded my initial stupidity by not immediately falling to my belly and begging for her forgiveness because the explanation, such as it was, for my behavior, was so shamefully stupid and moronic that I couldn’t bear to have her know how utterly dumb I had been.
And so instead I had stalked out and gotten together with Astrid, who was as pleased as a cat with cream, but I could only delude myself for so long.
“Why does she get everything I want?” Astrid cried, the lines of mascara tracing down her cheek in rivulets. “She gets my first choiceandmy second choice. It’s not fair!”
And I still had nothing to say.
The next day, I sat at the kitchen table and took out a big piece of lined paper. My life was godsdamn falling apart but I didn’t give a fuck. If I could fix this one thing, fix it with Indie, nothing else mattered.
DE-OPTIMIZED PERSONAL CHOICES RE: INDIGO I wrote.
It was time to figure out how I had fucked up the best thing that ever happened to me.
The biggest fuck-up had been with Astrid but what else? Indi had said there were other factors in her decision to get divorced.
I sunk my head in my hands and began to think.
Domestic chore disparity? I ran over our chores. We had taken turns cooking, doing the dishes. I had arranged and hired a cleaning service, even someone to wash and fold our laundry.
Sex? Except at the end, we’d always had a fucking phenomenal sex life. Indi was the hottest woman I’d ever seen inmy life, and I always made sure she came first, at least once if not more.
So what was it?
What were those mistakes I had made?
My eyes caught a motion outside and I looked over the hedges, to see Dad and Indigo in her front room.
Due to heavy rain last week, the baby showers had been delayed and would take place soon.
Indi was wearing a white T-shirt and her 36 week bump was really popping out, all of her already lush curves looking even more overflowing and tempting.
I was so jealous of everything to do with her. Finn for getting to go to every maternity appointment with her. Even my father for getting to sit on the floor with her setting up a Christmas train. It wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet, but Indi liked to get the whole house decorated early.
Damn, was he bothering her? I put my hands on the table, getting ready to go tell him to leave her alone, because the last thing I wanted was for my ex-wife I was still wildly in love with to be pissed off at me for dumping my visiting father on her, but then I paused.
Indi was havingfun. The two of them were setting up the train set carefully, Indi cross-legged on the floor, her belly poking out from under her T-shirt. There was a newspaper between them, and I wondered for a moment if they were looking over the daily horoscope.
Indi had always liked doing that, wanted to do my star chart or some such bullshit, but I had had no time for such unscientific foolishness.
But now. . . I’d do anything as long as it was with her.
