Page 11 of Love Complicated

The first day of school. Every parent dreads this day, don’t they? Maybe not the stay-at-home moms, but I do for the simple fact that my time with them is so limited since Austin and I have split up. I’ve only worked part-time since they were born but still, I love their little boy faces, and pretty soon they won’t be little boy faces anymore. They’ll be I-hate-parental-authority-teenage faces soon.

Another deep breath and I’ve controlled myself enough to make my way to the front of Lake Shore Academy. It’s a private school in Calistoga, and theonlyelementary school in the small town that houses pre-K-8thgrade. It certainly wouldn’t have been my first choice for schools, but I went here, so it only seemed natural for our kids too.

In the distance near the doors leading into the school, I spot the boys, both looking up at Austin as he talks to them.

Have you noticed Austin yet? He’s the one with the burly linebacker shoulders and wearing a black business suit with his dark wavy hair curling up around his ears. That’s my soon-to-beex-husband. Austin “the cheater” Jacob.

When he notices me walking up only because the boys run to me, he smiles. That same smirk I used to fall for. Sometimes I think he flashes it my way these days just to set me off. Why else would he?

The closer I get—the more he smirks—lips pulled up on the left side just like he did when we were younger. It’s the same smirk he had when he watched me walk down the aisle, my hands shaking, my heart trembling. Nothing mattered back then butthat smirkand the way it turned me to mush.

I can’t tell you why I’m getting the smirk now, but I know it can’t be good.

And for the love of everything holy, please tell me you’re not falling for his smirk too? If you are, excuse me while I gag.

Okay, I get it. I fell for the smirk. The pretty blue eyes, but mostly, the crooked grin that got me to take a ride in his lifted Ford one summer night. But I was also sixteen, fresh off a broken heart and optimistic not every experience with love would turn out shattering me. So after everything I’ve told you, you, my friend, should know better than to fall for the smirk.

Before you think he can’t be as bad as he seems, let me tell you something else about Austin Jacob that might change your mind.

He served me divorce papers on our sons’ eighth birthday.

Still think that crooked grinning motherfucker is cute?

Didn’t think so.

Now, do you see those two little boys at my feet with their father’s eyes and smile? They’re my world. Cash and Grady. After sixteen hours of labor on a sweltering August afternoon, I brought these identical twins into the world. Delivered them, with the help of drugs but my vagina, she’ll never be the same and neither will my bladder.

Cash doesn’t make eye contact with me, but still, he hugs me when I kneel down to their level and examine their clothes. Immediately I’m judging Austin’s ability to parent based on what they’re wearing. They’re both wearing black Nike shorts and white and gray shirts. Matching.

Let me tell you something about my boys. Since they turned four, theyhateto match.

“Did Daddy dress you?”

Grady frowns, chewing on the inside of his cheek nervously. If you didn’t know the boys, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart by just a glance at them. Believe me, I’ve called them by each other’s names before, and it doesn’t go over well. Here’s a tip for you. While they both have intense blue eyes, Grady’s left eye has a fleck of brown in it where Cash’s doesn’t. Their personalities are vastly different too. I also confused them at birth, and I think maybe one is the other, but I can’t be sure, and I’ve just gone with it ever since.

“Brie dressed us,” Cash mumbles when Grady doesn’t say anything. “I hate it.” He pulls at the front of his shirt. “I look dumb. Do you have any clothes in the car?”

“No, I cleaned it out last week,” I tell him, smoothing out his shirt and adjusting his backpack, so it’s on his shoulders and not hanging off him.

I don’t know why, but just the thought of Brie touching my boys, let alone dressing them sends my heart into a rage, and I want to smash more than her windows out. The thought of what I did to her car this morning makes me laugh. Out loud.

“What’s funny?” Cash asks.

I turn to my left where he’s standing with his hands on my shoulders. “Nothing, honey. Just so happy to see you both this morning it made me smile.”

“I don’t want to go to school,” Cash whines, clinging to my side. “I want to go home.”

Divorce is hard on kids. Not only on the wife who never saw the divorce coming (or maybe that’s just me who was oblivious for so long) but on the kids too. They like stability and familiarity. In an instant, their whole lives are changed. Suddenly they have to start staying at someone else’s house and splitting their time with their parents. Not to mention when the husband is trying to work the new girlfriend into the mix. I can’t even imagine what they must be thinking or feeling.

I touch their heads and pull them to my chest for a hug. “I know, guys, but hey, after school guess who gets to come get you?”

Grady draws back first, then Cash, and they both stand in front of me, familiar blue eyes troubled beyond their eight years. “You?”

“Yep. I’ll come get you from school at three thirty, and then we’ll go home for a snack, and then you have football practice tonight.”

They both nod and watch the kids around them, most holding hands with their parents to the front door of the school. Don’t think I don’t notice that every single one of these kids hasbothparents beside them. Happy parents who are still married. Divorce in our town just doesn’t happen, which makes this even harder on the boys.

I hold their hands, hoping to provide a little comfort in the vast uncertainty they’re facing today. Parents aren’t allowed in the school anymore for the safety of the children in the classrooms, and while I appreciate it, I’m sad I can’t walk them to the door and make sure they make it okay.

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