Forty Eight: That Day
Every week I met Gabrielle for what were meant to be platonic dinners at local Tulsa restaurants. For the most part, they were just that. We talked about her work, about the divorce, about my kids, about the elaborate September Bar-B-Que that my mother was trying to put together for the whole Hanson family- extended cousins and friends included. Sometimes we talked about my music because things were looking up and the album was almost finished and it. With a few glasses of wine, the conversation usually turned flirtier and more romantic, will you, although we both pretended it didn’t. I never went back home with her. She wouldn’t let me.
With each dinner date with Gabrielle, I returned home to another packed box. Natalie had decided to go back to Georgia. When she first told me, I was honestly shocked. I thought her final decision would be to stay in Tulsa with the family. I didn’t think she’d honestly pack up and take the kids back to Georgia.
“You’re actually going back…?” I thought out loud when she announced it, one Sunday after church. I loosened my tie and kicked my shoes off.
“It makes sense, Taylor. I think I need to spend some time… away from you.”
Why was everyone needing breaks from me? Was I honestly that bad? Jesus…
“Where are you going to live?” She glanced down. Oh no. “You’re not living with your mother. No way. Your mother is a nut, Natalie.”
“Taylor!”
“I won’t have my children under her roof.” Honestly, Natalie’s mother is not really that bad, but she’s a bit neurotic and always has stupid ways of implying that we’re not raising our children correctly. However, she seemed like a perfectly good excuse for why Natalie couldn’t move half-way across the country.
“What else do you propose I do, Taylor? Just continue living here? Live in a box on the street?”
“You’re being dramatic,” I sighed, flopping down on the couch and turning the television on. I was being rude, but I was annoyed. I couldn’t help it.
“Well don’t act like I have so many options!”
I sighed. “Once the divorce is finalized you’ll have a ton of money. Get your own house in Georgia but don’t move back to your moms. I refuse to have to see your mom every time I visit the kids. Which brings me to my next question, how the hell is this going to work out with Ezra and Penny?”
I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t want her to leave. I guess I’d gotten so used to having her around that I was afraid of her leaving… and I was afraid that I couldn’t take care of myself after all those years and that Gabrielle wouldn’t. I was afraid of giving myself an excuse to completely isolate from the children I didn’t want to neglect anymore. Most of all, I felt guilty that I was the reason she had to go crawling back to her hometown.
“We can take turns flying back and forth to see them and everything.”
“This is so stupid…”
“Do you have a better idea, Taylor?” She came and stood in front of the television with her hands on her hips. She was such a cliché sometimes. “You’re sitting here complaining but you have yet to offer an alternative,”
I shrugged. “Get an apartment in Tulsa, or something.”
“And be completely lonely stuck in a town that isn’t even my own? Watching you move on and probably get married all over again and-”
“Why would you say that!?” I clicked the television off and sat up.
“Oh gee, maybe it has something to do with the fact that you proposed before we even decided to get a divorce! You’re so fucking… you’re so… I can’t even say what you are because there’s no word for you.”
We just stared at each other for a moment because neither of us knew what to say. In the silence, I realized, that this wasn’t only similar to what I’d done to Gabrielle. This was the exact same thing. I’d vowed not to dwell on the past, but goddamnit, what was my fucking problem? How could I break two people’s hearts so badly? How could I just leave two woman in the dust while I moved on to my new life- twice?
“Fine,” I muttered and slumped back down against the cushions. “Go back to Georgia. Do what you like.”
She raised an eyebrow because my response sounded nothing like “fine”.
“I’m serious, Natalie. If you want to go back…” I sighed. “Then go back. Do what’s best for you. We’ll make it work for the kids… somehow.”
We might have exchanged a few more words, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was just sitting there wondering how, when you have good intentions and you never mean to hurt anyone, you can end up hurting not one person, but two people so badly. I’d always meant to be loving, and compassionate, and a good, good person. I’d never meant to be a man to break hearts.
The divorce was finalized on October 15th- about two months after we returned from Disney. We honestly expected it to take a lot longer considering all the money involved and two young children, but our lawyer was amazing and Natalie and I agreed on everything.
It was weird… that day. Most of her stuff was already packed up and I’d been sleeping on the couch so she could have the bed. We slept together through part of the divorce, on opposite sides of the bed facing the walls. But eventually even that felt too weird and I brought a quilt downstairs. When we got up in the morning, we carried the kids down to my mother who was doing math with Avery already. It was weird going back upstairs and getting dressed for the last time as a married couple. I wish there was a way I could put divorce into words. I said emotional, but honestly, it’s impossible to describe the feeling. It’s eerie and sad and freeing and uncertain and a bunch of adjectives that I can’t even formulate because it’s so foggy. I put on a black suit and a blue tie. Really basic. Natalie wore a plain black dress. I couldn’t tell if we were mourning or just trying to look professional for the hearing.
We didn’t really talk on the drive over to the court house. I drove us in the Range Rover which we decided I’d keep. We’d get her a new car before she left for Georgia. I think we talked about the brakes on the Range and we had to talk about directions because we got a bit lost and were worried we’d be late, but that was really all we discussed. I guess, looking back, Natalie and I never did have much to say to each other.
We arrived at the court house and parked behind the building. I guess it’s habit for me to park out of site because you never know who’s around and who’s going to recognize your car. Our fans didn’t know about the divorce yet. It was only a matter of time. We were still debating whether or not we wanted to make a final announcement.
When we got out of the car, we just stared at each other for a moment as if we were asking if we still wanted to do it. And we nodded, so we did. It was strange how I reached out and held her hand as we walked in. I think she needed me to, or I needed to, and I wondered how many couples were as calm as we were when they were doing this. I guess, we hadn’t really wronged each other at all. I’d never cheated on her if you didn’t count the years I lusted over Gabrielle. She’d never done anything remotely mean. There was no reason to be bitter. It was just time to become parents and friends rather than husband and wife.
“Ready for this?” I asked her quietly as we walked into the front of the court house.
She gave me a weak smile. “I guess. It feels sort of… weird.”
I nodded. “It definitely feels weird. Heh, I guess it only really feels normal to crazy people who get married like 10 different times… and if getting a divorce feels normal, then you know you have a problem.”
We met our lawyer inside and he said we couldn’t go in for half an hour. There was another hearing in progress. We found a bench to sit on and mostly just stared off into space.
At one point I asked, “Did you ever think you would get a divorced?”
She looked at me. “No. I guess no one ever thinks they will.”
I glanced down at the ground. “I never expected to when I was growing up. My parents were happy and I thought divorce was wrong back then and I figured I’d fall in love once and for all. But when we got married, I was kind of afraid we might.”
She looked hurt. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but it was true. I never was really certain that things would be forever for Natalie and I. How could I be? I didn’t want to marry her in the first place.
“I thought we’d be together until we died…” she confessed.
I looked up at her. “How? Natalie, we were 18 and 19 years old. We didn’t know what we wanted to do. We didn’t really want a baby or a marriage at that time. You had to know it wasn’t perfect.”
“Of course I knew it wasn’t perfect. I guess I just figured it didn’t need to be.”
I didn’t know what to make of her statement, so I just nodded and we stayed quiet until we were called inside the court room. I guess she was right; marriages don’t have to be flawless. But some flaws you can’t ignore… like being hopelessly in love with someone else. If there were no Gabrielle, I might have been able to find happiness with Natalie. But that wasn’t the case. Gabrielle made everything else in my life mediocre and having tasted perfection with her, I could be satisfied with anything less.
The actual hearing was nothing like the ones you see on television. It was slow and boring and there was no one rising from their seats. I don’t even think the judge had one of those wooden hammer things to silence the court. Then again, the only people in the court were the two of us, the judge, and our lawyer, plus a couple of people who worked there. I wondered if they were supposed to be witnesses.
In less than half an hour, it was final. We were divorced. We had no claims against each other, no responses, no matters to dispute. I guess going to court was just for legality sake, although Natalie seemed to know more about the actual logistics of the divorce than me.
We signed what felt like our 100th papers and walked back to my car as single people. Just having the marriage off my shoulders made me feel like a different person. I was a bachelor. A bachelor.
When we got home, nothing really felt different, to be quite honest. She still slept upstairs for her final nights in Tulsa before she drove to Georgia. (Kate was going with her to keep her company and then she was going to fly home.) I hadn’t had a ring on my finger since July so that wasn’t any different.
That night, I took my cell phone outside and laid on a pool chair to call Gabrielle. I’d spoken to Zac about how the divorce felt, but he didn’t really seem to care that much. I needed to talk to someone and I guess… I needed to let Gabrielle know that I was a free man.
“Hey, Taylor, I can’t talk long,” she said as soon as she picked up the phone. I could tell she was driving just by the sounds through the phone and the static. “I’m meeting some OSU friends at some Japanese place for dinner and I can’t find it so I’m sort of lost.”
“Do you need to me to look up something for you? I can use the computer inside.”
“No, I have the address. I’m just blind or something. What’s up?”
I debated whether or not it was an appropriate time to tell her. I hadn’t told her I was going to court that day. I glanced up at the sky, took a deep breath, and figured it was as good a time as any.
“Well… I just wanted to tell you you’re speaking to… a single guy.”
“A what? Sorry. I have bad reception.”
I groaned to myself. C’mon, Gab… this was not how I expected it to be.
“A single guy. The divorce is final. We finalized it today.”
“No way! You didn’t even tell me. Wow… congratulations? I don’t know, what do you say to something like that? How does it feel?”
“I’m not really sure, to be honest. It’s only been half a day so far.”
“Unbelievable. That didn’t take as long as you thought it would.”
“No. It didn’t.”
It was strange… making small talk about the divorce. I think we both wanted to ask- “so when can we start officially dating” but somehow that didn’t feel appropriate. Instead she asked what she usually did- how was Natalie?
“She seems okay, actually. We’ve had some time to let this sink in. I’m going to take her shopping for a new car tomorrow and she’s going to leave sometime this week.”
“Oh, awesome,” she said which let me know that she wasn’t really paying attention anymore. I could tell she was distracted. “Hey, Taylor, help Natalie out for the next few days getting her ready for her trip but then after all that we’ll have to go out to dinner okay? I should come by and say goodbye to her… well… I gotta go though. I’ll talk to you later. I am pulling in to the restaurant right now.”
“Alright. Talk to you later,” I sighed. It was nothing like I pictured. I don’t know if I expected Gabrielle to gasp and insist that she come over to my house immediately for some sweet love making, HAH, but I certainly expected it to be more than just a lame conversation about the length of the divorce and the emotions of my… my ex-wife.
We went looking at cars for her the following day. She knew ahead of time that she wanted to get the Volkswagen SUV- the Toureg. It was pretty easy because we went there right away, test-drove one, picked out a color (she chose Sand), and then signed some papers. I’m not joking when I say that she drove it right off the lot.
We spent the next few days shipping things off to her new apartment in Newnan, Georgia, which I’d helped her find online. We packed her new car. I spent extra time with the kids. I guess I don’t talk about the kids too much, but the honest to God truth is that I was getting a lot better with them. I found myself getting teary eyed the day that I packed Ezra’s big boy bike with training wheels into the U-Haul that I’d had hitched onto Natalie’s car. I watched Ezra and Penny carefully the last few days we were together as sort of a family… trying to memorize their expressions, the way they smelled, how they laughed.
Natalie and I had it worked out that every three weeks I’d fly to Georgia and stay with her for a few days before flying the kids back to Tulsa for a week. Then she’d fly out to Tulsa, stay for a few days, and fly them back to Georgia. It wasn’t ideal. It was going to be costly and tiring, but there weren’t really any other solutions at the time. I wasn’t completely sure how I’d handle being on an airplane with two toddlers by myself for the first time ever, but I figured lots of children’s Nyquil would work. Kidding.
My mother made a really elaborate breakfast the day that they left. We all gathered in the dining room and kitchen to eat and feel what it felt like to all be together for one final time. Gabrielle even showed up to say goodbye to the kids and Natalie until she saw them next. I appreciated that. I wanted to talk to her, be with her, but honestly, my kids felt more important at that moment. I held Penny on my lap and helped her drink from a real cup. I put whipped cream on Ezra’s pancakes. He acted like it was the best thing he’d ever seen.
When it was time for them to leave, everyone hugged them goodbye. Ezra and Penny didn’t really understand what was going on, I don’t think. I was the only one to walk them out to the car. Even Kate hung behind to say goodbye to Zac since they wouldn’t see each other for a few days. I think everyone was giving us our space.
I lifted Penny into her car seat and buckled her in. Natalie did the same with Ezra.
“Drive safely. Don’t go to fast. If you feel tired, pull over and get a hotel room immediately. There’s no rush. I’m sure Kate doesn’t mind,” I instructed, worried about their trip for what was probably the first time.
“We’ll be fine,” Natalie said from across the car as she snapped Ezra’s seat together.
I looked down at my daughter and studied her for a moment. She was beautiful. Had I ever realized how beautiful my daughter’s eyes were? I gave her a small kiss on the cheek and closed the door immediately. It felt too weird. It all felt too weird.
“Taylor, come say goodbye to Ezra,” Natalie instructed.
“I am,” I said and walked over to them. Ezra looked confused and nervous. I figured he would just sit there without any clue as to what was going on, munching on a piece of toast my mother had sent him with, but he honestly seemed upset.
“I’m going to come out and see you in three weeks…” I told him nervously. “And you can show me your new bedroom and everything, okay?”
Oh god. How do you say goodbye to your child… especially your child who you never appreciated when you could? I felt like a bastard. I felt horrible for letting my children have to feel so confused. It was my fault they were moving across the country to new rooms and I was tearing them away from the family they’d always grown up with and…
I turned to Natalie. “Nat, I’m not sure if I can do this. Maybe you should just drive away and I’ll call and talk to him on the phone or something.”
She narrowed her eyes at me and continued holding the door wide open. “Taylor, you say goodbye to your son right now. You owe him that.”
I sighed and swallowed, turning back to a worried Ezra.
“Why aren’t you coming?” He asked me, making it that much harder.
“Because… because I have to stay here and you have to go with Mommy and….”
“Why? I don’t want to go to Georgia. I want to stay here,” he said, his lip trembling and his eyes beginning to fill.
“Of course you want to go to Georgia. In Georgia there’s a brand new room waiting for you with a hundred new toys!” I glanced at Natalie and gave her an apologetic look. Ezra shook his head furiously. “Ezra… I don’t want you to go either… but I’ll come visit you. I promise. And then I’ll take you back here and you can sleep in your old room for awhile.”
He began to cry harder. I don’t think I was saying the wrong things. I just think it was hitting him and he was beginning to understand that everything was going to be different.
I didn’t know what to do so I took him out of his car seat, fumbling with the buckles and everything, and held him in my arms. I let him cry on my shoulder and bounced him gently.
“I know you’re scared…” I said quietly to him. “I’m scared too. But you’re going to be okay. You’re going to go on a fun trip with Mommy and Kate and maybe even stop for ice-cream… and then you have to call me and tell me all about your new bedroom and tell me if there are any cool neighborhood kids living by your new house. I bet you’ll live around lots of other kids in Georgia. Will you do that for me? Will you call me and tell me?”
Still crying, he nodded.
“Are you going to listen to my songs in the car? Are you going to listen to Daddy sing on the drive to Georgia? I hope you do…”
He nodded again.
“I wonder if Mommy will let you play at a McDonald’s playground on the ride there. Do you think?”
He pulled away from me and looked at my face, nodding. “And I can go down all the big slides, right?”
I wiped his cheeks and nodded. “I bet you can. But you can’t have any fun! Not a bit of fun! Do you hear me?” I ticked his sides.
He giggled and squirmed. “No!”
“Nope. Not a bit of fun. No having fun with Mommy and Kate! I don’t want to hear about any fun at all.”
He laughed and tried to tickle me back. “I am going to have fun!”
“You better not,” I smiled at him and kissed his cheek. It was ironic how it took my children leaving for me to act like a real Dad. Kate stepped out of the house and I figured that was my cue to put him down and send them on their way. “Give me a great big hug that will last until I see you next.”
He hugged me tightly and for the first time in probably ever, I hugged my son with every cell of my body. I hugged him like I never wanted to let him go. Then I carefully set him back into his seat and began to buckle him up again.
“I don’t want to go…”
“Well you don’t want to stay here. Because when you leave I’m just going to do boring stuff like take naps and eat broccoli. Do you want to do that?”
“No!” he smiled.
“Alright, well you better go or Penny is going to have all the fun without you.”
Once he was all buckled up I gave him a final kiss on the cheek and said quietly, “I love you.” The words, which probably should have felt foreign, felt completely natural.
“I love you Daddy,” he said back, and I had to close the door immediately or else I would have cried in front of him and I had to be a man.
I turned to Natalie who was watching us. We gave each other a look that I would describe as “this sucks”.
“Like I said…” I began.
“I’ll drive safely.”
I nodded.
“I can send one hundred toys to your new house if you want me to,” I smiled at her. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure it out.”
I nodded again.
“I guess… this is it,” she looked at the gravel and shoved her hands into her pockets.
“I guess so. Does it feel like you expected it to feel?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
“I didn’t know what to expect.”
We reached in and clutched each other tightly in a hug that I hoped would imply a future friendship and bond between us. I didn’t want to lose her completely. I had enough invested with Natalie that losing her completely would be painful.
“I already have a plane ticket to Atlanta for November 12th. I’ll send gifts for Ezra’s birthday next week. Call me and let me know how you’re all doing and everything.”
She nodded. “We will. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to you soon.”
We stepped away from each other and without another glance, she turned and got into the car. I looked across the front of the car at Kate who gave me a small wave.
“Be safe,” I told her and she nodded. As Natalie started up the car, I glanced into the back where my youngest child was beginning to fall asleep and Ezra was pressing his face against the glass. Oh god, not the face against the glass. It was going to make me fall apart.
I gave him a small wave and I noticed he began to cry. As Natalie waved at me in the side view mirror, I began to cry too. I stood there waving as my family that had fallen apart, at my request, began to drive away without me. When they were out of sight and I could see the gates closing at the bottom of the driveway, I turned back to the house and let myself cry harder. I felt ridiculous but I had never had so many emotions coming at me at once. Maybe when I found out Natalie was pregnant, but not since then. I was devastated and regretful but relieved and hopeful all at once, and it was those feelings of hope that charged my guilt. How could I feel at all happy about what I’d caused?
I needed somewhere to go… somewhere to be where I could just cry to myself. I glanced at my Range Rover parked in the garage and hurried over to it. As soon as I was inside behind the comfort the closed doors, I buried my head into the leather of the back seat and cried freely without wondering about who could hear me or how stupid I looked.