The Divorce Party

“No. But will you tell your therapist that we do? It makes us sound better.”

“Mom, this isn’t funny.”

“Well, it’s a little funny.”

She looks at her daughter, who looks very upset—though, Gwyn guesses, not exactly for the reasons she is saying. Yes, it must be hard for her to think of her parents separating. Gwyn imagines that it is particularly hard for her right now when she doesn’t want to think about anyone separating. When she has to deal with the fact that her family is constantly worried her relationship may be next.

“You know what? Please don’t be so transparent, Mother. I see that look in your eyes. This has nothing to do with me and Denis, or me being worried about Denis and me, or whatever else you think that I’m putting on you and Dad. We’re fine. We’re great.”

Gwyn puts up her hands in surrender. “I’m just trying to explain that tonight is a nice thing. There’s a reason divorce parties are getting popular around here. We’ve gone to three this year alone. There’s another later this month, Syril and Maureen Livingston, you know the screenwriter couple from up the block?” She directs this question to Nate. “They wrote that terrible love-on-a-plane heist film a few years back. Anyway, they had a beautiful one, and said that it made it a lot easier for their twins to come to terms with their decision, to feel good about it.”

“Aren’t their twins six years old?” Georgia says.

“And?” Gwyn says.

Georgia pushes away from the countertop. “I’m going to lie down,” she says. “Before I say something I’ll regret.” She pats her brother on the shoulder. “You try.”

“I’m on it,” Nate says, but he looks distracted.

“Wait,” Gwyn says.

Georgia starts to leave, but Gwyn hands her the pile of divorce literature, which has made its way into the kitchen. She puts Loving Divorce on the top—the best book she has found about all of this.

She has dog-eared the chapter about divorce parties, why they are a good idea, how they help a family heal. How, if done right, they help a family appreciate that there are many forms of love, many forms of staying together, even if apart.

“Excellent,” Georgia says. “Are we done here?”

Gwyn nods. “If you want to be,” she says. And she watches her daughter go—her daughter, who, from the back, doesn’t look at all pregnant, doesn’t look at all different from how she’s always been.

“So,” she says, turning back to Nate. “Do you hate me too?”

Nate looks at her. “No.”

She puts on her apron, reaches under the kitchen sink for her biggest mixing bowl, its matching oversize spoon. “Well, that’s something,” she says.

“Though I just can’t help but think you shouldn’t have let me bring Maggie here for the first time during all of this, Mom. This is a lot for someone to walk into.”

She puts the spoon down. “You knew we were having this party. You even knew how big it was going to be.”

“I wasn’t thinking what that meant.”

“And whose fault is that?”

Nate is quiet. “Maybe mine.”

Gwyn moves the ingredients around the bowl, takes out the ripped, yellowed recipe—marked RED VELV on top in marker— as if she needs the recipe, as if she doesn’t know it by heart. She looks up at her son. “I didn’t want that,” she says.

“Which part?”

“The part that makes you uncomfortable. I don’t want that. You know I don’t.”

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nbsp; He runs his hand through his hair, the way he does when he is trying to make sense of things—seven-year-old Nate, thirty-three-year-old Nate—and then, with a small smile, he gets off the stool and goes to the sink and starts washing his hands. He dries them on his own jeans, turning back toward the countertop, untying the shortening bag. He dumps three cups into the bowl, chef eyes it as close enough, and starts looking for the coconut extract to create the puddle in the middle of it.

“What are you doing?” she says.

“What do you think?”