Should Have Known Better

“You wouldn’t dare,” she said as my attorney got ahold of me again. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

My mother had prepared what can only be described as Thanksgiving dinner. There was a turkey. A ham. Sweet potatoes from her garden. Macaroni and cheese. Stuffing. Gravy. Everything. There was so much food on the dining room table, we had no place to put our plates.

“Is it Thanksgiving?” R. J. asked, looking around the table as we took our seats.

“No, just a special dinner,” my mother said. “I wanted you two to know how happy your mama and I are that you’re ho

me.”

“Home? This is our home?” R. J. looked around. I was so afraid he’d shut down with all of the changes, but he was more talkative than ever. He’d talked all the way from the courthouse.

Cheyenne was the one who was quiet. More than usual. She was still keeping her distance, but I let her know that I was fine. I was her mother and her place was with me. I wouldn’t want it any other way. A psychologist who had met with the twins before we left the courthouse said she’d take some time to come around. I shouldn’t push. I just needed to be consistent.

“Every head bowed, every eye closed,” my mother said proudly.

We gathered hands around the table.

I didn’t bow my head and I didn’t close my eyes. I just watched everyone. I looked at my family, looking like a family.

11

I was a part of the crowd laughing at the punch bowl at the HHNFH meeting now. I’d been Madonna and Vivaca, LisaRaye and even Ivana (three times for Ivana—I really liked how that name looked on my chest). I was making fast friends with these women as we openly shared our greatest fears and anger about this hand love was dealing us. Or was it life? Because our lives were what was being dismantled by the loss of our love. It was interesting to see how we all dealt with it. Some women, even the ones who’d left their husbands or were the ones who got caught cheating, were in a rage. They wore their anger in silence. Just sat there in the meetings. Or wouldn’t stop talking about how much they hated their husbands even when the ringleader was trying to move us on to talking about ourselves. The ringleader said anger was fine. Expressing it was OK. Being furious was to be expected. But when we denied those emotions or just stayed in them, we risked becoming scorned. And scorned was something far more permanent than fury. It was something that stayed with us and sat inside of us. I knew what she was talking about. I knew if I’d stayed in that bathroom or taken that gun and done anything with it, I would never have recovered. And I was still a long way from anything that resembled a nonfurious woman, but I refused to be scorned.

One time at a meeting I traded name tags with Star Jones. I was Whitney Houston and everyone kept making me sing. And I sounded awful, but she didn’t move. She sat there sending texts on her phone. Just quiet. She reminded me of Cheyenne. “You want to be Whitney?” I asked. “No.” She looked at her phone. “She has bad hair.” I nodded. “You could be right. But she’s also not built to break.” I pulled off the tag and handed it to her. “And neither are you.”

It was then that I finally realized why we didn’t go by our real names at HHNFH. It wasn’t because of the visibility of some of the women who came in the front door covering bulging eyes with Chanel glasses. It was because we were all in the same situation. We were all sharing the same pain. And who we were wasn’t what mattered. It was what we were going through that connected us.

“So, ladies, today is career day,” the ringleader said at the start of my eighth meeting at HHNFH. “You were all supposed to bring in personal résumés that were updated with your projected career moves. If you want to be the next Oprah Winfrey, I should see President /CEO of Harpo Entertainment as your current employment status. Let’s see what we have.”

I was noticing something. When the weekly work assignments at the meetings were focused on something driven by anger or pain, the ringleader had to work hard to get folks settled down. They wouldn’t stop volunteering to present their assignments. Some outtalked her and insisted that we continue talking about the top three reasons we shouldn’t hire a hit man to take out our former spouses (which was a comical assignment, yet beneficial and probably in line with what at least three women had secretly considered at one point).

In contrast, when the ringleader gave us an optimistic or positive assignment, requiring lots of personal reflection—write a love poem, draw a heart on your sleeve, even saying what was once good about your spouse—she had to force us to the floor. The assignments were done, but sharing what she’d requested was like a vocal reclamation of our former selves. It was an outward declaration that we knew we had to move on. And so many people weren’t ready for that. I know I wasn’t. I hadn’t looked at my divorce papers since the twins came to live in the house with me and my mother.

“Ms. Shaunie O’Neal, I see you have a folded-up sheet of résumé paper in your pad,” the ringleader said, speaking to one of the newer women who’d been coming every other week.

“I don’t have anything new,” she answered, shaking her head nervously. “I’ll pass.”

Everyone was quiet. Passing was, of course, allowed and even promoted if you thought you would be put in a position to lie to the group, but it was rare.

The woman next to Shaunie O’Neal put her arm around her shoulders.

“OK, what about the rest of you? Where’s my next Jackie Collins?”

Some people laughed.

“Come on; don’t be shy. Remember, the only way that you can fully visualize your life moving forward is if you plan for it. You have to know where you’re going or you’ll be stuck in the past.” She went and stood in front of the fireplace. Above the mantel one of Maya Angelou’s poems, “Phenomenal Woman,” was painted on the wall in script. I hadn’t noticed the poem at first, but then, at my third meeting, I went and stood by the fireplace and read it. I’d memorized that poem when I was just a little girl. I’d said it at a talent show at my school. “All of you have the potential to be amazing. To be the best. To be exceptional. This is not the end of that opportunity. It’s the beginning.” The ringleader went on, “I know projecting for your future is scary for many of you, because in your eyes that might mean being alone. And that’s frightening. But you can’t think that’s all there is. Being married, being with someone doesn’t and shouldn’t define you. You can’t let your daughters think that’s all there is. You can’t let the little girl inside of you think that’s all there is. Speak up.”

I raised my hand.

“Great, Ivana,” she said. “Why don’t you come up to the mantel and share since you’re so courageous.”

I stood up and unfolded my résumé. It was a cream-colored sheet of paper with my name on top. I had to straighten my sagging pants once I got to the mantel—another thing I was learning about divorce was that because of the stress, you either gained or lost a lot of weight (I was falling on the weight loss side and none of my clothes fit).

“Can I say something first?” I asked the ringleader.

“Sure. Be our guest.”