The Divorce Party

When she and Georgia pulled up, a wedding was in progress, and so they swung around to a private “lot” that Georgia knew about—more like an unused dirt road—and Maggie followed Georgia through the forest until they reached the rocks, a small beach area just beyond—marked GOVERNMENT PROPERTY: NO TRESPASSING—where they could watch the ceremony, undetected.

“Are you sure we should be here?” Maggie asks.

“Shhh!” Georgia says, pointing to the couple forty yards away. “I’m concentrating.”

From where Maggie sits with Georgia on these rocks, she can see everything, and hear nothing, and make up whatever story she wants. From here the couple getting married can be anyone.

This couple does seem to be older, in their sixties or seventies—if Maggie is guessing correctly—and this is probably why they are including readings and scripture and more readings. They probably want to include the people from their previous lives—all of their kids, all of their kids’ kids—and make them feel a part of this. There also seem to be a lot of musicians, taking turns playing music, singing songs, throughout the ceremony. Probably one of them is a musician, or both, and this is how they met. Or, at least, this is what Maggie decides.

“I used to always think I’d get married here,” Georgia says. “I was dating this hedge-fund dude when I was just out of college who liked me because I was just out of college, and I reserved this place for a June wedding. I almost forgot to cancel in time. I almost forgot I hated him, and so should probably get my deposit back.”

Maggie turns toward her, and tries to focus on what she is saying. Did all of that make sense? She looks down at the absinthe bottle, and the too-big dent she has made in it. And maybe it is because she is sitting down that she can’t feel it exactly, exactly how too-big the dent actually is. Somewhere inside, though, she knows it is happening. She knows it and isn’t doing anything to stop it.

“When I was growing up, my mom and I would come up here sometimes on Saturdays and watch the weddings. I was always so amazed when the couple actually went through with the thing. That no one got up and walked away, changed his mind at the last minute. I think I was always waiting for that. Isn’t that terrible? A whole life ruined for my amusement.”

“Sounds pretty human,” Maggie says.

“Maybe.”

She looks at Georgia more carefully. “Do you and Denis not talk about getting married?”

That is certainly the absinthe talking. This sounds like something she would be too afraid to ask normally, if she were thinking clearly about it.

Georgia shakes her head, slowly. “No, Denis wants to wait until after the baby comes.”

“To get married?”

“To talk about it.”

Georgia reaches over and takes the bottle of absinthe from Maggie. She takes a long smell of it, and then hands the bottle back.

“Have you ever heard that Oscar Wilde saying? ‘All women become their mothers.’ I think it was Oscar Wilde. You know the quote, right? ‘All women become their mothers. That is their tragedy . . .’ ”

Maggie feels it, a familiar pang rising up in her chest. At even the sound of the word mother, at a reminder of what she never really had. Should it be like this twenty-plus years since her exit? Does the should even matter? It is this way, and there is no denying it. Maggie’s mother left and never came back and Maggie never did anything to find her. Or to let her go. And maybe this has made some sort of difference she is afraid to look at.

“I’ve been thinking about that recently,” Georgia says. “I love my mom, but I’ve been worrying a little that it’s true.” She looks at Maggie. “You think it is?”

Maggie shakes her head. If we are

bound to become our mothers, Maggie knows, then she is bound to leave the people who love her most. She will decide it is too tough or too uncomfortable or too involved, and go. Hasn’t this been what she has always done? It has been. She has always been the one to leave, to find reasons not to stay—her chosen career and all its built-in reasons—even when the men she’s been with have given her many chances not to look for them.

“God I hope not,” she says.

“Me too, but I think it was always hard for him to connect. We kind of all accepted that about him. That was just who he was. He needed a certain amount of time alone, time to feel like he wasn’t being locked in by us. And my mom was always protecting him, you know? She was always giving him that.”

It takes Maggie a minute to realize that Georgia is talking about Thomas. That she is talking about how her mother and her father used to be together, how that used to look to her.

“The part that bothers me is that my mother would do it without even thinking about it. She has never been good at taking her own space, getting her own needs met, but she has no problem saying ‘your dad needs xyz.’ Like it was her job to make us understand him. Not his.” She pauses. “I just don’t want to be the one.”

“Which one?”

“The one who is always trying harder.”

Maggie looks over at Georgia, who is coming out blurry. She is blurry from Maggie’s bad attempt to focus too hard or her absinthe-filled mind or both. She takes a deep breath in, blinking hard, and looks up at the sky, the blue giving way to something darker.

“Are you afraid that you are?” Maggie says.

“No,” she says. “I’m just afraid that my family thinks I am.”