Wishful Thinking

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Authors: Kamy Wicoff
that.” If Norman was happy, Jennifer was ecstatic. This would be the first steady job that Norman had had—and the first steady stream of support he could offer her—in years. Just as she was about to smile back at him, however, she saw it. A look. An evasive, uncomfortable look she knew all too well. He was screwing up the courage to ask her something—something she was not going to like.
    “But I also want more time with the kids.”
    That was easy. “No,” she said.
    “Yes,” he said, sitting up in his chair a bit. “Jennifer. You know and I know that the custody schedule we have now is completely unfair.”
    Jennifer tried to control herself, to fight back the bile that had instantly leaped up in her throat. “You know and I know?” she repeated. “Completely unfair?” Norman nodded. She looked right into his eyes. “No,” she said firmly. “It isn’t.”
    “I want fifty percent,” Norman said.
    “What?” she cried. “Are you out of your mind? You have them one night a week, Norman! And half the time you aren’t even around for that!”
    “You need to update your information,” he said coolly, working hard, she knew, to fight his instinct to shut down in the face of conflict. “If you were paying attention, you’d have noticed that that hasn’t been true for a long time.”
    Jennifer dug her nails into her palm. Was this what he had been up to? Showing up for Julien’s recitals, covering for Melissa, and, yes, now that she thought of it, not missing aSaturday in a long time?
How long?
she thought, struggling to remember.
    “I haven’t missed a Saturday in eight months,” he said.
Eight months?
Could that be?
    “So what?” she shot back. “You think you can disappear for
two years
and then, after a year of Saturday nights, demand equal time with me? Now that the hard part is over, with the bottles and the Cheerios and the strollers and the baby-proofing and the diapers? Do you remember where you were when Julien had hives for an entire summer and none of the specialists could figure out what was wrong with him?” Norman was clenching the napkin ring with such furious concentration now that Jennifer was sure he’d crack it. “Summer-stock theater! Do you remember where you were when Jack had a hundred and four fever and was throwing up so much I had to bottle-feed him Gatorade?” At this, he visibly flinched. “I don’t! But it wasn’t here!”
    “We were divorced,” Norman said. “It wouldn’t have been here.”
    “This is a total nonstarter, Norman. You hear me?
Total.

    “Jennifer,” Norman said. “The boys. Keep your voice down.”
    Jennifer could hear Julien running the bath and Jack singing loudly along with a Beatles song in their room. It was not for their sake that Norman wanted her to shut up.
    “
You
left
me
,” he said. “Do you have any idea how devastating that was? What it did to my self-confidence? I’m sorry I checked out for a while. But I needed time, and now—”
    “Yes, I left you,” she cut him off. “But
you
left
them
.”
    Norman could not conceal, or did not want to conceal, the hurt on his face.
    “I’m their
father
,” he said, with a choked, gulping, melodramatic
How could you say that to me?
delivery that hardened her heart completely.
    “And you are welcome to see them,” she said. “Anytime. Here. Where they live.
At home.

    For a minute they sat there in silence. Jennifer was shaking. It took her a minute to notice that Norman’s hands were trembling too. Taking a moment to steady them, he then reached into his back pocket and took out a folded-up piece of paper.
    “I didn’t want to do this,” he said.
    “What?” she asked, her voice rising. What was he pulling out? An order from a judge? It couldn’t be. They had never used lawyers, just a mediator. There had been so little to fight over.
    But it was not a legal document. Instead it was several pieces of lined notebook paper, and on each of them was a long list of

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