Fiddle dee dee

Though my ex-husband’s total collapse was a harbinger of marital doom, there was another, even earlier, watershed moment. It was a couple of months before he flipped out completely. I was outside in the yard doing this and that, while my younger son napped, before my older son got home from school. For some reason I was thinking about my dissertation, toying with the idea of turning it into a book someday, as I sometimes still do in ambitious moments. The crocuses were coming up. The yard was muddy and green, and the trees were just beginning to leaf. It was warm in the sun but chilly in the shade.

On the acknowledgments page of my dissertation, I listed my ex-husband, my older son, and our dog (the younger son wasn’t born yet), as the “human and doggy loves of my life.” I figured, as I wandered around the yard, drawn into the sun, that I’d have to include the baby somehow. I thought about the dedication. I didn’t want to belittle what I’d earlier written; still, if I ever wrote a book, I’d have to up the ante somehow. I fiddled with phrasing, moved things around, rejected superlatives, sought equivalents.

And suddenly I realized I did not love my husband enough to acknowledge him in my imaginary book. I could not fathom calling him the love of my life any more.

I sat down in the driveway. It was May. I remember the date, actually, because it seemed important at the time. I dropped my head in my hands. I sat there for a while.

In a year, I thought, if I still feel this way, I will deal with this. If I still feel this way in a year, I will do something.