Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
I snap a quick selfie of me and my one table setting and type out a caption.
Meeting myself! And I went with the red!
#SelfPartnering #MeetingMyself #Divorce
CHAPTER NINETEEN
JUDAH
I thought the idea of joint custody,” I tell Tremaine while we buy tickets to the event she persuaded me to attend, “was that I have the boys during the week, and you take them on the weekends. Yet, here I am on a Saturday with my ex-wife, our kids, and her husband instead of catching up on my work. What’s wrong with this picture?”
“Oh, stop complaining.” Tremaine grins, looping her arm through Kent’s. “Be glad someone cares enough to drag you out of that house instead of letting you brood all weekend with your spreadsheets.”
“She’s got a point,” Kent says, giving me a wry look. “You do tend to brood.”
“Dude, whose side are you on?” I grumble, shoving the ticket stub into the pocket of my jeans.
“You’re not my wife.” He shrugs. “Sorry.”
An inch or so shorter than Tremaine, Kent is the perfect foil for her lean elegance. He’s a tech guy and always looks slightly disheveled, like you caught him between software updates. The only time he appears truly tuned in is when he’s seated in front of a machine. And when he’s with her. Together, somehow her propulsive energy and his scattered wits seem to find rest.
I split my attention between our conversation and the boys, who are walking a few feet ahead. Too many people can overwhelm them, but so far so good. We used to stay home a lot, especially when the boys were younger and had more frequent meltdowns. Because Adam sometimes makes noises to self-soothe or when he’s agitated, we’ve been kicked out of restaurants, churches, stores—you name it—for being “disruptive.” Negotiating public spaces has gotten easier over the years.
And we just stopped giving a shit.
We have as much right to go out and explore the world with our family as anyone else. We’ll be respectful, but we don’t stand for people disrespecting our boys or making them feel that just because they may be different they are less or deserve less.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been locked in my office all day, but the landscape seems almost Technicolor, with a sky so blue and bright I have to squint when I look up. This crowd is thick and the air is cool. Kids dart from booth to booth, squealing and laughing. The muscles of my shoulders, tensed while I hunched over my laptop for hours, slowly relax.
“Too bad you don’t have a girl, Judah,” Tremaine muses. “I could find you somebody. There’s a nice woman at my firm who—”
“How many times do I have to tell you it’s weird for my ex-wife to set me up on dates?”
“That is a little weird, honey,” Kent agrees. “Besides, they have dating apps now. Remember? That’s how we met.”
“Can you imagine him,” she says, nodding pointedly to me, “on Tinder? Oh, my God. I’d love to collect data on that social experiment.”
“That won’t be happening.” I smother a laugh and shake my head. “It’s bad enough you dragged me to this fall feast shit.”
“Harvest Festival,” she corrects.
“Whatever. It’s bad enough you dragged me to this on my day off.”
“Is it really a day off when all you do is work from home?” she asks.
“I’m behind and catching up.” I survey the field of food tents, face-painting stations, trucks piled with hay, and a few pavilions. “I’m only staying twenty minutes, and that’s for the boys.”
Kent fit right in with our unit. Things are not always easy, but Kent knew what he was signing on for. Anyone who gets involved with Tremaine or me has to understand that ours is not the typical parenting journey. Aaron may always require intense support. He may live outside of our home someday, but it probably won’t be entirely on his own. I’m very conscious of the fact that we may be fiscally responsible for him, not only until we die, but until he does. That sounds morbid, but when I work, when I save, when I invest, it has to last two lifetimes. Mine and his. He can still make progress, of course. Hell, he could become a world-renowned cuber and outearn all of us. Who knows? We hope for the best and prepare for… well, anything.
Adam’s journey is different, but no less complex. He’s academically gifted but still has a lot of sensory, behavioral, and socialization issues. Nothing we haven’t learned to handle. I worry constantly about his seizures, though. He used to have fifty of them a day. Sometimes he would fall during one, bump his head, and end up in the emergency room.
Yeah, anyone who joins our crew needs to understand what they’re signing on for, and Kent definitely did. I smile as he tries to convince the boys to go on a hayride. He’s not having much success.