The Magic in the Moment (Short Stories)

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            Her pen was suspended above the dotted line, her hand paralyzed by the finality of the moment. The lawyer waited across the table, his neutral eyes telling her this was nothing new for him, no big deal. He drummed his fingers against the table, gazing down at the mediation papers that had just been passed back from her husband’s lawyers across the hall. Those papers divided her and her husband’s life equally so that all of the things that had once been “ours” became “yours” and “mine.” My silent yellow house, your black luxury car, your weekend with Josie, my child-support check. Their shared life had been reduced to assets on a page, any hope of “ours” severed by the unassuming dotted line.

            Nancy remembered other dotted lines. She recalled the trembling joy of signing their marriage certificate, the helpless anticipation of beginning a life together, the breathless yearning for intimacy and companionship and possibility. Then there had been the signing of the mortgage agreement when they’d first felt like independent adults, scared out of their wits and so hopeful and happy that it had nearly hurt to look at one another. The car loan had been signed when they traded in their speeding Mustang with four-hundred horses beneath the hood for a practical family-appropriate Maxima with a four-star safety rating. Josie’s birth certificate was next, printed with two tiny feet and the signatures of her awe-filled mother and too-careful father. Since, Nancy had signed report cards, field-trip permission forms, checks, medical releases, birthday cards, and Christmas present tags. Each signature had indicated a beginning, a turn, a memory for her and her family. Never had it felt like the pen’s ink was her life draining from the fingertips that held the simple, unassuming writing instrument.

                Holding the pen, staring at her divided life in the divorce documents, Nancy remembered the nights when she and Tommy had shared pillows, limbs, and icy toes, happy just to be silently touching, and she remembered days when they’d slipped into comfortable routines, sharing memories and desires over cups of coffee and oatmeal or sharing heartaches and stresses over wine and grilled chicken. Every room of their house was a catalyst for a barrage of memories: the bedroom where they’d intimately learned one another and conceived their beautiful daughter, the kitchen where they’d shared hundreds of breakfasts and dinners and silly arguments, the living room where they’d watched movies and cuddled and watched their daughter’s first steps, and Josie’s room where they’d listened to violin practice and had tea parties and read Goodnight Moon. Even the car had been filled with the anxiety of first-time parents, the screams of an egocentric infant, the laughter of three rambunctious girls headed for a sleepover, the luggage for the three of them on each family vacation, the muddy cleats of a junior soccer player, and the blessed silence of mommy-daddy date night. There were so many beautiful memories.

               Yet she couldn’t forget the tense dinners when Tommy hadn’t called but didn’t come home, and she couldn’t forget the bright pink lipstick stains on the collars of his pressed white shirts. She couldn’t forget Josie’s school plays and birthday parties he’d missed or the putrid scent of flowery perfume on his skin as he crawled into bed when he thought Nancy was asleep. She couldn’t forget the heated arguments about their finances and his absences nor the critical remarks about her lack of athleticism and perfected makeup. She couldn’t forget the nights when Josie cried and asked why daddy never tucked her in anymore. She couldn’t forget Tommy’s apathy and neglect.

                When Nancy’s pen finally encountered the paper, her breath sank away with each flourish of her name. She drew it slowly, perfecting each curve to prolong the moment when the lifting of her pen would signal the beginning of a new life that she didn’t understand how to operate. Her heart beat slowly, strongly, jostling her body with each knock against her breastbone. The needle of the pen scratched loudly against the paper. The ink smelled like her hands after she’d been holding money in her palm.

            Her pen rested at the ending curve of the ‘d’ in Holland, the ink bleeding slowly from the pen’s tip to create a round blot at the end of her name. She finally dropped the pen on the table, the clattering a signal to her lawyer that she’d managed to sign her own name and dissolve twelve years of marriage, twelve years of memories, twelve years of a shared life – all without a single tear.