When Our Love Was New by A_Bierce

Miracle of miracles, we both went back to sleep for almost another hour. Surrendering to bladder demands, she headed for the bathroom first, then put on a robe and went downstairs to start breakfast. I took the time for a quick shower and shave, then joined her in the kitchen. It was an in-service day for the boys’ teachers so, as usual, they were deep into virtual mayhem in the family room.

It also happened to be Valentine’s Day, which we’d ignored since things fell apart. Our pleasant hands-on experience that morning made me think we’d turned the corner and it was time we started celebrating again. I gave her a Valentine I’d found at the bottom of a desk drawer and kissed her cheek.

When she responded with a surprised, but not unfriendly look, I gave her my best smile. “I’m really glad to see that you finally realized how wrong you were, Kim. All women aren’t victims and all men aren’t evil oppressors.” I waggled my eyebrows. “How about dinner out tonight then back home for dessert?”

Since the invention of the mistake, there have only been five mistakes that were rated the most stupid, the most disastrous. This one left them all behind. And so it came to pass that we celebrated our 14th anniversary by agreeing to divorce, thus trashing yet another Valentine’s Day.

— § —FOR OBVIOUS REASONS I nixed her suggestion that we take advantage of her employee discount at Lambert Hendricks Ross. We opted for the quickest, cheapest solution—mediation. The most important issue was the boys, and we quickly agreed on shared custody (the mediator called it “Joint physical custody”). Neither one of us would pay child support, and I agreed to modest alimony (okay, maintenance, whatever) for a few years or until she remarried.

The boys stayed in the house and we each paid half the utilities and mortgage. I rented an apartment less than a mile away, and every two weeks we traded custody and swapped bedrooms. At first Kim pissed and moaned about having to share my crummy apartment, but bit by bit she added a few feminine touches. I kept my end of the bargain by changing the sheets the day we swapped and keeping it clean. More or less.

It was an unusual arrangement, but the boys adapted and everyone seemed to be more or less satisfied. Our divorce was as amicable as such a rupture could be, but it couldn’t be described as happy—I suppose wistful would be the best word for it. We managed to stay civil by keeping our social lives discreet and avoiding any topic deeper than our sons, the weather, and the merits of various cheeses.

For the boys’ sake we were in it for the long haul. Our life together started on one February 14th and ended on another. Saint Valentine might not have rolled over in his grave, but I’ll bet he rolled his eyes a time or two.

—30—Would-be writers are given no end of advice:

—Write what you know.

—Read Strunk and White.

—Find and employ a good editor.

—Don’t create sketchy, one-dimensional characters.

—Create at least one likeable character.

—Keep your reader wanting to know what happens next.

—Make sure there’s a beginning, middle, and end.

—Avoid cliches, stereotypes, and the passive voice.

There are more but I can’t remember them all. I don’t always follow them all, either, so I just smush them all together into “Write stuff you like to read” and safety-pin the targets to the front and back of my Bulwer-Lytton T-shirt.