Sing You Home Read online

  Every few steps, I hear a bird.

  I stop walking, look up, and notice the speaker and the motion sensor. The courthouse has some weird nature recording following me with every step.

  It's kind of fitting, actually, to be headed in to file for divorce and to learn that something I thought was real is just smoke and mirrors.

  The clerk looks up at me when I enter the office. She has curly black hair--and that's just her mustache. "Yes?" she says. "Can I help you?"

  These days, I don't think anyone can. But I take a step toward the chest-high counter. "I want a divorce."

  She flattens her mouth in a smile. "Honey, I don't even remember our wedding." When I don't respond, the clerk rolls her eyes. "Just once. Just once I'd like someone to laugh. Who's your attorney?"

  "I can't afford one."

  She hands me a packet of papers. "You own property?"

  "No."

  "You got kids?"

  "No," I say, looking away.

  "Then you fill out the paperwork, and bring it to the sheriff's department down the hall."

  I thank her and take the packet out to a bench in the corridor.

  In re: the Marriage of

  Plaintiff: that would be me.

  And Defendant: that would be Zoe.

  I carefully read the first item to be filled out: my residence. After hesitating, I put down Reid's address. I've been there for two months now. Plus, the next item is Zoe's address. I don't want the judge to get confused and think we're still living together and decide not to grant the divorce.

  Not that it works like that, but still.

  Number three: On _____, in _____ (city), _____ (country), _____ (state), the Plaintiff and Defendant married. An official copy of the marriage license is attached to this complaint for divorce.

  Zoe and I had gotten married by a justice of the peace with a speech impediment. When he asked us to repeat our vows, neither of us could understand him. "We've written our own," Zoe said, in a flash of inspiration, and, like me, she made them up on the spot.

  On the divorce form, there are four spaces for children, and their birth dates.

  I feel myself break out in a sweat.

  Grounds for No-Fault:

  I have only two choices here, and they are listed for me. Carefully I reprint the first option: Irreconcilable differences that have caused the irremediable breakdown of the marriage.

  I do not really know what all that means, but I can guess. And it seems to describe me and Zoe. She can't stop wanting a baby; I can't stand the thought of trying again. Irreconcilable differences are the children we never had. They're the times she would sit at dinner, smiling, when I knew she wasn't thinking about me. They're the baby name books stacked for reading by the toilet, the crib mobile she bought three years ago and never unpacked, the finance charges on our credit card bills that keep me awake at night.

  Just above the spot where I sign my name is a vow: The Plaintiff prays for an Absolute Divorce.

  Yeah, I suppose I do.

  I'd worship anyone and anything who could turn my life around.

  In a way, I get along better with my sister-in-law than with my own brother. For the past two months, every time Reid asks me if I have a master plan, a goal to get back on my feet, Liddy just reminds him that I'm family, that I should stay as long as I want. At breakfast, if she cooks an uneven number of slices of bacon, she gives me the extra, instead of Reid. It's like she's the one person who really gives a crap whether I live or die, who either doesn't notice that I'm a colossal fuckup or, better yet, just doesn't care.

  Liddy grew up with a father who was a Pentecostal preacher, but when she's not acting all churchified, she can be pretty cool. She collects Green Lantern comic books, for example. And she's totally into B movies--the more outrageous the better. Since neither Zoe nor Reid ever understood the attraction of this kind of pulp film, Liddy and I have had a tradition of going to a midnight showing each month, at a dive of a theater that does crappy-director film festivals honoring people you've never heard of, like William Castle or Bert Gordon. Tonight, we're watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers--not the 1978 remake but the 1956 original by Don Siegel.

  Liddy always pays for my ticket. I used to offer, but Liddy said that was ridiculous--in the first place, she had Reid's money to spend and I didn't, and in the second place, I was keeping her entertained while Reid was at some client dinner or church meeting and so this was the least she could do. We always got the biggest bucket of popcorn--with butter, because when Liddy and Reid went out, he insisted on being heart-healthy. That was about as rebellious as Liddy got, frankly.

  I've been out drinking three times this week--just a quick beer here and there, nothing I can't handle. But knowing I was meeting Liddy for this movie is what kept me dry tonight. I don't want her running back to Reid, telling him that I reeked of alcohol. I mean, I know she likes me and we get along, but she's my brother's wife first and foremost.

  Liddy grabs my arm when the main character, Dr. Bennell, runs onto the highway at the climax of the film. She closes her eyes, too, at the really scary parts, but then demands that I tell her every last detail of what she missed.

  They're here already! the actor says, looking right into the camera. You're next!

  We always stay for the credits. All the way to the end, when they thank the town that allowed filming. Usually, we're the last ones out of the theater.

  Tonight, we're still sitting in our seats when the teenage boy with zits comes in to sweep the aisle and pick up the trash. "Have you ever seen the 1978 remake?" Liddy asks.

  "It sucks," I say. "And don't even get me started on The Invasion."

  "I think this might be my favorite B movie ever," Liddy replies.

  "You say that about every one we see."

  "But I mean it this time," she says. She leans her head back against the seat. "Do you think they knew what happened to them?"

  "Who?"

  "The Pod People. The aliens. Do you think they got up one morning and looked in the mirror and wondered how they got to be that way?"

  The kid who's sweeping stops at our aisle. We stand up, walk into the dingy theater lobby. "It's just a movie," I tell Liddy, when what I really want to tell her is that no, the Pod People don't ask what's happened.

  That actually, when you turn into someone you don't recognize, you feel nothing at all.

  Seventy-seven.

  That's how many days after filing the divorce petition I'd have to show up in court. That's how long Zoe would have, after being served this summons by the court, to join me there.

  Since I filed the divorce papers, it's been hard for me to get back into the swing of work. By now, I should be putting up my flyers for plowing. I should be cleaning and storing my mowers for the winter. Instead, I've been sleeping in, and staying out late, taking up space in my brother's house.

  So when Reid asked me to help him by picking up Pastor Clive at Logan Airport the next morning after a red-eye from an evangelical conference at the Saddleback Church, I should have said yes immediately. I mean, it wasn't like I was busy. And after everything Reid had done for me, the least I could do was repay him with time, if not money.

  Instead, I just stared at him, unable to respond.

  "You," Reid said quietly, "are really something else, little brother."

  Liddy came up to the kitchen table, where I was sitting, and poured me a glass of orange juice. As if I needed any reminder that I was just a black hole in the middle of their home, sucking away their food, their money, their private time.

  I may not have been able to say yes to my brother, but I couldn't say no to her.

  So now it's dawn, and I'm fully planning on driving to Logan to meet the 7:00 A.M. plane arrival, but as I'm heading past Point Judith, I notice the waves. I check the clock on my dashboard. I've got my board and wet suit with me--they're always in my truck, just in case--and I'm thinking that there's no point in getting up this early if I'm not going to ge