Sing You Home: A Novel Read online

  Fortunately, there’s no snow yet, or for that matter an overturned truck on the highway. I park illegally in a spot that isn’t really a space (not a bright idea at a courthouse, but really, what am I supposed to do?) and run like hell into the building. “Excuse me,” I mutter, my head pounding as I run up the stairs to Judge Meyers’s courtroom. I bump into a woman with her two kids and a lawyer reading a brief. “Sorry . . . pardon me . . .”

  I slide into the back row of the benches. I am sweating, and my shirt’s come untucked from my pants. I haven’t had a chance to shave, or even wash up in the bathroom. I sniff my sleeve, which smells like last night’s party.

  When I glance up again, I see her staring at me.

  Zoe looks like she hasn’t slept in seventy-seven days, either. She has dark circles under her eyes. She’s too thin. But she takes one look at my face, my hair, my clothing, and she knows. She understands what I’ve been doing.

  She turns away from me and fixes her gaze straight ahead.

  I feel that dismissal like a hole punched through my chest. All I ever wanted was to be good enough for her, and I screwed up. I couldn’t give her the kid she wanted. I couldn’t give her the life she deserved. I couldn’t be the man she thought I was.

  The clerk stands up and begins reading through a list. “Malloy versus Malloy?” she says.

  A lawyer stands up. “That’s ready, Your Honor. Can we have the process on that, please?”

  The judge, a woman with a round, sunny face, has decorated her bench with seasonal items—Beanie Babies dressed like Pilgrims, a stuffed turkey.

  “Jones versus Jones?”

  Another attorney rises. “Ready, nominal.”

  “Kasen versus Kasen?”

  “Your Honor, I need a new date on that. Could I have December eighteenth?”

  “Horowitz versus Horowitz,” the clerk reads.

  “That’s a motion, Your Honor,” another lawyer replies. “I’m ready to go.”

  “Baxter versus Baxter?”

  It takes me a moment to realize that the clerk is calling my name. “Yes,” I say, standing up. As if there’s a thread connecting us, Zoe rises, too, all the way across the room.

  “Um,” I say. “Present.”

  “Do you represent yourself, sir?” Judge Meyers asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Is your wife here?”

  Zoe clears her throat. “Yes.”

  “Are you representing yourself, ma’am?” Judge Meyers asks.

  “Yes,” Zoe says, “I am.”

  “Are you both ready to go forward with the divorce today?”

  I nod. I don’t look at Zoe to see if she’s nodding, too.

  “If you’re representing yourselves,” Judge Meyers says, “you are your own attorneys. That means you have to put your case on if you want to get a divorce today. I highly recommend watching these other nominal divorces to see the procedure, because I can’t do it for you. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, but she might as well be speaking Portuguese for all I understand.

  We are not called again until over two hours later. Which means I could have showered, since, even though I’ve now sat through five other divorces, I have no idea what I am supposed to do. I walk past the gate at the front of the courtroom into the witness box, and one of the uniformed bailiffs comes up to me holding a Bible. “Mr. Baxter, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  From the corner of my eye, I see the clerk directing Zoe to take a seat at one of the tables in front of the bench. “I do,” I say.

  It’s funny, isn’t it, that you have to speak the same words to get married as you do to get divorced.

  “Please state your name for the record . . .”

  “Max,” I say. “Maxwell Baxter.”

  The judge folds her hands on her desk. “Mr. Baxter, have you entered your appearance?”

  I just blink at her.

  “Sheriff, have Mr. Baxter enter his appearance. . . . You want a divorce today, Mr. Baxter?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re representing yourself today?”

  “I can’t afford a lawyer,” I explain.

  The judge looks at Zoe. “And you, Mrs. Baxter? You’re representing yourself as well?”

  “I am.”

  “You’re not fighting the divorce today, is that correct?”

  She nods.

  “Sheriff, have Mrs. Baxter enter an appearance on her own behalf, please.” The judge turns back to me and sniffs. “Mr. Baxter, you smell absolutely pickled. Are you under the influence of alcohol or drugs?”

  I hesitate. “Not yet,” I say.

  “Seriously, Max?” Zoe blurts out. “You’re drinking again?”

  “It’s not your problem anymore—”

  The judge bangs her gavel. “If you two feel like having a counseling session, don’t waste my time.”

  “No, Your Honor,” I say. “I just want this to be over.”

  “All right, Mr. Baxter. You may proceed.”

  Except I don’t know how. Where I live, and whether I’ve lived in Wilmington for a year, and when I was married, and when we separated—well, none of that really explains how two people who thought they’d spend the rest of their lives together one day woke up and realized they did not know the person sleeping beside them.

  “How old are you, Mr. Baxter?” the judge asks.

  “I’m forty.”

  “What’s the highest grade of school you completed?”

  “I got through three years of college before I quit and started my own landscaping business.”

  “How long have you been a landscaper?”

  “For ten years,” I say.

  “How much money do you make?”

  I look into the gallery. It’s bad enough to have to say this to a judge, but there are all these other people in the courtroom. “About thirty-five thousand a year,” I say, but this is not really true. I made that one year.

  “You allege in your complaint for divorce that certain differences arose between you which caused your marriage to fall apart, is that true?” the judge asks.

  “Yes, Your Honor. We’ve been trying to have a baby for nine years. And I . . . I don’t want that anymore.”

  Zoe’s eyes are glittering with tears, but she doesn’t reach for the tissue box beside her.

  We got together two months ago—after she was served with divorce papers—to hash out all the details the judge was going to need. Let me tell you, it’s a strange thing to go back to the house you used to rent, to sit at the table where you used to eat dinner every day, and to feel like you’re a total stranger.

  Zoe, when she’d opened the door, had looked like hell. But I didn’t think it was right for me to say that to her, so instead, I just shuffled at the threshold until she invited me in.

  I think that—at that moment—if she’d asked me to come back home, to reconsider, I would have.

  But instead Zoe had said, “Well, let’s get this done,” and that was that.

  “Do you own any real estate?” the judge says.

  “We rented,” I say.

  “Are there any assets that are worth some monetary value?”

  “I took my lawn care equipment; Zoe took her instruments.”

  “So you’re asking that you be awarded the items in your possession, and that your wife be awarded the items in her possession?”

  Isn’t that what I said, but more clearly? “I guess so.”

  “Do you have health insurance?” the judge asks.

  “We’ve agreed to each be responsible for our own insurance.”

  The judge nods. “What about the debts in your name?”

  “I can’t pay them yet,” I admit. “But I’ll take care of them when I can.”

  “Will your wife be responsible for any debts in her name?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Mr. Baxter, are you in good health?”