Call It a Win

Kris Norbraten 

The kids are at the Coke machine. It’s down the sidewalk, past the pool. I sit in the motel room trusting they’ll return.

The papers sit in a stack on the table, its lacquer peeling at the edges, a halo from the hanging lamp shining a promise of the life that could be if I can get this job done. I click my pen, and mark my initials on the flagged pages. I scribble approximations of my signature at every fat black X. I clip the papers together and slide them into the folder marked with Sharpie in my wife's neat script. She used only my first name, removing my surname from me as I did from her twice over. 

The agreement dictates she’ll get the ranch style house, the SUV, the beloved rescue mutt, and the two young children. I’ll get whatever fits into my suitcase and six Rubbermaid bins, plus an extended stay at this shitty motel. There's an allowance for the kids to visit on weekends, an unbalanced phenomenon that, until now, I’d only witnessed in movies and what I judged were lesser families.

When it all crashed down, after her anger subsided, my wife and I talked about who we were before our offspring shot screaming into the world; we imagined who we might have become once they morphed into young adults and launched out the front door. Then we agreed, each in our own reluctant way, to cut each other loose and allow ourselves a win.

If you can call it a win.

My parents and in-laws call it a loss. My sister, I’m not so sure. The only other people who know are my therapist, one co-worker, and of course my best friend, Robbie.

My children, who are still young, are laughing in the outer hallway while they fill the ice bucket, probably pissing off whoever’s in the room at the base of the stairs. I’d like to ooze out of this chair and out the door, along the sidewalk and through the parking lot, down the street to the nearest bar, where I could wash this whole document-signing incident down with a shot of mezcal. Cleanse myself with fire down my throat and a long cry into my pillow later on tonight.

The kids are running now, shouting. I swear they’ll wake someone or spill the ice. Maybe someone will slip. I heave myself up to intercept them. Their faces are flushed, jackets unzipped, bucket upright, soda cans jostled. I pop the tabs and let the fizz settle then trade the drinks for the ice bucket. My wife — ex-wife now — would never let them drink this crap, and I probably shouldn’t either, but one on the weekends won’t hurt. Maybe it’ll be our new thing.

I unlatch the gate to the swimming pool. We pick three lounge chairs and sprawl, even though the sun is blocked by a washed-out sky, the pool clearly closed for the season. My kids don’t notice this melancholy backdrop. They want action, so we chuck ice cubes into the water to see who can hit the leaves collected in the middle.

Canada geese fly over, honking. “Look!” my daughter shouts.” She’s eight and loves all creatures, even bugs and spiders. My son looks on command. He’s ten and usually does what anyone — including his younger sister — tells him.

“I wonder how they stay in a V,” he says.

This is typically when I’d provide an answer or ask what they think. At the very least, I’d Google it. Generate conversation and spur curiosity, my wife would direct.

Ex-wife.  

Today, I spur nothing. I wish I had an Americano with four shots and extra cream. Or that throat-burner mezcal.

The kids eye the geese until they’re out of sight, then Adam and Freya hop out of their chairs, taking their sodas to a pile of dead leaves on the far side of the pool. Provide opportunities for wonder, my wife would say.

Ex-wife. I’m working on it.

The kids poke the leaves with sticks, probably hoping to stir up something gross. Maybe autumn decomposition qualifies as wonder. Regardless, it’ll buy a few minutes to figure out where the closest coffee shop is. I pull out my phone.

There’s a text, from the same person my wife caught me out with. I’m either too despairing or too tired to engage, so I continue my search for caffeine. There’s a shop with four and a half stars within walking distance.

Now I read: How are you?

I stare at the question so long the screen goes dark. I shove my phone into my pocket.

“Adam, Freya,” I say, “come on. We’re leaving.”

My children stand, sticks in hand, but are still fixated on the pile. Freya is as tall as Adam, and more robust, which makes me feel things about my son I’ve never been able to articulate, about strength and agency, about what I thought it was supposed to mean to be masculine. I want him to possess what she possesses, but feel my desires are backwards and wrong, having more to do with myself than him.

“Let’s hit it,” I say.

They toss their sticks onto the pile and, like ducks, my children follow close behind to the coffee shop. This emulation won’t last much longer. The mirroring is already fading, which is probably good because, for instance, I forgot the ice bucket at the pool, which means they left their empty soda cans, too. No woman around to keep us in line.

The kids push open the door to the shop. Fingerprints on glass, and I wish I had a bottle of glass cleaner and a paper towel. The space is industrial-stark, designed by some childless architect. No comfy sofas, no board games or books. I prefer it this way, but soon the kids will be restless. I consider searching for a froyo place instead but, for my sanity, we stay. Along with my Americano, I purchase two juice boxes. My ex would insist upon water, but she isn’t here, is she? We take our drinks to a table by the streetside window and watch the passersby.

Without their mother, I realize I alone am responsible for the amusement of my children, for keeping the action alive, and for keeping them alive. The weight of the tasks land in my lap like twin cinder blocks. I fight to push them off so they don’t crush what little gumption I have left.

“Why don’t we play a game?” I say.

Freya’s smooth face lights up. “What game?” she asks, eager to jump in.

Adam waits, hands tucked under the table.

I don’t say that I have no idea what game, that I was never the engineer. We had a closet full of games at home, and a mom free flowing with great ideas. I try to breathe, to fill all six feet and one-hundred-sixty pounds of myself with air, and keep my head from rolling off my shoulders. Coffee burns my tongue as I scribble a mental note to buy a deck of cards for the motel room. Maybe Candy Land. Is that still a thing?

Freya pipes up with, “Let’s play Guess the Animal.” God, what a relief.

We take turns thinking up fauna, alternately asking questions to reveal their identities. Adam comes up with unique species, difficult to guess, bizarre sea creatures and jungle insects. Freya’s selections are more obvious, mammals with cute faces and fluffy fur, all her favorites. Mine are standard fare, mostly farm and zoo.

My phone buzzes. The kids go quiet when I remove it from my pocket. Their bright faces darken, expecting the worst, and this domino I’ve tipped crushes me.

The text reads, How are they?

It’s my ex-wife. My ex.

Fine. I type quickly to cut things short.  

What are you guys doing?

I consider sarcasm, but instead: Playing a game.

Okay, good. Then she’s gone.

A different thread pops up: Are you going to talk to me?

As I stash my phone, a piercing hiss — a barista frothing milk at the espresso machine — cuts through the low murmur of the shop. Loud talking women amble in, elbowing one another and laughing. The thought of my wife in a wolf pack fills me with something new and strange, part sickened by what she’ll hunt, part relieved it will no longer be me.

“Who was that?” Adam’s voice, weak and tentative.

Freya waits for me to answer her brother. My fears — about what I’ve lost, what I’ve broken, about what’s coming next and what I can and can’t control — loom too large for confrontation.

“Your mom,” I say.

“What did she want?” Exclusion from these small interactions must be nerve-racking, each conversation a fresh opportunity for new breakage.

“Curious what we’re up to. And she sends her love.”

Freya’s eyes soften. A small, sweet smile appears. Adam remains rigid.

“I’ve got an animal,” I say. The kids settle in with their juice, pinging me with questions that yield koala bear in only six tries. Then we slide off our stools, throw our trash in the bin, and re-enter the human stream fast-moving on the sidewalk.

Adam and Freya run ahead of me on the way back to the motel. They balance on the curb to see who can stay up the longest. Of course, it’s Freya. She doesn’t poke fun at her brother, but they keep a record of her accumulated victories. Adam’s accomplishments are more subtle. I fear the world won’t see them, and in that, it won’t see him.

We pit stop at the 7-Eleven on the corner near my new home. I pick up a six pack of Shiner, a bag of pretzels, a pouch of beef jerky, and a deck of playing cards. The kids beg for a bag of sour gummies, but this time it’s a no. Instead, I tack on three bananas at the register.

We order Domino’s and play a few rounds of Go-Fish at the motel table before the light in the window fades. That lonely, bedtime hour.

“Are you going to live here forever, Daddy?” Freya asks, and fidgets with a sequin on her T-shirt.

I slide the cards into their box. “No, honey. I’ll find a real home very soon, much nicer than this one. You’ll see.” 

The kids mill around the small room, but there’s nothing to do, nothing interesting to look at, and nowhere to go now that it’s dusk. I draw the curtains. The room has two queen beds, one for me and one for them. They bounce on theirs a couple times and gaze imploringly at the TV, but they know it’s not happening, and I can see they’re beat. It occurs to me then: I don’t know if my own children still take bubble baths with toys and need help scrubbing, or if they’ve graduated to grown-up showers. We skip it and go straight to brushing teeth.

It is unspeakably heartbreaking to watch them pull out their pajamas from their miniature backpacks. They don’t complain. They don’t ask for their mother or say I’m not doing things right. They climb into bed and wiggle under the covers.

“It’s fun to sleep in the same room with you, Daddy,” Freya says.

Adam says nothing.

“It is fun, isn’t it?” I say, even though it’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever done. The last time we slept in the same room, we were on vacation outside Vancouver with their mother, and stayed in an upscale lodge. We went on rainforest hikes filled with ferns and frogs; we chartered a whale watching boat; the kids consumed endless bowls of clams while my wife and I drank really good wine.

I read to them from the chapter book Adam brought and they fall asleep together. I strip down to boxers and lie on top of the comforter. My bedside lamp is on but I have nothing to read, and don’t want to disturb the kids with the TV. I’d pick up my phone, but what would I see? If I saw something, what would it say? And if I saw nothing, would that be worse? I shut off the light and close my eyes.

When I wake in the middle of the night, Adam and Freya have moved into my bed. Their warm bodies are a fortress around me, holding me in place.

Sunday morning, we go to the lobby for instant oatmeal and packaged pastries arranged in wicker baskets. Jugs of milk and orange juice sit in tubs of ice on the counter. “If you split a pack of oatmeal, you can each have a Danish,” I say. They don’t complain, and I’m glad their mother can’t see how abysmal their meal is. I drink coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

“Do you still love Mommy?” Freya asks through a mouthful of pastry.

Adam shushes her. She sideswipes him with a look. 

My ex told me they could handle the truth, as long as I scaled it for their age. “I do love your mom,” I say, “but it’s different than before.” This is both vague and accurate.

“How?” Freya’s crumbs sprinkle onto the table as she chews.

The truth rises to the surface while I sip stale coffee: The way I love their mother hasn’t changed. It’s the same as it’s always been. What has changed is my understanding of what that love is, and what it means. Freya is waiting for an answer, but I’m not sure how to explain this in an age-scaled way.

“He loves her like a friend,” Adam says, almost an accusation.

Freya searches my face for confirmation. Her brother’s explanation comes closer than anything I can provide, so I say, “Adam is right. I love your mother like a friend. But I hurt her feelings very badly and made her feel unloved, so right now she doesn’t want to be my friend.”

“Do you want to be her friend?” Freya asks.

“Of course I do, sweetheart.” I reach across the table and touch her small, sticky hand.

My phone buzzes again. I act like I don’t hear it.

“Who keeps texting you?” Adam asks. He hasn’t smiled all morning. Come to think of it, he hasn’t smiled all weekend. Adam has always been a serious kid — even as a baby — but now he’s picking up everyone else’s sadness and frustration, swallowing everything whole.

“A friend,” I say. My ex told me, once you start lying to them, you won’t be able to stop, so I correct myself. “Someone I love.”

“More than Mommy?” Freya asks.

“No,” I say, “just different.”

“When do we get to meet her? Will we like her?” Freya’s not worried, and would ask a million questions if I let her. Another version of Guess the Animal.

“For now, let’s focus on us, alright?” I try to sound chipper. “We have lots to learn about being a party of three.” Already, I’m burdening my children with a load far too heavy.

Sunday is packed with stuff kids are supposed to enjoy: the playground with the rocket slide, dinosaur bones at the science museum, hot chocolate from the shop on Main Street. Freya rips through the day like a banshee, Adam constantly trying to keep his sister out of the road and her volume in check. By late afternoon, they’re irritable and I’m exhausted. There’s nowhere to cook at the motel, so we get take-out from a Thai place down the road and set up at the table.

“It’s too spicy,” Freya whines.

Adam blinks back peppery tears.

“I specified mild,” I say, but the explanation offers no remedy. I want to go home to my kitchen and the food in my fridge and my dog and my own bed, but I force down the noodles while my children — dolls cut out of one life and pasted into another — finish the pretzels and bananas. Next weekend I’ll make sure to have a hotplate and plenty of mac and cheese. I’ll buy a mini fridge like the one from my freshman dorm.

I shove the take-out containers into the paper bag and, using the excuse that I don’t want spicy noodle sauce stinking up the room, I step out to find the nearest garbage can.

The pool gate is unlatched. Traffic flows beyond the metal fence. Breeze skims the water’s surface with autumn chill. I stare into the pool for a few seconds, long enough for anxiety to get a grip: if I’m not there when something goes wrong, my kids won’t know what to do. They don’t have phones, and don’t know how to use the one in the room. I don’t know if they know my number, or their mother’s, by heart. I cram the garbage in the bin and hustle back to the room.

“We need to take baths before school tomorrow,” Adam says as soon as I walk in. He sounds like a miniature version of my accountant. “Freya’s really grubby,” he adds, collecting his pajamas from the dresser and heading for the bathroom, but I cut him off, and block the door.

“I’ll get your bath going,” I say. “What’s a good temperature?”

His shoulders relax half an inch, and he eyes Freya’s game of solitaire on the bed. “More than warm, but not too hot.”

Before school on Monday, we head to the coffee shop for breakfast burritos and warm beverages. My kids are dressed. They’ve got lunch money in their backpacks. I’ll wash their pajamas and play clothes during their week away. I dip a napkin in a glass of water and wipe milk froth from Freya’s mouth. Adam drags his sleeve across his face before I can reach him.

They look so small as they wave from the school sidewalk. I wave back and force a smile. The thread between us stretches so thin I fear it will snap before I return to pick them up on Friday afternoon.

Sitting in my car, I finally return the neglected text: Sorry I was MIA. This was hard. I miss you.

Three dots pulse then disappear. My heart writhes while I wait. Finally, the bubble reappears, then words: It’s okay. Of course it was hard. I miss you too.

Okay, I text back. I love you.

Two months of weekends in the crappy motel pass before I find my own apartment. It’s a one-bedroom with a pull out sofa, a tub with cracked grout, and carpeting Freya calls “Oscar the Grouch fur.” It’s futile to compare the space to the house I left, or tally everything I walked away from. That list is far too long and makes me miss my dog so bad I’ve cried myself to sleep more than once.

I scour thrift stores for appliances and decor to help my place feel more like a home. A blender for making smoothies, a tapestry to hang over the sofa. At the Salvation Army I stumble upon a set of Japanese teacups I’d swear my ex and I received as a wedding gift. Six measly dollars and it’s mine again.

Christmas break is about to begin. Two pages of the parenting agreement dice the holidays until they’re scarcely recognizable. When I pick up my kids for my holiday allotment, they’re wearing red and green jingle bell hats. Freya can’t sit still on the way to the apartment. Even Adam hums along to the carols on the radio. They know someone is visiting for the holidays, but I haven’t told them who.

“A Christmas surprise,” Freya squeals.

When I open the door, the tree is front and center, blinking with colorful lights. The kids rush past the newly stacked presents, into the kitchen where Robbie — my oldest childhood friend, their godfather — is baking something sweet.

“Uncle Robbie!” They’re thrilled he’s the surprise guest.

This is the first time I’ve seen him since it all went down.

He appears like a figure from an Italian street scene. Fitted navy blue pants, crisp white shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, thick wavy hair, thick-rimmed glasses, too. His shoes are off, argyle socks on display. And what does Robbie see when he sneaks a glance at me? Jeans and a T-shirt, rumpled blazer, unkempt hair, tired eyes.

Robbie plunks a wooden spoon into a mixing bowl and stoops, opening his arms to my children. They collide into a bear hug and laugh and talk, asking what he’s baking and how long he’s staying, bugging him about what he got them for Christmas.

A pang I can’t identify hits. I’ve been neglecting myself for months. Years, maybe. The smile Robbie shines across the room sets me at ease. His kind eyes say, See? Everything is going to be fine. Until this moment, nothing was fine. Everything was sideways and feral. Everything was wrong, but I pretended like everything — my whole life — was exactly the way it was supposed to be. The education. The job. The wife, the house, the kids, the cars.

Then that invisible terror, that epic pandemic, sent the world to its knees. It picked off people we loved and upended our egos, doubling back and doubling down as soon as we thought it was over. How was anyone supposed to know what would happen? No one could have known. They wrapped playgrounds in yellow caution tape and locked the dog park gates. Grocery shelves went bare. Cavities went unfilled. Air turned lethal. Time disappeared. Bodies piled up. Shipping containers filled.

In the midst, Robbie’s messages appeared on my phone. His words assigned meaning to misery. Over time, our texts revealed what had been there all along: that the person I wanted at my side the next time I got a job at a hospital, picked out a suit, said goodbye to one parent on Facetime — of all the god-forsaken things — buried a sibling, or lied to my kids about heaven and hell, was not my wife but him.

My heart bends at the sight and sound of the joy erupting in the kitchen. Robbie banters with the kids. He waves the wooden spoon like a magic wand.

I’ll have to tell them soon. We will have to.

I go into the kitchen and pause in front of my old friend, sizing him up, inviting reciprocation. We reach for each other, take each other. We feel each other's bodies for the first time and the ten-thousandth. His embrace offers things I haven’t felt in decades: gratitude and passion, strength and certainty, a willingness to do whatever it takes. He hangs on until the gaze of four small eyes pry us apart.

“I bet you two are ready for these cookies,” Robbie says. He gets back to stirring. I open the fridge and reach for two beers, hide out with my head in the chill as long as I can before coming up for air. Adam and Freya stand at the kitchen threshold, wordlessly conferring.

“Daddy?” Freya begins.

I shut the fridge, pop open the beers, and hand one to Robbie. “Yes, darling?” 

“Are we going to meet your girlfriend this weekend?”

Robbie lets out a long, low whistle. I buy time with a swig.

Adam waits a moment then, as if prompting his sister in a round of Guess the Animal, says, “It’s not a girlfriend.”

Freya’s confusion shifts to curiosity. She wants the next clue.

“Think,” Adam says.

It’s not like Robbie doesn’t know what he’s getting into. He’s known my children since they were born — was the first person other than their mother and me to hold them. We’ve known each other since we were ten, running wild in the fifth grade. We’ve lived on each other’s streets, inside each other’s heads, and under each other’s skin, for decades now. He slides his hand under my jacket and wraps his arm around my waist. His heavy electricity is the most natural thing in the world.

“Adam’s right.” Robbie is self-assured, brave as anything. “I’m not a girlfriend, am I?”

He squeezes my side, and something cuts loose and breaks free, as if he granted permission for all the beauty and pain from the past eighteen months to go.

A sob leaves me first, then snot and tears.

Freya looks confused, like she’s still working on the hidden animal, but that doesn’t stop her from rushing over and clinging to my leg. “It’s okay, Daddy,” my daughter says, her bright face turned upward in unadulterated acceptance. “We love you. We love Uncle Robbie, too.”

Robbie and I crouch to hug her. Cinnamon scent fills the air. I wave Adam over and, reluctantly, he approaches. The four of us huddle in the galley kitchen. Adam is stiff and uncertain. Two people he’d previously categorized are shifting lanes and the quick movement must be disorienting. He is such a brave, brave boy.

My son doesn’t shrug me off when I wrap my arm around him. His hand rests gently on my back. “You don’t have to cry, Dad,” he whispers, “but you can if you want to.” It’s something his mother used to say to him, and probably still does.

For now, everything else goes unasked and unsaid. Everyone stands, ready for warm cookies. The kids take theirs into the living room to inspect the gifts under the tree. Robbie pulls a second tray from the oven and sets it on a rack to cool. I re-open the fridge and pull out two sodas for the kids, special for the weekend.