An IKEA Parking Lot

Welcome to Connecticut

I have to imagine that at some point, when you first saw Connecticut, we drove by that IKEA.

I have to imagine that I pointed it out and said, “Oh my gosh, that place is so cool. They have the best Swedish meatballs.”

And I have to imagine that you looked at me like I was crazy and laughed.

There was a facial expression you used to reserve just for me. Amused, affectionate, mine. The girl who would get excited about a furniture store and the boy who was excited about her.

It’s strange that this is the place where I see you now.

A few times a week, we meet in an IKEA parking lot to exchange our son. It’s strange to think that nearly every conversation we have now lasts less than sixty seconds.

“Hey, how are you?”

“Good, how are you?”

“Bye, buddy. Love you.”

“Say bye to Mommy.”

“Say hi to Daddy.”

That’s it.

Sometimes we switch it up.

“Four o’clock next week?”

That’s it.

Muscle Memory

Every once in a while, we deviate from the script.

I remember one time you called me “Amb.”

Nobody had called me that. Not since I had a ring on my finger.

It stopped me in my tracks.

I knew you didn’t mean anything by it. It was probably instinct. Muscle memory. A name you had said thousands of times without thinking.

But I cried the entire way home.

The way it sounded on your lips was so familiar and, at the exact same time, so foreign.

For a second, it was a memory.

And for a second, I was right back there on the couch, my head on your shoulder, listening to you call me Amb like you always had.

Another time, my mom was in the car with me.

She got out and hugged you. Asked how you had been.

And you smiled.

A real smile.

Not the polite one. Not the smile people give each other when there is too much history sitting between them.

A real one.

And once again, there it was.

A memory.

A version of all of us that felt like I could step back into it so easily.

I’m not sure if that should make me happy or sad.

Maybe that’s just what happens with familiar things.

Maybe even after they stop belonging to your life, your body still remembers exactly where they go. My head goes on your shoulder. Your smile goes in my direction. Muscle memory.

Eye Contact

Next week, we will meet in that IKEA parking lot again.

I will hug our son and tell him, “Have fun at Daddy’s wedding.”

And then I will look at you.

Really look at you.

Lately, my eyes have been avoiding yours, but maybe just this once I could let them meet.

What will they hold? Pain, anger, resentment, sadness, love. Maybe all of the above.

When you strip it all down, when you forget the cruel things we’ve said, when you forget how mean we’ve been to each other, when you let go of the mistakes we both made and wash all of that away, I think what remains, what’s left underneath it all, is love.

Not romantic love. But enduring love.

Love for the person you are at your core, when everything else is stripped away.

Love for the time we had together.

Love for the man who kissed my forehead in the hospital while I was delivering our son.

Love for the man who bought me children’s books to soothe the ache when we were struggling with infertility.

Love for the man who built me a castle out of pink construction paper on my birthday.

Love for the man who introduced me to Marvel movies and Star Wars.

Love for the man who stayed up until midnight to buy me Taylor Swift tickets.

Love for you.

We didn’t divorce because we hated each other. We divorced because we loved each other.

My biggest hope for you was always that you’d find someone capable of loving your heart better than I could. Someone who fit nicer.

I wonder if you’ve found that now.

If you have, when you strip it all away, my soul delights in your finding your person.

So, in that parking lot with all of that love in my heart, in my mind, in my body, in my eyes, I’ll allow myself to stare at you.

Vows

I'll notice your left hand first.

For the last time, neither one of us will have a wedding ring on our left hand.

For years, our hands matched.

First because we both wore rings.

Then because neither of us did.

Next week, they won’t match anymore.

How strange.

I wonder what your new ring will look like.

Do you remember how you used to call your old wedding ring the "Thor ring" because it looked like Thor had hammered it?

I wonder if this one has a fun name too.

But I won’t ask.

It’s none of my business.

That hand used to hold mine.

I knew the ring that sat on it. I knew what that hand felt like wrapped around mine, resting beside me on the couch, reaching across the bed.

Soon there will be something new on it.

Something that represents a life I am no longer part of.

I know our marriage ended a long time ago.

There were papers signed and houses divided and holidays rearranged. There were new routines and separate lives and eventually other people.

But I think some part of me still carried little pieces of our vows.

Not because I thought we would get back together.

Not because I believed you still belonged to me.

Maybe because there are some promises you make so sincerely that your heart doesn’t know what to do with them when they are no longer yours to keep.

For a long time, when I imagined your future, some version of me was automatically standing in it.

I was the person beside you at holidays. The person growing old next to you. The person who knew which stories you would tell at dinner and what you would order and what stupid joke you would make before you even opened your mouth.

That future hasn’t belonged to me for a long time.

But next week, I think I will feel it become someone else’s.

Maybe divorce was the ending of our marriage, but this is the ending of the future we once promised each other.

The vows were broken a long time ago.

But for some reason, there were pieces of them I still felt responsible for carrying.

Things I still felt like I had to stand by, even after the marriage was over.

Maybe next week I can finally put those down too.

It is strange to think that the person I once vowed to sleep next to for the rest of my life is now the person I see once or twice a week for less than sixty seconds.

In an IKEA parking lot.

Of all the places our marriage could have ended up, I never would have guessed it would be here.

But then again, they really do have the best Swedish meatballs.