In the morning, with both boys still sleeping, I got my coat and headed out. In the past, I would have made breakfast for my husband and son, done the dishes, the laundry - a good wife, until I couldn't anymore, because it felt like a pillow was pressed on my face, cutting off my oxygen. The sun was out, turning the world brilliant, and I didn't want to miss any of it. I stopped at Java Cafe and talked to one of the regulars who was reading a book about a woman who loved the characters in a book so much that reality began to fade for her. I wrote down the title. [...]

Throughout the day, the thought of Ben's mother tugged at me. It wasn't abandonment. After all, Ben was in high school, soon off to college. But it was something. Part of me envied her - how she could empty herself of her son, give herself over exclusively to herself again, like a young girl without a care in the world. Her attention, energy, time, mental space, she reclaimed it - it was all hers. She'd trusted the universe to provide, which, in fact, it did.

I'd had a long day at work, teaching three classes, with finger-wringing students filing in my office, worrying about their stories. I loved their stories, loved puzzling over them with my students, but I was tired. Sun from the spring day hung low in the sky, as if it wanted one long look at the world before it disappeared. Thomas had basketball practice and wouldn't be home for another two hours. Solitude luxuriously stretched out in front of me, like an empty sugar-sand beach. I'd soak in a hot bath, let my mind become my own again. I'd write something. I'd been working on it in my mind, though it was inchoate.

He didn't say anything. Then: "Dad. You weren't nice to him in the end."

His voice quivered, as if he'd suffered an irreparable loss, and in that moment, I glimpsed Thomas's former self, the boy who wept when his hamster died. Together we held a proper funeral in the backyard. All at once, I felt I'd made a terrible mistake, not just how I'd handled the divorce, but everything, the way I'd chosen to live, make a living, raise Thomas, as if at every time, I'd opted to take the wrong direction, though I couldn't say what was the right direction.

Thomas shook his head. "Forget it."

He left. Music blared from his room, creating a sonic wall.