A Separate Peace

After an acrimonious divorce, Daphne Merkin hardly expected her relationship with her ex—and his new wife—would improve

I am sitting in a red vinyl booth in a New York City coffee shop, waiting to meet a man. I have dressed casually for the assignation, in leggings and an oversize sweater, but I have gone to the trouble of running a comb through my hair and adding a slick of color to my lips. And then I spot a familiar outline in the doorway, the shock of dark hair, the lean face, the rail-thin physique dressed artfully in black: My ex-husband, Michael, has arrived for one of our monthly get-togethers. We greet one another warmly, with a kiss on the cheek, addressing each other by well-worn nicknames—“Daffel” for me and “Michu” for him. Looking at the two of us, talking amiably over an omelet and egg-salad sandwich, respectively, one would take us for a couple long used to each other’s different ways rather than a couple long divided by them.

It wasn’t, of course, ever thus. In fact, it is only in the past three or four years that we have become so compatible, such that I and our daughter, Zoe, have taken to visiting Michael and Joy, the woman he married more than a decade after our divorce, at their cozy house upstate for Thanksgiving, as well as for the occasional spring weekend. Joy is also in my book group, and we’ve gotten in the habit of referring to each other as “wives-in-law.” When a friend of mine threw a dinner party in honor of my birthday last May, Michael and Joy were among the carefully chosen group of guests.