The baby and I arrived at our sublet with garbage bags full of shampoo and teething crackers, sleeves of instant oatmeal, zippered pajamas with little dangling feet. At a certain point, I’d run out of suitcases.
We had diapers patterned with drawings of scrambled eggs and bacon. Why put breakfast on diapers?, I might have asked, if there had been another adult in the room. There was not.
Outside, it was nineteen degrees in the sun. For the next month, we were renting this railroad one-bedroom beside a firehouse. I’d brought raspberries and a travel crib, white Christmas lights to make the dim space glow. Next door, a fireman strutted toward his engine with a chainsaw in one hand and a box of Cheerios in the other. My baby tracked his every move. What was he doing with her cereal?
It was only when I told my divorce lawyer, “She is thirteen months old,” that my voice finally broke. As it turns out, divorce lawyers keep tissues in their offices just like therapists, only not as ready to hand. “I know we’ve got them somewhere,” she told me warily, rising from her swivel chair to search. As if to say, We aren’t surprised by your tears, but it’s not our job to manage them. If I cried for five minutes, it would cost me fifty dollars.
“Just over thirteen months,” I added, wanting to make it seem like we’d stayed married longer than we actually had.
I was myself a “child of divorce,” as they say, as if divorce were a parent. When I was very young, I thought divorce involved a ceremony, the couple moving backward through the choreography of their wedding, starting at the altar, unclasping their hands, and then walking separately down the aisle.
Bu hikaye The New Yorker dergisinin January 22, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye The New Yorker dergisinin January 22, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Age of Anxiety
The love songs of Billie Eilish.
A Reporter at Large – You Make Me Sick
How corporate scientists discovered—and then helped to conceal—the dangers of forever chemicals.
OLD ENGLISH
“Player Kings,”\"The Cherry Orchard,” and \"London Tide.”
THOROUGHLY MODERN
Yuja Wang uses her star power to lead audiences out of their comfort zones.
THE PERFECTIONIST
Why we're still catching up to Brancusi.
DESERT ISLAND
Tastes of Hawati abound in Las Vegas.
HIGHER AND HIGHER
To preserve humanity—and the planet—should we give up growth?
MAXED OUT
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”
WOMAN, FROG, AND DEVIL
January Wojnicz, a retired civil servant and a landowner, was a splendid man, as they said in Lwów, handsome and dignified.
THE STASI FILES
Piecing together the secrets of East Germany’s past.