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Chapter Nineteen


Kevin

Andrew and I spent almost the entire day in the basement, working on the lyrics, on the melody, taping in the soundbooth, trying to piece together the song. It was around four in the afternoon when we made a call for food to be delivered and we were sitting in the kitchen, waiting for it to arrive. Andrew was a pretty funny guy, he had some great stories and a massive amount of talent. I could see why him and Nick were friends. I didn’t see any of the brutal Call of Duty barbarian that Nick had described in him, but then again I know even Nick tends to switch into Conan mode when he turned on the PlayStation so maybe it was the lack of stimuli.

“I’m not trying to brag here or anything,” Andrew was saying, “But this song is pretty slick.” He was sipping one of the beers we’d dug out of Nick’s fridge. Lord knows how long they’d been there, but they tasted good enough, so we’d popped he caps and clinked the bottles together and downed the necks in a toast to good songwriting.

“I don’t particularly need slick, I just need my wife to hear me,” I said.

“If she doesn’t hear you from this… she needs a hearing aid.”

The doorbell rang.

Andrew got up, “And I need that meatball sub that’s at the door to get in my stomach.” He winked, and went to get the door.

I sipped more beer.

Andrew came back a moment later, “It’s uh, not our food.”

I looked up.

Caroline stood behind him.

I put the beer down on the counter.

Andrew looked from Caroline to me, then back again. He looked excited. I had a feeling he thought Caroline was the one the song was for. My heart rate sped up. I stared at her. She looked nice in plaid and denim, her hair down and fluffy, curly as could be. She stared at me with wide eyes.

“Why didn’t you wait ‘til I got home?” she asked.

My mouth felt dry.

Andrew motioned he was gonna go downstairs, grabbed his beer bottle, and rushed down the steps to the basement.

“Kevin, I got to the house and I saw that sign and I got inside and there was that champagne and the money… I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, I just got so choked up, I knew it was you, I knew it was. I thought it might’ve been you when I passed the car on the road goin’ up, but then I saw the sign and I knew it was and -- I went to your momma’s house, but you’d already left. She said you was comin’ to Nick’s here in Nashville. I had to get Mikey to look up the address at the department.” Caroline paused. “Kevin, I - I had to thank you. In person.”

I swept my hands across my hips, drying the sweat that was pooling in the palms.

“Why didn’t you wait?”

“I couldn’t stay,” I said.

The sunlight coming in the windows behind me danced on her face in shards, lighting up parts and darkening others, catching a subtle glitter in her lip balm, making her mouth sparkle in a tantalizing manner, making her skin look so smooth.

“Why?”

“Because I had to write a song with Andrew Fromm.” I thumbed toward the basement door, where he’d just run off to.

Caroline’s eyes were searching me, moving left to right in a desperate fashion.

“I have to save my marriage,” I mumbled.

She blinked. Her voice was low, “Am I… a danger… to your marriage?”

My heart raced. “A little.”

“I’m not trying to be.”

“It comes natural.”

“How?”

“Just being you.”

She stared at me, a startled look on her face. Just as her features started to fold into a questioning expression, the doorbell rang. She glanced in the direction of the door, then turned back to me, a deer in headlights look on her face. I didn’t feel like I could’ve moved if a nuke dropped from the ceiling beside me. The bell rang again.

Andrew popped out from the basement door, “Sorry,” he mumbled, “Don’t wanna interrupt you and your - your wife…” he snuck through the kitchen, “But… food…” and he disappeared into the hallway going out to the foyer.

“She’s not my --” I stopped. He’d gone before I could correct him.

Caroline pointed at the door, “I’ll, um, show myself out.”

“What? You just got here.”

“I can’t stay.” She shook her head, “I’m not -- I’m not the kinda girl that comes between --” she waved her hands at me, “...all that.” She started toward the door.

“Caroline. Wait.” I said, her name having escaped me like an involuntary exhale. I took two steps towards her, reaching out, but not quite catching her. I didn’t know what I’d been about to do or what would’ve happened if Andrew hadn’t come back at that exact moment. I’ll never know. But Andrew stepped into the room, blocking Caroline’s departure.

“It uh, wasn’t food again,” he said.

I looked up, half expecting to see Kristin standing beside Andrew. But it wasn’t Kristin. It was a gawky-looking, thirty-something year old man with thick glasses, a mustache, and a bicycle helmet, standing there holding a manilla envelope.

“Uh… hi?”

“Are you Kevin Scott Richardson?” he asked, looking at the envelope and reading in a nasally, awkward sort of voice.

“Uh… yes?”

He held out the envelope, slipping it into my hands heavily. “You, sir, have been served,” he announced, and he fished around in his jacket’s inside breast pocket for a little notepad, where he scribbled a note, looking at his wristwatch.

“Wait, wait.. what? What is this?” I asked. There was an Avery label on the front with my full name printed in a serif font. I started to rip it open.

“I’m a professional servicer,” he announced, “I don’t know what I serve, only that it’s served to the correct person.”

I slid a sheath of heavy linen documents out of the envelope.

Petition for Divorce.

I started at the words.

“Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say,” the server-guy wheezed like this was funny.

I could barely hear him, though. The word Divorce was growing, I swear it, just expanding, getting bigger and bigger and bigger, leaping off the page, blowing up in my eyes, taking over…

Everything sounded lightyears away.

“Kev?” Andrew sounded concerned.

I stumbled back, the weight of the word Divorce pushing me, and I hit the wall. Or a counter. I dunno. A surface. That was the most I could perceive. It was as though my line of sight had narrowed. All I could see was the word Divorce swimming in front of me on a pool of slightly off-white paper.

I don’t know where Andrew went from there. I don’t know if he left, or if he just went out of the room. I don’t know who showed server guy out. All I know is I couldn’t see anything except that word.

Panic attack, my brain told me.

But identifying what was happening didn’t make it any better.

“Kevin,” Caroline’s voice penetrated the noise in my head, all this noise from the one word, like a billion drums were beating on my brain. Div-orce. Div-orce. Div-orce.

“Divorce,” I choked the word, strangled by the shock.

“What?” Caroline had one arm around me, I realized. She looked at the papers in my hand, the papers I was clutching in disbelief, and she gasped. “Oh no,” she murmured. “Oh Kevin.”

I felt like I was gonna be sick, I thought for a fleeting moment.

And then, I was.

All over Nick’s nice, newly retiled kitchen floor.

And Caroline’s shoes.

And also my shoes.

“Oh no,” Caroline said again, “Oh Kevin. I’m sorry.” She let go of me for a moment and started opening Nick’s cupboards until she found the all natural recycled paper towels Nick and Lauren used. As soon as Caroline had let go of me, my knees had stopped working, though, and I found myself kneeling on the floor. In the sick, I presume. My hands shook. I still couldn’t see anything but Divorce in my mind. “No Kevin, it’s okay, I’ll pick it up,” Caroline said, coming back. “Oh sweetie, you’ve got it all over you, oh no.” She started swiping those stupid fully recycled fucking paper towels over the sick, mopping up the mess I’d made, picking up after me, and my stomach turned from the smell of it but she didn’t bat an eyelash. Course the girl picked up horseshit for a living and I was getting god damned divorced.

Divorced.

“We need to get you cleaned up,” Caroline said.

She helped me up the stairs, holding my arm over her shoulder. In the bathroom, she turned on the shower faucet. “I’m not gonna help you with that, obviously, but you need to shower. Can you shower?”

I nodded.

“Okay. I’m gonna be right out here. Call me if you need help.” She looked at me nervously. “Kevin. Are you okay?”

“Okay? Do I look okay?” I asked weakly.

It was the only words I could muster.

Caroline looked sorry she’d asked. “I’ll be right out here,” she repeated.

She left the room and I stripped and got in the shower and let the hot water run over me and leaned, my palms spread open on the wall, breathing, watching the hot water pour off me, washing away the evidence of the vomit down the drain until it was gone.

Gone like my hope.

Gone like my wife.

Gone like the last twenty years.

I was beyond numb.

This, I thought, is what it would be like to have the very soul sucked out of you.

I literally couldn’t imagine a worse pain. Even losing a loved one to death wasn’t this bad. At least when they died, they hadn’t chosen to leave you. Kristin, though, she’d looked at the last twenty years we’d spent in our relationship, all the years of marriage, all the tender moments we’d shared, all the nights together, all the passionate I love yous and kisses and memories, and she’d chosen to file for a divorce.

Without letting me even defend myself.

I wished the hot water could boil away my very skin.

When I’d fully scalded myself, I got out and wrapped a towel around my waist. My dirty clothes lay on the floor haphazardly, and I exited the bathroom in a cloud of steam that billowed into the bedroom like an oncoming storm.

Caroline was sitting on a chair, staring out the window. She looked over. “Better?” she asked, concern in her eyes. She stood up.

I shrugged.

She’d turned down the bed.

I didn’t need any more of an invitation than that. I crawled in and pulled the sheets up around my neck.

Caroline came over and sat down next to me on the bed, her back against the headboard. She put her hand on my shoulder. “I know you don’t wanna talk right now,” she said, “But when you do, I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”




I woke up from a dreamless sleep suddenly. My eyes just snapped open. I felt disoriented again for a second, but when I breathed in, I could smell traces of Nick’s cologne and… and the Love’s Baby Soft. I turned my head. Caroline had fallen asleep, on top of the blanket I was beneath, her head against my shoulder. I stared at her, less surprised than I should’ve been. My eyes roved the room until they came to rest on the manilla envelope. Caroline must’ve picked it up from wherever I’d left it and she’d put it up on the nightstand.

I sat up slowly, Caroline’s head slipping from my shoulder and onto the pillow beneath me, and I grabbed the manilla envelope, tilting it so the papers slid out again and I stared down at it.

In the interest of the marriage of I, Kristin Kay Richardson, and Kevin Scott Richardson, and in the interest of Mason Richardson and Maxwell Richardson: I, the petitioner, Kristin Kay Richardson, am petitioning the court for a divorce from the respondent, Kevin Scott Richardson. My spouse and I were married on June 17, 2000. I, the petitioner, ask the court to grant me a divorce as the marriage has become insupportable due to discord or conflict of personalities that destroys the legitimate ends of the marital relationship and prevents any reasonable expectation of reconciliation. I ask the court to make custody orders of the Children listed above as follows: Mother and Father should be Joint Managing Conservators of the Children. Neither parent should have exclusive rights to the care of the children or the choice of their primary location of residence, but neither shall remove the children without the express agreement of both Mother and Father. If my spouse and I can agree on how to split our assets and debts as created during our marriage, then we request the court supports our agreements. I ask the court to legally change my name back to the name I used prior to this marriage and will henceforth be known in all legal documentation as Kristin Kay Willits.

It all came down to this. A few pages of agreements followed, splitting everything equally into two parts, and a page with her signature on it at the end.

“Kev?” Caroline’s voice broke through my reading.

I hadn’t realized I was crying until that moment. I swiped my face. “Hm?”

Caroline sat up. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head no.

“What can I do to help?”

“I don’t think there’s anything.”

Caroline sighed. “I’m so sorry Kevin.”

I stared at the document again, at her neat little signature at the bottom, at the little paper arrow asking me to sign below it, showing my agreement to all the terms and whatever she’d included in the pages prior.

I, the respondent, space for signature, agree to the terms put forth by my spouse, the petitioner…

“But I don’t,” I mumbled.

“What?” Caroline asked from behind me.

“I don’t, I don’t agree, I don’t agree,” I repeated, each time I said it feeling more angry. “I don’t fucking agree,” I shouted the last one, throwing the petition to the floor. “It ain’t fucking fair!” I yelled. I stood up and kicked the document. I kicked it right into the wall. I turned to look at Caroline, who was staring at me with an undisturbed expression, just waiting for me to get my fit over with. Well I wasn’t done yet, so I yelled at her. “I didn’t fucking do anything that wasn’t perfectly normal to do. I had to work, I had to go to fucking work to pay for the house we live in. I have to work for everything I got,” my voice pitched louder and louder. Caroline didn’t bat an eye. “I worked my way up from that fucking hole of a town you and I come from, Caroline, that fucking hole. I was facing a life becoming my father. I made something of myself. I made myself, I did it all by myself. And she expected me to give that all up like that.” I clicked my fingers. “She didn’t want to get out of bed. I had to go. I called her momma. It ain’t like I called Satan. It ain’t like I just said to her fuck you I’m going anyway. I called for help, the only god damn help I could think of. She didn’t want help from anybody, but god damn I needed the fucking help whether she needed help or not! I couldn’t take anymore, Caroline, I couldn’t… She wouldn’t get up. The baby - the baby needed her and she wouldn’t get the fuck up.” I was sobbing.

Caroline still wasn’t showing any signs of reaction.

“I got so frustrated, I just wanted my old wife back, the one who laughed and wanted to experience everything… It just pissed me off. You know?”

Caroline nodded.

“We both said things we didn’t mean.” I ran my hand through my hair with a sigh and shook my head. “Both of us did. And it took awhile, because we didn’t talk about it for a long time, but now I told her I was sorry, I told her and she didn’t wanna hear it. I didn’t even do nothin’ wrong and I still apologized and she still didn’t give a fuck. She just … serves me fucking papers, like I’m something to throw away. I didn’t do anything wrong. Why’s she given up on me?”

Caroline rubbed her nose.

“Why’s she given up on me, Caroline? Why? God damn it.” My face was soaked from tears. I swept my hand across my snotty nose and my eyes and shook the wet from my fingertips. I stared down at my feet. “I wrote her -- a -- a song -- to -- to say-- the words I couldn’t -- couldn’t say before. I waited too long, and -- oh god damn.” I couldn’t breathe.

Caroline’s words were soft, “So don’t sign.”

“Wh-what?”

“Don’t sign the papers.”

‘What am I supposed to - to do?”

“You wrote her a song,” Caroline said, “So… sing her the song. Don’t sign it. Win her back, regardless of this stupid petition…” Her eyes were glazed, like she was trying not to cry, too. “If you love her… sing her the song you wrote for her, and if there’s a chance, you’ll have taken it. And if there isn’t… then you sign, then you move on, then you heal. But you have to try. At least try.”

I stared at Caroline.

“If you don’t try… you’ll always wonder, Kevin,” she whispered. “Trust me. I know.”