Sing You Home

messages on it. I don’t have to call voice mail to know they are all from Reid, and they are all angry.

I call him back. “Reid,” I say. “Look, man, I’m really sorry. I was just about to hit Ninety-three North when the truck broke down. I tried to call, but I didn’t have service-”

“Where are you now?”

“Waiting for a tow,” I lie. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take to fix.”

Reid sighs. “I’ll get Pastor Clive a limo,” he says. “Do you need a ride, too?”

I don’t know what I did to deserve a brother like Reid. I mean, anyone else would have written me off long before now. “I’m good,” I reply.

Zoe had wanted me to quit surfing. She didn’t understand the obsession, the way I couldn’t pass by a beach with a rip curl. Grow up, Max, she had said. You can’t have a child if you are one.

Was she right?

About everything?

I picture the sheriff showing up at her house. Zoe Baxter? he’d say, and she’d nod. You’ve been served. Then he would leave her holding the little blue folder, the one she must have known was coming sooner or later, and yet still would feel like a kick in the gut.

In the truck, I am still shivering, even with the heat turned up high. I hesitate… and then reach into the glove compartment. The bottle of Jagermeister is really just for medicinal purposes. You see it all the time in movies-the guy who’s got frostbite, the one who’s fallen off a bridge into the water; the fellow who’s been left out in the cold too long… they’re all confused and frantic until they take a nip to get their blood flowing again.

One sip, and suddenly they’re healed.

Two months later

If not for the garbage truck, I would have missed my court date.

I wake with a start when I hear the high-pitched beeps, jumping upright and smacking my head against the roof of the car. The garbage truck backs toward the Dumpster I’m parked beside and hooks its teeth into the metal loops so that it can lift the receptacle. All I know is that it sounds like freaking Armageddon.

The windows are steamed up and I’m shivering, so I turn on the ignition and blast the defroster. That’s when I realize that it’s not 6:00 A.M., like I figured, but 8:34 A.M.

In twenty-six minutes I am getting divorced.

Obviously, I don’t have time to go back to Reid’s and shower. As it is, I will have to break the land speed record to get to the Kent County Courthouse on time.

“Shit,” I mutter, throwing the car into reverse and peeling out of the parking lot of the bank where I must have fallen asleep last night. There’s an Irish pub around the corner, and last call is 3:00 A.M. I have a vague recollection of a bunch of guys having a bachelor party, of being invited to do some tequila shots.

Fortunately, there’s no snow yet, or for that matter an overturned truck on the highway. I park illegally in a spot that isn’t really a space (not a bright idea at a courthouse, but really, what am I supposed to do?) and run like hell into the building. “Excuse me,” I mutter, my head pounding as I run up the stairs to Judge Meyers’s courtroom. I bump into a woman with her two kids and a lawyer reading a brief. “Sorry… pardon me…”

I slide into the back row of the benches. I am sweating, and my shirt’s come untucked from my pants. I haven’t had a chance to shave, or even wash up in the bathroom. I sniff my sleeve, which smells like last night’s party.

When I glance up again, I see her staring at me.

Zoe looks like she hasn’t slept in seventy-seven days, either. She has dark circles under her eyes. She’s too thin. But she takes one look at my face, my hair, my clothing, and she knows. She understands what I’ve been doing.

She turns away from me and fixes her gaze straight ahead.

I feel that dismissal like a hole punched through my chest. All I ever wanted was to be good enough for her, and I screwed up. I couldn’t give her the kid she wanted. I couldn’t give her the life she deserved. I couldn’t be the man she thought I was.

The clerk stands up and begins reading through a list. “Malloy versus Malloy?” she says.

A lawyer stands up. “That’s ready, Your Honor. Can we have the process on that, please?”

The judge, a woman with a round, sunny face, has decorated her bench with seasonal items-Beanie Babies dressed like Pilgrims, a stuffed turkey.

“Jones versus Jones?”

Another attorney rises. “Ready, nominal.”

“Kasen versus Kasen?”

“Your Honor, I need a new date on that. Could I have December eighteenth?”

“Horowitz versus Horowitz,” the clerk reads.

“That’s a motion, Your Honor,” another lawyer replies. “I’m ready to go.”

“Baxter versus Baxter?”

It takes me a moment to realize that the clerk is calling my name. “Yes,” I say, standing up. As if there’s a thread connecting us, Zoe rises, too, all the way across the room.

“Um,” I say. “Present.”

“Do you represent yourself, sir?” Judge Meyers asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“Is your wife here?”

Zoe clears her throat. “Yes.”

“Are you representing yourself, ma’am?” Judge Meyers asks.

“Yes,” Zoe says, “I am.”

“Are you both ready to go forward with the divorce today?”

I nod. I don’t look at Zoe to see if she’s nodding, too.

“If you’re representing yourselves,” Judge Meyers says, “you are your own attorneys. That means you have to put your case on if you want to get a divorce today. I highly recommend watching these other nominal divorces to see the procedure, because I can’t do it for you. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say, but she might as well be speaking Portuguese for all I understand.

We are not called again until over two hours later. Which means I could have showered, since, even though I’ve now sat through five other divorces, I have no idea what I am supposed to do. I walk past the gate at the front of the courtroom into the witness box, and one of the uniformed bailiffs comes up to me holding a Bible. “Mr. Baxter, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

From the corner of my eye, I see the clerk directing Zoe to take a seat at one of the tables in front of the bench. “I do,” I say.

It’s funny, isn’t it, that you have to speak the same words to get married as you do to get divorced.

“Please state your name for the record…”

“Max,” I say. “Maxwell Baxter.”

The judge folds her hands on her desk. “Mr. Baxter, have you entered your appearance?”

I just blink at her.

“Sheriff, have Mr. Baxter enter his appearance… You want a divorce today, Mr. Baxter?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re representing yourself today?”

“I can’t afford a lawyer,” I explain.

The judge looks at Zoe. “And you, Mrs. Baxter? You’re representing yourself as well?”

“I am.”

“You’re not fighting the divorce today, is that correct?”

She nods.

“Sheriff, have Mrs. Baxter enter an appearance on her own behalf, please.” The judge turns back to me and sniffs. “Mr. Baxter, you smell absolutely pickled. Are you under the influence of alcohol or drugs?”

I hesitate. “Not yet,” I say.

“Seriously, Max?” Zoe blurts out. “You’re drinking again?”

“It’s not your problem anymore-”