A broken marriage.
A new job.
She works as a Personal Assistant on the ForNoah Youtube channel.
Noah is on the autistic spectrum and she fixes things for him.
He's a shipwright and creates beautiful works of art.
She's a woman starting over who meet...
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My marriage ended because of a butt dial. It's laughable in my head. The type of things late-night comics would make an entire career out of. As many times as I've laughed, I fight tears more. Maybe we could have spent the next forty or fifty years together, regardless. Perhaps I could have closed my eyes when he came through the door, let him tell me the normal 'I love you', and acted like I heard nothing. My lips kissing his cheek and it would have been one more day like every other day. Acting like his sidepiece didn't exist. I could have destroyed myself daily with fake smiles and maybe had that third child he wanted. Yes, lying to myself was a real possibility.
My hand tightens around the wheel. The back streets of Sacramento barely whisper with noise. The lights of Folsom Lake waterfront homes pierce the sky and beckon me down the road. The cool breeze from the lake overwhelms my senses mile by mile as I get closer to the lake.
I keep running my marriage over and over, looking for that moment. A pinpoint in time when the 'I love you's that fell so easily from his lips become fake. When did his lover enter our bedroom? I can't say if it was day one or the end. How did I not see this coming? The bitter taste of that truth fouls my mouth.
I didn't want to see it coming.
So, I didn't see.
My eyes flick up to the rearview mirror and check the back seat. I lock eyes with my daughter's old eyes that don't have questions in them. Instead, there's an acceptance that's beyond her years. The old life is over.
Her sleepy brother slumps in the car seat that he's outgrown. His Lando cape around him like a blanket hangs open with his movement. He needs a booster seat. Time's running out on that problem.
The car rocks down the old back road. A sign for the Folsom lakefront property next turn flashes by me.
They don't tell you when your husband cheats on you to immediately get an STD test. Thank God I had three friends who told me to go. I had nothing when I walked away from the divorce. I had less than nothing. They don't tell you what split down the middle really means when you're broke already. It makes you twice as broke because you sell everything to split it in half for less value than it's worth. It's pawn-shopping your marriage, and the shop will always rip you off.
Grabbing my gigantic bag, I pull out my portfolio and phone. "Okay. Call Mom."
The phone dials my mom automatically, and it rings.
I pull the car over short of the property line for my interview. The bright letters of my virtual assistant company shine in the in-car overhead light. Adothand wasn't the best name for a small, barely two-year-old virtual assistant company, but as long as I'm reading emails, fixing problems, patting backs, wiping noses, and organizing their lives in general, the YouTube creatives I work for don't seem to mind my lack of skill in the business naming department. My embossed name on the slick leather portfolio sticks out in pretty writing—Tari Tyson. The logo looks as slick as the day I designed it. I can do this.
