Aspirin for a severed head

My husband headed to Club Med after divorcing me. I joined Club Dead.

By Suzanne Finnamore

Oct 15, 2002 | I have been divorced two years this Thanksgiving. (The irony is not altogether lost on me. Bear with.)

I did not believe I would ever get over my divorce, which couldn't have been more painful, squalid or banal. We had just had a baby -- not to save the marriage, I might add, but for the usual joyous, traditional and misguided reasons.

I did not know the marriage needed saving. This shows my general naiveté, something that divorce cures one of forever.

I became a single mother overnight, which is nothing like becoming famous overnight: I believe it is the emotional equivalent of having a stroke. While my estranged spouse recuperated at the requisite tropical island where frothy drinks are served with miniature parasols, I was left holding the diaper bag.

The timing could not have been worse, as I was left to raise our beautiful son at a time when eating or grooming seemed difficult and perhaps unnecessary. (Other activities, such as swan diving off the roof, or driving my car into a cement piling, seemed easy and sensible.) I wanted to die. Unlike my spouse, I did not want Club Med. I wanted Club Dead. Life as I knew it was over, my bills were doubled and my fear and loneliness and sense of complete failure rose like bone dust into the night air.

In a true universe, there would be a place where love and marriages go to die, rapture's own version of the elephant's graveyard. They should not be allowed to dissipate on their own, to float away on some random moment, irrevocable as seed from a dandelion.

There ought to be a body you can bury.

At the grave site: Here Lies the Marriage of Mark and Suzanne, 9/21/96-11/22/00. One could visit the grave, say a few words. Maybe plant a flower, or defecate. It would be up to you. Instead, we are faced with a vague sense of loss and the feeling that a passage has been missed. There are so many marriage ceremonies; there ought to be one for divorce. Instead of rice, people could throw Xanax, Mercedes keys and money for the mortgage.

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During the first few weeks, my mother came to stay with me, positioned on the Pottery Barn chair and a half, a kind of angelic sentinel in sweat clothes. She drank Diet Coke and she listened, telling me stories from her own divorce. These stories were not terribly encouraging, seeing as how my father remarried twice and dropped dead at 44. But although my mother wanted to part my husband's hair with an ax, she was happy; I noticed that. She had survived.

Of course, I did not die. Instead, I focused on my extraordinary son and drank midrange chardonnay every night. From the couch, which had become my battle station, I ordered a barrage of mail-order items. I felt like hammered shit every day.

I asked my mother, How long? Two years, she said. My brain did not accept this as viable information. Yes, my mother had been left at 36 with two kids, but that was in the '70s. I announced I could not last that long, that even next month was pushing it. She said, "Oh. Well. Everyone's different, honey."

I walked around my small town with a thought bubble over my head: Person Going Through a Divorce. When I looked at other people, I automatically formed thought bubbles over their heads. Happy Couple With Stroller. Innocent Teenage Girl With Her Whole Life Ahead of Her. Content Grandmother and Grandfather Visiting Town Where Their Grandchildren Live With Intact Parents. Secure Housewife With Big Diamond. Undamaged Group of Young Men on Skateboards. Good Man With Baby in Baby Björn Who Loves His Wife. Dogs Who Never Have to Worry. Young Kids Kissing Publicly. Then every so often I'd see one like me, one of the shambling, sad women without makeup, looking older than she is: Divorced Woman Wondering How the Fuck This Happened.

I remember thinking, This just can't last. Sooner or later my life is going to have to come back from the cleaners. I waited. I was not patient, but I waited. If there'd been someone in a position of authority to upbraid for this, I would have. I would have upbraided most severely.

I asked my divorced friends, How long? Two years, they said.

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