When we packed the van four days later, we were all five pounds heavier, tanned, and permanently slick with sunscreen. I was swearing off wine for at least a week, a bit embarrassed by the recycling bin at the curb as we pulled away. Sarah left the day after we got home, and after the unpacking, laundry, food shopping, and all the other miscellaneous chores that come from a restful week away, life returned to its normal rhythm.
Hannah and Leah had a month of day camp before returning to school. Leah was starting preschool; I could hardly believe it. Hannah would be in first grade.
Drew went into the city for a day to meet with a gallery owner and plan an opening. He had been uninspired lately and was going to stay overnight, stalking the parks and looking for unwitting subjects, or at least motivation. He claimed that living with me made him happy, and happiness made him lazy. He said he was too content to seek out the misery and sadness in society, and pictures of happy people didn’t sell as well, not to mention the great reduction in subjects.
I had the house to myself, which was a rare treat. I recalled the conversation with Drew on the beach. Sitting down at the computer, I did a quick Google search. After a few minutes of reading, I mulled over my findings. I could file for a divorce. Did I want to? I wasn’t sure. If something had happened to Greg, if he’d died, then clearly divorcing him would hurt no one. What about Hannah? Would she have to know? Would she even understand? Leah was too little. If Greg was missing by his own choice, then I should have no reservations about divorcing him. I couldn’t reconcile all my questions.
Dad always said that when life gets too complicated, start by asking yourself what you want. Define it in one sentence and work backward. I pulled out a piece of paper and asked myself, What do I want? Without hesitation, the answer came. I wanted Drew. Working backward, Drew wanted marriage. Would he stay without marriage? It was hard to say. Marriage acted like a glue when the rest of a carefully constructed life fell apart. It kept a couple together through hardships until they could rebuild. I didn’t believe in long-term relationships without marriage. Things wouldn’t stay blissful forever; life—messy, complicated, hectic, frustrating, and sometimes downright disastrous—would get in the way. That, I knew better than most. I picked up the phone and dialed my lawyer.
Divorcing a missing person was relatively simple and took less than a month. Half of our assets had to be placed in escrow until Greg was found or declared deceased. Everything else was mine. If I were to sell the house, I had to reserve half of the estate in the escrow account. I signed an affidavit that stated that I had attempted to look for the missing person by phone, street address, internet searching, and even social networking websites. Matt Reynolds signed a similar affidavit and appeared at a court hearing as a witness to our search. He provided a judge with an inch-thick case file, including his investigation leading to Lake Onodaga. The judge made his determination on the spot, and I went from a widow to a divorcee. I attended the hearing without Drew, by my choice, but when I got home, he held me gently, knowing that the ruling was bittersweet.
The divorce had to be publicly announced in three newspapers as part of due diligence. In the event that Greg was hiding in the next county over, the court had to be able to say he had been publicly served. I dreaded that, knowing it was always possible that my incredible story would be picked up and splashed across headlines, which would give everyone entitlement to an opinion. I had enough guilt and didn’t need more from public opinion, from people who didn’t know the facts. I waited, but there was no blowback.
Overall, the divorce had little impact on my day-to-day life. I felt slightly freer to plan my future with Drew, but since I had believed Greg to be dead for some time, that wasn’t an emotional freedom, but a legal one. We started to speak of marriage abstractly, the way people did when they first start thinking it was a real possibility, as in Someday when we’re married… I wasn’t sure when that day would be, but if there was one thing I’d learned, it was that life could sometimes change drastically from year to year. There was a certain wisdom in patiently waiting for life to happen. I planned on being a divorcee for a while before I became a wife again.
One Thursday, I sat at the kitchen island, lazily doing a crossword puzzle. In the back of my mind, I thought about being married again, about officially sharing my home, my finances, and my life with another person, as opposed to the separate-yet-equal life I was currently leading. The doorbell rang, interrupting my reverie. Drying my hands on a dishtowel as I walked down the hall, I tried to remember if it was time for Girl Scout cookie sales. I opened the door.