unceremonious

On New Year's Eve 2002, I met my mom's boyfriend, Ken. This was a surprise. My parents recently told me and my sisters about their impending divorce (years later I found out that Ashley actually met Ken prior to New Year's Eve) but this was still a bit of a shock to ten-year-old Haley. Looking back, it is absurd. Mom and Dad were at work, and there were my sisters and I at our grandparents' house a few blocks from our own, uncomfortably sitting next to a man with a thick Rhode Island accent as he casually drinks beer and eats cheese and crackers. Surprise! This man who pronounces "pizza" with an "-er" is your mother's new boyfriend; don't tell your father you met him; be nice to this stranger and don't question anything.

I remember very little from that night, aside from an intense gut feeling that I had to be polite to him or I'd be in trouble. Why did I feel that way? Why was I so concerned with being nice to this interloper? Despite this instinct, I was still frustrated and confused, so I was not as nice as he hoped. One little snippet from that evening has always stuck out to me: he asked me if I could ever say anything nice to him, and I said "I like the wrinkles around your eyes." This man must have been 34 or 35 years old. In present day, I have friends that age and I can't imagine them dating a married woman with three children, expecting the children be nice to him on their first meeting, much less demanding it.

It rained that night, flooding our neighborhood and my mom's van. She recruited not only Ken to help, but also my dad. My dad is not a saint, but I think it's pretty bold that my mom called her boyfriend and her husband to help navigate her flooded vehicle, though for all I know my dad was more than happy to help. He has always made very Provider Dad statements like "I just want my kids to be happy," all while having no more than five conversations with me my entire childhood.

From there I actually warmed up to Ken. Mom drove me to his home for hangouts (he lived with his parents, naturally). Unbeknownst to Dad, he visited our home, oftentimes cleaning it and saying "Don't tell ya fathah I was here." The absolute audacity of that man. 

Several times Mom set us kids wild in Wal-Mart so she could chat with Ken on a pay phone outside. When pestered about wanting to leave she would shoo us away, giggling, a lovebird smitten by a recent divorcee with four young children of his own. "Ken's ex-wife is crazy," she'd say. "Once when he came home from spending time with friends, she threw toilet paper rolls at him. She didn't even tell him when their youngest was born. " Gosh. I'm sure he was innocent in all of this. 

Looking through my 2021 glasses, it's easy to see that when someone calls their ex "crazy," it's because they themselves are an asshole. Unfortunately, back in the nineties and early aughts, Janice was still terrorizing the gang on Friends and wasn't it hilarious? So, what's the best protection against anyone ever accusing you of being a Janice? Believe everything a man tells you about his ex. 

After god knows how long of sneaking Ken around us kids, Mom and Dad finally got divorced. The State of Florida required we attend a workshop on divorced parents, where we watched Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's 1995 hit It Takes Two, a film about twin strangers coming together to stop the Wealthy Twin's Father, Steve Guttenberg, from marrying a 90s Evil Stepmother, Jane Sibbett. They succeed, and instead Wealthy Father gets with Orphan Twin's... Orphanage Caretaker, the now-disgraced Kirstie Alley. I think the state employee in charge of pressing play on the VCR may have asked the group if we had any questions, but aside from that I don't recall there being any discussion around the film, particularly whether mistreating one's stepparents and manipulating one's parent into dating the caretaker of a long-lost twin sister is an appropriate way to dealing with the emotions stemming from a parent's changing romantic life.

I want to say our beautiful Sunshine State handles these things better now but, based on the way everything else is going... I'm reluctant. 

The day Dad moved out, I played on the family computer while he packed up his Toyota Tacoma with the few personal belongings he would bring to his brother and sister-in-law's home. On his last trip he paused at the front door, small cardboard box in hand, and said, in his low, scratchy voice, "Bye, kids." 

I regret not getting up to hug him. I wonder if my memory has erased my mom and sisters from the scene or if they really were off doing something else, meaning he left his home of ten years with so little fanfare that he might have been going to the gas station for milk. I do know that my relationship with my dad was little more than polite up until just a few years ago, when I became a somewhat interesting adult and he became more comfortable with texting. We now talk regularly: exchanging jokes, food pictures, and recommending books to one another. Between the divorce and my sisters aging out of visits with Dad, it was I who cared enough to leave a voicemail every other week, asking when he would be off work next. To this day, the only way I can remember his phone number is by reciting it in my head in the musical voice of Sprint PCS' voicemail robot.