"How I Became a Divorced Brunette”

“As ironic as it might sound, sometimes the worst things that happen to us in life, lead us to happiness.”

I sat silently as the tears slowly dwelled in my eyes. He looked over to find me in despair and gently tapped on his shoulder signaling that I could cry on it.

My vulnerability prevailed and loudly sobbing I left stains of tears on his pink- collar shirt, to my luck he did not mind.

“Why me?” I questioned expecting a compelling answer.

“Before I respond to your question, may I ask what happened?”

I quickened to wipe away my tears oblivious on how to admit to a man whom I had met two weeks ago, that my husband cheated on me. Admitting this fact required a lot of courage, and I was not sure whether I had it. Before I could let out a decent justification for my tears, he reached out his hand and requested me to follow him to the corner where his piano sat awaiting patiently. We sat side by side, the heat waves from our bodies exchanged as our arms came in contact.

“Let me play, the music will make it easier for you to articulate your emotions.” One note at a time he played a soft tune, reaching the tiniest scars hiding inside my heart. His music swayed me away, hypnotically pulling my past out of my mouth, making it slip right between my lips.

I flipped to the earlier pages of my archive, which I had named “signing the trap.” On a beautiful spring day my fiancé and I presumed and signed papers to be lawfully announced husband and wife. I swirled in my white dress dancing the night away with my beloved one. Some eyes looked at us filled with love, while some burned in envy. He would whisper next to my ear telling me that I was the most beautiful woman. My friends gathered around in hopes to catch my bride’s bouquet, standing ready with their arms stretched out.

The wedding bells rang, the sole of shoes and heels left marks on the dance floor, laughter echoed between walls, as my husband swirled me in the arms of my own dreams. The image before me seemed like a fairy tale, with a famous Disney quote ringing in my ears, “And they lived happily ever after.”

As soon as the wedding bells were out, however, I felt as if someone had pushed me down a rollercoaster and my fairytale derailed. The promised honeymoon did not happen. My duties were listed out for me by my mother in law, or should I say Monster-in-law? As soon as the ring came wrapping my finger, I was exposed to many unpleasant surprises. The car my husband had been claiming as his own since the time we started dating, was not his. We had planned to buy a house of our own, and the house he so often spoke about was not a house he was aiming to purchase, but the house I had inherited from my parents. As you see my marriage was no Disney Movie.

Soft kisses were replaced by endless quarreling, warm hugs were substituted by endless comparison to other women who looked better and dressed with more taste, his phone calls and text messages were substituted by his mother’s endless calls, always calling to make sure that I, the witch, did nothing to bring harm to her big baby.

Getting married felt like jumping off of a parachute, at first exciting, however you never know where you will land, and whether your parachute will open at the end of the day. I was in the mid air flying, oblivious to which field I was going to make a landing on, and whether this marriage would even last. Not only was I a housewife, a young mother, but also a betrayed woman. My husband had expanded his list of female acquaintances, with whom he enjoyed spending the evenings with, with whom he took photos having them sit on his lap so comfortably, with whom he made love.

From a beautiful bride from the ball he had turned me into a housekeeper, cook, babysitter, and an unhappy woman. Each time the light of his phone switched on, every inch of hair in my body would stand tall. Warm nights turned into war zones, my side always losing and being accused of being a jealous psycho. Apparently, the blond woman with a cleavage the size of my head sitting on his lap was his best friend.

“I wonder whether I could have such male best friends?” I asked puzzled turning Alex’s focus on myself with his fingers detaching from the piano for a moment. “That was more of a thought than I question I suppose.”

“Just a thought aloud. Keep playing my story does not end there,” I urged him to continue. I should agree the music made it much more easier for me to liberate my emotions. I picked up my story from where I had left off.

The real war started when my husband started hiding his phone, which became like a third lung to him. I know it might sound obnoxious but sometimes I think to myself that he took an oath to be by his phones side through thick and thin, rather than giving that oath to me. Years later talking about it sounds funny, however living through it was painful.

It was an autumn morning when I woke to up my breakfast and rushed to the kitchen with my son sitting on my hip like a baby koala. I wanted my husband to have a good rest because even though it was our child by document, all the effort was being put from my side. So in other words, I was a single mother, just married on paper. That’s what it felt like living with this man.

With one leg I kept the baby stroller motioning back and forth, while one hand stirred the stew on the burning stove. My husband’s angry voice could be heard from the other side of our house, “Where is my phone?” He yelled, as his steps grew closer.

Analyzing what had trigger such anger I calmly responded, “It was next to your bed stand,” and smiled. Lost in words, still dressed in his underwear, he

scratched his eyes coming up with an excuse, “I was just anticipating a very important call, don’t want to miss it. Keep cooking honey.”

Such reaction would never leave any women indifferent. Now would it? I waited for the perfect moment to get a hold of that device and dig deep to find a response to such worry. To my luck he had gone to the shower room and left his phone on charge. I dug deeper, entering all his text messages, phone calls, and finally my eyes came across a locked file, which was calling to be opened. I tried few verities of digits, but it would not unlock. Finally, I just typed in the four digits of his birth year. My reaction, “WOW! So clever yet so dumb!”

What I came to witness was shocking. He had saved all the phone number of girls along with their photos. I made sure to write down a few names and contact details, which rang a bell in my ear. I compared the numbers and found that every girl was written under a male’s name. He had renamed the females turning them into his male friends. That was the last drop causing an overflow of an ocean, the Grand Finale.

The only valuable thing I took from that house was my son. Nothing else seemed to matter, no gold, and no clothes, nothing at all. I left with little pocket change, just enough to bring me home. I came home running to my parents, broken into little tiny pieces.

A week later I filed for a divorce and bought two tickets to start a new life. Here I am now telling you my story.”

I noticed Alex sat patiently listening to my story. No comments or judgments were exchanged. He played the music from his heart, as if he was trying to liberate himself from pain. His long fingers gently glided through the keynotes like a real professional. Every now and then between telling my story, a question of how a wonderful pianist turned himself into an economist, couldn’t help but enter my mind.

“There you go, the story of my life. Can you give me a response now?” Why did his response matter to me so much? Was I looking for someone to pity me? Why couldn’t I just carry on with my life and be happy?

A loop-sided smile ran across his face and there we sat looking directly into each other’s eyes. “If this didn’t happen to you, would you and I have met?” With the tip of his finger he pressed on the new keynote signaling the beginning of a new life for both of us.

The End.