The Cover Age, Chapter 21

Sharing custody turns out to be a hassle. It’s the one thing divorcing couples never really seem to consider until it’s too late. Sometimes the judge will give sole custody, which is almost a mercy, because at least then you don’t have to spend long periods waiting.

Georgia always imagined the worst when Clive had her. It didn’t help to count the time. It didn’t help to imagine Clive doing the worst, because the worst Georgia could imagine was her daughter actually preferring Clive.

She’d talk with friends, and all she’d ever focus on were the worst things, everything that made Clive sound bad, and most of the time she even believed it herself. Her friends did because they’d never met Clive, they were all people who entered her life after the divorce, when she really had started all over again. She liked, and tried to pretend that her life before this never even happened. It was a coping mechanism, all of it, sure, but how else could she keep her sanity?

Her life was empty without her daughter. When the pandemic hit she outright panicked. She counted the very seconds.

She couldn’t even look at Clive when he dropped their child off. She didn’t even say a word. A part of her knew this was wrong, that it gave a bad example to her daughter, but she couldn’t help it.

She held her close, her little four-year-old, and rocked back and forth, not because she thought she was holding a baby, but in an attempt to calm herself, and maybe her daughter, too, who responded by gripping at her, too, and then smiling up at her, just the biggest, most heartbreaking smile she could possibly muster.

“We’re gonna be okay, baby,” Georgia said.