Yesterday I heard a co-worker that sits near me, who I don’t really know, was speaking frankly with someone on the phone. From the best I can tell the person on the other end asked one of those simple questions like, “So, how are things going?” I guess we most of the time fall into the pleasantries of saying, “Things are going fine,” but that’s not where Peter went:
Well, Katie and I are getting a divorce, and my brother calls everyday and he’s losing his mind. Says he needs to check into a psychiatric ward. Wants to know what I think, but won’t tell me what all is going on.
This guy is in the office everyday when I get there at 7 a.m., and he recently did a cancer fundraising walk which I meant to donate money before but forgot about. He is pleasant with the co-workers I see him interact with. Just the divorce prospect alone would change me, make me want to crawl in a hole for a while.
I really know nothing of is life. I imagine things, just like I do with most people I don’t really know ut have to be around. I’ve “eavesdropped” on his internet browsing and know that he has a fantasy baseball team. He wears a bowling shirt regularly, one of those types that were very popular in the late 90s. I even received a similar one at a conference from an internet start-up that didn’t. He’s balder than me, but I don’t imagine him to be too much older.
His cell phone ringtone is Elton John’s “Your Song,” and every time I hear it it breaks my heart. I wonder if someone purchased the ringtone for him. Or if he purchased it thinking of someone else. Then I wonder if the other in either of these situations was his wife. I wonder what went wrong between the time the ringtone was put on the phone and the present, where divorce is imminent.
I imagine him to have married early. Perhaps college sweetheart. Things went well for a while. They moved to a new city. Started a new life. No kids. Sooner or later, she got the itch. Not necessarily the cheating itch, but the I-wonder-if-there’s-more itch. There’s nothing in what I overheard on the phone to indicate that she is the one wanting to leave though. It’s just I can’t imagine this guy wanting to leave anyone. He seems so… benign… passive, like he would put up with anything until the end of the world just to keep it all together, to keep a little consistency and a little hope.
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