Mike
Sylvia, swift in figure and chat. Fortish, an accountant, two kids, the older one in college in another state. Has a boyfriend about fifteen years her junior.
The former husband, Mike, shows up once a week to pick up the younger boy for a weekend of fatherhood. A salesman, garage doors.
Something sinks in me when I watch Mike from across the street during his conditional visits in the nickelodeon of his former dream-come-true. Hushed, pressed into himself like an unprepared pupil into his desk chair, sits or stands on the porch of the house he’s likely still paying the mortgage on, takes short swigs from a bottle of Weinhard he’s been treated to, walks out onto the lawn to smoke a marlboro light, and smiles with faint understanding when the former wife and her boy playmate slip into public theatrics of new lovers like between the sheets.
Sylvia invites him to stay over for dinner on occasion, but he drives off just as soon as his boy is ready.