Kate Somerset - Mom... You Just Need to Get Laid

Mom... You Just Need to Get Laid:
The Adventures of Dating After Divorce
Copyright 2021 Kate Somerset

Published in the United States by the Brooklyn Writers Press in Brooklyn, New York.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

BROOKLYN WRITERS PRESS
BROOKLYN, NY

ISBN: 978-1-9529910-9-7

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Mom... You Just Need to Get Laid:
The Adventures of Dating after Divorce

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To my beautiful daughter Ella, whose resilience, straight talk, and courage inspire me every day.

And to the movers who brought me to New York.

Without either, this book wouldnt have happened.

They both began to giggle and then they

fell into a side-splitting round of laughter,

the cleansing, complete sort of laughter

only a mother and daughter can share.

KAREN KINGSBURY

It was 12:30 AM on a summer Saturday night in Texas. The crowd in my kitchen was predictably noisymy 18-year-old daughter Ella and her girlfriends had returned home.

After a night out, they were bringing the party inside. Carrying bags of In-N-Out burgers and fries, they landed in the kitchen, the command central in my house.

A hub of food preparation and consumption, the sprawling space was always where everyone wanted to be. The white floor, white tile backsplashes, white appliances, white cabinets, and tall, deep-set bay windows with their beveled glass panes were inviting. The views to a big lawn in the front and a red brick multilevel patio in the back situated the room for all-day and all-night activity, without missing out on anything that was happening outside.

And for me, the kitchen was also an office. My computer workstation, files, phone, notepads, and to do lists were neatly arranged on the non-food side, which gave a seamless transition from dining to doing. Except for dressing and sleeping, I hardly ever left the room when I was home.

That night Ella and Company commandeered the long kitchen island to consume their midnight snack. Regaling each other with jokes and stories from the evening, they used code words to keep me from fully understanding their meanings.

The giggles and snorts of laughter coming from Ellas crowd at the island were hard to ignore, even though I was across the room, absorbed in my latest email composition. Half of me was thrilled they were having so much fun. The other half of me was irritated by being disrupted when I needed to complete an important work project.

But all of me was glad that Ella was at our house with her friends. That meant I knew her whereabouts, not always a guarantee on weekends. It had been a challenging year for her and me.

After 24 years, I was going through a significant transitiona divorce that I had seen coming for years, a definite move from the house where I had lived my whole married life and raised Ella, and a likely shift in my career and work, a lot of those details unknown.

Several months before, my ex-husband had moved out. Even though Ella and I could now finally breathe different air, the removal of one other adult from the environment meant Ellas life just wasnt the same.

Having a mom working at all hours AND adding on all the responsibilities that come with divorce preparations gave Ella a lot of unsupervised freedom. And in her most vulnerable years. Even though she was an older teen, Ellas need for an active and present parent was still essential. I wasnt always physically there for observation and course correction. And so, she and her friends sometimes tested me, often in ways that made me laugh. Why didnt I see THAT one coming? I would wonder.

Ellas teenage friendships had been predictable in some ways and not in others. She moved easily in and out of her age-appropriate social groups, which included some friends who lived life in the fast lane. Ella could be a risk-taker. And she believed in speaking the truth and thinking about the fallout later.

At times more of an old soul than a teenager, Ella often surprised me with her adult insights. And with a spot-on directness, she never minced words when tackling difficult or even verboten subjects.

It was Ella who first suggested the idea of divorce to my husband and me. Saying out loud the sentiments he and I had both felt but had never spoken, she boldly crossed a parent/child forbidden topic line and never looked back.

Cornering us together over the previous Thanksgiving weekend, she challenged us:

You two are miserable. Why are you still together?

That zinger of a question sparked the most honest conversation of at least a decade. And the upshot was that Ella had it exactly right. My quarter of a century marriage had run its course, and I needed to end it.

The three-way talk between Ella, my husband, and me happened almost a year before the In-N-Out burger feast in the kitchen.

By that night, divorce papers had been filed. And I was dealing with lawyers, accountants, and movers, while silently beginning to hatch a formulated plan for the new me.

And for the first time, I sensed Ella regarded me as a person, separating from my old life and taking control of my future.

Anxious to see who we both would be once the divorce was completed, Ella repeatedly asked why the process took so long. Since I had only an estimate of time, but no guaranteed end date, I could give her no satisfactory answer.

That frustrated her.

Toggling between complaining like a teenager or adopting a more adult perspective, Ella kept me off balance with her continued verbal poking and prodding.

This night was no different.

After she and her friends finished inhaling their burgers, Ella plopped into my desktop computer chair at the other end of the kitchen. I had gotten up for just a moment when she seized the opportunity, her friends circling her.

Honey, you guys cant use the computer now, I said to her, as they began a Facebook search on a boy they had run across earlier that evening.

Why not?

Because I have work to do, and besides, its late, and time to bring an end to this party.

Oh, Mom, Ella argued. You are so controlling. Why are you so bossy and always telling me what to do?

Thirty more minutes before everyone has to go, I said to the group. But take it to your room in the meantime, I directed Ella.