There’s Nothing Sadder Than A Red Lobster At 11:00AM.

I didn’t really know where else to take the kid. My kid, sort of. His mom and I separated when his sister was eleven and he was six. Now he’s fifteen and his sister won’t even talk to me, let alone agree to get lunch.

I thought the Red Lobster would be a nice place to go. Fancy enough that the kid would know his old man was doing all right, but cheap enough that I wouldn’t have to ask my landlord for an extension on rent. The problem was, his mom would only let me take him out at eleven in the morning, had some sort of soccer tournament he just had to attend in the afternoon. I offered to take him to that instead, but his mom refused, mumbled something about how I had never been concerned about attending his soccer games before.

You know what’s sadder than taking your estranged son to the Red Lobster at eleven in the morning? Nothing.

The only people there were the employees and a defeated looking elderly couple. Despite the sun blazing outside, the inside of the restaurant was cool and dimly lit with harsh orange lights above each booth. The kid and I slid into a booth two spaces away from the old couple, with me facing them. They already seemed to be halfway through their meal, even though the restaurant had just opened. Neither of them had spoken a word to each other since we’d gotten here.

A brunette in a starched white button up and blue apron came to the table to give us our biscuits and get our drink orders. The kid asked for a shirley temple through a mouth full of biscuit, a gesture I’m sure his mother would have chastised him for. I hesitated giving the excessive drink menu one last glance, but asked for a beer anyway. The waitress seemed unfazed with someone ordering a beer at eleven in the morning, but the kid gave me a look while grabbing for another mound of cheese and dough and for a second I thought I was having lunch with his mother.

It probably doesn’t matter how we met, just that I thought could love her forever. Her sister warned her, said I was like the serpent from Adam and Eve. But just like Eve, she didn’t listen and it was her that ended up suffering the most. The first time I tried to leave our daughter didn’t let me. Her mom had caught me in the act. I don’t think I was really trying to hide it at this point. I told her that I had no feelings left for her, so we sat our daughter down and told her that we were separating. She wouldn’t have it. She wailed. Begged for us to stay together. Kept asking how I could just leave them. So I told her I would stay.

I lasted a year. Then her mom started catching on again. Asked me why I was so distant. Had gone through my phone and seen the same messages I was getting twelve months before. This time it was for real. We tried to do it slowly, like when the kid’s sister stuck a wad of gum in his hair and their mom wasn’t home so I had to be the one to try to get it out with some peanut butter. He kept crying, telling me I was pulling his hair no matter how gentle I was. We told the kids that I was just working a lot, so I’d only be coming home on weekends. But the girl was smart. Asked us why I was sleeping in the living room with the kids instead of with their mom. That’s when she stopped speaking to me. That’s when a lot of people stopped speaking to me.

The waitress came back with our drinks and asked us if we needed more time to decide what to order. We both just nodded at our menus. With a sigh, I looked up and asked “How’ve you been, kid?