I think the Colorado sun was shining a bit brighter than it usually would coming through those east windows there in that messy apartment off of Plum Street in Fort Collins.
The chickadees sang in the distance as dust danced in the streak of light by the window.
I raised one of my arms above my head, sighed a breath out and turned over. My eyes fluttered open to meet the dawn dancing on those white sheets. I felt the cool breeze aching through the crack in the window as it met my face.
My eyes caught him.
Oh my word, tell me you didn’t watch me sleep all night?
I would teasingly smile and pull the quilt closer to my face.There, his hands would find me and pull me closer to him.
There is a Mackenzie in my bed of course I will stare at you.
He smelled of pine and whiskey as he kissed me. I would teasingly roll my eyes and lean over him for a cigarette at the end of the bed. I sat cross legged and brushed my hair out of my face.
Do you have a lighter?
Our ritual whenever I stayed with him was an elixir of some sort of food creation, IPAs, deep conversation that would make me angry or enlightened and inevitable love making. I would never knock on the door to his place even at three in the morning. I never had to apologize for my comings and goings. I would just come in and leave what I knew to be a better choice at the doorstep. That impulsive childish desire is something to this day I can’t quite explain.
I would carefully climb out his bed and pick up the remnants of my clothes strewn all over his room. I would pull them over body as the lit cigarette sat on the side of my mouth.
Inhale self medication and exhale shame.
He always watched me like I was the only woman he had ever seen. He never stopped watching me. He never stopped touching me. He never stopped asking me hard questions which left me breathless or raging inside. He never stopped listening to me process. He let me fall on my face in the fetal position and sob. He let me scream and throw things and raise hell. He let me laugh. He teased me. He let me be honest about the things that mattered to me. I believe in those moments, he loved me.
I could be Mackenzie. Vulnerable and severely broken. He never tried to change me. On nights when my estranged dad would call me drunk and spew hurtful things to me, hot tears would form behind my eyes as I pressed the phone to my ear. Zac would find me, stare into my hurting eyes and while never taking his eyes off of me take the phone away from my ear.
Don’t listen to what he says. It’s time to hang up the phone.
I would put my shaking hand across my mouth, close my eyes tightly and nod.
Those mornings were sacred in my memories. In all the chaos, maybe I needed those mornings with him. Maybe I needed cigarettes. Maybe my journey had taken me there for a reason. Maybe the reason I never knocked on his door was because he was my home. Perhaps in that season, he saved me. Perhaps, it was something else all together. I have learned to trust the story.
Mackenzie… I’m starving, let’s get breakfast.
I smiled as I zipped up my jeans and tapped the ash on my cigarette out of the window.
Wellllll, my friend, did you know… my favorite meal of the day is breakfast?
I love breakfast. Something about coffee breath, messy hair and the smell of eggs and bacon. Breakfast is raw. Breakfast is honesty. Breakfast speaks the truth. I love breakfast.
He laughed… You would make breakfast poetic.
See, anyone can take me to dinner Zac, but there is something intentional about asking someone to breakfast. Breakfast is love.
I want to get breakfast with you Mackenzie. I have this place…
How’s the coffee…. I interrupted him as I pointed my cigarette at him. You know I need good coffee.
He cracked a smile. Still sitting on the bed, he pulled me into him and kissed the back of my legs.
Ma’am, Is your marriage irrevocably broken?
I stared at the judge. A judge who didn’t know the story. He knew what JDF 101 said, he knew what my Separation Agreement said and a host of other court documents told him. He didn’t know me. He didn’t know Zac. He didn’t know the pain. Yet, he was to judge my marriage? How do I respond to this question? Is my marriage broken? Broken? The word was trite. How about shattered? How about mutilitated? How do I describe a heart being pulled by a F-350 through the rockiest terrains? What is the word for annoyance and indifference married to rage? Should I be confident and loud? Should I be demure and soft? How do I do this? Broken? You want to call it broken? You insult me with broken.
Inhale rage. Exhale Grace.
Yes… yes, your honor.
Zac looked over at me and poured me a glass of water in a plastic cup. He answered the question as well and whispered
Do you want some water?
I didn’t know if I should drink it. It felt like drinking the poison.
But he knew I needed water.
What do you do when the person who knows you more intimately than anyone else is the one person you are desperately trying to remove from your life?
I took a sip and put it down in front of me.
The judge asked more questions. I couldn’t look at Zac. It was all sterile. A dissection of sorts. We were two humans with a decade of memories and children and now we were sprawled out on the surgeon’s table with our hearts and guts for everyone to see.
The judge moved his paperwork around and asked…
Since Cohen Tamayo born on August 26, 2007 and proceeded the marriage, do you, Mackenzie give state jurisdiction to act on behalf of the child?
I texted him sitting on the edge of a bathtub at a house party at barely nineteen.
Zac, it’s positive.
He didn’t respond right away. I called him with no answer. I knew he was in the mountains but a crisis can’t wait. Finally, I heard from him.
Hey, what’s positive?
My pregnancy test.
More silence.
Shit. I’ll be back late after boarding. Let’s talk then.
I put my phone down and stared at the stark white wall ahead of me. The music pounded in the background as I stared at the positive pregnancy test.
I didn’t wait for anyone. Not for him. Not for my best girl friend. I hung on the edge of the balcony and smoked an entire pack of Marlboro Lights. I wrote a poem in my head that night as I hummed. I was self soothing.
He picked me up and we drove to Garden of the Gods. I remember listening to every sound the car would make. The brakes were screaming, the engine roared on and the blinker was offensive. I asked him to take me to a gas station so I could pick up more cigarettes.
We need to talk about this Mackenzie. You wanna do this? You know I love you. We will figure it out.
I stared out the window. It was the winter solstice. The longest night of the year. Would this season be the longest night of my life? It wasn’t until later that I understood that darkness doesn’t always frighten, it too can mend and soothe. The stars were vivid. I tapped nervously on the side of my seat. I didn’t know if I was angry or sad. I didn’t know if I believed what was happening. Why did I have to get pregnant? My self-talk turned from sadness, to anger, to shame, to grief… all at once and then one by one. There was a war raging and then I began to shake.
Keep it together Mackenzie, you got this.
I just kept staring out of the window smoking cigarette after cigarette as Zac talked and talked. I don’t remember what he said. I just remember touching the top of my stomach wondering what was going to happen to me. I had a dream of moving to a big name city and becoming a infamous editor for a publishing firm. Or maybe I wanted to run my own Fortune 500 Company. Or maybe I wanted to travel the world and “Eat, Pray, Love” until my soul was content and on fire. This was never the plan. Zac was never the plan. This baby was never the plan. This place. Right here. Right now. Never the plan. I prayed and asked God to give me an ounce of courage.
Instead, my breasts were heaving, my nausea was increasing and emotions felt completely out of control. I stayed silent as Zac kept talking about our future.
Yes, your honor, you can have jurisdiction over Cohen Tamayo.
There were more questions. More about Cohen. More about our parenting plan. More about our finances. What we owned. What we didn’t own. What we had. What we didn’t have.
I was sitting next to a man who knew the deepest parts of me. Physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
And now, we were case number 16DR2026.
And then the judge put on his glasses. I looked up from staring at the wall beside me.
I find the marriage of Zachary Tamayo and Mackenzie Maltby Tamayo irrevocably broken.
I don’t remember what he said immediately after that. I didn’t look at him anymore. I stared at the middle age clerk who I know clocked in 73 minutes earlier. I wondered how much she made to record our testimonies. The judge kept talking but my mind was filled with the sound of her fake nails tapping at her keyboard.
How did our marriage come to fake nails on a keyboard? A judge who couldn’t pronounce my maiden name correctly? How was I sitting in a place that viewed marriage so flippantly?
I loved marriage. I still love marriage. I think it is the most incredible gift you can give yourself and to someone else. I fought for my marriage. I fought for a failed marriage.
Irrevocably broken.
I truly don’t remember anything he said.
And just like that, he put his papers down and muttered.
You’ll get the divorce decree in the mail in a couple weeks, have a good day. Next case.
I stood up. My legs were shaking. I grabbed my purse. I grabbed my water. I almost forgot my paperwork. I methodically followed him out of the doors, into the hallway and into the elevator.
In a fog, I pushed the bottom button on the elevator and stared at the blinking number light up above.
Mackenzie, we are going to level one, not the basement… unless we want to hang out with the janitors.
I laughed it off. I was having a hard time. He knew it too.
Mackenzie, I know it’s your first baby and you’re young but you have to push.
It is amazing how one can get so far from where they have planned and yet one realizes it is exactly where one should be. I pushed so hard. I pushed until I screamed and cried. Until I became the women you see in the movies who is cursing God and everyone who got her there. I pushed to be great. I pushed to be honorable. I pushed for everyone who told me I was crazy to be a teenager and having a baby. A rush came over me and I felt myself baptized into motherhood. Nothing could have prepared me for this moment.
And then. Cohen came. Cries. Screams. He had a host of doting family who was there to greet him there under the heat lamps with the nurses. He was longed for and anticipated after months of difficult conversations and frank discussions about what was next for our little family.
There, on that glorious Wednesday morning, Cohen screamed his way into the world.
I closed my eyes and sobbed. My whole body was in shock. The last forty hours were so traumatizing and enlightening… I couldn’t find words. Still have no words to describe those hours. And though the rest of the world had their eyes on the fresh babe who emerged, Zac didn’t go to Cohen. He stared at me.
You did it Mackenzie. You did it. You did it. I’m so proud of you. He’s beautiful… but you are breathtaking.
I grabbed his hand and knew our vulnerability was exploring new ground. We had given birth together. We had fought odds together. We had relinquished control together. We were confused together.
The elevator opened and I found myself nauseated. I could hardly move myself out of the elevator. My throat was dry, hand clammy and my feet were lead.
I forced myself out of the elevator and clutched my purse to my chest. We both silently walked out of the courthouse together. The sun was obnoxiously bright. I was reveling in the severity of what just happened.
So, you’re getting the kids from school today?… I didn’t know what else to say. I looked for my keys in my purse.
He nodded. There was silence and then he said with a half smile…
Would it be weird to ask my ex wife to breakfast?
My heart sank. Breakfast. I loved breakfast. But breakfast is sacred. I looked at the ground and back up at him.
No, no breakfast today Zac.
Silence. Long silence. We both needed to sit in that silence. Holy silence.
Sounds good, Mackenzie.
He took a deep breath, put his hands in his pockets and walked toward his car.
I watched him walk away. He took away with him the decade of laughter, pain, anger, longing and growth. He took away with him breakfast. I was grateful it was over. It was time for it to be over. I hoped some day he would find someone who loved getting breakfast with him. I want that for him. I just knew it would never be me.
Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do. Lots of times people just let themselves get lost, dropping into a wide open, huge abyss. But that’s why we have to keep trying. We have to push through all that hurts us, work past all our memories that are haunting us. Sometimes the things that hurt us are the things that make us strongest. A life without experience, in my opinion, is no life at all. And that’s why I tell everyone that, even when it hurts, never stop yourself from living.
I got in my car and found myself driving to the mountains. My nature was calling for me. There is no real way to deal with everything we lose.
