We bought this house because of the basement. There is an identical house around the corner, fronting on the park. But that house has a finished attic, and no basement, and this house has a finish-able attic and a HUGE basement. Brett and I sat on the floor of the other house’s attic, looking at the floor plans for both. The house with the basement had a bigger guest room, more accessible for older relatives. It had a big, sunny room for Brett’s office, with a door between that space and the other room, which would be our children’s play room. We decided and signed the offer. Now the house is mine, not Brett’s. But the basement is still just a little bit his.
A couple of days after the 2008 Superbowl, when Brett dumped me suddenly, I told my now-ex-friend Tiffani that I hadn’t slept in days. “He lays there next to me, and I just wonder—will he look at me? Reach out and touch me? And then I feel afraid and desperate, and I just can’t close my eyes. Maybe I’ll sleep in the guest room.”
“Don’t you go to the guest room!” Tiffani was vehement. “He needs to go to the basement. He started this, he’s the one who wants space. Don’t you go anywhere.”
So I told him to go. And I slept, fitfully, but better than eyes wide open. He asked me pathetically if he could come back upstairs about a week later. “Are you coming back as my husband, or because the room is more comfortable?” I asked pointedly. He stared at me dumbly. “Then you can’t come back to my bed.” And he never did.
He made a little apartment for himself down there. He came and went after the kids’ bedtime out the French doors. And he fucked my best friend on the sofa bed we bought for our parents to sleep on when they visited their grandchildren.
Brett lived in the basement for seven long, long months. When he left, I stayed out of there for a few weeks. Then, I found myself in a quandary. Paul was being shipped out of town, with two days notice. The very two days I had the kids. A proper goodbye was absolutely necessary. I had counted on Paul being in Atlanta through Election Day; disappointment and fear at having to face my new life loomed.
So, how to have a few more nights with Paul? Obviously, the guest room. It had no furniture, and the first night he snuck in, I ended up with rug burns that you can still faintly see on my upper back. We were smarter the second night. I met him on the porch in a tank top and shorts, and we shared my beer while we looked at the stars. We eventually did end up in the guest room, with a blanket on the floor this time.
I had the baby monitor in the room—somewhat disconcerting to my young friend, but he was good humored. Then we heard a cry. I threw on my tank top (backwards) and ran upstairs. Tillie was up—an extreme rarity. Damn my luck. I calmed her and settled her in with her binkie and blankie. Arriving back in the basement, I found Paul wrapped in the blanket, waiting for me.
A few minutes later, having laughed off the interruption, the baby monitor crackled.
“You’re fan-TAS-tic!!” the gleeful voice of Bob the Builder sang. “Good job! You’re fan-TAS-tic!”
Tillie was playing Builder Bob’s workshop. What a great background for our final liaison! We laughed and tried to ignore it. Then: “Uh-OH! Try again!” Great, Builder Bob is calling the plays on possibly the last sex I’ll ever have. Is this what being a single mom is all about?
Eventually, Tillie went back to sleep, silencing Builder Bob, and I got to say goodbye to Paul without the cartoon play-by-play.
The guest room is furnished again, and I’m slowly organizing the rest of the downstairs. As Yom Kippur ended last week, Joshua and I stayed up after the kids were in bed. We finished cleaning the kitchen, and headed to the guest room. We talked and kissed and made love and held each other. No Builder Bob, and no goodbye.
Brett descended to the basement as the beginning of the end. Paul met me in the basement for the end of the beginning. But I think Joshua belongs upstairs.
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