A cold drop of anxiety hit my stomach immediately as I looked down at the items I had gathered for my son, Leo. I had bought him new socks because he lost them in ways that suggested a secret portal under his bed, and I had picked up a small Lego set because he had been asking for it for weeks.
My son was staying with his mother, Sarah, that weekend, which meant it was my rare stretch of forty eight hours alone in the apartment. Divorced parents often pretend this time is total freedom, but it is usually a strange mixture of relief, guilt, and the sudden ability to eat cereal over the sink.
I had planned a weekend so boring that it felt luxurious, including writing some code for a side project and watching a terrible action movie without a six year old asking about physics. Instead of that peace, my brain started counting the people that Tiffany would likely bring into my two bedroom apartment in the Uptown area.
There would be Tiffany and her husband Brandon, along with Brandon’s parents, Arthur and Martha, and Brandon’s brother Cody. Cody would likely bring his fiancée, Amber, and their two children, meaning there would be at least eight bodies minimum in my small living space.