“Your actions are inappropriate, unacceptable, and damaging to the kids!” Piper snarled over the car’s speakers. “Pick up your children right now! It’s your birthday!”
Clouds drifted lazily overhead in the afternoon sky, and the air baked with Detroit’s rush hour exhaust. I had the seat back and my feet propped up, seeing as the eastbound traffic on Ambassador Bridge hadn’t moved in the past half hour.
“If you read your messages,” I said, air jerking at no one in particular, “you would see that I celebrated my birthday with the kids last weekend. There was cake and everything.”
The chain of cars rumbled to life as passport control disgorged a traveler. I turned on the engine, cutting off Piper's rant. Her tiny voice buzzed incoherently on my phone as the Bluetooth rebooted.
“...not your date night sitter!” she carried on once the speakers started up again. “Find one and pick up your children so they stop feeling abandoned!”
My eyes closed as I remembered that time she texted me photos of our then-toddler children crying on the floor of her house, declaring, “this is what you're doing to them” by not crawling back to her.
“There are two big holes in your argument, Piper,” I said. “First, if you could actually do anything about this, it would be your lawyer calling and not you.”
“Oh, I'm calling my lawyer right-” she began.
“And second,” I said, cutting her off. “I've already left the country to fuck a woman half my age.”
I stabbed the call ended, and cracked my neck. Her next three calls went to voicemail as the line crept forward by another few cars.
Oh, great: now my second ex-wife was calling. Why had I unblocked her number, anyway?
“Hello, Karen,” I said, rubbing my temples.
“The tollway pass is canceled,” Karen declared, a note of triumph in her voice. “You're going to have to pay the tolls coming back.”
Word apparently traveled fast. Maybe Piper and Karen could marry each other and take themselves out of my hair.
“Here's what I can't figure,” I said. “You took the pass out of the car two weeks ago, and then put it back in. Why didn't you just keep it?”
“That is deranged,” my definitely orgasm-free second ex said. “I have not been inside the car or apartment! You just aren't growing up and taking care of your own life!”
The last car in front of me started up to pull out of the gate. I was almost there.
“Karen…you're going to eventually run out of these cheap stunts,” I said. “And I'm never going to run out of people to sleep with.”
Call: ended. Passport: ready. Canada, here I come.
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