1

During that last July together, our yard’s thirsty grass yellows from neglect.

2

In August, we travel with our two kids to the “Waterpark Capital of the World,” Wisconsin Dells. If I would have known that this would be our last family vacation, would I still complain about the damp hotel room?

3

Sometime in September, my eight-year-old tells me about her dream. A van drove into the Dells’ hotel swimming pool. She fled to our room for safety, but there were two daddies. She couldn’t distinguish her real daddy from the imposter.

4

October comes. We forget to kiss. I forget how to cook. The kitchen erupts into flames when I leave cheese tostadas unattended under the broiler.

5

Just before Thanksgiving, I chase a white rat around a vivid dreamscape. A woman somehow connected to my husband kills the rat, but it ends up inside of me. Reborn, the rat gnaws at me from within until its yellowed teeth protrude through the skin of my abdominal wall.

6

Near Christmas, I discover my husband reading my journal. “What happened to us?” I ask.

He looks away before telling me, “I want someone who will bring me water; someone who will see me through migraines.”

7

Unable to keep up with the snow that Minneapolis January, we stop shoveling. On a night of howling wind, I dream of a cloaked woman who shows me how—with special socks—she conceals her slimy, green and black webbed feet. As happens in dreams, the woman morphs into my husband. He’s the one with amphibian feet.

8

“I’ll fix it up to flip,” he says of the one-bedroom condo he’s purchased. “Happy Valentine’s Day!” He stays at the condo on weeknights; he comes home on weekends to see our kids, to have sex with me. Mornings after kiss-less sex, I wake to cash—left on the kitchen counter.

9

When March winds blow warm, I dress in red, “your best color,” he says. We find a club that plays hypnotic techno beats. I savor the color blur around me that night. I savor his face, coming back into focus across from me. The two of us move in a remembered unison, but it won’t last.

10

April brings very little rain, and it’s a neglected toilet that floods our lower level. He tears out carpet, and we repaint everything a muted tangerine. I chose the color but hate how it looks on the walls. I don’t tell him this, like so many other things. 

11

The month of lilacs blooming was once my favorite. Now it brings decisions. Do we put our house on the market before or after the divorce?

12

The grass is still green when the kids and I move into a small townhome where my six-year-old tells me that he wouldn't mind being dead because then … “I could be whatever I want.”

“You’re still young,” I say. “You can be whatever you want. What do you want to be?”

“Things like my dreams,” he says. “Things like dogs and robots.”