Splitsville

About a year ago I was reading about divorce. I've never really understood my parents' divorce, and although I'm past the point of blaming my problems on it, except at certain dark moments, I got curious about how other kids experienced the big D. I turned up some so-so self-help books and made a few notes. The other day I found one of these notes, which referred to the John Updike story "Separating," about a married couple who tell their kids they're splitting up.

So this week I dug up the story--it's in Updike's collection Too Far to Go: The Maples Stories--and read it. It's sad and gently funny and not much like my family's story. But I was struck by this passage:

Years ago the Maples had observed how often, among their friends, divorce followed a dramatic home improvement, as if the marriage were making one last strong effort to live.

This is eerie, because just before my folks split up in 1980, they enlarged our house with an addition that included a big master bedroom for them to share. After Dad moved out, I remember standing in the new rooms and thinking, "So why did we build this?"