I’m sure no one is surprised to know that Winnie ended up at the school I chose, not Brady’s. No matter which way you looked at it, it made zero sense for her to go to school in Connecticut, but Brady enjoyed fighting with me too much to admit it. Eventually we agreed to send her to the school near our apartment in the city and we’d split the cost. I think Brady realized he didn’t have much of a choice since he hadn’t communicated with his school since January and the deadline for enrollment had already passed. Which only proves my point that he only wanted to fight with me and hadn’t even attempted to sign her up for his school.

Anyway, once everything was finalized, I felt a lot better. And now I had other things to worry about like if Winnie was going to be heartbroken that she’d be away from all of her daycare friends or the fact that I’d already need to take her out of school for a few days while I went on vacation or the headshot the school requested that they wanted to use for the classroom.

Headshot? I was like, wait do I need to hire a professional for this? How serious should I be taking this?

“You could probably take a decent picture on your phone,” Brendan suggested.

So I took this idea and ran with it and set up a photo shoot in the apartment. We’d do one scene using the soft white wall living area wall as a the background and Winnie would wear a pale blue button down and her baby-fine hair would be brushed and parted down the middle (she hates having her hair brushed) and I was crying because the picture looked like it belonged on LinkedIn. She’s so freaking cute! 

We moved to her room and took more pictures using her pink bedroom wall as the background and she wore a beaded headband and a little pout. Brendan even got in on the fun and started directing and helping with angles and lighting. And rambunctious Winnie, who is usually doing screaming laps around the apartment around this time, sat patiently while we tried to get the perfect shot. She’s never patient while we do anything. Had she found her calling? Was this her first foray into a modeling career?

Next, we used the cityscape outside the window as a backdrop, but Winnie started getting restless at this point and wanted a snack. But that was fine because we’d taken a zillion pictures so surely one of them would be good enough to submit to her school. My little amateur model!

Winnie’s school was having a child-free orientation one evening before the school year began to get to know the teachers and meet other parents. The invitation mentioned wine. The orientation happened to fall on my birthday so Brendan and I were going to go together and then go out to celebrate my birthday after. Winnie would stay at home with her babysitter, Claire, a 26 year old yogi who works in fashion. I found Claire through one of Brendan’s stepmom’s friends and she always tells me things that make me think, “Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t leave my child alone with this young lady.” Like, “When my friends and I used to do coke all the time, it was so bad. One time my nose started bleeding in the middle of dinner at Lola—” I know everyone in New York does coke, but still. And Winnie really loves her and nothing bad has happened so…I suppose it’s fine.

I sent Brady the invite assuming he wouldn’t be able to make it since it was on a weeknight. You know how he is. He can’t leave the hospital before 8 PM or everything will fall apart. Plus he hadn’t really been involved with her school thus far so I didn’t think he’d suddenly start now.

He just liked my message and didn’t reply, but then the day before the orientation, he texted me saying, “Are you okay if I bring Cara? We have plans after.”

Ew. What plans did they have on my birthday? And why wouldn’t I be okay with his very new girlfriend being there? If they are truly as serious as Brady is (suddenly) making it seem then I expected her to be around and it was obviously okay with me! My only issue was that the relationship seemingly came out of nowhere and then Brady immediately made sure I knew and I don’t know, it just seems like after I told him I didn’t want to get back together and work on our relationship, he found the nearest 28 year old to throw in my face.

So I replied, “Fine with me.”

It didn’t seem like anything I needed to warn Brendan about beforehand. It’s not like Brady and I have some crazy tense relationship that needs a warning like Brendan and his ex. Brady and I are amicable and we see each other weekly and of course he would be at his daughter’s school function. And I wasn’t going to bring up the girlfriend because does she even matter? (Also last time I did I had a meltdown and I didn’t trust myself).

So Brendan and I got dressed and walked over and we were greeted immediately with glasses of sparkling rose. I knew I liked this place. For some reason I was really excited to meet all of the other parents and see what they’re all like. I went up and introduced myself like, “Hi, I’m Reese, Winnie’s mom and I’m a project manager. This is my cute boyfriend, Brendan, who isn’t Winnie’s dad. Don’t ask what his job is because he doesn’t currently have one — tell me about yourself!”

The headshots were posted everywhere — huge on the whiteboard, at their little desks, in their cubbies, as magnets on the door. I’m so glad I actually put effort into Winnie’s because obviously hers was the best. I lost count of how many times people came up to me and asked if she’s in modeling (including the teacher) which Brendan and I found amusing. It’s like, “No, we just took these pictures on the fly — I guess my kid is a natural!”

All of her new classmates are adorable though. Like the twin girls whose parents are an influencer and a stay-at-home dad. I hoped Winnie would become friends with them. And the adorable boy wearing a turban in his picture (he’s so cute I screamed) whose parents I’m pretty sure are billionaires. I also hoped Winnie would become friends with him.

Eventually, Brady and Caroline wandered in. I was a couple glasses of wine in and forgot they were coming. Caroline clocked us immediately and waved enthusiastically as they made their way over. Neither of them had wine (odd). Do you know those people who don’t pick up their feet all the way when they walk and they just sort of shuffle them and so their shoes make a ton of noise? That was Caroline. She was wearing chunky loafers and I could not believe she didn’t notice how loud her walk was.

“Happy birthday, Reese!” she said.

How did she know it was my birthday? Obviously Brady must have told her, but do you think he wished me a happy birthday? Negative!

“Thank you!” I said back. What a sweet girl! So then I felt bad for judging the way she walks. “This is Brendan.”

“Hi, I’m Caroline!” she said all happily as she shook his hand. “Or Cara.”

“We’re going to walk around,” was all Brady said.

Uh, okay? Hello to you too? Why was he acting so annoyed and over it? If he didn’t want to come then why did he?

“Do you want me to introduce you to the teacher?” I asked, but Brady was already starting to walk off.

“I’ll find her,” he said dismissively. Caroline (loudly) followed him.

I could not believe how rude he was being! Brendan turned to me and smiled encouragingly like he knew I was trying and like he wanted to ask if I was okay, but knows I hate that so he couldn’t.

What the fuck ever! Anyway, we walked around a bit more and met a judgy gay couple who I think hated me (crazy considering most gay people love me) so I guess I wouldn’t be friends with them. They’re like, “Oh, where was your daughter before? Weird, we’ve never heard of that school. Oh, it’s not really a school? Was that by choice?”

Eventually, we decided we’d stayed long enough and that we could get going. Our dinner resi wasn’t for another hour, but we figured we could get drinks beforehand. It was my birthday, after all, so it was only right to get drunk and celebrate. I had every intention of Irish goodbye-ing Brady and Caroline after the way he acted earlier, but then they came marching/shuffling over.

“Is she wearing makeup in that picture?” Brady asked, gesturing to one of the blown up headshots in front of us.

And I don’t know why, but I started uncontrollably laughing. Makeup? She’s 3?! And was he so unfamiliar with our daughter’s appearance that she took one good headshot and he suddenly thought “Toddlers and Tiaras?” Ridiculous! And since I couldn’t stop laughing, Brendan started laughing too and Brady and Caroline just stared at us expressionless.

“Ugh, no! She’s three!” I finally said.

“Okay,” Brady said.

So then I was annoyed at him for even thinking I’d do that and for looking at me like I’m fucking stupid.

“There’s wine, you know,” I suggested because those two needed to loosen up.

“Oh, no thank you! We’re having dinner with my parents and you know…” Caroline said happily, shrugging.

No, I didn’t know.

“Oh,” I said.

“But any other time, for sure! My parents don’t really drink that much so…” she continued. Was she capable of completing a sentence?

“I don’t think I could survive dinner with my parents without wine,” I said and Caroline giggled.

“No, I for sure get that!” she said. “My parents are really great though. I’m adopted and—”

Adopted? I had no idea that Caroline was adopted. My mother would have a field day with her. Naturally I was intrigued and wanted to know more about her life and I found out that she was raised in Connecticut (Brady is so obsessed with Connecticut that he even found his girl there) and that she has a fairly big family that she’s close with.

When she said where in Connecticut she is from, Brendan asked which school she went to and the two of them started discussing people they both know. Like, “Oh, do you know Rebecca So & So? We all went on a class trip to Germany together.” So I was obviously annoyed by that — who cares if you know the same random people? I bet neither of them even talk to Rebecca So & So anymore.

Then Caroline was talking about how she’d gone to university in the city somewhere so they started talking about the people they know at that school and even Brady chimed in a few times since he’s met some of Caroline’s random friends or I guess they know the same people. Eventually, I asked Caroline what she does for work even though I hate that question because I was otherwise not included in the conversation. I assumed she worked in the medical field in some way since she was wearing scrubs that one day.

“I’m a nurse anesthetist,” she said proudly. “Do you know what that is?”

I started to say, “I don’t care,” because I don’t and I could Google it later if necessary, but that’s rude so I just said, “I don’t.”

So she took it upon herself to explain to all of us the day to day duties of her job and the only thing I took from it is that she works in a hospital. Brady loves a coworker/nurse!

“So is that how y’all met?” I asked, delighted and fascinated. I certainly couldn’t judge either of them for dating someone from work, but Brady doing that was so funny to me.

“No,” Brady said, like he was offended.

Caroline said they met “through friends” which to me is code for online. I can’t imagine Brady using Tinder or Hinge or whatever app the singles are using these days, but I could see him on Match.com or something.

“So do you have fun plans for your birthday, Reese?” Caroline asked. Deflection so I wouldn’t ask for more information!

“Actually yes. So we’re gonna leave,” I said, purposely vague. “I’m glad you both could make it.”

“Same! This was so great,” Caroline said.

Brady said, “Bye,” and then that was it. Such an ass!

On our way out, Brendan asked, “Are you good?”

Usually I don’t like when Brendan checks up on me like I’m some unstable child, but I actually appreciated him asking me because I wanted to discuss.

“I don’t know why Brady was acting like that. Wasn’t he being so weird?” I said.

“Yeah,” Brendan agreed. “But is he always like that or do you think maybe it was uncomfortable for him?”

“Why would it be uncomfortable? It was fine! He had no reason to be an asshole except that he thinks it’s fun,” I said.

“Yeah,” Brendan said again. “I don’t think he was that bad though.”

“I do! And he didn’t say happy birthday to me which was obviously deliberate — even Caroline did!” I went on. “Not that it even matters, I just think it’s inconsiderate! He randomly decides to make things tense and I’m sure next time I see him he will act like everything is normal.”

“Yeah,” Brendan said for the third time and added nothing else, so I figured I’d better stop and just enjoy the remainder of my birthday.