We’re a team of routine, my son and I. We like to know what to expect and during this past year and a half of Just Us Two, we’ve set about implementing comforting repetitive motions to our days.

Saturday mornings we amble through the forest to the rocky beach to throw pebbles, Sunday we stop for pancakes after soccer. Bedtime is at 7:30, and we read two books, not three, and he leaps into my arms for a final hug.

“You’re getting so big!” I tell him each night.

“You can barely lift me!” he replies, grinning, and I kiss his smooth cheek. He reciprocates with a fish-kiss somewhere between my ear and my eyeball.

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“So - while I’ve got you on the phone I’m hoping we can schedule time to talk about our parenting agreement.”

I hold my breath and look up and wonder who decided that divot-filled, cottage cheese ceilings were mandatory in the 1970’s.

He’s silent and so I cover the air with scrambling, futile attempts to sound sunny.  Instead I sound like someone has grabbed a human-remote and is starting me, pausing me, stalling and punching me.

“I mean, the in-place agreement has changed, since you’ll be moving here, and we should - well, just so we have proper expectations and Nolan has a routine….” I trail off and hate myself for my meekness when I speak to him, for the guilt I still hold for making a necessary move to save my sanity, my good Motherhood.

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Nataly drew my attention to an intriguing article last night, about women who have made the decision to have children solo.

It seems like it’s a bit of a trend: 30-something, successful and independent women who have everything: a home, a stable career, a joie de vivre and a need to share it. They have everything, that is, except a man and a child. And they’re increasingly deciding that they don’t need the man to have the child.

I read the article with great interest: I have several friends in their early thirties who are navigating this perplexing road now. They are still young but experienced in dating, jaded enough to know that their chances of finding Mr. Right are diminishing daily. Their bodies are still young enough to conceive fairly easily, but there’s not that much time. It’s a critical, life-altering decision. Should they make the decision to bear and raise a child alone? It’s a question with a very personal answer. But — and this may get me in trouble — if I were asked my opinion, as a woman raising a child solo, I would say: don’t do it.

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There’s a suite for rent on a hilly, forested street in a nearby neighborhood. It’s within budget, all utilities included. Slightly belligerent but exquisitely charismatic rescue dogs are not only tolerated, but encouraged. The landlords are dog people, this is good, I can feel it.

I make an appointment for a viewing at 4:30 the next day.

“I have a few people coming,”the landlord warns me.

“That’s OK,” I reply,”I just think this might be perfect, I’d really love to see it.

I walk up the steps to a looming house, all grey-and-glass and jutting West Coast architecture. Nolan grips my finger, tiny and spry in his green monkey t-shirt, and I watch the landlord regard us from the front step, an “O” forming on his mouth.

“I’m not looking for me,”I explain quickly,”And not for my son. It would just be a man living here — 31 years old, a tradesman, an avid mountain biker, pretty quiet. And my dog — well, his dog now. An awesome rescue dog, he’ll capture your heart.”

He doesn’t say anything and I draw a breath,”I’m looking on behalf of my ex,”I say,”For my son’s father.

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My friend Mel sat across from me at the neighborhood pub, a sigh painting her pretty face weary.  A sparkling carafe of purple sangria sat between us on the chipped wooden table, lemon slices and ice cubes bobbing invitingly at the surface.  I looked up and watched pub patrons ambling at the pool table, poised with their darts, stroking their beer mugs beside them.  Husbands, I thought, husbands and boyfriends and sons.

“I do blame his Mom, for 80% of his laziness at least,”my friend sighed, cocked her eyebrow at me and held the carafe over my empty glass.  I nodded.

“If she hadn’t spoiled him, done his laundry, paid his bills and bought his damned toothbrushes, he wouldn’t be so completely lazy,” she finished,”He is 29 and has no idea how to do laundry.  I’m serious.”

I nodded again, and shuddered too.

I could relate.  99.9% of my friends could relate, in fact: whether they were married or simply in a serious relationship.  So many of our men expected us to cook and clean and work and caretake — simply because their own Mothers had done it all.  They knew nothing else, we guessed.  But that didn’t make it any less annoying.

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The crushing pain of the dissolution of a family unit is one of life’s inexplicable mysteries. I don’t think it can be fathomed until experienced first-hand: like labor, like the vice-grip horror of the loss of hope. It’s a death, of sorts: of a family unit, of hope, of the purity of those moments in the hospital with a first born child when you couldn’t imagine anything but the eternity of your overwhelming, deep love. Your little family unit, together forever.

It took me well over a year to be able to get through the day without physically mourning the loss of my son’s father in my daily life. I didn’t let the tears flow in front of my son, or my immediate family who had supported me so unflinchingly during some very heavy days. But at night, when my head hit the pillow in the silence of the night, memories infiltrated and I let tears drop silently, unnoticed, until my pillow was soaked through to the the side. I was pretty sure my heart would never heal.

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I watch my son from the window at the kitchen sink, he lines his cars up one after the other, a long multi-colored lineup of shiny toys, broken only by the pilfered dustbin, his ramshackle ramp.  He is wearing navy blue pajama bottoms with boats on them and his hair has a snarled, comical tangle at the back, his signature unruly bed head.  The birds are chirping and it’s barely dawn and he seems cognizant of this, whispering imaginary conversation between the red truck and the yellow car.

“I’m going to the supermarket,”says the red truck.

“I‘m going to the beach,” says the yellow car.

He is so good at playing by himself, my son, and I am both proud and saddened by this.  He has to be good at it; I have even less time than most Moms to play with him; I’m on the computer firing off urgent emails or I’m cleaning the bathroom sink, or I’m wandering around trying to find his right flip flop.  In another life, I imagine that I might be pregnant again around this time, brewing a sibling for my golden sun.  Then he’d have an instant playmate: someone who would both infuriate and endear him, who would be the only other person who would understand what it’s like to have a Mom like me.

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It’s 4:37 AM and the streets are pitch black, the birds silent and the house completely still. I’ve blow dried my hair and guzzled my third cup of coffee, vainly hoping that the caffeine will shoot up into my face and do something about those godforsaken black bags, hanging limply underneath my eyes like old-lady stockings.

At 4:47 AM, there is a quiet, purposeful knock at the front door and I tiptoe down in my bare feet to get it. My Mom stands there, immaculately coiffed as always. The fact that she only got three hours sleep is only evident underneath her eyes: her sacks match mine.

“Hi. Thank you, Mom,” I say, and I am wracked with guilt again, as always.”He went to bed late, so hopefully he’ll sleep in till at least six — I put some pillows on the couch and the coffee’s on. Can you rest?”

I have my laptop, my business cards, my small box of schwag for potential customers.  I slip on my Serious Business heels and slip my trusty black ballet flats in my purse and check one last time for my passport.

“We’ll be good,”my mom insists,”He’s a joy, don’t worry, I’ll email you and let you know how our day goes.  You’ll have your Blackberry?”

I nod and slip out the door into the silent almost-morning, and watch as my Mom sits in front of the TV.  She won’t sleep, I know.

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I had to get up from my computer three times while writing the headline to this post, walking in circles and cracking my neck, inspecting the sink for any errant ants, wondering, is there maybe some pudding in the cupboard? Anything to distract myself from my nervousness at stepping into this taboo topic.

I picture Doctor Laura with her crackling voice and defiant understanding of the Way Things Should be Done: no dating for the single Mom until the child is 18 and out of the house, she would say and so I think: yes, you know what? I need to write this.

Married couple sex is discussed openly and with gaiety in the media: husbands make lecherous jokes, wives roll eyes, advice columns explain patiently how to keep the spark alive. Twenty-something relationships are highlighted in ad campaigns: naked, brawny couples rolling in white sheets in underwear and sexy tank tops. But there’s not too much out there for the Single Mom who is devoted wholeheartedly to her children, carrying around a bit of a hole in her own heart. Ecstasy for the Single Mom isn’t sexy, it’s taboo.  It’s baked with guilt and suspicion and a half a cup of “you really shouldn’t be doing that.”

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