“You are America’s couple,” she said. My mom said it like she was seeing everything in a different way than me. This wasn’t just some feel-good celebrity ranking. It was that in many ways we belonged to the public. She is a smart businesswoman, and she knew more than I did how many people might turn on me.
“What is the point in being a power couple if we’re faking it?” I said. “There’s no real power in this anymore. Real power is in authenticity.”
She nodded and took my hand. She loved Nick, but she supported me. At the Thanksgiving table, we all talked about what we were thankful for. When it was my turn I didn’t immediately speak, and my mother started to talk to smooth it over. Silently, I thanked God for the strength He gave me to leave the life I’d planned to find the life waiting for me. Thank you, I thought, and still do. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I HID IN WACO FOR SEVERAL DAYS, BUT PAPARAZZI AND REPORTERS FOUND me. My mom and I were on a walk, and they took pictures and asked questions like we were friends.
“Jessica, why did you leave Nick?” they asked as I turned to walk back to the house. I refused to answer.
I told my dad I didn’t want to talk to the press at all. “I will not allow for anything to come from my mouth that is disparaging to Nick or my marriage,” I said. “They will not get me on tape talking about it. That’s it.” I wasn’t naive. I knew that I had opened my marriage up to the world as a fishbowl. People were going to be angry about me putting up a sign saying the exhibit was closed.
I returned to L.A. and stayed at my parents’ house in Encino. I was a prisoner there, with helicopters circling. My sister, Ashlee, lived behind my parents at the time, and one morning I called her. I had this idea to army crawl up and over to her house to escape without being seen.
“Is that crazy?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, laughing. “You must.”
“I wish we had walkie talkies,” I said. “Okay, meet me out back.”
Halfway across the yard, I heard a helicopter and stopped. I wondered if all this was worth it. I could have just stayed in the marriage, and at least I wouldn’t be crawling through the dirt to my little sister’s house.
“No, I’ve got this,” I said aloud. I cleared the hill and saw the glass and concrete of her home. Ashlee was waiting for me at the back door, and she hugged me when I jumped up and ran in. She laughed when I realized I got the dust of the California valley all over myself.
“Can I borrow some clothes?” I asked.
We went upstairs, and we spent the day lying on the floor, our heads touching as we listened to music and talked. She would make amazing playlists, almost like medicine. “I think this song applies to your life right now,” she’d say, my emotional deejay. It had been so long since we had hung out. I needed her strength as I mourned, and we became so much closer through my divorce. It took me losing a part of my life to appreciate a part of my life that always will be, my sister.
“You’re going to be okay,” she would say. “Just give it time.”
But I had to work. On December 5, I was scheduled to perform at a Christmas gala at Cincinnati Music Hall, right in Nick’s adopted hometown. A local billionaire named Carl Lindner was famous for his lavish holiday parties and had done a deal with my dad to pay me nearly a million dollars to sing for one night in the city where everyone loved Nick.
CaCee went with me, and I dressed all in black because I thought I needed to be somber for the crowd, who I was certain would hate me. Just before going on, I froze.
“I can’t go out there,” I said.
“Jessica—” said CaCee, starting with the big-sister tone. “Don’t you be doing this here.”
“I don’t have anything to sing about,” I said, hearing my introduction. “I can’t sing love songs.”
“Then sing about Christmas,” she said, handing me the mic.
I walked on, hit my spotlight, and waited for the boos. They didn’t come. It was just a quiet uncertainty. “I’m sorry,” I said into the mic. I started to cry, and then walked off. CaCee stepped forward and grabbed my face with that U-shape of her hand.
“You get back out there.”
“No one wants me without Nick.”
“You were singing before you met Nick, Jessica,” she said, physically turning me around to push me back onstage. “Remember that.”
I think CaCee was afraid if I didn’t get back out there and walk through the fear, I would never get on a stage again. I sang some of my songs, but then hit my stride with the Christmas songs. I wiped away tears during “What Child Is This?” thinking about all the times I sang that song in churches in Texas. When I got to “O Holy Night,” I turned a corner in the concert and in my life. It was during that line I love, when Christ appears and the weary soul feels its worth. That thrill of hope.
I felt it. I looked out and saw that people were crying with me. I could do this life without Nick, because I would never be alone.
TWO WEEKS INTO DECEMBER, NICK STILL THOUGHT WE COULD HAVE OUR whole life back. I was afraid to see him, knowing his fear of change would make me relent. I thought that if I officially moved out, just took my journals and the clothes I wanted to keep, he would understand this was real.
It was my mother’s idea that we would go to our house and move me out while he was away. Some boys’ trip or event, I can’t remember. The Simpsons were not good with conflict at that time. I admit it was rude, and CaCee told me as much. She was still close to Nick and saw him as a sort of sibling.
“I just think this is the wrong way to go about it,” she said, over and over.
My mom had an empty party rental truck brought to the house because a U-Haul would be too obvious. I got about eight of my girlfriends together, and I went over with the intention of getting only the things that were sentimental to me.
I entered my own house, and it was more like a haunted mansion than ever. I didn’t even want to turn too many lights on—I just wanted to get in and get out. Daisy came and greeted me, jumping up and down as I bent to kiss her.
“Daisy Mae,” I said, scooping her up in my arms. Once we were inside, and my mom saw how little I wanted to take, she was shocked. She knew how hard I had worked in my life to afford some of these things, and she didn’t want her baby taken advantage of.
She said, “Are you sure you don’t want—”
“Mom, we are not shopping my house.”
I didn’t want any of it. I never wanted to see that couch again or the china we picked for our wedding. But there were some things she felt I had paid for, and I saw them carrying them out the door. I shook my head, but I was too mentally exhausted to fight. Even now, I sometimes think about some object and think, Now, where did that go? And I have to remind myself it was just another thing I let go of.
But there was something—someone—who was coming with me. At the door, I just couldn’t put Daisy down. “Let’s go,” I whispered in her ear. I turned off the light, shut the door, and didn’t look back.
Divorce is messy. I know he came home and was furious. Nick felt like he’d been robbed, and I know he told someone, “She even took my damn dog.” I wish we were the kind of people who could divorce and stay friends. We weren’t, and I regret that my actions hurt him.