The day is bright and sunny, a perfect spring morning. Easter is two days away, and we’ll celebrate it here. Ruth is coming, of course, and Rachel wanted me to invite my client Joel Conrad as a kind of setup. I told her I didn’t think Easter was an ideal blind date venue, and she gave her typical Rachel look—exasperation coupled with disbelief and amusement. I didn’t mention that Joel Conrad is not a suitable prospect for her sister because his idea of the perfect woman is an eighteen-year-old with triple-E breasts.
As I get into the car, I check my watch. I turn the ignition and back out of the driveway. Before I reach the asphalt, a shiny new red Accord rockets past as if the driver is trying to break the sound barrier. Our street is long, with not a single curve, and often drivers step on the pedal, oblivious to the fact that there might be children playing. Our community started a campaign to install speed bumps, but the initiative has yet to reach the city council.
When all is clear, I reverse into the street. Just as I shift into drive, I see the minivan coming toward me. Rachel slows as if to stop, but I only wave at her as I step on the accelerator. I see the look of puzzlement on her face as I pass, and I carry that image with me as I make my way to work.
Toward the possibilities.
THIRTY-FIVE
RACHEL
I drop the kids at the valet and slowly pull away so the cars behind me can move up. As I wait at the exit to make the turn, I glance in my rearview mirror and see Eden and Jonah walking hand in hand toward the kindergarten gate. I’ve watched them do this every day since the start of the school year, but it still makes me smile. I know that in a few years, when Eden’s a teenager and Jonah is in middle school, they won’t want anything to do with each other, so I make sure to hold this image in my mind and in my heart where I can cherish it.
I circle to the back of the school, where Lisa Grant is waiting for me by her behemoth Sequoia. I double-park next to her and roll down the passenger window and grab the sheaf of papers on the seat.
“Morning, lady,” she says.
“Hey.” I hand her the papers. “We’ve got a ton of donations for the gala.”
“Awesome sauce,” she says. “Time for coffee?”
Ordinarily, I would accept the invitation. I love coffee with Lisa. We chat about everything and nothing, and because she is snarky and hilarious, I spend a good deal of the time choking on my latte because I’m laughing so hard. But I want to get home and catch Sam before he leaves for the office.
“Rain check?” I ask, and she nods.
“Next week for sure,” she says.
I pull away and head for home, hoping my husband will still be there.
Something’s going on with Sam, and I can’t figure out what it is. He’s still the same guy. He isn’t acting strangely. He still jokes with the kids and helps Eden with her homework and asks them both questions about school. He still strokes my back in bed and kisses me hello and goodbye and helps with the dishes and talks to me about annoying or high-maintenance clients. But for the past week, I’ve sensed something, a shift, just below the surface. He’s not wearing a sign. No one else would even notice. But we’ve been married for thirteen years, and I can tell he’s not entirely himself.
I hope it’s not a midlife crisis. Sam’s a little too young for that, but you never know. Maybe his business is in trouble. Maybe he wants to switch careers. Just before I got pregnant with Jonah, we had a conversation about that. I think we’d been drinking, and he told me that he’d always seen himself as a high school teacher, teaching wood shop and coaching the football team. I’d been surprised. In all the time we’d been together, he’d never mentioned anything like that. But I told him I would support him if he really wanted to make a change.
Then Jonah came along and we had a family of four, and when I brought it up to him again, he said it wasn’t practical to make a career change, what with two kids and a mortgage. He wasn’t angry or resentful when he said it, just matter-of-fact. And then he admitted that he knew he was a good architect and he would probably suck as a high school teacher, and we never discussed it again.
It might not be about work or his age. It might be something small and stupid, like he just discovered gray hair in his pubes or a wart between his toes. I just wish I knew. What’s that line from The Matrix? It’s the not knowing that drives you mad.
Maybe Sam and I need a little alone time. We haven’t had a date night in a while. Usually we’re good about carving out couple time, but both of our schedules have been crazy lately.
I decide to call Ruth when I get home to see if she can watch the kids tonight. It’s their first night of vacation, and we always do something as a family to celebrate, like dinner and a kid-friendly movie or an hour at the nickel arcade. But we can push that off until tomorrow night. Ruth might not be available at such short notice, although I can’t imagine my sister having any big Friday night plans. Anyway, I can ask. I just want to give Sam an opportunity to talk about whatever it is that’s going on before it gets any bigger.
When I make the turn onto our street, I see Sam pulling out of the driveway. He shifts into drive and I make to stop so we can chat through our open windows, but he doesn’t even slow down, just smiles and waves at me as he passes. Disappointed, I pull into my spot on the left side of the driveway.
I don’t have a lot of time to worry about Sam. I need to get focused. I only have a few hours before I have to pick up Jonah from school, and I need to do my blog. The kids are going to be on vacation next week, so I want to make sure I have all of my posts for the next seven days ready to go. My sponsors pay me to be consistent, after all. It’s not much, but the money I make pays a bill or two and gives me a little extra cash to play with.
Sam was funny about me starting a blog. He thought there were other ways I could more effectively spend my time, and he pointed out that 90 percent of blogs never gain any kind of following to speak of and are mostly just the stream of consciousness (aka masturbation) of people who have too much time on their hands. He didn’t tell me not to do it. He would never tell me not to do something I really wanted to do. He told me to go for it. But he was surprised when my blog took off and downright shocked when I started making money on it.
“So, companies pay you to review their products? And women read your reviews? And then, if a woman reads your review on a particular brand of diapers and buys those diapers by clicking on a link from your blog, you get a percentage of the sale?”
“Yep.” I tried not to be smug, and to his credit, Sam was happy for me and told me over and over again how proud he was of me.
“I have to do something with my time,” I told him. “Lounging on the couch eating bonbons gets boring after a while.”
We laughed at that, because we both knew that a mom’s life leaves little room for couch lounging and the consumption of chocolate-covered ice-cream bites.
When I walk in the door, Shadow greets me, tail wagging enthusiastically. He kisses my hands, and when I bend down, he jumps up to kiss my cheeks.
“Good boy, good boy.”