“Oh, don’t worry about that. Betty just has other ideas for what I should be doing with my life. She has it in her mind that I’m destined for bigger things.”
“What? Why would she think that?”
“It’s a long story, but fear not. I’ll be back.”
“Thank God, because I don’t know what I’d do without you. I had no idea how much you must go behind everyone keeping things organized and tidy. The place is a disaster zone already. How are you feeling?”
“A little better each day,” Jessica told her. “I’m still pretty sore, but I’m starting to come around, I think.”
“Good. I don’t want to rush you, but I alsoreallywant to rush you.” Evelyn laughed, and Jess knew her boss was trying to soften her demand.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I know you will. You’re my go-to girl. I always know I can count on you.”
“Yup, you sure can,” Jessica told her, even though something about being Evelyn’s go-to girl didn’t sit right with her. It was the word ‘girl,’ wasn’t it? Yes. Yes, it was. “I’ll let you go. Have a great day.”
“You too, Jessica. Heal up fast.”
Jessica ended the call feeling perturbed. “That’s it. I have got to get something done. Anything, but I can’t just sit here.”
Baxter’s ears perked up and he scrambled to get off her lap, clearly hoping there was a walk in his near future. “Come on, I’ll take you out.”
She stood in the sun in the backyard while the dog sniffed around and did his business, hoping that Mrs. Wong next door wouldn’t happen to come out onto her deck and see Jess in her pajamas at this hour. Mrs. Wong was always dressed to the nines, even when she was out in her yard clipping back her rose bushes. She would probably assume Jessica was having some sort of breakdown, which would embarrass them both. Maybe she was having a mental breakdown, and the collision had just allowed her to dress for it.
Luckily, Baxter finished up and they were safely inside before Mrs. Wong came out. Once back in the house, Jessica sighed, the restlessness returning. She knew her job was to heal up, buther mindneeded to do something. She simply couldn’t take another day of doing nothing. Things were still strained between her and Mike. She hadn’t written him back after his apology, and when he got home, he had been a bit stiff with her, which led to Jess being curt right back. Things had iced up enough that they’d spent the last several days in this weird polite-but-distant state that they both hated. And yet, neither of them had made the first move to get them out of it. It was a game of emotional chicken—whoever apologized first lost. Since both of them considered themselves the injured party, both were determined to wait the other one out. Mike had been stopping at the hospital every night after work and getting home late, which made it easier to avoid reconciling, because by the time supper was on the table, the kids were around until too late in the evening to start that type of conversation.
Much to Jessica’s surprise, the family had learned to adjust to her not doingallthe things every day for them, and she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that. Noah had started taking the city bus to get to and from school, Mike had gone to Costco on the weekend and picked up a bunch of premade meals for the week, and between her mom and Mike, the laundry was getting done. She should be grateful. In fact, she was. But underpinning that was a feeling of loss. As if she’d seen an alternate version of her life and figured out that they would all be fine if somethingdidhappen to her. They’d quickly adapt and forget all about the millions of things she did for them every day. The hit to her ego had not gone unnoticed by her heart.
Andthatwas the thing, wasn’t it? After abandoning her dreams so she could be the perfect wife and mom (well, notperfect—Jess wasn’t about to let her head inflatethatmuch), and after nearly two decades of being there for them—cooking, cleaning, shopping, planning, volunteering, hosting, holding cold wash cloths over fevered foreheads, carefully dabbing at cuts and applying Band-Aids to boo-boos, and everything else she’d devoted her life to—it seemed to her that none of it mattered to the people she’d done it all for. None of it.
Yes, they made a big fuss over her on Mother’s Day, and her birthday (but to a lesser extent, as if Jessica the person wasn’t as important as Jessica the mother), but the truth was, theydidn’tneed her the way she thought they did. The past ten days had shown her that. She was down and out, unable to do anything other than sit and listen, and they were all fine. No one had fallen apart. No one had cried frustrated tears. No one had even mentioned how much they missed her home-cooked meals. They just carried on with life as if it had always been that way.
It really was all for nothing, wasn’t it?
“What in the hell have I done?” she asked Baxter, who stared up at her and thumped his tail against the hardwood.
Her chest felt heavy and her belly knotted as Jess made her way over to the kitchen table and eased herself into a chair. She took her phone out of her bathrobe pocket and did the only thing she could think of—she called her mom, gearing herself up to lay it all on her. How she was terrified that she had made a huge mistake and that the kids would have been fine if she’d pursued a career, and now they were almost out of the house and what did she have that was hers? Nothing.
But her mom didn’t answer. Instead, the call went to voicemail, at which point Jessica remembered she had gone to play pickle ball. Suddenly overcome by exhaustion, she trudged up the stairs and laid down in bed. She didn’t want to think about it. She couldn’t. It was all too awful. She closed her eyes and tried to shut out thoughts of an alternate life that could have been hers. She tried to focus on her breathing, keeping it even and steady so she could fall asleep, but she couldn’t stop it. Her mind was racing, forcing her to keep pace.
She could have gone back to school when Noah had gone to grade one. Actually, she probably could have done it when he was a baby. She could have gone part-time or taken night classes. Jess would’ve had her degree for several years by now and would be a seasoned attorney. Her mind raced through images of a different life—her in a suit every morning, happily kissing the kids goodbye at the school drop-off zone before zipping downtown to her office where she’d have had a completely different life. One with autonomy, and important work friends who she’d have lunch with while they discussed their cases and gossiped about their most-hated judges. One withrespect. She and Mike would have that financial freedom they’d always longed for, and she wouldn’t have to feel worried about blowing money on a sixty-five-dollar vagina steam bath kit or hiring a therapist. Hell, she wouldn’t evenneedone because she would’ve been too busy having a wonderful life to feel lost or resentful or terrified that she was wasting her life. The fantasy of it all was pure bliss.
What if Betty was right and she was supposed to have more than one dream? What if the reason she’d been so miserable was simply a matter of needing to be more and do more with her life? What if all she’d been missing was that big, juicy life?
And, oh my God, what if itwasn’ttoo late?
It was that question that pushed her to get up, log onto her computer and look up ‘how to get into law school after a long break from undergrad degree.’ After finding a few things about ‘taking a gap year,’ she decided that Google wasn’t going to have the answer to her problem. But she knew someone who might.
* * *
“Jess, I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again,” Aaron said when she told him who was calling.
“I hadn’t planned to call, actually,” she said, her palms going clammy. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Nope, I just got out of a meeting. How have you been?”
“Terrible. I was actually in that big pile up on the I-14 after I left our lunch.”
