“It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to hit pause. It’s okay to shift directions.”
~Erin Cassidy
Over the next week, heels were dug in. Words were said that couldn’t be taken back. The battle lines were drawn. It was Mike and the kids firmly on one side and Jess on her own. She was determined not to let it break her. As far as she was concerned, they were the ones who should be sorry. They had taken her for granted for years (two of them for their entire lives), all three of them greedily demanding what they wanted, and not bothering to think about how it affected her. Jess took to leaving for work before they got up, eating alone at the dining room table with her laptop and study guides, and going to bed by nine every night.
Her LSAT prep course, which would run every Tuesday and Thursday night, started that night. On the weekend when she bought groceries, she had planned to prepare the ingredients for a beef stew that morning and put them in the slow cooker. But she had shut off her alarm when it went off at five a.m. to get an extra hour of sleep instead of chopping carrots and potatoes.
If she were honest with herself, she’d admit that she was already exhausted, and she hadn’t even started the class yet. Working full-time and keeping up with the laundry, housework, and cooking was too much for her. Hell, it was probably too much for anyone. But she had gone and promised her family she’d do it all—pursue her dream without disrupting their lives in any way. So she was going to do it all, even if it killed her. If only so no one could say she couldn’t do it.
After getting herself ready for work, she stood in the pantry for a moment, looking for something she could whip up in the next few minutes. A sense of indignant anger came over her. Why shouldshebe solely responsible for feeding everyone else? Especially when they couldn’t even be bothered to be the slightest bit supportive.
“Screw it,” she muttered, but what she really meant was ‘screw them.’
She pulled out two cans of Stagg Chili and a can opener and placed them on the counter. Then she wrote on a Post-it note and stuck it to one of the cans.
Going straight to class from work tonight.
Here’s supper.
Mom
Not,Love you, Mom, as she normally would have written. NotI should be home by ten p.m. Just the bare minimum of information that she needed to provide. Then she walked out the door and smiled to herself, imagining their reactions. Winnie would wrinkle up her nose and tell her Dad she’d make herself a grilled cheese. Noah would shrug (not exactly satisfying, but, even in her fantasies, she couldn’t imagine him curling up in a ball and crying). But Mike would be seething. He’d pretend it didn’t bother him, put the cans back in the cupboard, then order a pizza, but deep down, he would be furious at how cavalier his doting wife had become. He might even go as far as to be insulted that she assumed him incapable of making a healthy meal (even though his version of a balanced dinner never seemed to include so much as a single carrot).
He’d be fuming about how they had a contract and she broke it—he was the bread winner and she was the person who took care of everything else. That was the way they’d always done it. It wasn’t fair for her to up and change her mind like this. How dare she sign up for classes two nights a week, spending more money and more time away from the family?
He’d already seen the credit card bill from her online shopping spree, and had circled her clothing purchases in red pen, put a big question mark next to them, then left the bill on the kitchen counter for her. In exchange, she took out a sharpie and wrote:Work expenses, similar to you eating lunch out every day for the last twenty years, only I have a nice wardrobe to show for the money I spent.
If Mike wanted a fight, he’d get one. Old, Doormat Jess had left the building. And she wasn’t coming back. The only thing that would’ve made the moment more satisfying would have been if she could have called Diana and told her about the cans of chili. Before all of this had happened, Diana would have thought that was hilarious, good even—her friend standing up for herself for once. But not now. Somehow now, Jess had become the most selfish person on the planet in Diana’s eyes. But that wasn’t her problem. That was Diana’s. One that Jess hoped she’d sort out soon so they could go back to the way things were.Ifthey could.
She set that thought aside as she crossed the bridge on what was now becoming a familiar route to work. By the time she arrived, Jess had managed to forget all about Diana and her own family back in Union Hill. She was focused, professional, charming, and witty, as if her home life wasn’t completely falling apart. Her ability to compartmentalize her personal and professional life shocked her, and she wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad one. She had never thought herself capable of finding happiness while even one person in her family was upset, let alone all of them. She certainly wouldn’t have thought herself capable of being happy whenshewas the cause of it all. Yet, all day when she was at the office, she was happy. Thrilled, even. Surely this was the sign that she was some sort of sociopath or something. Or maybe she was just learning to think like a man.
By eight a.m., the coffee was brewing and Jessica was at her desk, preparing reminder notices for all of Aaron’s clients who had outstanding bills. The old heater hissed and trembled as it got to work for the day. She was excited because today, she was going to get Aaron one step closer to being truly organized. She was going to make up template letters today, so that the most common correspondence could be plug and play. When she had suggested it the day before, his eyes lit up, and oh, but did it ever feel good to have someone light up because of something she was going to do.
When Aaron arrived, he took a deep inhale and smiled at her. “You’re spoiling me, Jess. Every morning when I come in, the coffee’s on and it’s already cozy warm in here. It’s going to be hard on me when you abandon me for law school.”
She smiled at him. “You do know both those things can be put on automatic timers, right?”
Shrugging off his coat, he grinned down at her. “See? There you go again, finding a way to make my life easier.” He hung up his coat and started for his office, calling back to her, “You’ll never know how often I thank my lucky stars that you got the wrong office.”
“The feeling’s mutual.” Jess got up and poured him a coffee, adding several glugs of vanilla creamer from the bottle in the mini-fridge. She walked it to his desk and set it down. “Overdue reminders have gone out, and I’ve proofread your letter to opposing counsel on the Parker case, and I’m supposed to remind you that you have to file the court documents on the Khatri case by the end of the week.”
Aaron had a sip of his coffee, made a satisfied, “Aaah,” sound, then set it down. “You know what? For the first time in my entire career, I’m actually ahead of schedule.”
“Really?”
“Yup, and it’s entirely thanks to you.” He smiled at her, and it felt so nice to have another human being on the planet who was happy with her. “So, thank you.”
“It’s nothing. I secretly love organizing things. In fact, I probably love ittoomuch.”
“Well, you certainly have a gift for it.”
“Thanks.”
“Listen, if you want any help preparing for your LSATat all, just say the word.”
“I’ll definitely pick your brain if I need to,” she told him.
“You won’t need to though, will you?” he said, with a wide smile. “You’re too smart to need my help.”
