Jess scoffed to herself. Typical male, believing he can fix everything if only he used the right tool. An apology, a show of support. He’d already tried standing up for her with the kids; now he was grasping at whatever he could find to make this problem go away. He was so desperate, she almost felt sorry for him. Almost. There would have been a time when she would have let him off the hook (with the promise of him never doing something like it again), and they’d move on with their lives as though it hadn’t happened.
But ithadhappened, and his efforts were not going to work this time. He had said those things, even if it had been in a moment of extreme frustration. He was surprised she scored so highly on her LSAT,skepticaleven that she remembered her own score, which was laughable to Jess. How would she possibly have gotten the score wrong, after spendingan entire yearpreparing for the single most important exam of her life? She wouldn’t get it wrong. That would be like completely forgetting your wedding anniversary and having to look it up to find out when it was. It wouldn’t happen.
Mike had always underestimated his wife, right from the start. She hadn’t seen it so clearly before, but now that his true feelings had been uncovered, it all made sense. The subtle ways he undermined her intelligence, suggesting he handle big purchases since he’ll be able to find a better deal, hinting that he was the better driver of the pair. And now, it sounded like he was doubting her ability to do well enough to get into law school.
She just hadn’t wanted to see it before. But it was there, plain as day. And now it seemed, he was sharing those views with their children. Jess shut her eyes tightly, refusing to succumb to the deep sense of betrayal. She wouldn’t cry again. Instead, she plunged her head under the water and stayed there for as long as she could, feeling her hair float around her face as she shut out the entire world. And somehow, in that tiny moment, something shifted inside. When she lifted herself up to sitting and drew in a deep breath, she was different. Stronger. Harder than she had been before.
Climbing out of the tub, she dried off, threw on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, and slid into some cozy slippers. Then she went up to the attic in search of her boxes from college. She shivered a bit, wishing she had taken the time to dry her hair, but continued on searching through the stacks of boxes until she found what she was looking for. She lugged it down the steps, then took it to the dining room and set it down on the table where she proceeded to unpack it until she found the envelope from the Law School Admissions Council and took it out. There it was. 169. Just as she’d remembered. She stuck the sheet to the fridge with a magnet.Suck on that, assholes.
“What’s that?” Mike asked, surprising Jess.
“Proof that I’m not as dumb as you think,” she answered, walking back into the dining room to pack up her things.
“Jess, I don’t think you’re dumb. I’veneverthought that about you.”
“That’s not the impression you left on our children, is it?” She hardened her eyes at him.
Mike let out a deep sigh. “Come on, can we just talk about this? Please? We were finally having a good day together and I just can’t stand that it’s turning out this way.”
“Oh really? Well, I can’t stand being undermined by my husband, so I guess neither of us is getting what we want,” she told him, putting the lid back on the box and starting for the stairs.
“You are,” he muttered.
She froze in place, then turned. “Excuse me?”
“Nothing.”
Jess scoffed. “Right.” She stormed off, but Mike followed her toward the stairs.
“Jess, wait.”
But she didn’t. “Just leave me alone.”
“For how long?”
“Indefinitely.”
That was six weeks ago, but the conversation had played out in her mind dozens of times since. She could have let him apologize and explain. She could have told him about the realization she had come to—that he had always been undermining her in subtle little ways, and that those flippant comments were like a cancer to her self-worth. They, along with her own shifting priorities and growing fear, had stopped her from becoming the person she was meant to be for far too long. She could have told him how much he’d hurt her. He would have promised to never do it again, and she would have believed him. But she hadn’t.
Or she could have told him she understood why he said what he had to the kids—that he was hurt and scared by what she was doing. She could have apologized for the speed with which she had moved once her decision was made. Things would have been easier. Less tense. They would have gotten back into their groove and done the Christmas shopping together like they had always done. They would have built on the good feelings that had started at Thanksgiving before things fell apart. But she hadn’t.
Instead, she told him to leave her alone, and when she had used the word indefinitely, she meant it. Over those quick, yet draggy, weeks of driving to and from work in the dark of winter, she steeled herself against any overtures he might be inclined to make. She wasn’t about to let him in because letting him in would mean allowing his idea of who she was to come crawling back inside her brain, and she couldn’t afford to do that. Not ever. Certainly not when her exam date was barreling toward her at full speed.
So instead of snuggling up on the couch with the family to watchChristmas Vacation, or spending hours preparing their traditional New Year’s Eve fondue, she had taken over Mike’s den, and used the holiday to study, sequestering herself away from the seasonal cheer. Jess didn’t feel it. She didn’t want to. She wanted to stay as hard as ice. Shehadto. Or she would never do what she had set out to do.
Whether it bothered Winnie and Noah, she didn’t know, and frankly, she wasn’t sure she cared. They seemed delighted with the cash they got for Christmas, and other than that, they’d spent their school break hanging out with friends or staring at their phones. So long as they weren’t asked to help out, what was happening around them was totally irrelevant.
Jess kept her LSAT scores on the fridge, in part as a reminder to herself that she had what it took, but also for Mike, as a symbol of how much he had hurt her. She secretly hoped it was like a knife to his chest every time he saw it because hearing those words felt like being repeatedly stabbed. She kept herself so busy studying that she hardly had time to think about the state of her marriage. Only in the quietest of moments, when her brain was too tired to learn anything new, did she marvel at the fact that she had been able to distance herself, so swiftly and effectively, from the man she loved. Each passing day, she could see he was doing the same. They were daring each other to go a little farther, bit by bit, until at some point, there would be nothing left of them. That way, they could both shift the blame onto the other party.He wouldn’t support my dreams, even after decades of serving him and the children. She just changed overnight. Became someone totally different. Hard. Cold. I barely knew her.
Maybe it was the worst mistake of her life, or maybe she’d look back and think it was the smartest thing she’d ever done. If her marriage had to be the sacrificial lamb for her to finally make her mark on the world, so be it. After Kira let go of her husband, she finally was able to soar. Maybe it would be the same for Jess. It didn’t scare her as much as she thought it would. Maybe because it really was over for her, or maybe because nothing had been said or done that couldn’t be forgiven. No one had cheated. No one had said, “I don’t love you anymore.” They could pick it back up if they wanted to, couldn’t they?
But she didn’t have to think about that now. It was Tuesday, so she wasn’t going to see Mike for more than a few minutes for the next three days—a reprieve for them both. She had her class tonight and had finally been invited to join the pre-class study group that met in the college cafeteria at five o’clock. Jess knew they’d started meeting weeks ago, and they hadn’t included her (obviously because she was so ancient). She wasn’t hurt though. She could imagine herself at that age, and there’s no way she’d want to hang out with some middle-aged woman. So, when she arrived at the college and saw them in the common area, she’d just offer them a friendly smile and a wave that said, ‘No need to feel bad. I get it and I’m not taking it personally’ even though it did feel personal and she knew in her heart of hearts, she had a lot to offer the young’uns. She wanted them to know she wasn’t one ofthosemiddle-aged women—a pushy, bossy know-it-all. But how could they possibly know that? To them, she was all of those things.
So when Tina, a lovely student whose family had emigrated from the Philippines when she was two, approached Jess to ask if she’d like to join them, Jess was thrilled. She would prove she could be a valuable asset to the group. It would be so much better than eating alone at her desk before going to class, even if she had nothing in common with any of them other than the LSAT. They’d commiserate and share information and laugh together about the insanity of putting themselves through this hell. Even more than that, maybe the material would start to make more sense to her. She wasn’t picking it up nearly as quickly as she had when she studied it the first time. Her brain simply didn’t work as fast as it used to.
But for now, she had work to do. Aaron had landed a big client—a tech start-up in need of an iron-clad contract for the two founding members. He’d been working on it over the holiday and as soon as they returned to work after the new year, he handed it over to Jessica to proofread, format, and write the cover letter highlighting the important points for the clients. It was a good exercise for her, because she had to first find the pertinent information to strip out, and also because reading over a twenty-six-page contract was giving her exposure to proper wording, writing style, and how to lay out a contract.
Too bad it was horribly, painfully boring. She was on her third coffee, and although she was feeling slightly jittery, she couldn’t seem to make her brain focus on the document before her. This wasn’t the first time, either. The more Aaron got her involved in the actual legal side of the business, the more she second-guessed her decision. She’d first noticed a bit of a sinking feeling shortly before Christmas. He’d asked her to prepare a trial brief for a wrongful dismissal case. The details of the case were bone dry—an insurance sales associate let go for not meeting his quota. Not a hint of juicy scandal to be found. By the time she got to the end of it, she found herself hoping she’d never have to do anything like it again. She didn’t say anything to Aaron, of course. When he’d asked her how she found it, she gave a vague answer—that it was an excellent exercise for her. She told herself it was only dull because the people involved were so boring. But the longer Jessica sat staring at the page in front of her, the deeper the sinking feeling became. A faint whisper that this wasn’t for her.
