“You had a life.”
“Yeah, yours. Now I’m going to have mine.”
“Oh, I know. Believe me, I know.”
Her heart picking up speed, she raised her voice. “Do you? Because I don’t think you know anything about what it’s like to be me.”
Letting his shoulders drop, Mike said, “So tell me. Tell me already, Jess, because I honestly don’t get it. I’d like to. I want to understand before it’s…”
“What? Too late?”
“Yes, dammit! Do you actually like how things are between us? Two strangers living in the same house? Pretending the other one isn’t there?” He raked a hand through his thick brown hair. “Because I hate it. So please, enlighten me about what the hell is going on because I’m trying to find something to salvage here but you’re making it impossible.”
Tearing up, Jessica set her gaze to the ceiling and blinked, trying to regain her composure. She wasn’t about to allow herself to get all emotional. Emotional people aren’t treated with respect. And what she wanted more than anything was for her husband to respect her.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, and Jess knew he stopped just short of addingto us.
“Because I was miserable,” she spat out. “I’ve been miserable for years. I spent so much time trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and wondering why I couldn’t just be happy with the way things were, but the truth is, I wasn’t ever going to be happy living a life that wasn’t mine. I’m forty-six, Mike. I’m at least halfway through my life, and other than a family, I have nothing to show for it.”
“Nothing to show for it?” he said through gritted teeth. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No. Do you know what’s ridiculous? Someone letting her dreams die so she can keep up with the laundry or … or … make meals that can just as easily be prepared by someone at Costco … or … do any of the million other things I kept saying yes to when I should have said no. Hosting your clients or running our daughter to music lessons even though she clearly hated playing every instrument we forced on her. Or picking up and dropping off our son for years when he could’ve taken the damn bus. I don’t know what I was thinking, honestly. Giving up on myself so I could do a bunch of shit no one even cares about.”
“Is that what this is about? You’re trying to show us what we’re missing out on without you? Because if so, mission accomplished, Jess. We get it. Our lives were a cakewalk and we should’ve appreciated you more.”
“That’s not what this is about,” Jess ground out. “It’s about me! For once in our marriage, please let it be about me because if you can’t, I don’t know where this is going to go.”
“Me neither, but I can tell you with certainty that right now it’s going nowhere good.”
“I get it. This is hard for you and for the kids. I do understand that. I wish it wasn’t but I don’t know any other way than to just go forward.”
“You mean bulldoze over our life together?”
“That’s not what I’m doing! You don’t get it, Mike. When I tell you I was miserable, I mean it. I kept having these fantasies about just…getting in the car and driving, you know? Like with no destination in mind and no plans for coming back. It started years ago. Remember, when I convinced you we should get Baxter?”
The dog, who up until that point was lying in the middle of the kitchen floor, lifted his head and cocked it to the side at the sound of his name.
Mike glanced down at him, then back at Jess. “What are you talking about?”
“I was already starting to realize how unhappy I was, but instead of trying to figure out why, I wanted to distract myself, so I convinced you to get a puppy. When that didn’t work, I tried so many things. Meditation, yoga, wine o’clock, gratitude journals, books about setting boundaries, watching endless hours of Kira Popowich videos, hoping that if I just tried hard enough, I’d start to feel better about the way I was living my life.”
“Christ, you make it sound like you were prostituting yourself or something. You were just living a nice, ordinary life. Was it really that bad?”
“For me, it was. Because I’m not meant to have some bland, ordinary life. I was supposed to do something big and important,” she said, wiping the tears off her cheeks with both hands. “I’m terrified that I’m going to wake up in thirty years and realize I did nothing with my life. My life. Mine. Me, Jessica Halloway. Human being. Person with dreams and hopes and aspirations that have been lying dormant for decades.” Her throat constricted as she went on with words that shook out of her. “What if I get to the end of it all and realize I’m nothing? What then, Mike?”
“Jesus, Jess, you’re not nothing,” he said, emotion causing his voice to crack. “You’resoimportant. So many people rely on you. You matter. You do. I just don’t think you can see it clearly right now.”
“No, Mike, I’m finally seeing things clearly for the first time in years. People aren’t meant to play a supporting role for their entire lives. At least I’m not. I need something that is just mine. Something I can be truly proud of. Something that will have people saying, ‘That Jessica is an impressive person. She’s so smart. Look at what she’s done with her life.’ But I don’t have that because I haven’t accomplished anything. I’ve wiped butts and washed floors and carpooled the Earth’s circumference, but I haven’t done anything that lets me shine.”
Mike stared up at the ceiling and shook his head, then looked at her. “You shine at everything you do. You just don’t know it.”
Jessica’s nose twitched and the tears came, his words hitting her soft core that she had kept hidden for so long. Then she glanced over his shoulder at the fridge and saw her LSAT score and it all came rushing back to her. “I can do this, Mike. I am smart enough, despite what you might think.”
“For Christ’s sake, I know you’re smart. You’re a highly intelligent person. I swear to you the stuff I said to the kids was purely because I was upset. I didn’t mean it.” He threw his hands up in the air. “I wish to God I would’ve kept my mouth shut.”
Jess shook her head. “You don’t believe I’m smart. Certainly not as smart as you.”
“That’s not true. You’re much better than me at lots of things. You have a much better memory, for starters. You’re better with people and you’re smarter at parenting—”
