“Rachel.” I tip her head back so she’ll look at me again. “There’s one thing I need right now, more than anything. Will you give it to me?”
“What is it?”
“All I want is a nice day with my family.” Rachel returns to work from her holiday time soon, and the boys will be headed right back to school. “I don’t care what we do, as long as it’s the four of us.”
Days from now, I’ll find myself completely alone in this house during daylight hours.
I don’t want to waste a single second more.
Rachel gives me exactly what I ask for.
I lose myself in the day and allow myself to truly feel joy. A light snow falls outside, and it’s not too cold, so we make the most of it and head to Beaver Lake on Mount Royal with our ice skates and the boys’ hockey sticks.
When we’ve all had so much fun that our cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing, we head downtown for hot chocolate at our favourite café, then head home and order Tandoori chicken and samosas from our usual place.
Then, we take out the Uno Junior cards and manage not to kill each other before the boys are almost on the edge of collapse from exhaustion.
When I kiss them goodnight, I linger for a moment on each of their foreheads. I absorb all of the love I can get, letting it seep through my skin and into my bones.
Everything is going to be okay.
By the time they’re both asleep, I’m ready to collapse on the couch. Rachel is already there, both legs folded up underneath her, when I make it to the living room. A pleasant scent hits my nostrils, and I notice two steaming mugs on the coffee table.
“Made us tea,” Rachel says with a smile.
I sit next to her and grab a mug. “Thank you, love.”
I bring the mug to my lips and let the sweet and earthy notes of the herbal tea dance on my taste buds. When I swallow, its warmth travels down to my belly, and it almost feels like it spreads throughout all of me.
I set the mug back on the table and open my arm to beckon Rachel closer. She nuzzles into my side, just as I’d hoped she would.
“So, was today everything you were hoping for?” she asks me.
“It was wonderful, Rachel.” I allow my fingers to weave through her hair.
For a second, that sinking feeling of worthlessness hooks itself into me. I can’t quite push it away, but I focus on the silky strands of Rachel’s hair, on her steady breathing against my chest, on the knowledge that my boys are safe and sound asleep in their room, hopefully dreaming of better things than I will tonight.
“But?” Rachel finally asks, the slight tension that overtook my muscles a moment ago telling her what I didn’t dare say.
She knows me better than anyone.
“But…”
If I speak this into existence, will it make it more true? Or will it instead air out my wound and let it breathe so it can finally start to heal?
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Rachel.”
I expect her to reassure me, like she usually would. But instead, she peers up at me through those dark eyelashes of hers, and she waits.
She listens.
“I doubt I can get another job in software. Not after the stunt I pulled. My boss is going to spread the word around to let everyone in the industry know I’m unreliable.”
Now that I’ve opened the valve, the words come pouring out of me like pus.
“And even if I could, I doubt I can make it work. We’ve both seen what happens when I try to make it work.” I scoff. “There are probably some people who can balance things right, but not me. So I obviously can’t cut it in that industry.
“That leaves video games. But I’ve got no guarantee Ubisoft would take me back. There would need to be a new project, or someone who recently left, and right now, with the state of the world, and all these mass layoffs I’ve heard about from my old colleagues, it’s not exactly raining jobs out there.”
