“I’m sorry, can we just stop for a second?” April asked, leaning in toward the camera so her face filled her entire drop-in box. “We’ve all seen that video. If there are viewers who haven’t, I’d invite you to save yourself the time: my kids aren’t perfect. But they’re perfect to me. I’m not perfect, but I love them and they know that.”
“Children thrive best in an environment without the yelling,” Betsy shot back. “Don’t even get me started on the cussing.”
“How did you feel about the cussing, April?” Paisley asked as though she was simply the one asking the questions, not the ringmaster of this circus.
“We are all on the same motherhood team here.” April held her arms against her sides, even though she would very much like to talk with her hands. But…purple silk. Lotsa sweat. All that. “Of course I don’t want my kids to cuss. But they’re kids. They hear shit. I’m not the only mom who has survived a hellish divorce, and my kids are not the only children to process everything that entails. But we’re moms. Our job isn’t to make things perfect for them. It’s loving them. Our job isn’t to have no emotion other than happy around them. It’s showing them that emotions happen. They’re part of life.”
Betsy opened her mouth, “I—”
“I’m not done speaking,” April said, holding up her not-done index finger. “But I’ll make sure you get your chance when I’m through.”
She drew a breath that finally filled her lungs. “The thing about motherhood is that it’s hard e-fucking-nough without other mothers telling us all the things we do wrong when we’re doing our very best to make sure our kids know they are loved, and they are cared for, and they are important.”
“I see where your kids get the cussing from.” Betsy stood higher on her pedestal.
“I’m an adult,” April assured her. “We get to have our voices, too, Betsy. Sometimes those voices include the word damn, or shit, or—other grown-up words.”
“I’ve been known to enjoy a good grown-up word,” Paisley said with a chuckle. “Whole strings of them, in fact.”
“Betsy—with her opinions about the rest of us—doesn’t get it. We are important, too,” April said.
“I never implied others aren’t important,” Betsy said, but the fight had leached out of her voice.
“Your attempts to make me feel like a toad because I had a bad day caught on camera with the whole internet watching says a helluva lot more about you than it does about me. I know my worth. I don’t deserve that.”
God, she was wrecking this. She’d built her platform on patience, and she was showing none. But neither of the other women said anything and, since April was on a roll and her brand was toast, she kept rolling down this hill she died on.
Jack’s first failure was not a title she embraced, yet it was the title she was earning. But the bitter taste of ruining Jack’s winning streak didn’t stop the fall.
“I came here today to talk about the importance of grounding ourselves,” she said, “of making space in our minds so the chaos doesn’t overwhelm us like it did to me that day. Sometimes, though, we need other women to help us so we can do that.” April stopped, giving Paisley a chance to say something. She didn’t, so April kept right on tumbling. “What we don’t need is other moms tearing us down for simply existing.”
She glanced up at Rachel. A clearly shocked Rachel, who did a soft slow-clap only for April. Production guy joined her.
Paisley started to speak, sputtered something about an apology, but stalled out.
April decided to keep taking the lead on this.
“Since you got to see my embarrassment, I think it’s your turn to share yours. Paisley. Betsy.” She added their names to be totally clear who she addressed. Betsy seemed the slippery type who would prefer to slip right out of anything unflattering. “Some other thingsIfind embarrassing—my elderly basset hound eats my bras on the regular. Nice bras that actually fit are her favorite. My laundry is completely folded for the first time inyears. I don’t even want to admit how many times my kids have gone to school in wrinkled clothes because their Garanimals T-shirts sat in a hamper for weeks.” She stopped. Paisley’s eyebrows were nearly to her hairline, and Betsy seemed to play frog and catch flies. What the hell-o, April sallied forth. “And I mostly keep juice boxes on hand so I can mix cocktails with them.” She heaved a breath. God, that felt good to get off her chest. “If you want to judge me, fine. But just know I refuse to judgeyou.” April smiled a wary smile into the camera lens. “I’m done. You go, Betsy.”
Betsy seemed to have atrophied. She didn’t move. Her mouth finally closed, then opened and closed again. No sound emerged, however.
Like this episode had taken a direction she approved of, Paisley smiled a wry smile. “Last week, my son watched a video on MyTube and then announced at the grocery store that bananas are yellow tree dicks. The produce manager? Not amused.” She lifted a shoulder. “It happens.”
Betsy gasped. “I’m not comfortable with this conversation.”
The weight of the world on April’s chest straight-up disintegrated. Because, as Betsy had said before,Motherhood isn’t comfortable.
Paisley chuckled. “Last week at the mall, my daughter opened the bathroom stall when I was…” She cleared her throat. “Still seated. The lady at the sink got a view neither of us planned. It happens.”
“When my daughter was a brand-new baby, I took her for photos at a portrait studio. I went to change her diaper and she had a poop explosion. It was all up the wall. In my hair. We weren’t welcome there again.” April shrugged. “It happens.”
“My son calls his penis a peanut, and it was cute until he told the teacher at his school he had a peanut. He had to come home that day because they don’t mess around with food allergens. Even though he didn’t actually have a peanut, they couldn’t take the risk. I totally understood.” Paisley pursed her lips. “It happens.”
“I accidentally put my Elf on the Shelf too close to the floor and my basset hound thought he was a bra. It wasn’t pretty,” April said.
“I’m not even sure what to do with that,” Betsy said.
“I had to make a quick run to Target for another Elf so the kids didn’t know he got eaten.” April pulled a yeesh face. “It happens.”
