I need a change, or I might disappear into his world completely. But who am I, if not just his girlfriend or a mom of three brilliant babies? Who am I outside of this penthouse?
Who I’ve always been. A trainer.
A trainer with half a degree, my inner voice reminds me. That voice has been getting louder lately, and it’s time to pay attention.
I open the university portal, look at the physical education degree requirements, and I feel, for the first time since I left, like I’m not doing this to prove anything to anyone. Not to Ronan, not to my mother, not to myself in the defensive way of someone who needs the credential to feel legitimate.
I want to finish it because I started it, and I want to be a person who finishes things.
The class list is grueling. Exercise physiology, sports nutrition, biomechanics, and curriculum design. I know most of this material already from years of working in it, which means thedegree will be challenging in the way of things that require rigor rather than discovery, and I find I want that. I want to do the rigorous thing. I want to sit exams and write papers and do it properly, not because anyone requires me to, but because I require it of myself.
My mother required very little of herself. She coasted, in the years after my father left, on the minimum necessary to maintain the appearance of a functional household. I understood this intellectually for a long time before I understood it in my body. The specific, cellular wariness of a person who grew up in a house where effort was optional.
I have been fighting that wariness my whole adult life, not because I am afraid of becoming her but because I am aware that the path of least resistance has a particular pull when you are tired, and I have been very tired this year.
I am also present. Consistent. Awake to my own life in a way I have not always been. And finishing the degree is part of that. Part of the ongoing project of being someone who does what she said she would do. Ronan is right—I’m not my mom, and I never will be. I require more of myself than she ever did.
He did a half shift today, so he’s back now, and we need to have this conversation.
He’s in the nursery with Boy, who is awake and conducting his usual surveillance of the room from his crib, and Ronan is sitting in the feeding chair beside him, reading something on his phone, close enough that Boy can see him but not hovering, just present. Available.
“I want to re-enroll in my physical education degree,” I say from the doorway.
He looks up. His face is unreadable.
“I want to finish it. Not for the babies, not for the business. For me. Because I started it and I want to have done it.”
“Whatever for?”
“I just… were you not listening? I just said why.”
His jaw tightens. “I only meant there’s no need for you to work, Sage. So, I don’t see the point of pursuing a degree you don’t need.”
“Our kids deserve to have an educated mother.”
“They have a well-educated father. That’s plenty. I can fill in the gaps for you.”
“It’s not just for them. It’s for me too. Didn’t you hear that part?”
Ronan exhales loudly out of his nose and sets Boy back in his crib. He turns to me and motions for us to leave the nursery, so we do. Once he closes the door, he quietly says, “If you’re going to leave me, just do it.”
32
RONAN
“What didyou just say to me?” Sage asks with quiet fury.
She’s been through the wringer in the past day. I know this. But so have I, and right now, I cannot stop myself from spinning out on the matter. My heart is crumbling apart, and I’m not sure it’ll ever be put back together.
I step away from the nursery door, in case this gets loud. To my understanding, breakups are not generally quiet affairs. I’ve never been through a real one, so I’m unsure of the protocols. But protecting the children from hearing it seems a savvy choice.
When I was a boy, I had a girlfriend, if she could be called that. Susie Baker and I shared juice boxes at recess, and from then on, she called me her boyfriend. That lasted until she and her family moved to London a few weeks later. Not a real breakup. And we were eight.
In high school, there were a few girls, but things fizzled out before they were serious. Nothing real to speak of.
Then, there was Aoifa. And then, there wasn’t.
Dating since her as been a series of unserious hookups. So, no real breakups to speak of.
