“Yeah, well, I’ve only been that way for three months,” Heather reminded her. “And in that time, there have been three baby showers, and at every one of them, I get a pad of paper and a pen. I’m starting to feel like hired help here. Just because we don’t have husbands, that shouldn’t mean we get tasked with menial labor — especially at a party like this one. Nobody has their men here, for God’s sake!”
It was true. The other women were sitting at picnic tables, giggling together over the gifts as they were opened. None of them had been given any jobs to do. Of course, Chelsea had no idea whether or not the women had asked if they could be helpful today, and shehadasked. She could hardly be upset that the answer had been yes.
“I’m glad I can help Jess,” she said.
Heather rolled her eyes with a smile. “Of course you are,” she said. “I mean, so am I, naturally. I love Jess. It’s the principle of the thing. They’re not going to ask Megan or Felicity or Georgette to help — why? Have you thought about that?”
“Not really,” Chelsea admitted.
“It’s because they all think they need breaks from their husbands, and everyone indulges them in that,” Heather explained. “Trust me. I used to be one of them. I used to be just as guilty of it. I’d get together with the other women at these things and laugh about how good it was to be away from Pete for a few hours, how he ran me ragged and never helped with the housework or the kids, and how glad I was to have a little bit of time to myself, with nothing to do.”
“Well, that’s a fair thing to want,” Chelsea said.
“It’s a fair thing foranyoneto want, not just married people,” Heather said. “These women have forgotten what it meant to be single, that’s their problem. They look at you — and now at me — and they think we have no problems. That we have nothing going on, just because we don’t have the same problems they do. So, even though we’re all at a party, of coursewedon’t mind being assigned chores, because we don’t have to do chores the rest of the time. Our days are our own, right?” She grinned at Chelsea.
Chelsea laughed. “Yeah, they’re pretty off base if that’s what they think.”
It didn’t really offend her. She was used to being the only single member of her group of friends — well, shehadbeen, until Heather’s divorce had sent her back into the ranks ofthe unmarried. But even Heather was on a different level than Chelsea. “You’ve got two kids,” she pointed out to her friend. “They can’t possibly think you aren’t busy all the time because you don’t have a husband. You’remorebusy because of that.”
“Well, you and I know that,” Heather said wryly. “Although to tell you the truth, Pete was such a do-nothing loser that my life actually does feel more streamlined now that he’s out of it. At least I can get the kids to bed on time without a half dozen escapes and trips downstairs to say goodnight to Daddy one more time! I can’t tell you how many times I told Pete that if he’d just get it together and help out with bedtime, we could have the kids asleep at a reasonable hour. He never listened, though. You couldn’t get that man to put down the beer and turn off the TV if the house was on fire.”
Chelsea giggled. “Sounds like the divorce is treating you all right.”
“To tell you the truth,” Heather said, “I wish I had known years ago how much better my life would be without Pete. I would never have married him!”
“Really?” Chelsea asked. “But then you never would’ve had your kids.”
It was impossible to imagine wishing for such a thing. Not only were Heather’s kids well-behaved and thoroughly precious, in spite of their do-nothing dad, but Chelsea also couldn’t envision a world where she would ever wish away children if she was lucky enough to have them. She’d longed to be a mother all her life, and it was a constant source of anxiety and disappointment to her that it didn’t seem to be happening. She went on dates, of course — there was no shortage of dates. But there never seemed to be any second dates. Most of the men she met wereduds for one reason or another, and when she did meet one who interested her, he didn’t call back.
Meanwhile, it seemed that every other week there was another wedding, another baby shower — another reminder that all of Chelsea’s friends were moving on to a stage in their lives that Chelsea herself seemed doomed never to reach.
“Oh, I wouldn’t give back the kids,” Heather assured her. “Not for anything. You know how much they mean to me. But, you know, we weren’t even married yet the first time we got pregnant, and if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have gotten married at all. You can have kids without getting married. I’d have had my first baby, and then I’m sure I would have had another — I always wanted two. But I would’ve done it on my own, not with Pete. I don’t think he would have objected, either. He probably would have been relieved if I’d told him back then that I don’t want his help. Come to think of it, that should have been my first warning. I should have realized that he was going to turn out to be the kind of guy he is.”
Chelsea’s mind was stuck on the first part of her friend’s statement. “You’re saying that if you had it all to do over again, you would have had your kids on your own? Without a partner?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Heather said, bending over the notepad on her lap to scribble down the fact that Jessica had received a car seat from her aunt Myrtle. “I wouldn’t give up being a mother for anything. Best thing that ever happened to me. But being Pete’s wife?” She shuddered. “No, thank you.”
Chelsea turned that idea over in her mind.
Of course, it wasn’t new information that a person could have a child without waiting for a partner to help her. But to Chelsea,that had always been a wild idea. The kind of thing you daydreamed about but didn’t do, in the same way she supposed thattechnicallyshe could take flying lessons and become a pilot if she really wanted to. Just because something was physically possible, that didn’t mean it was a good idea.
But Heather seemed to be saying she did think it was a good idea. That she even wished it was the plan she herself had followed for her life. Could that be true? Would Heather have chosen to have her children without a partner if she had gotten a glimpse into her future?
If that was true… maybe that meant Chelsea was placing too much importance on waiting for the perfect man. She’d had fantasies of motherhood all her life, and those fantasies had always included a father by her side. But if it could be realistically done without him, maybe she should stop waiting. It wasn’t as if she had ever met a man who was worthy of taking on such an important project with her, after all.
She spent the rest of the shower in a bit of a trance, and was surprised to see half an hour later that Jessica had opened all her presents. She looked down at the notepad in her lap — she’d failed to write anything down after the car seat.
Heather was noticing the same thing. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, holding up her own notes. “I got everything. I guess that’s why they ask two people to do this job, huh?”
She was smiling, but Chelsea felt her cheeks burn at the realization that she’d dropped the ball. “Thanks for covering,” she said.
“No problem. You were really away with the fairies, though. Are you all right?”
“Just distracted,” Chelsea got to her feet. “I said I would help load the gifts into their car.”
“Of course you did,” Heather laughed. “Oh, well. It looks like the rest of them are about to play baby-food taste-testing. I don’t understand why this game gets played at every baby shower. Once they have babies of their own, they’ll find themselves eating that crap every single day, and then they won’t be so eager.”
“You should go play,” Chelsea suggested. “You’d beat them all without even trying. It would drive them crazy.”
