“He probably hasn’t had a single minute to check his phone,” I tell him. “You know what the restaurant’s like at this hour.”
“Yeah, it’s busy.” Connor picks up his phone again, and I hate that I must work constantly to convince my children that they matter to their father. I want them to feel confident about that, even though I’m not always sure I believe it myself. But at leastI’mthere for them. Every day. Devoted. One hundred and fifty percent.
When Nate and I first got married, he was still in cooking school, and I was working my butt off to support us and pay for his education after his father cut him off. Thankfully, money was never an issue because my company had taken off like a rocket. Back then, there weren’t many designers doing home staging for the Realtors, and miraculously I’d had the foresight to hire a web guy to develop a software program to createvirtual staging for homes, offices, and outdoor spaces. It was the first of its kind.
When Nate finally opened the restaurant of his dreams—an upscale fine-dining establishment on the Halifax Waterfront called Oblique—I began to find it difficult to juggle work and motherhood. Miraculously, a corporate buyer for my software program came along, so I took the offer and sold it—along with my business—for upward of three million dollars. The timing couldn’t have been better because Nate started working twelve hours a day, six days a week, determined to be the first restaurant on the east coast of Canada to earn a Michelin star.
It was during that hectic time that I received the heartbreaking news of my mother’s cancer diagnosis. A year later she was gone. Two years later, my father suffered a fatal heart attack, and Nate was so overwhelmed at the restaurant that he wasn’t able to attend the funeral.
They were difficult years, but I’ll always be grateful that the sale of my business had given me the freedom to stay home and take care of my family.
We pull into the driveway of our cozy house in the West End, a two-story craftsman with a low-pitched gable roof and a wide front porch with tapered columns on stone piers. Nate and I purchased it when I was pregnant with Amanda, but it was in dire need of TLC, so it came at a good price.
Over time, I’ve put my design skills to good use, and we’ve restored it to its former glory. It’s in a sought-after neighborhood with expansive lots and mature trees, so today it’s probably worth double what we paid for it. (Not that its market value matters to me, because I love this house, and I never want to move.)
I shut off the car and press the button to open the trunk. We all get out and hurry to the front door before our noses freeze off in the biting wind.
Connor disappears to the basement to dump his hockey gear while Becky and I ditch our coats and boots and make our way to the kitchen.
“Wine?” I ask.
“Yes, please,” she replies.
I retrieve a bottle of white from the wine fridge and pour us each a glass.
“To hockey,” Becky says, making a toast.
“And to us.” We clink and sip.
“Can I do anything to help you with supper?” Becky asks.
“No need to lift a finger. I made a chicken lasagna this morning. All I have to do is stick it in the oven.” I remove it from the refrigerator and peel back the aluminum foil.
While we wait for the oven to preheat, we sit on the stools at the kitchen island.
“It’s a shame Nate missed the game,” Becky says. “That was one for the record books.”
“He did amazing, didn’t he?” I reply, intentionally skipping over the reference to my husband’s absence. I want only to celebrate Connor’s clever leap over a defenseman’s stick just before he caught a pass from his teammate and scored the final goal.
The TV comes on in the basement rec room, and I hear Connor talking to a friend on his cell phone.
Becky watches me for a moment, then asks carefully and quietly, “Has he been to a single game this year?”
Wishing that she’d let this pass, because I’m reaching the end of my tether and I don’t want to be reminded of that, I pick up my wine and take a sip. “No, he hasn’t,” I admit.
She sits back and rests her fingers on the base of her wineglass. “Do you ever worry about how the kids feel about it? I knowyou’refine because you’ve always been supportive of his dreams, but Connor seemed a bit discouraged tonight.”
“You noticed?” I take another swig of my wine.
“Yes.” Becky sits forward. “You know that you can talk to me.”
Explosions from the woofer speakers downstairs cause the floor to tremble. Obviously, Connor has found an action movie to watch.
“Yes, I do worry,” I confess. “I hate that the kids don’t feel important to their dad. And honestly, for years I’ve been feeling like a single mother.”
It’s the first time I’ve admitted this to anyone.
“Have you talked to him about it?”
