"That's great. I brought us lots of sandwiches.” I get down to eye level with her and show her the fun shapes I created for our tea party. She smiles at me, then lurches into my arms.
My life looks perfect. I have it all, some may say. But why do I feel like I'm living beneath a ticking time bomb? It makes no sense. None at all.
Standingon the porch outside my kitchen door, I watch the stretching landscape before me. I water my potted plants and take a deep breath in. The crisp morning breeze has a slight chill to it. Droplets of water coat the earth after the rain last night. I love the smell of the dirt after a good rain. Gracie's swing set sits in the corner of the garden, and her treehouse is right above it, built in an old maple tree.
Gracie’s carpool left half an hour ago. My thoughts drift to Willow. I can’t believe my baby is in high school, the difficult years, we’ve been told, and yet here we are navigating it like pros.
I have so many things to do, bake sale prep being the first of my priorities. Every year Park Senior throws a massive bake sale to raise money for the basketball team, chess club, and whatever area of the school that needs a cash injection. I love participating and getting involved in these things.
I am baking my famous chocolate chip cookies, Willows favorite. The kind that are just the right amount of chewy and doughy and the chips melt in your mouth with every bite.
I walk back inside, feeling the chill through my nightgown. I love the sound of the house in the mornings. The way it seems to stretch and expand after a night of rest. Everything about this house feels as right as it did the day I first stepped through those doors. But at the same time, it’s different. Whether that is a good or bad thing is unknown right now.
I make my list for the bake sale as I sit at the breakfast island. I'll stop at the store on my way back from the library. Willow is at basketball practice, and Gracie has a playdate, so I have the day to myself. I'll spend it editing a novel. Indeed, you'll never work a day in your life doing what you love, and truth be told, I love what I do. It stimulates me and my imagination. Lets me be home for my daughters when they need me.
My life is everything I hoped for and more, so why do I feel like an imposter?
Chapter 4
Anonymous
At first, you try not to notice the obvious things. You lock the door and second guess yourself. You try to ignore the prickly sensation you get when the hairs at the back of your neck rise in caution. But you reach back and rub it, shake your shoulders and carry on. But you feel it, don't you? That inkling that someone is watching you, maybe even following you as you walk down the street, on your way to the train station, or to the grocery store. You smile and make small talk with the salesperson because you want to be seen, remembered. You check in on social media, I know, because I follow you there too. You capture the mundane because you want people to see where you are at all times. It always fascinates me how a confident person like you, Sin, can be so vulnerable in these moments.
You leave early, no matter where you’re off to, at least thirty minutes ahead of time, so you can sit in your favorite seat, the one at the window that lets you watch the world whizz by. The plateau of land, the clump of trees, until you’re engulfed in the underground. You clam up then, get lost in that head of yours. The dark makes you nervous. You wring your hands in your skirt.
Have you noticed how often you disregard the feeling in the pit of your stomach that eyes are on you as you scour the fresh produce aisle for the best potatoes, unblemished, so you can bake them with the skin on for supper? He likes it like that.
Are you aware that I'm tracing your every step, mimicking your every move? I want to know you, Sin. I want to know everything about you. You have changed so much over time. You're so much more fascinating.
It becomes so natural, doesn't it, to avoid the bitter taste being watched leaves in your mouth? So you go on, pretending that you cannot be seen, that you blend in seamlessly, that nobody notices the rip in your black stockings from the nail left behind on a pole, or the navy blue cotton you used to mend the hem of your black trousers. Because you're not bothered about what others think of you, and you’re lazy as fuck to put in the effort when it comes to the little things. You move through life pretending nobody notices that your jeans don't fit quite as well as they used to a few months ago, that they don't see the red flush across your cheeks on a Monday morning from a weekend of reckless indulgence in more than a few glasses of Pinot Noir. You're killing yourself, Sin. These binge drinking sessions are tiresome to watch.
It's laughable, predictable, and yet…yet you don't realize what is happening. You're information sharing, letting me into that little bubble of yours. It's easy to let your guard down. Trust me, I know. You let the mask slip a little day by day, and soon you'll expose all those insecurities. And when you do, I'll be here, Sin.
You’re an avid reader; your e-reader sticks to your hand like a parasite, infesting your mind, making you desire a life outside of this one. Monotony isn’t for you. You’re an adventurer. What are you reading anyway? Something dirty. I watch you sometimes on your bed, one hand glued to the reader, the other in your panties getting off from the filthy words on the screen. Letting the imagery of other people fucking turn you into a wanton mess. That’s cheating. Does he know how truly vile you are? Does he understand the sickness that resides in your mind? My teeth clench, and I have to focus on you now to unclench them.
Your eyes on the screen let you escape the niceties that you should be involved in, like complimenting that baby who sits on her mother's lap across from you. You're a mother. It should be ingrained in every fiber of your being. The little, raven-haired beauty keeps reaching out toward you, giggling, trying to get your attention. Still, you don't see it. You see nothing but your own reflection in the mirror when you rise from your king-sized bed every morning, throwing your Egyptian cotton white sheets off your less than perfect body, yawning and stretching your hands everywhere. You may see nothing, Sinclair, but I see you. I know things you think you’ve hidden pretty well. You get off the train and walk the short distance to the library to meet your friend, Chelsea. She’s always around you, clinging like a sloth to a tree branch.
Chapter 5
Anonymous
Before
Do you ever just stand back and evaluate your life as a bystander and realize that it has completely spiralled out of control? I watch helplessly as the pendulum swings through mine. I move the way it rocks me, and I'm none the wiser to do anything about it. For now. I am not a victim of circumstance. I'm versatile, and I'll find a way to get through anything.
But I can’t help the churn of disappointment that courses through me when I assess my life now. I hate what has become of me. I don’t just mean it in thatlife sucks right now, I need to change something kind of way, I genuinely loathe my life, and I need to reconfigure every single thing about it.
I'm stuck in a dead-end job, which I despise more and more every day, and to top it all, I'm forced to work here so I don't starve. I imagine starvation would be a better fate for someone like me, rotting away somewhere until I don't exist anymore.
I am tired of picking up goodwill clothing and eating canned food.
I hate the fact that everyone else is applying to college and universities in the country and abroad, and despite the decent scores I got, that life was never in the cards for me. I grew up being reminded that are were two kinds of people in the world, those who do, and those who don't. I am part of the latter majority.
My mother told me to forget about studying because that was not in the cards for me. Women like us didn't need to fill our heads with pipe dreams. I was going to have to work if I wanted to eat. All the money we brought home was for us to survive, make ends meet. She did me a favor, she'd said, by letting me go to school at all. To her, education was useless. It only gave children foolish notions about the world they lived in.
Long before I graduated, she asked her boss, and fuck buddy, to give me a job at the grocery store where she worked as a saleslady in the cold meat deli.
The shame I had to endure, seeing school mates walk in there, seeing my mother serving at the deli multiplied when I ended up working with her. While other people planned their futures, I stayed the same. I was the constant. Stuck in a vicious cycle of working, eating, and sleeping.
