The hard floor felt good on her aching back. The day had been brutal. It required herculean effort to pretend that everything was okay when your whole life was about to fall apart. The energy that it took to smile, to talk with clients, to put on the mask of normal; she was drained, cored out from the effort. Her networking lunch—all idle chatter and polite laughter and immobile botox faces, and designer handbags worn like shields—just about did her in. She’d left with a pounding headache.
“You okay?” asked Beth in the cab afterward.
Did she not seem okay? She really thought she was putting on a good front.
“Fine,” she lied. “Great.”
Selena hadn’t been sure what it would be like when one of your best friends was also your boss; but it worked. Mutual respect, compassion, teamwork, lots of laughs. Wasn’t it only men who implied that women couldn’t work well together? She’d never had a problem with female colleagues. In fact, quite the opposite. Any leg up she’d ever had professionally had been due to female mentors and friends.
“Just allergies,” Selena conceded. “My head is killing me.”
She and Beth had been friends a long time. They were publicists together in their twenties at a small publishing house, been through it all—boyfriends, breakups, the death of a parent, meeting the right guy, weddings, pregnancy, the birth of children, Beth’s divorce, and Michaela, the friend they’d lost to a sudden heart attack.
Beth nodded and offered a sympathetic smile, a squeeze of her hand. Her gaze lingered a moment, and then she went back to the email on her phone. Her nails were perfect candy-pink squares, glittering like the diamond in the ring that she bought herself after her divorce. Their tapping was hypnotic.
“Let me know if you want to talk about it,” Beth said easily. Translation: It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me what’s really going on. But I’m here.
“I’m fine,” Selena said. “Really.”
“How’s Graham’s job hunt going?” Translation: When is your loser husband going back to work?
“It’s going.”
Another quick glance, then back to the phone. Beth didn’t like Graham. She’d never said so, but Selena could tell. There was a way she leaned on his name, a certain expression she wore when they all got together. But they didn’t need to love each other’s spouses, just be nice. God knows, Selena had put on a smile and endured Beth’s cheap, controlling, adulterous ex-husband Jon for the near decade they were married. That was the golden rule of friendship. Be nice. It was a decent rule in general, wasn’t it? If more people followed it, the world would be a better place. Also: let your friends keep their secrets. Support them when things go to shit.
As things had gone to shit last night.
All day, she tried not to think about the scene between her and Graham. Her own voice—low because of the sleeping children but sizzling white hot with rage—rang back at her. Shocking. The things she’d said. His words like punches to the kidneys. How ugly it had been. When had so much vitriol, so much anger grown between them? It was like toxic mold; they knocked down the drywall and all she could see was black rot.
“Dad didn’t call to say good-night,” said Oliver now, voice muffled.
“Must have bad service,” she said to the ceiling.
“He didn’t say goodbye.”
Selena felt a pang of guilt—for what had happened, for the lies she’d told. She was lying to her children now. Nice.
“He’ll call tomorrow,” she said lightly. “Now go to sleep.”
“Mom,” started Oliver. “I saw—”
“Not now, honey,” she said. If they started talking about this thing or that thing he saw in school or on television, or on the computer, it would be twenty minutes of conversation. Of course, Stephen would chime in on whatever it was. Then there would be an argument. “Go to sleep.”
“But—”
“Oliver.” She summoned her mom voice. “Go to sleep.”
She wondered how many times you uttered that phrase over your life as a parent. Because your day as a parent didn’t end until your child was sleeping. In the life of the full-time parent, it was the only guilt-free, quiet space when you could just be yourself, you could drop your vigilance for a bit, the endless litany of wants and needs ceased for a few hours. She really needed some time to think—about what had happened, about what she was going to do.
On the commute home, she’d scanned the train for the woman she’d met last night. She simultaneously wanted to see her and fervently hoped they’d never cross paths again. There was something about that moment they’d shared, that confessional space, that was more honest and true than any other place in her life right now. She badly wanted that release, and feared it.
What had the other woman said? Wouldn’t it be nice if your problems just went away?
Something about the memory, about the sound of the other woman’s voice, sent a cold finger down her spine. Bad things happen all the time.
Selena closed her eyes, felt sleep tugging at her almost instantly. She wondered how long before she could crawl out of there. She didn’t want to sleep on the floor, wake up at 2:00 a.m. with aching bones. She waited, counting her breaths, listening to the boys. She opened her eyes and met Stephen’s steady gaze.
“Don’t go,” he said, reading her mind.
“Close your eyes,” she answered.
After a while, their breathing grew deep and even. Stephen, her deep sleeper, sounded congested. Oliver, who like her would wake at any sound, shifted and sighed. She got up quietly and left the room, always a tricky maneuver.
She padded down the hall, and closed the door to her bedroom. She took a breath.
There were certain times when she was just Selena. Between her commute and the walk through the front door, where she was alone in the car maybe listening to a podcast, or an audio book, or just driving in silence. She relished it. It was about fourteen minutes. So, twenty-eight minutes a day—on the way to the train, and on the way home—she was just herself.
Or when the kids were asleep and Graham was out, and she could choose what she wanted to do without considering anyone else. When she wasn’t the person she was at the office—efficient, reliable, always bright, on point—or the person she was at home—mom, wife, loving, accommodating, understanding. In the dark leather interior of the car, no one needed or wanted anything from her. It wasn’t a thing. She hadn’t been unhappy. She loved her life, didn’t she? All those smiling social media posts—#grateful #blessedtobestressed #lovemyboys—that’s what she put out there.
Last night there had been screaming, shattering glass, sobbing that miraculously didn’t wake the boys. If it wasn’t their first blowout, it was certainly their worst. Her headache ratcheted up.
But had she been happy?
She and Graham stood on the sidelines at soccer fields and baseball games, smiling, laughing, cheering. They had their foldout event chairs, their cooler filled with water and oranges to share with the team and other parents. There were parties with friends and picnics and lovely family vacations. They had a legion of friends, acquaintances, neighbors. School functions, backyard barbecues, charity auctions, community fun runs. It was a life that they had built—one that seemed to spring up all around them without much thought. And it was a good one. Wasn’t it?