Darkness Drops Again

by Melissa E Manning

  Chapter 2

  I sit criss-cross applesauce on the wood floor of my mother’s sewing room playing with my Barbies. The room is dusty as I can’t remember the last time Mom has sewed anything. In the back of the room is my grandma’s large, wood dining room table on which now sits my Mom’s black Singer sewing machine and piles of fabric in various prints. On the shelves along the wall are extra bobbins and spools of thread as well as knickknacks from my grandma’s estate that never found a permanent home after the funeral. My brunette doll, Stephanie, is looking for a boyfriend, but, thanks to my strict father, I don’t have any Ken dolls to play the part. I search the room for a stand-in and my eyes land on the fourteen-inch Jesus statue that used to sit on my grandmother’s bedside table. Even at seven years old, this feels wrong, but I’m desperate. I jump up and take the statue off the shelf and return to Stephanie who is drinking an Orange Julius at the mall. She’s mildly interested as she sees a tall man in a red robe and a halo overhead scoping her out from inside the Radio Shack.

  As I hear the doorknob turning behind me, I push the statue away and hold my breath. Someone takes a step into the room and stops. From just that one step, I know it is my father. His steps are heavy and even, unlike my mother whose walk is a bit wobbly lately. He sighs before taking a step back and closing the door. I wonder how I disappointed him this time.

  I resume Stephanie and JC’s flirting at the mall scene until I hear what sounds like angry whispering coming from my parents’ bedroom. I quietly lay down the dolls and stand, tiptoeing from the sewing room to the living room couch. I mouth a silent thank you to the new poop brown shag carpet that muffles my steps. Kneeling on the couch cushions, I put my ear against the wall next to my parents’ bedroom. They are definitely arguing, but it’s hard to make out the words. I jump as a loud thud hits the wall like something was thrown against it.

  “Goddammit, Joanna! You’ve got to get your shit together,” my father yells.

  “I’m just taking a nap, Michael. Go back to work,” my mother mumbles.

  “How much have you had to drink today? Do you even know where your daughter is? What kind of a fucking mother are you.”

  “She’s fine, Michael. She’s at school,” my Mom reassures.

  Another thud hits the wall by my ear. “It’s seven o’clock for Christ sake! Do you even know what day it is anymore? Has she had dinner?”

  My heart pounds in my chest as I slowly back away. Have things with Mom really gotten this bad? She’s always tired and distracted lately, but does she really not know what day it is? I tiptoe down the hall to my room, noiselessly shut the door, and crawl into bed. As I curl into a fetal position, I feel my bed begin to shake.

  Chapter 3

  I wake gasping for air, curled in the same fetal position I was just in during my dream. My throat constricts. My mind races. It’s Sunday night. Patrick has already left for Boston. Then my anxiety goes into overdrive.

  What am I going to do? Will Patrick leave me? I’m almost forty with two young kids. No one will ever love me again. Will my kids have a stepmom? Is she prettier than me? This is my fault. I lost focus and let it all fall apart.

  My brain then helpfully creates a porn short of Patrick and a tight, thin, young blond kneeling together on our bed. Patrick grabbing her breasts from behind and kissing her neck while she rolls her head back on his shoulder in ecstasy.

  I have to pull it together. I grab my cell from the side table and call Zara. After three rings, she answers.

  “What’s wrong?” she says sleepy, but alert.

  “I…can’t…breathe,” I gasp. Tears rolling down my face.

  Zara immediately defaults to our long-established routine. Her voice soft and reassuring.

  “Shhh now. Listen to my voice and concentrate on breathing. You’re okay. I’m here.”

  I use the breathing techniques that have seen me through countless panic attacks. Long slow breaths in through my nose and filling up my lungs. Then slow exhales through my mouth.

  Zara continues with her calming mantra, “You’re okay. I’m here.” She breathes along with me for several minutes before moving on to our next step.

  “Now count with me to fifty. Slowly. One…two…three…four…five…”

  I clear my mind and count with Zara. I concentrate on nothing but the number I’m on. I picture it in my head, breathe, and move to the next. I can feel my throat begin to open. I take deeper breaths as the tightness in my chest starts to lessen. When I’m back in some semblance of control, I pull the phone away from my ear to check the time and see it’s after three. I need to pull it together so I can care for the boys when they wake in just a few hours. Zara interrupts my thoughts.

  “Are you ready to talk about what happened?”

  I honestly can’t think where to begin. Then the text message pops back into my head. “I want you. Send pics.” I start to sob. Once I start I can’t stop. I’m howling as tears pour down my face punctuated every few seconds with large gasps of air. I hear Zara’s breath through the phone, but she says nothing. Letting me expunge all the pain. The only difference between this and all the episodes in college was in our dorm she would lay my head in her lap and gently stroke my hair while I cried myself to sleep. Now she just silently waits until I physically can’t produce any more tears and I lie quietly in our marital bed. Exhausted.

  Zara then delicately asks, “It’s Patrick, isn’t it?”

  I’m too tired to wonder how she guessed. I answer simply, “Yes. He’s cheating. I found a text.”

  Never one to beat around the bush, Zara inquires, “Will you leave him?”

  My heart skips a beat. That idea has never occurred to me. Not once over the weekend as I floated through our family obligations as if suspended in a dream. I watched Patrick cheer Dec on at his Little Kickers scrimmage and spot Seamus as he toddled all over the equipment at his play and learn class at Gymboree as if observing our family from above. Patrick seeming to chalk my disassociation up to a good old-fashioned hangover. But now Zara has put the question out there.

  “Building this family has been everything to me. Leaving isn’t an option.”

  Zara exhales. Whether she’d been holding her breath hoping for this response or dreading it, I can’t tell. I choose not to ask. A plan forms quickly in my head.

  “Patrick was just lonely. All of my focus has been on the kids and work. I’ve given nothing to him for months. And on top of that, I let myself go. When Patrick and I met, I was a size six.”

  “You were anorexic and have been since high school,” Zara exclaims.

  “I was on a diet!” I retort. “And I was in shape. Patrick and I used to run together four days a week. I couldn’t run a mile now without having to walk and catch my breath. That’s all going to change. Starting today, I’m back on the program. I’ll work out every day. I’ll eat better. He’ll see the effort I’m putting in and find me sexy again,” I declare triumphantly, my face flushing with enthusiasm for my new “save my marriage challenge.”

  Seconds tick by and still Zara does not respond. After thirty more, I cave and ask.

  “What do you think?”

  I can tell Zara is choosing her words carefully. “I think I love you, Maeve.” Zara inhales and exhales deeply before continuing. “And I’m here for you.” Zara pauses for another minute before adding, “But I wish you’d learn that not everything is your fault.”

  I refuse to let her temper my gusto. Instead I thank her for talking me through my “episode” and end the call.

  As I continue to lie in bed, my mind wanders back to Patrick’s departure just a few hours earlier. As a Senior Manager in the Transaction Tax practice group at Ernst & Young, Patrick is at a client site almost every week. So his Sunday night goodbyes have become routine. Yet, I couldn’t help but sense this time that Patrick desperately wanted to confide in me and couldn’t quite find the words. After giving tickles and bear hugs to the boys, he pulled me in for our usual hug and chaste k
iss by the front door. But this time, when he started to release his embrace, he stopped. He held me by my shoulders and looked deep into my eyes. His own eyes clouded with sadness. “Maeve,” he said weightily. But before he could continue, Seamus started crying and pulling on the leg of my sweats. The mood was lost. Now, I can’t help but wonder what he wanted to impart. Was he going to confess his affair and beg for forgiveness? Or leap straight to divorce? All I know is I have to win him back before he gets up the courage to broach that topic again.

  Since going back to sleep is not a realistic possibility at this point, I put on my wine-colored Lululemon yoga pants, sports bra, and a white tank and head down to the basement to begin my challenge. I OnDemand Jillian Michael’s Yoga Meltdown and “get ready to get ripped” as Jillian promises. Thirty minutes later I’m sweaty, but less stressed.

  While waiting for the shower to warm up to the near scalding temperature I prefer, I take stock of my current physical state in the mirror behind our double vanity. Overall not bad for thirty-nine, but not great either. No rolls or obvious cellulite. Still, my thighs are uncomfortably large and tree-trunkesque. My boobs showing evidence of the havoc nursing two babies can wreak. Not to mention the telltale six-inch ledge along the top of my pubis from my C-section with Seamus. This reminds me of a Heidi Klum quote I once read; I guess pregnant women would come up to her after she had her first or second child and ask if they would look like her after giving birth. She said something like—well, did you look like a model before you got pregnant? That story still annoys me. Not all of us are blessed with tall, tight bodies. And, sure, maybe some of us indulge in cookies and wine a bit too much. But can’t you throw us a bone and feed our delusions that after childbirth we will magically transform into German supermodels? Well, I can’t do much about the childbirth indicators, but I can take off some inches from my waist, thighs, and butt. Operation “Bring Sexy Back” has officially begun.

  Chapter 4

  After walking the block to drop the boys off at daycare, I begin my mile trek to catch the El. This walk to the train always reconfirms my belief that I live in the perfect neighborhood. The lovely tree-lined residential streets interrupted by small parks every few blocks give way to the DePaul college campus, the first place to ever feel like home. Arriving twenty minutes later at the massive downtown skyscraper that houses the law firm where I have been employed for the last twelve years brings a different mixture of emotions. Pride in the fact that I am still working at an AmLaw100 firm. Not many women from my law school class can say the same. Many have moved to inhouse positions that promise, often falsely, a better work-life balance. Some followed more noble pursuits with various advocacy and legal aid groups. And increasingly many of them have chosen to check out of the legal field entirely and stay home with their children. A luxury I’m only a tad bit jealous of. Really, just a tad. Yet, while I feel pride in the abstract of having stayed in the game for this long, the other emotion I have as I walk in the forty-eight-story steel and glass structure is dread of actually having to work another day in a field I feel increasingly disillusioned with.

  In law school, you study only the most important legal decisions handed down by the highest court in the land. Marbury vs. Madison holding that Congress cannot pass laws in conflict with the constitution. Brown v. Board of Education striking down the Southern rationale of separate but equal. Gideon v. Wainwright guaranteeing the right to counsel in criminal proceedings. Roe v. Wade protecting a woman's right to choose. What they don’t tell you is the vast majority of law school graduates are going to be working on far less earth-shattering or noble cases. Most involve using your legal talents to defend large corporations in suits brought by the consumers they routinely screw over.

  Oh, and if that isn’t disillusioning enough, you will work for predominantly older white male assholes who consistently under appreciate your efforts and berate you for not cranking out the kind of billable hours they did when they were at your level. What goes unsaid, of course, is that they all had stay-at-home wives who raised their kids, cooked their meals and cleaned their homes. Leaving them time to work all night and even a little extra for the occasional tryst with the assistant that men of a certain age and economic status feel entitled to.

  But even as I’ve gotten more disillusioned with the work and with my “superiors,” I’ve never seriously considered quitting. Never even returned a recruiter’s call. When I walked through the doors of Thorne Hall on the first day of orientation at Northwestern Law, it was with one goal in mind—to shatter the glass ceiling and make partner at a big law firm. At the time, of course, I saw myself representing the biggest clients in headline-grabbing lawsuits. I pictured myself with a cushy corner office handing out document review and research assignments to a half dozen associates, all of whom were honored to be working for a legal legend in the making. Maeve Johnson, now Maeve Shaw, the picture of self-sufficiency and independence. Even as my vision has drastically scaled back over the years, my goal has remained the same—to make partner.

  Getting off the elevator, I stop at the forty-fourth floor “cafe” to make myself another cup of coffee. Selecting a dark roast container, I slot it into the Keurig and wait for it to work its magic. Two French vanilla Coffee-Mates later and I’m ready to tackle the day. My assistant Jeanine, a petite lady of around sixty, sits in a cubicle directly across from my office door. Jeanine sports the white-haired perm common with women of her age and her cubicle is adorned with photos of her grandson and granddaughter. While technically she is my assistant, we both know her three partner assignments get the vast majority of her attention. The most she is willing to do for a twelfth-year senior associate is submit my occasional travel expenses for reimbursement. Still, she is very sweet and always asks how the boys are doing.

  “Good morning, Maeve. Running a little late again, are we?”

  Oh right, I forgot to add she also never forgets to point out my tardiness. Maybe Jeanine isn’t so sweet after all, actually.

  “Yes, Jeanine. But I’m here now and don’t plan to take a lunch.”

  As my laptop powers on, without even intending to, I find myself pulling up the Ernst & Young website. I locate the search tab and type “Macy.” Holding my breath, I hit enter. No search results. It strikes me for the first time that Macy is an odd name. I’ve never met anyone named Macy. Maybe Patrick, his head clouded with hormones, made a typo. After all, Mary is a much more common name. The search for “Mary” turns up four results. But as I scroll through the hits, none of the Marys work in tax or are based out of the Chicago office. I can’t imagine where Patrick would come across a Mary in the Global Fraud & Corruption group based out of D.C. or a Mary in the Healthcare Data & Analytics Group from Virginia. Maybe I’m going about this wrong. Patrick would have fixed a typo. It is more likely he misspelled her name on purpose in case I ever came across a text. Macey? No hits. Marcy? No hits. What about Marcie? And there she is. Marcie Spellman. In the Transaction Tax practice like Patrick, but based out of the New York office. Still, since client teams are made up of managers from multiple offices, it wouldn’t be hard for them to meet. I was right about her being blond and pretty, but she doesn’t appear to be much younger than me. Her picture though exudes a confidence that my professional headshots never do. No matter how much I accomplish, I always feel like an imposter and that insecurity is readily apparent. Marcie Spellman seems to own her success.

  I stare at Marcie’s green eyes and perfect smile. My replacement even has the same eye color. What do they talk about when they are lying naked in their hotel room exhausted from their exertions? Do they talk about me? About the kids? How can she live with herself? Fuck that, actually. She owes me no loyalty. How can he live with himself?

  I’m jerked out of my reverie by the ping of an email hitting my inbox. I glance at the time on the bottom right corner of my screen and am startled to realize it’s already after ten. I need to put in some serious hours the rest of the day. Of course, I currentl
y only have three open cases. Since my last maternity leave, the work has been dribbling in. One leave is forgiven and partners will deem to load you up on your return. Two leaves and the general consensus is that it is a waste of time to staff you on cases, because you will likely quit within six months of returning anyway. I returned from my eighteen-week leave ten months ago. Still, that has done nothing to dispel this firmly rooted notion. All three of my current cases involve drafting motions to dismiss class actions filed against the same company for alleged violations of federal regulations pertaining to the company’s servicing of its student loans. It is hard to be a zealous advocate for your client when one of the reasons you are still working is the six-figure student loan debt you accumulated to finance your own law school education more than a decade ago.

  After two hours of massaging the introduction of my first motion to adequately convey to the judge the insurmountable lack of merit on the borrower’s part, I can no longer ignore my bladder and must take my once daily trip to the bathroom. Clear evidence of my preference for caffeinated beverages to the healthier water alternative. Halfway down the hall I spy the straight jet-black hair of none other than Elizabeth Townley, the Of Counsel in charge of my student loan matters. While I am certainly grateful she has entrusted me with the work, as none of her male colleagues have done so, running into her is always a stressful experience. It is no secret that Elizabeth has only one client and that if she were to lose that client Mulvaney Stewart would have no problem sending her packing. Of Counsel positions are precarious ones at any large firm. For this reason, Elizabeth micromanages the hell out of her cases. God help you if the briefs aren’t perfect down to any widows/orphans at the end of a paragraph. That applies even to the first draft. As my need for the bathroom has now reached emergency level, I try to keep my head down and slip by.