All We Never Knew

by Elena Aitken

  Maren knew in her heart that being a stay-at-home mom when Rylee was little had been the right choice for them both. And it would be the right choice for this baby, too.

  How could it not be?

  She’d come to the final decision the day before. As much as she wanted the job, she just couldn’t reconcile the idea of being a working mom with the new baby when she’d made a different choice for Rylee. And there were bound to be enough challenges having a child at forty. It was bound to be a very different experience. She didn’t need to knowingly make it more difficult by trying to hold down a career at the same time. Just as she always had, Maren had to put the needs of her child before her own.

  So, without much of a choice, she held her head high as she knocked on Eileen’s open office door before stepping inside. “Good morning, Eileen. I wanted to—” She launched into her prepared speech but almost immediately cut herself off when she realized she was speaking to an empty room.

  “Where the hell is everyone?”

  Defeated after building herself up, and with her anxiety and concern building, Maren retreated back down the stairs, past Sandra’s still empty desk and into the small office she shared with three other assistant account representatives.

  And immediately wished she hadn’t.

  “Surprise!”

  She took three quick steps backward and would have turned and run back out into the hall if she could have done so without looking like a complete lunatic. Instead, Maren somehow managed to find her voice as she looked around the room. “What is…what’s all this?”

  She scanned the faces of her grinning coworkers until her eyes landed on her boss. “Eileen?”

  “We wanted to surprise you, Maren.”

  “My birthday was last week.”

  “Not for your birthday.” She grinned. “Everyone here at PlayTime has been waiting for you to be ready for this day for a very long time. You’re going to make an amazing account manager and we just wanted to say congratulations, Maren. You deserve this.”

  The blood drained from her face and her stomach twisted into a tight knot. She wanted desperately to sit down, but somehow she found the strength to stay on her feet. “You…this…” She had no idea what to say. Not even five minutes ago, she’d been upstairs in Eileen’s office, trying to quit the very same job they were celebrating her for. Nothing made sense.

  “Have a piece of cake.” Sandra thrust a paper plate in her hand and for the first time, Maren noticed the cake sitting on her desk. “Congratulations, Mare—” She was holding the frosted n on the plate in front of her. “It’s never too early for icing.”

  She looked into the other woman’s eyes and just as she was every morning, Sandra was smiling. But as she waited for Maren to accept her offering, the corners of her lips dipped down with concern.

  “No,” Maren said after a moment as she picked up the plastic fork. “It’s never too early for icing. Thank you.”

  She must have said the right thing, because Sandra’s smile returned to full power and she nodded. “It’s going to be a beautiful day, don’t you think?”

  After the cake and coffee celebration was finally over and people started to clear out and return to work, Maren was left with mounds of paperwork and two thick files that held the distinction of being the very first accounts she was going to work on all on her own. The right thing to do would be to not even look at them. After all, she couldn’t actually work on them. It wasn’t right. But she just couldn’t bring herself to leave them alone. Curiosity got the best of her. It might have been masochistic, but she needed to know what she’d be turning down.

  The first file was a pretty standard project for an elementary school. They had a few budget restraints, but the parent council had been working hard on fundraising and they were ready to proceed. They had a few specific requests so it had the potential to be a challenging project to provide everything they wanted under budget, but it shouldn’t be too big of a problem.

  It was the next file that really piqued Maren’s interest. A special needs school with very specific requirements for equipment both for their students and for the students’ family members. It would not only be a very challenging project, but a rewarding one, too. Despite the fact that she’d told herself that looking at the file was just a formality and she was only looking for general interest, almost at once, Maren began to dig into the details.

  She spent the better part of the morning looking over the requirements for equipment and the specifics of the site. Her mind whirled with the possibilities for what could be done. Everything from ramps to specially equipped swings to the color palette that would work best for sensory sensitive children. She had pages of notes beginning to fill a notebook and had actually forgotten that she needed to talk to Eileen at all.

  That was, until she checked her phone and listened to her voice mail.

  “Maren, it’s Brenda at Doctor Harrison’s office. I noticed that we hadn’t scheduled you in for your next appointment when you were here last week and the doctor would like to get you in for some preliminary blood work as well as another ultrasound. If you could call the office, I’ll get you booked in for both of those things right away.”

  Any of the high she’d been feeling from working on the accounts vanished as Maren slammed right back down into her reality.

  The baby.

  Turning down the job.

  There was no point putting it off any longer.

  Reluctantly, she closed the file, gathered up the rest of the papers, and made her way up to Eileen’s office.

  “I can’t take the job.” The words sounded much more dramatic than she’d meant them to be, and Maren instantly wished she’d led with something like hello or good afternoon. “I mean.” She tried again. “I…well, I can’t take the job.” It sounded even more terrible than she’d imagined it would. Maren shifted from foot to foot in front of Eileen’s desk as she waited for her boss to look up from her computer.

  Eventually she did.

  “Sit down.”

  Maren did as she was told. She sank with some relief into the cushioned chair, thankful she didn’t have to try to stay upright anymore. The files were still clutched in her hands. “It’s not that—”

  Eileen held up her hand to silence her. Not once while Maren had worked for her had Eileen ever been an overbearing boss. She’d never raised her voice or gotten angry with Maren, or anyone else Maren knew of. She led with a quiet confidence that somehow just commanded respect. It was at the same time, very similar to Maren’s mother and very different.

  “Would you like to tell me what you’re talking about?” she asked after a moment.

  Maren took a deep breath and willed her baby emotions to stay in check as she tried to explain to the woman she so respected that it wasn’t the right thing to do because she had in fact found herself in the middle of an unplanned pregnancy. The words sounded ludicrous coming out of her mouth. It wasn’t as though she were sixteen. But still, unplanned was probably the only reasonable word Maren could use to describe the situation at hand. And it was definitely the most accurate.

  Eileen sat and listened for a moment before nodding. “So it wasn’t menopause after all.” Her lips twitched up in a smile, but Maren didn’t think it was at all funny. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make light of a situation that is obviously very distressing to you.”

  That was a major understatement. Still, Maren sat and waited for her to accept her resignation.

  “Well, I don’t see what this has to do with you telling me that you can’t accept the job that only a few hours ago was celebrated with cake,” she said, as if cake made everything extra official.

  Maren opened her mouth to tell her again that she was pregnant but Eileen stopped her.

  “Answer one question for me, Maren. Do you want this job?”

  “Yes.” The answer was immediate. She looked down to the files clutched in her lap. “Very much,” she answered honestly. “I know I can do an excel
lent job. The Fairview school especially,” she continued. “It has unique challenges, but I have some ideas. For example, I think they could benefit from a muted color palette for the children who are on the autism spectrum, and—” She swallowed the rest of her words as she realized exactly what was happening. She was selling herself on a job she couldn’t possibly do. “I wish I could work on it, Eileen. I really do. But I’m afraid it wouldn’t be fair to the company or the client. I’m just not the type of person who is willing to take on something that I wouldn’t be able to finish.”

  “And I respect that about you, Maren. You are a very ethical woman. Always have been. It’s one of the things I admire about you.”

  “I’m glad you understand.” She reached forward to put the files on Eileen’s desk, but the other woman once again stopped her.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “And I don’t accept your resignation. I’ve been waiting for far too long for you to step into this role. You’ve been ready for years. Almost from the moment you started with us. I respected your decision to wait then, but I will not respect it now.”

  Maren’s mouth fell open and she was positive she looked ridiculous as she stared at her boss and mentor, but she couldn’t help it. “But why not?”

  “I’m sorry.” Eileen shook her head and pressed her lips together. “I didn’t mean to sound so harsh. And it’s not that I don’t respect your decision—it’s more that I don’t accept it. I’ve been telling you for years that you could be a working mother. Millions of women do it, Maren. And while I’m sure it’s not easy, I’m equally sure that it could be a very rewarding pursuit.” Maren opened her mouth to argue, but closed it again as Eileen continued. “Now, I understand that you didn’t plan for this deviation in your life plan. But your passion for playgrounds and children is evident. Never mind the passion you have to pursue something for yourself. Something independent of your husband and children. Something that is all yours. And that won’t go away because you are having another child. In fact, don’t you think that perhaps your children would benefit from seeing their mother pursuing a life that she’s passionate about?”

  Her arguments gave Maren pause. Over the years, she’d only once or twice tried to talk her into taking a bigger role at the company despite Maren’s clear feelings of working while Rylee was still in school. But in all of that time, Eileen had never expressed her feelings quite so pointedly. But then again, it was easy for her to say. Eileen wasn’t a mother. She had no idea the demands of a young child. Let alone the demands of having a baby at Maren’s age.

  Millions of women do it.

  The voice came out of nowhere but it rang through her brain. It was true. Lots of women raised happy, healthy babies and had satisfying careers.

  Why couldn’t she?

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Had those words come out of her mouth? Maren moved automatically as she stood and held the files to her chest.

  Eileen smiled and nodded. “Good. You will be amazing at this job.”

  “I will.”

  She heard herself say the words but for the life of her couldn’t figure out how or why she was saying them. She stared at Eileen for another moment while she blinked slowly and tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.

  Sabrina

  When Sabrina pulled up in front of the Westside Recreation Complex, ready for her very first labor and delivery class, the feeling of dread that she’d been trying to stave off all day finally caught up with her. It had been Maren’s idea for her to take the class. Sabrina had tried to brush it off as “hippy dippy shit.” After all, what did she need with lessons on breathing or contorting her mouth into strange shapes so that equally strange noises would come out? She was no expert, but she was pretty sure that there would be plenty of strange noises coming from her during labor. She didn’t need to learn how to make new ones.

  But Maren had insisted. Two months ago, sitting in her kitchen with one of her community guides in front of her. She’d pointed to the listing and suggested it.

  “It’s not all breathing and weird hippy dippy shit.” She’d made the air quotes as she laughed. “It’s more about what to expect.”

  “I can expect a baby.” Sabrina rolled her eyes and grabbed the community guide that listed all of the local classes out of her friend’s hand. “What else is there?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Maren drew out the words in that way she did when she was just humoring Sabrina. “There’s the possibility of a breech delivery, or a c-section. Have you thought about who you want in the delivery room, and what kind of interventions you may or may not want?”

  “Interventions?”

  “Do you want to use pain medication, or would you prefer a natural—”

  “Medication.” That was an easy one.

  Maren chuckled. “Okay. What kind? Nitrous oxide? Or an epidural?”

  “An epidural. Obviously.”

  “And you’re good with any potential side effects?”

  “What are the—” She tossed the booklet back at Maren, who laughed. “Dammit. Fine. Sign me up.”

  And she had. Maren always looked after her, and she’d always liked it. Even though Sabrina was more than capable of registering herself for the class, Maren grabbed her laptop, clicked over to the website and started entering Sabrina’s details. “It says here you should bring your partner or another person you want to be your labor coach.” She looked up but Sabrina didn’t even have to think about it.

  “You, obviously. I mean,” she added quickly. “If you’re interested.”

  “Of course I’m interested.” Maren clapped her hands together. “I’d be honored to be there and do this with you. It’s going to be awesome.”

  And for a minute, Sabrina had believed it would be. But that was before.

  And now she was sitting in the parking lot, ready for her first class, alone.

  Maybe she should have tried harder to make up with Maren. Or at all. Because going in there without Maren at her side was going to suck.

  Badly.

  But it’s not as though she had any kind of choice, however. So, with a deep breath, she grabbed her pillow and her water bottle and made her way inside. She followed the sign with an oversized arrow that pointed to community room four and with only the slightest hesitation at the door, stepped inside. And immediately wanted to turn around and walk out.

  It was a mistake. All of it. Every single part about what she was doing was a mistake.

  “Hello and welcome.” A voice that sounded way too much like a mashup of a cheerleader and a yoga teacher greeted her the moment Sabrina turned around, ready to make her break for it. “Did you forget something?”

  There was no help for it. Sabrina turned slowly. “No.” She tried to force a smile, but was positive it came off creepy or at the very least like she had some kind of disorder. “I just wanted to make sure I was in the right room.” It was a ridiculous comment considering there was a circle of very visibly pregnant young women sitting on the floor in front of her. “Community room four, right?”

  The instructor nodded. “My name is Ariel.”

  “Ariel?” she asked before she could stop herself. “Like the mermaid?”

  Sabrina was sure her face had turned almost purple with mortification, but if Ariel noticed, she didn’t seem to mind. “Just like the mermaid.” Her voice sounded like delicate crystal wind chimes dancing in the breeze. It was the strangest thing. “You must be Sabrina.”

  She nodded numbly.

  “And is your partner here with you?” Sabrina didn’t miss the glance Ariel made to her left hand, or the way she made a point to look around her as if Sabrina’s partner was waiting just outside.

  “No.” She kept her smile pasted to her face.

  “Well, that’s just fine.” Ariel’s voice rose and fell in singsong octaves. “Why don’t you find a place in the circle and make yourself comfortable. The class will start soon. I think you are the last to arrive.�
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  Of course she was. She was going to apologize or make an excuse or something, but before she could, Ariel waved her hand, causing a stack of delicate bracelets on her wrist to tinkle—much like the sound of her voice—and Sabrina had the distinct impression that she was being dismissed.

  As she made her way to an open space in the circle of pregnant women, Sabrina did her best to keep her eyes averted from the couples who occupied the spaces. She was the only one alone. And judging by the quick look she allowed herself, she was also the only one even remotely over thirty-five.

  This was a terrible idea.

  She was also the only one who hadn’t brought a blanket to spread on the floor beneath her. She groaned. The floor was filthy in the way that only a community room at a rec center could be, but everyone was starting to look at her. She was either going to have to lower her massive body down to the gross linoleum, where she’d no doubt need help getting up later, or leave. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t much of a choice.

  She hitched the strap of her purse up on her shoulder and as discreetly as she could, turned to leave.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.” The voice froze Sabrina in her tracks. “I went to the wrong room.”

  Sabrina turned around just in time to see Maren shrug casually and offer an apologetic smile to everyone in the room, all of whom were now looking at her.

  She watched in a sort of odd, mouth hanging open, not really sure what she was seeing kind of way as Maren made her way right through the middle of the circle to where Sabrina was still standing, lamely clutching her pillow.

  She should probably say something to her.

  No. Sabrina knew she should say something.

  “You’re here.” It was probably the stupidest thing she could’ve said, but if Maren thought so, she didn’t say anything.

  “Of course I’m here.” Her smile was kind. “I told you I would do this with you. And I will. Because that’s what friends are for.”

  It was what friends did. More specifically, and importantly, it was what they did. And even though there were still things they needed to talk about, things they needed to clear up, things they both should apologize for—or at least she should apologize for—at that moment, none of it mattered. Because the only thing that mattered was that Maren was standing in front of her. And she was holding a blanket.