The Year We Turned Forty

by Liz Fenton

  As Gabriela rocked Lucas, twenty-one inches and seven and a half pounds, with a shock of dark brown hair sticking up from the top of his head, she smiled at an exhausted but radiant Jessie. Jessie had given birth when she was almost forty, so that meant Gabriela could too. But she didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to carry a child inside of her. Her body could stop releasing eggs at any time and she could enter menopause. There was something about motherhood no longer being up to her that made her realize that in the back of her mind she’d held on to the small chance of it still happening. And it’s what caused her to race home and burst through her front door where she found Colin resting comfortably on the white leather couch she’d already decided they’d have to replace with something sensible, like chenille or micro-suede or whatever stain-proof fabric parents were buying these days. He was holding the most recent issue of People, the one that had given her latest novel, Back to You, four stars. “Quite a birthday present,” Colin said, pointing at the feature and smiling.

  “Yes. But I have even bigger news,” Gabriela said breathlessly as she threw herself down on the couch beside Colin, placing her head on his lap and looking up at him, noticing that his thick red hair was freshly cut. She hoped their daughter or son would inherit the deep color, along with his math prowess. Gabriela could barely balance the checkbook.

  “Okay, I’m listening,” Colin said with a laugh, the rich sound that had drawn her to him when they’d first met, immediately calming her. She remembered the first time she’d heard it, she’d been squinting at a map of the London Underground and he’d stopped to help, making a joke that she could navigate the tube a whole lot easier if she wasn’t looking at it upside down. She’d glanced up at him, his lanky figure towering over her, his hair falling into his light blue eyes, and she’d giggled, mortified. She never told him, but sometimes, when she heard him offer his laugh to someone else, a small part of her felt betrayed, like he was granting access to a part of himself to which she wanted exclusive rights. “Let me guess. Jessie had another girl, didn’t she?” Colin said before she could tell him what she knew he’d been waiting so long to hear.

  “Nope, a son, Lucas. I love that name, don’t you?”

  Colin’s face lit up. “It’s a great name. Solid. I can’t wait to get him out on the soccer field. We needed some testosterone in this group!”

  “Maybe we could make one of our own?” Gabriela offered, wrapping her arms around his neck, then continuing before he could react. “I want a baby. I’m ready.” The words spilled out faster than she could control them.

  “Oh, honey,” Colin sputtered after an excruciatingly long silence. Gabriela, with her ear now pressed against his chest, listened to the rapid thumping of her husband’s heart and would later tell Jessie and Claire that his quickened heartbeat had answered her question long before he had. When he finally spoke, his slight British accent was almost a whisper, as he explained why he no longer wanted children. That he had waited years for her to change her mind and when she never did, he’d privately mourned the future he wouldn’t have as a father and had slowly grown to accept his life without kids. And now he’d be almost sixty when his child graduated from college. Wasn’t it too late?

  Gabriela had listened in stunned silence to the same arguments she’d given him for so many years, her head spinning at the irony. Maybe that amniotic fluid on her dress had simply gone to her head, she heard him joke, in a desperate attempt to stop the tears she hadn’t realized were even falling. And for the first time in their seventeen-year relationship, the sound of his throaty laugh didn’t console her in the slightest.

  She felt her chest constrict. She wanted a baby. She was ready. Finally. And she wondered if he was punishing her, if his resentment over the lost chances to toss a football with his son or go to father-daughter dances with his little girl was now rising to the surface.

  “You’re not even asking me why?” she heard herself saying, her voice distant. “Don’t you want to know the reason I changed my mind?”

  Jessie and Claire had often joked over the years that there was nothing Gabriela couldn’t talk Colin into, and often credited the fast-talking Latina in her. Her perfectly carved dimples, long chocolate hair, and legs to match didn’t hurt her persuasive skills, either.

  When he didn’t respond, she lifted her head up and forced a smile, feeling pathetic and desperate as she willed her dimples to work their magic. But Colin only shook his head slightly, his downcast eyes speaking the words he couldn’t. I’m sorry. And in that moment, Gabriela knew he would never change his mind. She felt her insides twist so tight she had to use all of her energy just to breathe. A mixture of rage, disappointment, and fear consumed her as she tried to focus on something to steady the spinning room. Her eyes found their way to a picture of her and her mother, who had passed away when Gabriela was just sixteen, a car accident snatching the precious moments they should have celebrated together, from her college graduation to her wedding day, and now her success as an author. For so many years, Gabriela had convinced herself she was better off without a child, that she’d never want him or her to feel the crushing emptiness of losing a parent much too soon. But when she’d held baby Lucas, she was struck by how she’d let fear rob her of the incredible joy that would have come along with being a mom, no matter how short their time together.

  She felt raw and hollow as she jerked her body up from the couch and stared at her husband. How could Colin do this to her? She heard herself yelling—angry, terrible words coming from somewhere deep within her, Colin’s eyes wide and brimming with tears—before she finally stormed off, slamming the guest bedroom door so hard the walls shook.

  For the next few months, Gabriela spent practically every moment holed up in her office overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where she worked on her latest manuscript about a woman who gets the opportunity to trade her future for just one day with her late mother. This book would change everything for her as an author, would separate her from the pack, would finally put her on the New York Times bestseller list, where she’d stay for six months, tripling her future advances, quadrupling the number of foreign countries clamoring for her books. Each day she’d rise before the sun, consult her meticulous outlines, printed on sheets of paper that she tacked to the corkboards lining the walls of her office, making sure no matter how much her heart ached that she hit her word count goal by the time she lay her head down on her pillow each night, vowing that she wouldn’t let Colin’s no take away her ability to express herself on paper.

  She’d always been hyperfocused. Her editor, Sheila, had once remarked that she wished she could clone Gabriela, who didn’t just meet her deadlines but always got her manuscripts in early. They were so clean the copy editors had an over-under bet to see just how many mistakes they could find, but Gabriela always stumped them with both her grammar and her research prowess. With this novel she threw herself into her writing in a way she never had before, releasing her pain through her fingertips each day and letting it dance on the page, the stories in her books always focusing on love, loss, and missed opportunities.

  One morning Claire had arrived with two sugar-free ice blended mochas from the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. “You have not returned my last three calls. This is an intervention!” she’d declared.

  “I’m not avoiding you, I’m just busy,” she said to Claire as they walked into the kitchen, Gabriela slyly shutting her office door so Claire wouldn’t see the chaos: coffee cups stacked high, the trash can overflowing with takeout containers, papers covering every surface. Gabriela didn’t want Claire to realize she was practically living in there.

  “I haven’t seen you since Lucas’ baptism,” Claire said.

  “You know how it is. Deadlines!”

  “I get that you’re in the middle of writing a book. But it feels like you’re hiding.”

  Gabriela shoved her sadness down so she could respond without tearing up. “I’m not, I promise.”

  Claire reached h
er hand across the table. “Gabs, this is me—you don’t have to pretend to be strong. Just tell me what you need.”

  Claire’s steady gaze almost broke Gabriela. But there was nothing Claire could do for her. She couldn’t change Colin’s mind. And the last thing Gabriela wanted was to put another burden on Claire. She was already spending nearly every day with Jessie, who was devastated over Grant leaving. “Thank you for being concerned, but I’m okay. The only thing I need right now is a run so I can map out my next chapter!”

  Most days Gabriela could wake up and take a long jog to clear her head, plot lines coming together as the sand kicked up under her feet. Then she’d sprint home to her computer and let the story tumble out of her for hours, the music she listened to on her headphones almost tuning out the sad song looping inside of her.

  And it took a few more months after Claire came by, but eventually Gabriela pulled herself together, at least outwardly, rejecting her sweatpants in favor of tailored blazers and patterned scarves, and started meeting Claire and Jessie for coffee again, each time feeling a little less hollow, eventually able to bounce Lucas on her knee as they sipped their cappuccinos.

  Gabriela handed her ticket to the TSA agent, who glanced between Gabriela’s face and her driver’s license rapidly, her eyes lighting up in recognition. “I love your books! They got me through a really bad breakup,” she gushed as Gabriela smiled and thanked her for reading. She sensed the energy of the people around her shift upon hearing someone famous may be in their midst. This was LAX, after all. It wasn’t uncommon to see Jimmy Fallon placing his laptop into a plastic bin or Emma Stone stumbling while trying to rebuckle the tricky strap on her wedge sandals. “Off to Vegas, huh?” the agent asked as she circled something on Gabriela’s boarding pass, and Gabriela nodded. “Business or pleasure?” she pressed, clearly not wanting the conversation to end. And Gabriela had to force herself to engage, to remember there was a time when she would have acted just the same had she seen Judy Blume or one of her other favorite authors. She willed that earnest girl inside of her to claw her way to the surface now.

  “Pleasure. I’m celebrating my birthday with friends,” Gabriela said as she thought about seeing Claire and Jessie in just a few hours. Over the past year, they hadn’t gotten together in person as often as they used to, and despite their constant communication online or over text, Gabriela had felt the distance grow between them. She knew Jessie and Claire were still as close as ever, but she had become busier with work, now under contract to publish two books per year, with daunting deadlines that loomed over her constantly. She hoped this trip would reconnect them and they would fall back into their old rhythms with ease and be reminded of the reasons they’d bonded while working in Gabriela’s father’s restaurant in college. Claire would engage them in funny stories, her speech slurring a bit more after each drink she consumed; Jessie would play mother hen, making sure they had a glass of water in between each cocktail; and Gabriela would do what she did best—keep the focus of the conversation on them instead of her.

  Gabriela smiled, then quickly pulled out an advance copy of her next novel from her tote and handed it to the woman. “Here you go. It’s not out for a few months.”

  “Oh my God. Thank you so much!” The woman’s hand flew over her mouth. “By the way,” the agent said, then dropped her voice to barely a whisper. “You don’t look a day over forty!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  Claire pushed the gas pedal harder and watched her speed accelerate on the odometer of her convertible, her hair flipping in the hot desert wind. She caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror and laughed. She knew she looked a little ridiculous—like Thelma, or was it Louise?—with her scarf tied over her short blond hair and her round brown eyes hidden behind Jackie-O sunglasses, but she didn’t care. She was thankful she not only looked young—her face practically wrinkle free, something she credited to the generous amount of sunscreen she’d applied daily since her teen years—but felt youthful too. And she was ready to give fifty a big, fat bear hug. Life was good, she thought as her engagement ring caught the sunlight.

  Jessie and Gabriela hadn’t been able to make the four-hour drive from Los Angeles to Vegas with her, even though they’d all planned to ride together, hence the rental of the garish, albeit gorgeous, bright red BMW, an homage to the midlife crisis they were supposed to be having. Claire had rolled her eyes as she’d scanned the incoming texts on her iPhone yesterday, full of halfhearted apologies and excuses from her friends. Gabriela claimed she had another last-minute deadline, something about copyedits and needing to fly so she could have extra time to work on them. Meanwhile, Jessie had just found out Grant was getting married to Janet, and from the moment she’d gotten the news, all she’d wanted to do was curl into a ball and watch Bravo reality TV on a loop.

  “Exactly why you should drive out with me. The fresh air will do you good,” Claire had argued when Jessie called to say she’d booked a last-minute airline ticket.

  “I need some time alone to process everything.” Jessie’s voice was dull.

  “Listen, woman—I’ve got Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift ready for you. We can sing at the top of our lungs about girl power.”

  “You know I can’t hold a tune.”

  “True. Good thing the I-15 freeway is in the middle of nowhere!” Claire joked, referring to the desolate highway to Vegas. When Jessie didn’t respond, Claire softened. “Jessie. Come with me. Please. I promise I can make you feel better.”

  “I can’t, Claire. Maybe on the way home?”

  “Okay,” Claire conceded. “But don’t you dare listen to T-Swift without me.”

  “I promise.”

  Claire struggled to empathize with Jessie, that she could still hold on to so much pain from something that happened such a long time ago. Perhaps the reason Jessie didn’t want to drive out with her was because she suspected Claire couldn’t offer her the words she needed to hear right now. From the moment Jessie had confided her secret to her, Claire had been quiet yet supportive, listening to Jessie’s coulda, woulda, shoulda’s over and over, feeling terrible for her friend as her marriage imploded and Lucas’ biological father subsequently shunned all involvement with the son he wouldn’t accept as his.

  Dick, Claire thought. There is no other word for that scumbag Peter.

  Claire would never understand how a man could turn his back on his own flesh and blood. Claire’s own daughter, Emily, had been heartbroken when her father suddenly became too busy to show up for the important moments in her life. So Claire would always roll her eyes when Jessie would halfheartedly defend Peter’s refusal to take responsibility—that he’d been scared shitless of losing the family he already had.

  But Grant had raised Lucas as his own, when he could have easily turned his back on the boy. Jessie had been lucky in that way, Claire felt. She’d tried to delicately offer this silver lining to her friend more than once over the years, but Jessie seemed to be living in a time warp, unable to move forward. Especially once Janet entered the equation—all five feet ten inches of her. Since then, Jessie had been like a lone piece of luggage on a baggage carousel, endlessly circling around, with no hope of being recovered. Claire decided that this weekend she’d figure out a way to finally pull—no, yank—Jessie off that carousel, even if it meant using some tough love. She couldn’t watch her friend waste one more minute of her life looking backward. It’s not like she could change the past anyway.

  Claire’s phone rang and she scrambled to insert her earbud, hoping it might be Jared, her heart catching for a moment when she thought of him bending down on one knee in front of a crowded restaurant a few weeks earlier, Claire still feeling surprised each time she glanced at the ring on her finger.

  “Hello?”

  “Mom? Where are you? You sound like you’re in a tunnel.” It was Claire’s now twenty-two-year-old daughter, Emily. Claire felt her body go rigid and exhaled slowly, reminding herself she no
longer needed to brace herself for a knock-down-drag-out argument. Her relationship with Emily had been rocky over the years—they’d sometimes gone weeks without speaking, but had finally plateaued, the tension sitting untouched between them, like a sleeping snake they didn’t want to startle.

  “On my way to Sin City in a convertible,” Claire yelled over the wind.

  “You’re so cliché.” Emily laughed, and Claire could feel her rolling her eyes. “Is the car red too?”

  “Might be.” Claire laughed, then blushed deeply.

  After a brief pause, during which Claire had decided she definitely looked like a total idiot driving down the freeway in a sports car, no matter how ironic she was trying to be, Emily finally spoke. “It’s like you’re giving fifty the finger! I like it.”

  Claire felt herself breathe again. Then let a quiet fuck escape from her mouth. Why did she still need her daughter’s acceptance so badly?

  “So what’s up?” Claire finally asked, realizing Emily was waiting for her to respond. Their conversations were still so stilted, both of them trying hard not to trip over an emotional wire.

  “I just called to say happy birthday!” Emily said brightly, and Claire felt her eyes get wet, then her warning sensors start to go off.

  Was her daughter really calling with no ulterior motive? All signs would point to yes. They’d been in both individual therapy and counseling together for the better part of the last year and they’d made progress. Claire had accepted that Emily had given up on her education and her own responsibility in it. And Emily had become less selfish, more independent. But still. Had her daughter really changed? And even more than that, had Claire?

  “And there’s something else . . .” Emily’s voice trailed off, and Claire gripped the steering wheel tighter. Here it comes.

  “How much do you need?” Claire jumped in, working hard to push the sigh out of her voice. Claire could see her therapist’s disapproving look so clearly, her pale lips downturned, her gray bob bouncing back and forth as she shook her head. But she didn’t care. She wanted to enjoy her birthday weekend, and if loaning her daughter a few hundred dollars was what she needed to do, so be it.