Enough

by Dawn L. Chiletz

  I swallow hard as my eyes meet hers. If I’m going to be a mom, I’d better just grow up and take responsibility for my actions. “I’m…” I pause as her eyes search mine. “I’m… pregnant.”

  I try to keep my eyes locked with hers, but after the words leave my mouth, their heaviness leaves my head so weak it falls downward to gaze at the sidewalk.

  There’s brief silence then a gasp. I close my eyes as I wait for the questions about brain loss and irresponsibility when I feel and hear her begin to laugh. I briefly raise my head in question.

  “You’re pregnant?” she asks as her eyes expand and a wide grin spreads across her dentures. The sun hits the grey hairs on her head and casts a glow around her like an angel. For seventy years old, she really looks and acts much younger.

  My eyes dart up in wonder as she squeezes my arms tightly with her strong hands. “This is wonderful news, Ev! Just wonderful!” She regards me questionably when I say nothing and stare blankly. “Come on in. Let’s get to sitting. Then maybe you can explain to me why you’re as white as a ghost.”

  “MOM, WHERE ARE my soccer cleats?” Marlow yells from her room.

  “I think I saw them by the dog’s bed in the family room.”

  Marlow thuds down the hall then rounds the corner into the kitchen. “Can you untie my shorts?” she asks.

  I put the lid back on the roast and close the oven door before I bend down and sigh in frustration. “Did you make this knot?”

  “Yes,” she responds. “I didn’t want them to fall down when I was running, but now I have to pee and I can’t get them off.”

  I attempt to dig my nail into the fabric, but there’s no nail there to use. My nail-biting habit is out of control again.

  “Mom!” I hear Kale scream from upstairs.

  “Kale, if you want to talk to me, come down the stairs and speak in a normal voice.”

  “I don’t want to come downstairs. I just wanted you to know that Marlow left her stinky socks on the bathroom floor.”

  I sigh at Marlow as she dances from place to place. “I really have to pee, Mom,” she whispers in fear.

  “Why did you leave your socks on the bathroom floor?” I ask as I manage to make a small dent in the fabric.

  “They were wet.”

  “Why were they wet?”

  “Roscoe peed in the hall and I stepped in it.”

  I stop what I’m doing and stare at my six-year-old daughter.

  “What?” she asks with her hands in the air.

  The timer on the oven sounds, letting me know the roast is ready.

  “Mom!” Kale hollers. “Roscoe peed in the hall again.”

  “Then clean it up!” I shout back in irritation.

  “Eww… no way!” he responds.

  The timer continues to beep when the phone rings. I stand and pull Marlow toward it. I hit answer and place it on my shoulder before bending down to return to the knot from hell. She’d make a great sailor.

  “Hello?”

  “Did you pay the credit card bill this month?”

  “Well hi, Mike,” I respond. “I’m fine, how are you?”

  “Shit, Everly, just answer the damn question.”

  I sigh. “Yes, I paid it.”

  “Are you sure? Because I still have a balance and I told you to pay it off.”

  “Mom!” Kale yells from upstairs.

  “I did pay it. I called it in a week ago.”

  “Mom?” Kale shouts again.

  Marlow continues to dance in front of me as I finally free her from her binds and she rushes toward the bathroom.

  I stand and turn off the annoying timer.

  “What’s the confirmation number?” Mike asks.

  “I don’t know, Mike. I’m kinda busy right now.”

  He chuckles into the phone. “You have no idea what it means to be busy. You should see my desk right now.”

  I pierce my lip with my tooth and begin to form the f to my favorite word when Kale charges down the stairs. I stop myself on the consonant.

  “Didn’t you hear me, Mom? I called you like a hundred times!”

  “Must be nice to sit around all day while I work and claim you’re too busy to get a simple number for me.”

  “Mom!” Marlow cries out. “There’s no toilet paper!”

  “Mom, why are you ignoring me?” Kale asks as he pulls on my shirt.

  I take a deep breath and attempt to prioritize. Asshat husband wants check number... I stare at the phone for a second as he asks “Hello?” in his annoying voice to gain my attention. I end the call. Check.

  Screaming Kale has something urgent to ask. “Yes, Kale. What do you need?”

  “I forgot I need to bring cookies to karate tonight.”

  I close my eyes to stop myself from asking why he didn’t tell me this morning so I could have picked some up from the store. I open the pantry and grab a bag of Oreos. “Done,” I tell him.

  “Those are open!” he states in utter disbelief.

  I glance into the package. There are only a few missing. I’m pretty sure I ate them in the car on the way home from the store. “It’ll be fine,” I assure him. Check. He mumbles something under his breath as he makes his way back up the stairs. I’m too tired to ask him what he said.

  “Mom… toilet paper?”

  I hurry into the laundry room and grab the new pack, pulling off the plastic wrap. I knock on the door before I open it slightly to her shriek of horror. “I’m in here!” she yells. “Privacy!”

  I roll the paper to her and close the door. Check.

  No more screaming. No more angry husband. All butts are accounted for. I lean against the wall and sigh as the fire alarm blares into my ears. I turn and see smoke coming from the stove.

  “Should I call 911?” Kale screams from upstairs.

  “What? No, Kale! Everything’s fine!” I open the oven and take out the burning roast, waving the smoke and opening a window.

  “What?” he yells over the deafening sound.

  I wave my towel in the air under the smoke alarm in the hall.

  “Should I exit the house from the window up here like we practiced in the fire drill?” Kale asks in a panic.

  “Kale, for Christ’s sake, there’s no fire!”

  “There’s a fire?” he screams.

  I hustle back into the kitchen and wave the smoke toward the open window. The blaring stops and I take a calming breath, staring at the crispy roast for a moment. In the distance, I hear sirens. They seem to be getting closer. I silently pray it’s the hospital coming to take me away.

  “ARE YOU KIDDING me?” Gwen asks through a laugh.

  “Nope. That was my day, so far,” I respond. “I dropped Kale off at karate and now I’m sitting on the damp ground at Marlow’s soccer practice. It’s the first of the season at the park district.”

  “Did the fire department come?”

  “No. I think the sirens were in my head, but I was seriously freaking out that he’d called 911 for like two minutes.”

  “I love that kid,” Gwen responds. “He takes after his Aunt Gwen. I would have pissed myself laughing if I were there.”

  “Oh yeah. It was hysterical,” I say with a fake laugh. I dig through my purse for a piece of gum.

  “Did Mike call back?” she asks.

  “Yes, three times. Twice on my cell.”

  “He’s such an asshole,” Gwen exclaims.

  I can’t disagree, although asshole doesn’t seem like a strong enough word for what I feel for him at the moment. I open the wrapper and shove the minty gum into my mouth. I feel better for half a second. “He’s been downright nasty lately. I know I don’t work a full-time job, but it’s not like I sit around all day doing nothing.”

  “You need to kick his ass to the curb. I never knew what you saw in him to begin with. You could do so much better.”

  I roll my eyes, thankful Gwen can’t see me do it. I play with the wrapper in my fingers. “I’m starting to think I’m gett
ing exactly what I deserve. I must have really wronged someone in a past life.”

  “Stop! This is all on him. You give and give to him, and he just takes. It’s not fair, Ev.”

  I glance down at my thighs and feel a little sick to my stomach. “I have gained some weight. Maybe he just thinks I’m fat and ugly and that’s why he wants nothing to do with me.”

  “Goddammit, Everly! Do you hear yourself? Why would you want him, anyway? He treats you like shit every chance he gets.”

  “Well, things have been really stressful lately. I guess I should be more understanding. He is supporting us.”

  I hear Gwen sigh. I know she can’t stand Mike. I don’t blame her. She’s seen him at his worst and at his best. She isn’t impressed with either.

  “He wouldn’t have to be supporting all of you if he would have agreed to let you go back to school to finish your degree instead of him going for his master’s.”

  I frown. It’s a sore subject. When Kale turned three and was in preschool, I made the suggestion that I take a few classes. Mike told me that with his busy work schedule, there wouldn’t be time for me to study and that I should wait until Kale was in school full time. He added that he couldn’t afford to pay my school bills either, for good measure. Never mind that I had dropped out of school to take care of Kale while Mike finished his degree. Those two years of living with his parents still make me shudder. They were kind enough to let us stay there rent-free but insisted they would not be “raising your kid while you gallivant all over creation.”

  “I know. The plan was that I go back to school when Kale turned five, but then I got pregnant with Marlow. Since Mike’s job offered to pay his tuition, it seemed like his going back to school was the right thing to do.”

  “Yeah, I know the whole story, Ev. You don’t need to stick up for him. It was all too convenient for him to never be home for Marlow’s first two years because he was supposedly studying.”

  I sigh and pick at the grass under my legs. I hold a small blade in my fingers and then stare out at the other blades throughout the park. I imagine I’m one small sliver in a sea of thousands of pieces of grass, small and insignificant. I glance up in time to see Marlow make a goal. She jumps up with her legs to the side and fist pumps the air. I laugh to myself. She has such spunk. I would have given up ten careers in a heartbeat for her. She’s my sweetheart. She makes eye contact with me, and I smile widely at her and give her a thumbs-up. It still warms my heart that she wants to make sure I see her every success.

  “You’re so quiet,” Gwen continues. “I hope I didn’t overstep myself. It’s just I’ve been where you are. I shouldn’t have married Alex. Our marriage never worked, and it was good that we both got out after two years. I know you have kids and it’s not that easy, but I just hate to see you so sad all the time.”

  I refocus on Gwen’s words and feel the ache in my chest. “You know I’ve thought about leaving him more times than I can count, but what about the kids’ needs? And where would we go? I have no job, no money, and I’m a complete mess on the outside and the inside.”

  “You could go back to school and finish your degree to start. You only have one year left. The kids are both in school now. What’s holding you back? St. Mary’s Hospital is hiring. I would totally help you. Maybe I could talk to some people and get you on my floor. I know it’s hard to believe, but they love me there.”

  I laugh lightly. “It’s not hard to believe at all. You talk about my being hard on myself… What about you? You’re beautiful, kind, giving, and super smart. Of course they like you!”

  “Yeah, whatevs. If I’m so great, how come I haven’t had sex in three years, much less been on any dates?”

  I sigh. “You need to leave your house to go on a date!”

  “Why would I want to do that? I have movies, popcorn, Nutella, and a nice warm blanket.”

  I shake my head. “Sex, remember?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s what Bob is for.”

  I almost choke on my gum. “Bob?”

  “My battery-operated boyfriend. He doesn’t complain and makes me come on demand. What more can a girl ask for?”

  “Oh, Gwen.” I laugh. “What about that dating website?”

  “I don’t know…” She pauses. “How about you sneak out this weekend and come over. If you’ll help me set it up, I’ll do it, but you have to write my bio. I suck at that stuff.”

  “Deal!” I exclaim excitedly, but secretly I wonder how I’ll get away.

  “Seriously though, you should really consider finishing your classes. You don’t have many left in order to graduate.”

  I ponder her words for a moment and energy surges inside me. Maybe she’s right. When she tells me about her day and her patients, I feel so sad. I’ve wanted to be a nurse all my life. We discuss patients and procedures so much that sometimes I feel like I’m already working with her. I could still do it, right? I ask myself. I’m only thirty. As soon as I say thirty, I feel an ache in my back. Am I too old? I wonder what Mike will say when I ask him if I can. I shake my head angrily. Why should I have to ask? This is my life. It’s time I do something for myself for once.

  Ten years earlier

  “WHAT DO YOU mean he hasn’t called you?” Grandma Kay asks.

  I sit at her kitchen table, slowly sipping on a glass of her famous homemade lemonade. I ignore her question for a moment and allow the feeling of it sliding down my throat to remind me of a time when I was five, sitting in this exact place. Things were much simpler then.

  I hear her toes tapping and glance up to her stern expression. She’s waiting for me to respond. I don’t know how to answer without being blunt, so I am. “He doesn’t think I should have it.”

  She slumps down into the chair at her oak kitchen table, and I can see the devastation of my words on her face.

  I immediately add, “I told him I could never do something like that. If he doesn’t want the baby, then I’ll just have it by myself.”

  I see the instant relief in the shift of her expression, but then she scowls.

  “This is his baby too. If he can happily put it in there, he’s just as responsible for making sure it comes out healthy and cared for.”

  I genuinely smile for the first time in days. I am in awe and appreciative of her unwavering love and support. “Thank you,” I say earnestly.

  She twists her watch on her wrist as her eyes lift to mine. “For what?”

  “For being you. I don’t know why I was so worried about telling you I made a mistake. You always make me feel better about everything.”

  She smiles at me and reaches across the table for my hand. “We Londons stick together. No matter what! I love you, songbird. There are no such things as mistakes. God put that little angel inside you for a reason, and I’m going to love that blessing for the rest of my life, just like I love you.”

  I feel a tear spill over my lashes and actually start to believe things might be okay.

  “You look exhausted. Let’s get you to bed. Tomorrow’s a bright and better place to be.”

  She pulls on my hand and leads me down the hall to my room. The familiar smell of lavender invades my senses, and I’m suddenly more relaxed than I’ve felt in days. She pulls back my covers and I slide into bed. My pillow feels like a long-lost friend who soothes and comforts me. She tucks me in and kisses my head as I close my eyes. I feel like a child again until I realize I’m a child having a child.

  Grandma Kay softly treads toward the door. I open my eyes in time to see a look of determination I haven’t seen since the last time she weeded the garden. I fall asleep considering what she might have been thinking.

  I FINISH MY eggs as I hear Grandma Kay’s stomping feet on the stairs from the basement. The sun is shining through the sheer yellow curtains in her kitchen. The warmth of the sun, combined with the yellow curtains, makes everything seem bright and renewed. It is a new day, after all, and I’m filled with hope and resolution.

  I swivel
on my seat as she opens the door from the basement stairs. She’s holding a can of paint and two brushes. I smile because I know what it means, and it’s exactly what I need. I need to forget all about Mike, just like I tried to forget all about Nick.

  As I say his name in my head, I see his smile in my memory and my heart flutters. I haven’t really thought about Nick much over the last few years, but somehow being home and feeling scared is bringing my thoughts of him back to the surface.

  That first night we met, we clicked immediately and talked for hours. He’d caught me staring at his lips as he spoke, so he’d stopped talking and given me that crooked grin until my eyes met his once again. Every word, every syllable, and every breath he made created the most beautiful symphony I’d ever heard. We had a connection I couldn’t explain. Our first kiss on the steps of my parents’ house sealed my fate. I fell hard for him, and he fell for me too. I knew it not just because he told me, but also because I could see it in his eyes every time he looked at me.

  There was something in the way he smiled when he saw me. I truly believed that smile belonged to me, alone. We spent every possible hour together whenever he would come to town every month or two and dated for over a year. We shared everything from past relationships to career goals and deepest fears. I had no experience, and he was patient and loving in teaching me everything from kissing to oral sex. He told me he loved me and would wait for me to be ready to make love, but I could see his frustration at my reluctance.

  He was my everything. At least, until I wasn’t enough for him. Until the idea of sex became the focal point of our relationship. Every time we were together I wanted him to prove he loved me and he wanted me to show him. He’d already had sex, and I knew he wanted to have it with me, but I was only seventeen and I just wasn’t ready.

  I could hear girls in the background when I’d call. He said they were there for his roommates, but I started to wonder if he was cheating on me. I thought he couldn’t wait for me. One day when he was in town, we were messing around and I let him put it in for a second. It hurt and I instantly wanted it to end. I told him to stop, so he did. He said he understood and would always wait for me. Three months later, after an awkward Christmas full of his desire for more, I called him and set him free. I felt more like a conquest rather than someone he really loved. I was so afraid of getting pregnant… If he could see me now. I close my eyes and shake my head at myself.