by Erin Duffy
Sometimes when I woke up at night, when my pillow was too warm and needed to be flipped over, or when Bo cried because his poor gums were being shredded by teeth that didn’t seem to want to make an appearance, I stared at Owen while he slept. More often that not, his sandy hair had fallen over his face, and his skin looked so soft, and he lay so still that sometimes I had the urge to put my hand on his chest and make sure he was still breathing. He almost always lay on his side, his head propped up on his elbows, and his legs bent at the knee, and I’d have to pinch myself because I couldn’t believe he came into my life and turned it upside down and moved me to a different time zone and I couldn’t have been happier.
I wouldn’t have imagined that I’d meet Owen in a bar the way we had a little more than two years ago, or that he’d want me and not my friend, Antonia, since the guys always wanted Antonia, and rarely ever wanted me. That was what happened when your best friend was a curvy Italian girl with thick, dark waves that flowed over her shoulders and lips that could be used as a flotation device, and you were just a normal all-American girl with mousy brown hair and lips that were barely visible to the naked eye unless they were lined with a pencil and coated in gloss. It didn’t offend me. It just meant that if I were sitting next to Antonia, and someone was staring in our direction, he was most certainly not focused on me. Except Owen was.
“That guy is checking you out,” Antonia said as she glanced over at the bar on that random Wednesday night in Chicago when my entire life changed.
“No, he’s not,” I said. I didn’t even bother to turn around and see who “he” was. “No one is looking at me, and honestly, I don’t care. I’ve decided that I’m totally fine with my single life. I’m really happy where I am, you know? I feel like I went through the stage where I was terrified that I was going to either die alone, or be forced to join Tinder and spend all of my free time mindlessly swiping left, and I’m through it now. Besides, whoever he is, I’m sure he’s looking at you anyway. People always say that once you hit your mid-thirties you become happy with yourself and it’s really true. At thirty-four, I finally feel like I’ve got a grip on my life. Things are pretty good for me the way they are. I’m lucky. I don’t need anything else.”
“I’m happy to hear that, but you should probably turn around and say hello,” she said. She grabbed her drink and sauntered away, and I spun around in my chair and came face-to-face with the handsome, clean-shaven, smiling man who was going to change my entire life. I was happy with my job, and my apartment, and my friends, and then Owen appeared, and everything I didn’t think I wanted all of a sudden seemed like the perfectly logical things to have.
“I’m Owen Mackenzie,” he said, and I had to remind myself to blink. Owen was ruggedly handsome with sandy brown hair that fell over his right eye and a mildly crooked front tooth. His voice was commanding and soothing at the same time, and he smelled like Irish Spring, and beer, and Tic Tacs.
“I’m Claire,” I managed to choke out, my voice sounding squeaky and foreign. I took a sip of my beer, hoping it would shrink the burning knot in the back of my throat that threatened to crush my voice box. I couldn’t believe I was having this kind of reaction. Who got tied up talking to a cute guy at this stage of the game? “Are you from Chicago?” I asked.
“Yes, and no.”
“That was meant to be an easy question to answer,” I teased.
“I’m originally from Connecticut, but I work for an internet travel company, so I’m from here as of about six months ago. Before that, I’d never been here in my life, which is absurd. This town is fantastic. I love it,” he said, and immediately I conjured up images of gray clapboard houses in bucolic Connecticut; all manicured lawns and shiny SUVs, freshly baked apple pies and vibrant orange leaves in fall. I imagined an Ivy League diploma hanging on his bedroom wall next to faded Pearl Jam posters, and an old, battered lacrosse stick tucked in the closet. Even his name sounded perfectly New Englandy: Owen Mackenzie. I liked it. I liked it a lot.
And that was that. We had endless phone calls, romantic weekends on Cape Cod and Nantucket and Manhattan that used up all my frequent-flier miles, and after six months we decided to move in together because that’s what you do when you’re in your thirties and find someone who makes everything better just by entering the room. It was hard for me to be bothered by his relentless travel schedule since it was his job that had ultimately brought him to Chicago and into my life, but it was hard knowing that he spent a fair amount of his time in lonely hotel rooms with minibars and room service menus. I liked to write him notes when he traveled. I tucked them inside the pockets of his sports coat, or hid them in the zipper compartment of his travel bag, or placed them inside his dress shoe, just so he’d know that he was missed. I liked letting him know that I was thinking of him, because I was thinking of him, constantly. Not thinking about him was an impossibility, which seemed silly since I’d managed to live thirty-four years without ever knowing him at all. My old age was apparently morphing me into quite the sap.
Until I met Owen my love affair was with my career. I constantly worked because I thought that was what you were supposed to do when you graduate from Notre Dame with a degree in communications. I enjoyed being a social media consultant, and I was good at it. I was so good at it that at one point I was approached to head up branding and marketing at a start-up and I almost said yes. I was thirty-four years old. For all of my twenties and almost half of my thirties I’d dedicated myself to the pursuit of more: more money, more security, more recognition, more satisfaction, more of everything because that was what ambitious women did when they were unattached and motivated and hitting their professional stride. Then love suddenly dropped itself right into the middle of all of that, and I decided that it was time I pursue something else. That was how it often happened in real life, if you were honest. If I was honest.
I got married and then quickly became pregnant, so quickly that when I told my mother I was expecting she smiled but fell quiet for almost a full minute while she tried to figure out if a September ceremony and a July due date meant that I was pregnant at the wedding. (She was good at a lot of things—math was not one of them.) I left my job and devoted my time and energy to being Owen’s wife and Bo’s mother and cooking and cleaning and singing and snuggling and I was happy with that decision. Until recently, I was very happy with that decision. What bugged me now was that I was starting to realize that my potential return to the workforce might not even be possible. I lost my rhythm. I lost my contacts. I lost my stability and my confidence in a lot of ways. It’s not easy to step out of anything for almost a year and then just step back in. Things change quickly, and there’s not much of a job market for a woman who takes a year off to get married and have a baby and then changes her mind. I risked being seen as unreliable, and uncommitted, and unwilling to give my entire life to the job, and that was exactly what most jobs want you to do. I’d be seen as someone who had her shot and gave it away and there was nothing I could do about that now. I should’ve thought about it before we moved, but I didn’t, because I was too busy nurturing my family to worry about the atrophy of my career—too in love to see that trading one for the other would likely be the last business decision I’d ever make. I didn’t like to admit it to myself, and certainly not out loud to anyone else, but I was having a hard time making peace with the fact that my transition to becoming a housewife was probably permanent whether I wanted it to be or not.
My phone rang. I glanced at the dashboard and saw that it was Antonia, so I pressed the green button. “You’ll never guess where I’m headed,” I said.
“Chicago?” she teased.
“A spa in Manhattan. Owen got me a day of pampering and a hotel room. How amazing is that?”
“I’m sure that’s well deserved, bella,” she said. “Glad to hear that husband of yours is still treating you right. You got one of the good ones.”
“You will, too,” I said.
“Si. I’ll find my amo
re when God wants me to. There’s a plan for everyone.”
“Sure seems that way.”
“How’s my little Bo doing? When are you coming home for a visit?”
“Soon. As soon as the thought of flying with an infant doesn’t terrify me.”
“You better make it soon. I need to get my hands on him. Who’s going to teach the baby to speak Italian?” Antonia asked, only half-joking. “I hate you for leaving me, you know,” she reminded me.
“You are my Italian love Yoda. Aren’t you supposed to be telling me that if you love someone, moving is a small sacrifice to make?”
“You’re right. I just miss you. How are you?”
“I’m okay. Except, I’m starting to get the itch to go back to work. Is that weird? Does that mean I’m not satisfied with my life or something?”
“Not at all! It’s been almost a year. Go back if you feel that way. You’re a modern woman. You can do anything you want.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “Anything you want is a great concept as long as you only want one thing. I want a lot of things. That’s the problem.”
I didn’t know if I really wanted to go back to work, or not. It was certainly a thought that had been crossing my mind more and more lately, probably because I was starting to come out of the new mom fog and realized that maybe there was more that I could be doing for myself in this particular phase of my life. It wasn’t easy staying home. It wasn’t easy transitioning from someone who had a life and a career and a paycheck and a role to play in the real world into someone whose life revolved around an infant, and there was no career and there was no paycheck and there was nothing that was mine anymore. If I wanted to buy a new pair of jeans, I needed to use a credit card that Owen paid for, or even worse, ask his permission to use it. I hadn’t thought about the fact that not working gave away all of my autonomy and a lot of my identity. If I went back to work, what would it even look like? My mind meandered through all of the scenarios: Full-time or part-time? Nanny or day care? Then, out of nowhere, a thought that made my heart stop. My wallet wasn’t in my bag.
I didn’t know what made me think of it, or why I hadn’t thought of it until I reached Westchester County, but I passed by the exit for Larchmont and immediately remembered that I’d taken Bo for a walk yesterday afternoon, and stopped for a latte in town, and my wallet was still sitting in the bottom of my UPPABaby stroller next to an empty water bottle and a wad of napkins from Starbucks.
“Shit! You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said as I exited the highway and turned my car around to head back north on I-95.
“What’s wrong?” Antonia asked.
“I forgot my wallet. Do you believe that? I’m going to miss my appointment if I don’t hurry.”
“At least you realized it before you actually got all the way to the hotel and couldn’t park your car.”
“Good point. I’ll call you later from the hotel, okay? We can have a proper catch up while I enjoy room service in my pajamas.”
“Sounds good, bella. Enjoy.”
I hung up and moaned in frustration. This was an annoyance, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Owen would no doubt lord this over me forever, and make fun of me for a million years about how I couldn’t even manage to get my life in order to leave the house for an entire night. I turned my face toward the sun as I drove back onto my quiet little street, with its cracked sidewalks and its huge trees, and thought about how lucky I was. I loved my little house and I loved my little family and I’d love them both even more after I spent a night away from them sprawled out alone in a king-sized hotel bed with the “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging on the door.
I left my purse on the front seat of the car and my keys in the ignition while I sprinted inside to get my wallet out of the stroller in the basement. Bo would be sleeping, thankfully, so I could pop in, get my wallet, pop out, and it would be like none of this ever happened. I ran my hand over the arm of the swing on the front porch, and thought about how we really needed to use it once the weather warmed up. It was one of the things I loved about this house, and I’d decided that I was going to put a good amount of miles on it this summer. I pushed the front door open and breezed into the foyer, my skin still warm from the thirty-minute drive home with the windows down, and the fresh air blasting my face. I was opening my mouth to call Owen, but I stopped.
I stopped because I was halfway into the kitchen, heading for the basement stairs, when I came face-to-face with our Realtor, which was odd. She was drinking champagne out of the bottle and toasting a frozen waffle in the toaster oven Owen’s mother gave me at my bridal shower, which was very odd. She was also clad in nothing but bright purple lingerie, which was nothing short of completely fucking horrifying.
I heard a crash: the champagne bottle. I heard a beep: the toaster. I heard a scream: mine, but that might have only been in my head. I reached out to steady myself against the wall, because I was fairly certain I was about to pass out and crack my head open on the hardwood floor.
“Claire!” someone cried, and not in the “Oh, it’s so good to see you!” kind of way, but in the “Oh shit, what are you doing here?” kind of way, which was not what you wanted to hear when you were standing in your own kitchen.
“I forgot my wallet,” I muttered, because shock made you say really ridiculous things that weren’t appropriate for the situation in the slightest.
“Oh my God, Claire,” Dee Dee—our Realtor—said.
“I think it’s in the stroller,” I added. I had no idea why.
Dee Dee was on her hands and knees, picking up glass from the shattered bottle, which was nice of her.
“Oh my God,” Owen said. Then, he reached over and touched my shoulder, and the feel of his hand on my body was enough to snap me out of the protective daze I’d fallen into.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked, even though what was going on was obvious to anyone with one ounce of common sense and two functioning eyeballs.
“Claire, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen,” Owen said as he struggled to pull on his khakis, like that was going to make a difference at this point.
“You never meant for this to happen?” I asked. “What happened then, Owen? She stopped by to borrow a waffle, reached into the freezer to grab one, and her clothes fell off?”
“Claire, it’s not like that. Please . . .” Dee Dee started, which was mind-boggling because I had no idea why she was in my house to begin with, and no one had asked for her opinion. How did I not see this coming? My mind flashed to our first meeting, when Owen casually informed me that our Realtor was his high school sweetheart, and how my mind stuttered on that fact for a split second, and then moved past it because I stupidly believed that my husband wasn’t looking to cheat on me. Not my husband. Not Owen.
“DEE DEE IS great,” Owen said casually. “You’ll like her.” I stood outside the cozy-looking colonial on the quiet little street and couldn’t find anything obviously wrong with it from the outside, which was more than I could say for other houses I’d looked at online, most of which seemed haunted, or at the very least had hosted a murder in the basement.
“You know her?” I asked. The lot was square and neat. It was fenced. It was clean. It had an herb garden, and a tree for a tire swing. I pulled the emergency Twix bar from my purse, ripped open the wrapper, and ate half a stick in one bite. I was enormously pregnant, starving, and cranky. Admittedly, not the best state to be in if you were going to spend a day house hunting, which was why I decided to stash candy bars in my bag.
“We dated,” he answered. He didn’t provide any details other than that. They dated. That could mean so many things.
“Dated like you went to the fifth-grade dance together?” I mumbled through bites of chocolate and caramel.
“We were together for three years of high school.”
The candy stuck in my throat when I tried to swallow it, and the caramel that was mashed in my molars made it difficult to
speak. “You never mentioned this before,” I managed to choke out. This seemed like a very serious act of omission. There are some things that you can’t just forget to tell your wife. Like, “I’m an assassin for the mob,” or “I have a highly contagious venereal disease.” When you were a pregnant Midwesterner looking for a new house on the Eastern seaboard, “I used to date our real estate agent” is right up there with some of the worst omissions out there.
“What’s the difference? I haven’t seen her in a long time, but she sells real estate here, so it would’ve been silly not to use her. Don’t tell me you’re jealous?” he joked, grinning and reaching over to rub my stomach.
“I’m not jealous! I just think you should’ve mentioned that you’ve seen our Realtor naked.”
“Okay. Going forward I’ll make sure I give you a heads-up every time I run into someone I’ve seen naked. I wasn’t aware that was the rule,” he teased.
“Thank you. I appreciate that,” I said with a smile. I nudged his ribs with my elbow, and he leaned down and kissed the top of my head.
A gleaming black Mercedes pulled up in front of the house, all sleek and streamlined and shiny. Dee Dee removed her sunglasses as she stepped out of the car, tousled her long beach waves, bumped the door with her hip to help it close—which was unnecessary as neither of her hands was occupied—and extended both arms toward Owen, ready to wrap him in an embrace. She wore a tight black pencil skirt and a deep blue sweater set, a huge pearly smile, and lipstick that was way too bright for day. Long, knobby giraffe legs jutted out from under her skirt, and her razor-thin heels only made them look longer. I sucked chocolate off my fingers, and looked down at my own fat feet, which were jammed inside New Balance sneakers. The ponderous stumps I now called legs (thanks to seven months of baby and Twix bars) were encased in black maternity leggings below a long white tunic clinging to curves in all the wrong places. I looked like I’d rolled out of bed, picked my clothes up off the floor, and strolled out of the house without stopping long enough to brush my hair, never mind curl it. I didn’t know what I’d have done differently if Owen had bothered to tell me that he used to date our Realtor, but let’s just say that had I known she was Owen’s ex-girlfriend, I would’ve at least left the candy bar at home.
