not too much to ask.’
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Thank you. I know this – I just needed to hear someone else say it.’
‘It’s not too much to ask,’ I repeat. And then I add, ‘You’ll get through it.’
‘Of course I will,’ Nicola says. ‘I will. Because I am awesome. And not an immoral, cheating skank.’
She hangs off. I touch my forehead against the cold tile floor.
Fuck it. One night. I get one night. And I get flooded with relief. The dilemma, the angst, the search for the guilt, disappears, recedes. One night. The climax. In, what, eight days? Seven days. And one night. And then, it’s over, and real life takes over again.
One night.
It’s my mantra for the rest of the day. I field one more telephone call from Nicola, and listen to her patiently, guilt-free, without feeling the need to atone, judge or rush, as she repeats everything she said in the earlier conversation. I make all the right responses, all the right noises. One night.
I get one night.
I pick up Annie from preschool. I take her out for lunch, and then to the library for story time. We read books. Mem Fox. Robert Munsch. Mo Willems. She laughs so hard at Elephant and Piggie that she wets herself. While I’m changing her in the bathroom, she hiccups, hiccups and throws up lunch – sushi – all over herself. Me.
One night.
I get one night.
‘Why does the car smell like vomit?’ Henry asks, wrinkling his nose, as the kids load into the car. Annie bursts into tears.
‘Annie’s sick,’ I say. ‘Hush.’
‘Disgusting!’ Eddie says. ‘And she smells like pee, too!’ Annie cries louder.
‘You smell too, Mom,’ says Henry.
I sigh.
‘Sorry, Mom, but vomit does smell really, really bad,’ Cassandra offers. Annie’s now wailing at the top her lungs. I rest my forehead against the steering wheel.
‘If you’re really lucky, Annie will cry so hard she’ll puke again,’ I mumble through gritted teeth.
Eleven years of pregnancy, and babies, and breastfeeding and faithfulness and monogamous sex and no real transgression or temptation, eleven years of diapers, vomit, snot, sleepless nights, given to all of them freely, unresentfully, fully.
One night.
At home, I clean Annie up and proactively put her on the couch with a puke bucket beside her. Send the boys to Lacey’s to play with Clayton. Ask Cassandra – nose in book already – to keep an eye on Annie while I clean myself up. Then go to check how badly the car stinks. Disgusting. Ugh. So tired. But. Kind of at peace. Unconflicted. Not happy, exactly, but…OK. Thoroughly OK, and no longer covered in vomit.
The phone rings and I look at it, and it’s Nicola again, and I have done my duty by her today, and will not go through a third conversation with her. I let her go to voice mail. But the phone tingles while I am still holding it in my hand, and my clit tingles too, and it’s Facebook, and it’s Matt. My lips start to part in a smile, and I prepare to be caressed by a lover.
But then, the world ends, immediately:
Heart-breaking/soul-saving news. My Calgary trip is off. Fucking lawyers. Fucking clients. We’re pulling all the work – fuck, fuck, fuck.
I am truly sorry. And fucking pissed.
The adjective of the day is: livid.
I don’t write back. What is there to say? The world has ended. Everything is over. He’s not coming.
I am safe. I cannot transgress.
I can’t breathe.
Saturday, December 8
I can’t breathe. Or sleep. At 5.30 in the morning I give up. Get up. Go downstairs to pretend to work. And I write…
—oh lover i miss you already, and four days ago i didn’t even know there was anything to miss
And I go offline, and turn off the phone, because I don’t want to suffer.
I channel the insomnia into a mad explosion of work, then surprise Alex with pancakes for breakfast.
‘Is it wrong if I like the effects of your insomnia?’ he asks.
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘Enjoy without guilt.’
Ha.
I try to get in touch with the guilt within me, but there is only heat and desire. And regret. Such woeful regret when I let myself feel it, I again lose my breath. I do not need to be any more in touch with those.
Because it’s Saturday and they can sleep in, the kids are of course up early. I feed them pancakes when they come down, then wrestle the younger two into snowsuits and chase everyone outside. The snow is fresh and clean. We make snow angels. Try to make snowballs. Run.
I run, throw. Breathe. Try not to think.
Alex is pulling out of the driveway as we come back. He stops, gets out. Kisses all around. ‘I hate working on Saturdays,’ he murmurs into my ear. ‘You know that, right?’ I shrug. Brush my lips against his neck. ‘Every December,’ I whisper. He helps me load the kids into the van, then gets back into the hatchback. Drives away.
I rest my head against the frame of the van. Cold. So cold.
‘Mom?’ Cassandra, ten years old and so tall and allowed to ride in the front seat when the roads are good, leans over. ‘You getting in?’
‘Yes. Let’s roll.’
We get to my parents’ house with enough time for Mom and me to share a coffee before I take off for the gym. There are cardboard boxes everywhere. ‘We’re going to decorate all-out today, sweeties – we’re in the second week of December already, really, and I’m so behind!’ she tells the kids. And suddenly, I realise, yes, she is behind, my Christmas-crazy mother who starts the process of Christmastifying her house on November 1, and is ‘finished’ by December 1. The tree is up – but it’s undecorated. The Christmas village: still in boxes. Cassandra and Henry start taking things out.
‘Wait for Gran!’ my mom trills.
‘Is something wrong?’ I ask. Look at the clock. Got to be in the car in two minutes. Gulp the coffee.
‘Why would anything be wrong?’ my mother says in an unnaturally pitched voice. Fuck. Something’s wrong. I look at the clock again. She catches my eyes straying.
‘Go,’
