alive. Don’t fucking call me that.
2008
More new baby pics have made it my way. Congratulations, lover. You look happy.
—A) Don’t call me that. B) I am. C) Still an evolutionary dead end?
Is that an indirect way of telling me to fuck off?
—Yes.
Gone. I am happy for you. Truly.
2010
Love the new look. Hot.
—Yup.
Knowing you’re hot – also hot.
—Not for you.
Ouch.
2011
—Happy birthday and all that.
Thank you. Lover. How are you?
—Fine.
Will you come see me next time you’re in Montreal?
—I have four children. I don’t jet-set very much these days. Are you ever in YYC?
Rarely. But sometimes. Is that an invitation?
2012
I have a new client who will have me flying into YYC now and then. If that happens – will you see me?
—Maybe.
Maybe. That’s how it begins.
Monday, December 3
5 a.m.
Fuck. I close my eyes. Turn this way, that. Open them. 5.01 a.m. Well. This is productive. I get up – give the alarm clock a resentful stare. Go downstairs. Ponder making coffee – making that first pot is a sign of surrender to the morning, an admission that I will not go back to bed.
I make the coffee. Sullenly at first, then with just the slightest tinge of happiness as the grinder whirrs the beans. I breathe in its scent. And I listen to the quiet of the house – everyone’s still sleeping upstairs. I am awake and I am alone. I let go of the ‘why did I get up so early when I didn’t have to?’ resentment and relish the feeling of being. Awake. Alone.
Eight minutes later, I’m on the couch, curled up with a cup of coffee and my laptop. Check email…Seven minutes later, when Alex comes down the stairs, I’m working.
‘What are you doing up so early?’ we say simultaneously. Laugh.
‘One of my idiot partners in Toronto scheduled a conference call for eight a.m.,’ Alex says, stretching. ‘Eastern. I’ve got to be in the office in forty-five minutes. You?’
‘Just couldn’t sleep,’ I say. ‘As it turns out, some idiot in Toronto is having a panic attack and desperately needs me to review this business study. For nine a.m. Eastern. So you know – the insomnia was fortunate.’
He laughs. Kisses my forehead, grabs a cup of coffee, heads back up to shower. I read, think, type. I have three – less than three, really – hours until the little people start making their way down the stairs and claiming my attention. Focused. Fast.
Alex is back down the stairs in twenty minutes. ‘Bye, love,’ he calls as he rounds past me to the front door.
‘Bye, love you,’ I call back, without a break in the typing. ‘Going to be home in time for dinner tonight?’
‘Unless some idiot in Toronto screws it up,’ he says as he slips into his coat. ‘Will text you.’
Of course.
By the time I’ve made my way through most of the second pot of coffee, the kids are coming down. Cassandra, my ten-year-old, first – shocked to see me up and awake before her. And then as appreciative of the silence around us as I am. She curls up on the couch beside me, with a bowl of cereal and a book.
The peace and silence end when the boys stampede down. Henry’s seven. Eddie’s six. Together, they sound like a platoon of baboons. Even at 7.15 in the morning. Cereal. Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix. Annie, the four-year-old, bum-slides down the stairs at 7.45, and my day’s work is done – parenting begins as Annie starts her day by cuddling in my lap for half an hour.
You cannot be cuddled by a four-year-old and be as brutal as my clients need me to be. I hold her. Drink coffee. Check Facebook. New messages.
‘What are our plans for the day?’ Cassandra asks. ‘This is a weird school day, right?’
‘You’ve got that pioneer Christmas thing at the Farm, and then we’re watching Marie’s kids in the afternoon,’ I tell her. She whoops in delight and races upstairs to get dressed. Annie follows her. I have to holler at the boys to do likewise.
The first message is from Marie.
We still on for this afternoon? I’ll see you at the Farm, right?
The second.
Maybe. Never was a word so full of potential. I’m glad you wrote me back, I was worried there for a while.
For a decade.
My lips curl into an involuntary smile. I won’t write back. Not yet. I’ll just enjoy knowing he’s in my inbox.
‘Mom! Eddie’s wearing my favourite shirt!’
‘Am not!’
‘Mom! I have no socks!’
I climb the stairs slowly, cooling coffee cup still in hand. Mondays. Really, not that much different from Sundays.
‘And you’re of course welcome to participate if you like,’ the Laura Ingalls Wilder lookalike who checks us in at the Farm tells me. ‘Parents welcome!’ I look at her in horror. The thought of spending the morning churning butter, milking cows, making candles, splitting wood or whatever it is the pioneers did to prepare for Christmas is an experience I’m willing to forgo. Happily. If the four-year-old lets me…but she’s already gone, holding on to her sister’s hand. ‘We get to make candles!’ she calls out to me over her shoulder. I give her a thumbs-up. The boys have already found their friends. I beat a retreat to the cafeteria.
Marie’s already there, two coffee cups in hand.
‘I got your mocha for you,’ she says. ‘An advance thank you for this afternoon.’ I accept. ‘Thank God you’re here too – I was having an I’m-the-worst-mom-ever
