January 1982 – Fairfield, CT
Isabel and Angela kept a steady pace as they jogged down the quiet neighborhood roads, puffing visible breaths into the icy air.
"I mean, it makes sense to me. What do you think?" Isabel said in a couple breaths.
"Well, I think she's onto something, even if I don't know what it is exactly."
"What do you mean?"
Angela shrugged. "I've just noticed I lie to myself a lot. Saying I'm okay when I'm not, stuff like that." Isabel nodded. "I don't know. She asked about what I felt before, and how that compared to what I had done to fix it. But, anyway, I was trying to figure out why I'm lying now, and if that's triggering me. But I don't know."
Isabel scrunched her face a little. "I'm not exactly sure I'm following you, but I'm tired." She exhaled a quick laugh. "Uh - what did you do before?"
"I ate three meals a day. I exercised well for my level. I stayed on top of my school work."
"So, it sounds like, you were taking care of your responsibilities as best as you could?"
Angela thought. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess, so. But I do remember plateauing for a while."
"What'd you do?"
"I'd kept the same fitness routine, but I was having trouble with snacking."
"No, I mean how did you get off the plateau."
Angela took a good breath. "I was so mad at myself; hated the way I out-of-control way I felt." Isabel turned to look at her. "Then I started volunteering at this soup kitchen, and I don't know – I guess I realized how much of my time I spent thinking about myself, instead of looking around me."
"Did that help?"
Angela nodded. "Yeah, it seemed to. The less I worried about losing weight, the easier it came off."
"Do you think that kind of thing is missing in your life now?"
Angela exhaled a sharp laugh, "I couldn't fit anything else into my schedule. I mean, Michael's gone for a while, yeah, but I'm still working. I still have Jonathan to take care of."
"For sure," Isabel breathed, not commenting on Angela's admission that Michael's absence made for less on her plate. She turned her eyes back to the road. "Yeah, you didn't have either of them the first time." Angela nodded. "Have you come up with any reason why you're lying to yourself?"
"I can think of a bunch!" Angela snorted. "My marriage has been hanging by a thread since before the wedding. I never know where I stand with Michael. He never seems bothered by anything, unless everything's a catastrophe. That goes up and down at will. I'm great at my job, but he hates it." She thought for a second. "My boss is happy with me, but this other guy there tries to make my work miserable. Jonathan doesn't obey well. And, honestly, I find myself coddling him, because I know he's not getting a fair shake. So, I'm overcompensating, and it's hurting all of us. Michael isn't really interested in him for long, and I find myself trying to control that." She shook her head. "He doesn't realize the child worships him, and would do anything for a kind word - or a few minutes of attention..." Angela felt a sharp pang of guilt. From me, too...
"It sounds difficult," Isabel finished.
"Yeah," Angela said with worried brows, looking at her empathetic friend. "I mean, who'd want to admit all that?"
"Well, you just did," she held her hand up for a high five, which Angela obliged with a grateful smile.
They ran for many yards, and Isabel tried to put things together. "So, before, you took care of your responsibilities, and got your eyes off yourself and it helped."
"Right."
"Now," Isabel puffed, "you feel like it's all falling through your fingers, and you're just trying to catch what you can."
"Exactly."
"How do you feel right now?"
Angela laughed, "Winded."
Isabel laughed through a forced breath. "Me, too. I haven't been running as much as I used to. No, but I mean, agitation wise, do you feel snacky?"
"Now? No. I'm running!"
"Well, not drawing your attention to a temptation you aren't dealing with, but it seems like you're taking care of this responsibility – your health – right now. If that helps, why don't you see if the next thing you can do is taking care of another responsibility, and see how you feel then?"
"So, you're saying, I'm snacky because I'm not taking care of my responsibilities?"
"No, I wouldn't know that! I'm just saying it's a good thing to ask yourself. Because you're obviously trying to fix something when you're overeating. I have that, too. I'm just saying, look around. Evaluate your situation as it changes, see what's the best thing to do right then. Sometimes, that's sitting in a lawn chair, eating cake at your kid's birthday. Sometimes, that's picking up your socks, and putting them in the hamper. Tell the truth. 'Is there a responsibility I need to deal with?'"
Angela nodded, trying to understand.
Isabel continued, "And if you know you're not being honest about how you feel, that's ditching a responsibility, too. The same goes for how you felt about something before, that you haven't dealt with yet. All that is going to make you itchy, and you're going to have to scratch it, one way or another."
Angela thought a minute, "You know, the first time around, I had this big blow-up with my mother, about stuff from when I was a kid. I do think that helped."
"Awesome," Isabel nodded, then waited a couple strides. "What about now?"
"What do you mean?"
"I know you said you think that you and Michael just got your wires crossed last fall. But that's when this started up again, wasn't it?"
"Yeah…"
"Do you feel good about where you two are, in all that stuff that happened? Because I saw you that night. You looked like you'd seen a ghost."
Angela thought. "I don't know. I was so relieved to have been wrong, I was much less worried about being right. His story is certainly plausible. He's clever and witty, and he knows it. Sometimes he says shocking things just to stay on top of an argument. He loves to be right, and he loves to be in control. And he freaks out when he's hurt. All that mixed together could've been exactly what happened. And maybe he was just trying to put the nail in the coffin by being physically imposing…he wouldn't have done anything. I mean, I can easily see all that being true."
"Would you be okay with that, if it were?"
"What do you mean? That would be ideal! If it weren't malicious, but him just wanting to be a smartass and have the last word? Yeah, that's way better than the alternative!"
"Angela, I don't want to coach you to be discontent, but there weren't only two options. Him throwing a fit, and "just" intimidating you with blanks, or him throwing a fit, and warning you of something he'd actually do - there were other ways he could've dealt with his disappointment."
Angela breathed. "I hadn't really thought about it."
"You're used to it. You're used to being happy with the lesser of two evils. You're surviving. But how would you have wanted him to deal with that?" Angela thought for a bit. Isabel tried again, "Okay, let's say you were really inconsiderate, and the initial conflict was all your fault. What would you want him to do?"
Angela hadn't thought about that before. "I don't know. Um, I guess, I'd want him to tell me I hurt his feelings."
"That sounds good."
"But then I'd want to tell him I'm hurt, too - and that would open a can of worms you wouldn't believe! I can't possibly start a conversation like that. I can't even start a line of thinking like that! It's like a black hole - there is no bottom to how hurt I am."
Isabel turned a sad face toward Angela, "That sounds like a great reason to overeat. Now, imagine if you throw fear onto the fire."
Angela looked back at her friend, but didn't say anything.
"And another thing, Angela: You don't have to be sure of any intention of his to acknowledge you were scared. It really doesn't have anything to do with it. He could've been completely innocent, and you still could've been afraid. That really is okay."
Angela nodded, just absorbing the information.
The ladies rounded the corner into Wendy's driveway, and slowed to a walk. Angela put her hands behind her head, "Thanks."
"Yeah, thank you. I really wanted to get back to my running. It's been more than a month," Isabel puffed out.
"Not just the run," Angela eyed her in playful sarcasm.
Isabel smiled, "Anytime."
They trotted up the front steps, and walked inside.
Jonathan's head popped up from the game he and Jenny were playing. "Mom! That was too fast! Go, run some more!" At her shocked and angry look, Jonathan amended, "Please?"
Angela shook her head, "Not a chance. But you can keep playing."
Getting what he wanted, Jonathan returned his attention to Jenny. Hmm... I don't love how that just happened. Angela walked up to Jonathan, and squatted down. "Jonathan?"
He didn't look at her, but said, "Yep."
"Jonathan."
He looked up at her, "What?"
"Jonathan, I don't want you talking to me like that. Don't tell me what to do. And I said you can keep playing. You need to say, "Thank you."
"Thank you," he said, and started to look back to the game.
Angela smiled. "You're welcome. And Jonathan, if someone is talking to you, look at them."
Jonathan turned back to look at her. "Okay."
She smiled, and got up. "Thank you."
Walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Isabel on their way to the kitchen, Angela whispered, "You know, that felt good."
Isabel smiled, and whispered back, "Good job, mama."
"I hear you guys in there," Wendy bellowed from the kitchen. "I know you're back!" She pulled on her coat as she was pushing through the swinging door. Wendy grinned devilishly as she hustled past Angela and Isabel with a can of Coke and a chocolate chip muffin in her hands. She grabbed her purse from the hat rack. "Now it's my turn! I'll be driving around with neither intention nor direction, and I'm not sure when I'll tire of that. Ta-ta!" She shut her front door behind her, to the endeared laughing of her friends.
Angela noticed she was smiling in her kitchen that night. She felt like she was always smiling after time with Wendy and Isabel. Nothing else quite lit her up like their encouragement, care, and frivolity. She felt worthwhile and free.
She poured the hot water into her mug, and dunked a tea bag. Jonathan came in.
"Mommy, do you want to play with me?"
Rats. I just spent the afternoon goofing off with my friends, and I was going to work tonight. She looked down at Jonathan's little face, and his big, hopeful eyes. In a jumbled order, the image of the kids at the soup kitchen, and Isabel's question about volunteering came to mind. This was what was in front of her. She didn't have time to volunteer right now, but that's because her responsibilities were elsewhere. Now, it was staring her in the face. She smiled. A really cute responsibility.
"Sure, baby." She held out her hand, and he took it.
"I'm not a baby," he said, determined.
Angela smiled, "I know."
They got out his little bin of Legos, and started building their own creations on the floor of his room.
"How was playing with Jenny?"
"Good. I like her rabbit."
"What's its name?"
"Butter Brickle"
Angela looked up and laughed, "No kidding?"
"What's butter brickle?"
"A type of ice cream. I really like it."
"I like chocolate."
Angela smiled. I didn't know that. "I thought you were a French Vanilla guy."
Jonathan dug around the bottom of the bin for a particular piece. "No, Daddy likes it."
"Ah, so you just eat it with him?"
"Yeah."
Angela made a sad smile. "You miss him?"
He nodded, and they built silently for a minute.
Jonathan looked up from the spaceship he was designing. "When is Daddy coming home?"
Angela tipped a sad smile, and got up from the floor. She walked to his wall, and took down his calendar. Seeing some markers on his desk, she picked up a red one and sat back down.
She flipped to March. The picture that month was a closeup of three crocodile hatchlings by a river. Jonathan peered over at the picture, "Cool!" She smiled.
"Yeah, they are, aren't they?" she smiled. Taking the red marker, Angela wrote, "Daddy comes home" on March 28th.
"That's when he's coming home?" Jonathan asked.
Angela's eyebrows went up. "Yes, it is. Your reading is doing very well."
"I've been practicing writing. Do you want to see?"
Angela's face lit up, "Yes, I do."
Jonathan went to his closet and brought back a shoebox. She looked in it. It was full of little scraps of papers, and there were small words written on each piece. She picked one up, "Do you know what this one is?"
"Jet," he smiled widely.
"Ha! That's wonderful, Jonathan!" she leaned over, and rubbed his back in congratulations.
"Daddy's going to bring me a book about the ponies," he said excitedly.
"Yeah, I remember," she smiled, gently moving a lock of bangs out of his eyes. "I can practice with you, if you want?"
"Okay," he smiled.
How did I not do this with him before? Angela felt sadness lay right down of top of them. I've missed so much already - Jonathan's missed so much already - because I wasn't paying attention. "Hey, Jonathan?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you want to read a book before you go to sleep at night? Remember, we used to, but then I just kind of…stopped. But I'd like to, again, if you want?"
Jonathan smiled. "Yeah, I like books."
"Okay. I'm sorry I got busy, and stopped doing that. I really liked it."
"It's okay," he said as he put a long, chunky piece on the back of his spaceship.
"Thanks." Angela looked endearingly at her son, "What's that?"
"It's the engine," he said, not looking up from what he was working on.
"Ahh," she smiled. "How fast does it go?"
"This fast!" Jonathan zoomed the craft right past her nose.
Angela regained her bearing, and after a second or two, her eyes went back to normal size. "That's – that's a good engine, alright," she laughed.
That night, Angela sat with Jonathan in the rocking chair in his room. It hurt her when she moved some stuffed animals off of it, realizing that had been the chair's function for the last year or so. But when they snuggled up with The Berenstain Bears and the Sitter, her heart had filled. She was amazed with how many of the words he knew, and she kissed the top of his head as he tried to sound out the ones he didn't. Partway through, he got tired and wanted her to finish. She rocked him, and let her voice hum soothingly through the rest of story.
She'd forgotten how much she loved this series. They were usually lighthearted, but always fullhearted. This one was on fear, and like usual, it included the perspective of the kids. They didn't know the babysitter was a nice lady at first. She was scary looking. She looked down at Jonathan. If he were scared, I'd want to know. I'd care. …Should it matter if I'm scared, too? Even if there's not a real threat?
Her internal lie detector went off, and she stopped rocking.
Okay, even if I don't know if there's a real threat?
That one set, and she started to rock again.
I don't know what Michael was doing that night. But I didn't like it. I was scared, and I think I'm worried about it happening again – even though I could understand if he didn't mean to go as far as I perceived. Worse than all that, I'm worried about not trusting myself. I could never work like this at the office. This road does not end well. But he's got so much leverage over me. My whole life is wrapped up in him. And I love him. Angela kept rocking her baby slowly, and kissed the top of his head. But I need to care about what I feel - for Jonathan and for me. I don't want us to live like that.
