Page 95 of Sawyer

“I get that,” I say. “College wasn’t in the cards for me, so I worked my ass off too. A lot of life happens between high school graduation at eighteen and turning twenty-two. I think you start to realize at that point just how tough adulting is. The monotony of it. Thinking,Shit, I can’t do this for another twenty, thirty, forty years. I don’t know if I can do it for another two.”

“Bingo.” She points a finger at me. “I loved racing, but I was struggling to break out. I was on the road a lot, and I missed so much at home. I have no idea how I got a degree, because I never went to class. I didn’t love my major, either, which definitely didn’t help. I mean, what was I supposed to do with a bachelor’s in business? Getting married, setting down roots—it seemed like the answer to all my problems. Dan and I dated all through high school, and everyone always assumed we’d get married. So that’s what we did. Yeah, he didn’t love the fact that I was a bit of a wild card sometimes, but I loved him so much that I was willing to try to be a little less ‘spirited,’ as he called me. A little more … I don’t know,good. Proper, the way a wife should be. A couple of years later, I got pregnant with June. We both wanted kids, so we were excited.” Her eyes get wet, and she looks away. “Really, really excited.”

I reach over and put a hand on her knee. I don’t say anything. Don’t think I need to. Ava knows I’m here, I’m listening.

“Things were ‘fine’”—here she uses air quotes—“before June was born. I did everything, but I thought that was normal. That’s what my mom did, you know? And I wanted so badly to be good to Dan. So I did all the cleaning and cooked all the meals and made sure all the bills were paid. I organized all our date nights. Managed all the relationships with our families. It annoyed me, but Dan worked a lot, so I kind of let it slide. Never mind the fact that I was working too while also going to school at night. Then I got pregnant, and I started to really notice just how skewed our marriage was in terms of workload. I distinctly remember being eight months pregnant and putting together June’s crib all by myself.”

“What?” Anger grips my windpipe and squeezes. “You shouldn’t have been lifting any of that shit. Where the hell was he?”

Ava shrugs. “Working. Where else? I finally got sick of asking him to build the damn thing, so I did it myself.”

“I have no words.”

“I had a lot of them, and they all started with the letterF.”

Leave it to Ava to find humor in a very dark story.

“Did he apologize?”

“He did. He promised to do better, but—spoiler alert—he didn’t. When Junie was born, the wheels just totally fell off on our marriage. I was still trying to do everything on my own, but I couldn’t.”

“No one can. Not with a newborn.”

“Thank God I had my parents. Well, my mom, really. I was drowning in resentment, and I begged Dan to help more. We’d get into these huge fights, both of us just screaming our heads off. He’d be a little more helpful afterward, but then we’d eventually settle back into our roles. I was the doer; he was the provider. That’s one thing I hadn’t expected when I got married and had a kid—all the unspoken expectations that came with being a wife and a mother.”

“I haven’t thought about it like that?—”

“I mean, marriage is kind of a trap for women. A cage that keeps you from flying too far or too high. Really, I found it to be the death of freedom.”

I blink.

“It’s why I never want to get married again,” she continues. “I had to sacrifice my freedom to keep my husband happy, and that’s a crappy bargain.”

Her words are like a punch to the chest.

“Wait. For real? You never want to get married again?”

She looks at me, her eyes going wide as the realization dawns. “Oh, wow, you definitely do, don’t you?”

“Hell yeah I do. I’ve never been married. Lizzie and me—she’s Ella’s mom—we never tied the knot. Hell, we barely even dated.”

“Talk about stories.” Ava raises her brows. “That sounds like one.”

I fight the crestfallen feeling taking hold in my chest. I am skipping many, many steps ahead here. This is myfirst datewith Ava. It’s almost criminal to be thinking about marriage at this point.

Is it, though? Neither of us has the luxury of fucking around. We have kids. Demanding jobs. Lots of people rely on us.

I also know what I want at this point in my life. I want to have the kind of happy, respectful marriage my parents did. Have a family. Have more kids. Do it all with a partner who shows up and keeps her promises.

I want a partner who will stick around. Because this single-parent shit, it’s lonely. And hard. And I would never choose to keep doing it all by myself if I had that choice.

“Finish your story first,” I say, knocking back my wine.

Ava eyes me. “Are you all right?”

“Finish your story.”

“I mean, that’s pretty much it. I needed Dan to step up and help out more. He didn’t. Meanwhile, I quit racing because I couldn’t juggle everything. We went to counseling. Still nothing changed. I always had this secret belief that it’d be easier to raise June on my own, without having to worry about Dan and his feelings and his moods. I tried so hard to keep him happy. Keep him around. But the harder I tried to be the perfect wife, the more miserable we both were. So I let myself off the hook and moved out. Turns out lifeiseasier when I allow myself to have some fun and put my needs first. Well, not easy?—”

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