Page 16 of Woman on the Verge

I told her I would right as I heard the garage door open, Kyle and the girls back from the quickest trip to the ice cream shop ever recorded by man.

As I packed my small suitcase, I felt something like a thrill, akin to the thrill I felt when packing for my first big trip with Kyle—to Las Vegas of all places. I met Kyle my sophomore year of college in a very typical way. We were both at a bar in downtown Providence. I was attending RISD, fancying myself a renowned photographer in the making. He was at Brown, fancying himself rich and successful by any means possible. Over those first drinks, he told me how he’d grown up poor, how he got a scholarship to Brown, how he was determined to make a good life for himself. He was very handsome, could have passed for Keanu Reeves’s blue-eyed brother, but I was most attracted to his drive. He had a seriousness about him, a maturity. Most of the guys I knew atRISD smoked weed and laughed at the concept of a five-year plan. My dad had always told me to find a guy with a five-year plan. Kyle had a ten-year one.

When we turned twenty-one, Kyle wanted to go to Vegas. It was something he’d just always wanted to do, he said. I knew it wouldn’t be my scene, but I wanted to be a cool girlfriend, so we went. I felt besieged the entire time—too many sounds, too many sights—but Kyle was like a kid at Disneyland, so I held my breath for the weekend and put a smile on my face. (As a side note: no one tells you that, in terms of overstimulation, every day is Vegas when you’re a mother.)

I suppose I am partially to blame for our marital problems. We were so young when we met. Our brains weren’t even fully developed. I did what so many women do—in the absence of my own identity, I accommodated his. How can he be expected to understand my needs when I spent years pretending I didn’t have any?

Now, what felt like three hundred years after that Vegas trip, I was packing to leave Kyle (and the offspring I had created with him) to visit my elderly dad and stepmom in Daly City, just outside San Francisco. I felt that flutter of excitement that comes with embarking on something new. It wasn’t the place that was new—I’d lived there, after all—but the freedom. A plane ticket, even for just myself, was too much money to rationalize, but I was looking forward to the drive, pondering taking the long route, along the coast, just to enjoy extra time to myself.

It was Friday afternoon, a few days after I’d talked to my dad and Merry. I was waiting for Kyle to officially finish his workday before I could get on the road. The girls were basket cases, not taking well to the idea of me leaving them. “Daddy doesn’t know how to do anything,” Grace moaned, which was a sound objection. Liv wailed, flopping her little body onto the floor while I packed. It was like they were in competition to show me which one of them was in more distress. I’d be lying if I said the whole show didn’t flatter my ego.

“You two will be fine. I’ll be back Sunday night. That’s in two days,” I said.

I hugged them, their bodies side by side, my arms wrapped around them. When I let go, they were caricatures of sad people, their little mouths downturned, their eyes somehow larger than usual, cheeks tear streaked. My stomach clenched, and I briefly considered canceling my trip, but decided this was as good for them as it was for me. As one of my recent parenting books reminded me, I am modeling motherhood for them. If they decide to become mothers, I want them to know it’s okay if they have lives and desires and needs separate from those of their children.

I zipped my suitcase and took it to the front door. Grace and Liv followed me, Grace stepping on my heels, Liv grasping onto my pant leg.

“You all packed?” Kyle asked.

“I think so.”

I’m sure he didn’t love the idea of me being out of town, but when aging parents and medical issues are involved, one must, for lack of a better term, suck it up. This must be in a marital handbook somewhere.

He looked at his watch. “You better get going, or you’ll be driving till midnight.”

I sighed, feigning apprehension, when really I could not wait to get out that door and into my car and on the road. The anticipation of freedom was making me all buzzy inside. I tried to control myself, to hide my ecstasy.

“I’ll text you when I get there,” I told him.

He nodded.

“Noooooooooo,” Grace said, and Liv joined in.

They each attached themselves to a leg with palpable desperation. I knelt down and pulled the three of us into another embrace, our faces smashed together.

I gave them each sloppy kisses on the cheeks and said, “I love you, you little boogers.”

That made them laugh. When in doubt, sayboogers.

“I’m not a booger. Liv is a booger,” Grace said.

“Grace is booger,” Liv said.

They were howling with happiness, which was my cue to leave.

“Drive safe,” Kyle said.

“I will.”

I blew the requisite kisses, and then I was out the door.

Free.

Daly City is somewhere people live when they can’t afford San Francisco. It’s only twenty minutes from downtown, just south of the Outer Mission. When I was a kid, I felt like a loser for living there. My dad probably could have afforded to live in San Francisco proper—he was a reputable dentist, and Merry managed his busy practice, before they sold the business and retired—but they always said they liked being on the outskirts, away from the “hullaballoo.” They shelled out for me to go to a private high school near Golden Gate Park, so all my friends were rich and brilliant and gave me a complex that I carry with me to this day.

It took me eight hours to get up there. When I pulled up to the house, Merry was standing by the front door, waiting.

“You made it,” she said.

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