AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I always knew my days on the field were numbered, but now it’s getting real. I imagined that I’d be married with maybe a kid or two when retirement came for me. I’d be ready for the next chapter. Right now—I’m not even close to ready. I’m terrified.
“You sure you’re okay? You sound off,” my mom says, pulling me out of my miserable thoughts.
I clear my throat and smile like she can see it through the line. “Yep. All good. Just wanted to see what’s up with you and Dad.” And to hear my mom’s voice because there’s lots of books out there to help you cope with over-the-top toxic parents, but few that help you navigate a complicated relationship with parents you very much love but still carry some childhood hurt from.
“Nothing much going on here!” my dad chimes in. Apparently, they’re old enough now to have entered the stealth speakerphone era. “We had lunch with your sister yesterday. She’s thriving at the new hospital.”
“I’d expect nothing less from Ginny.” My sister really is great. I don’t have anything against her—and we stay in contact for the most part. I just hate that her name is often a reminder of my shortcomings. Lately, I’ve been wondering if I get cut from the team, if my parents will look at me again like they used to.Disappointment.Frustration.Or have I finally proved myself enough to them that we’ll continue on like normal.
This call is doing the opposite of what I hoped it would do. So we talk for a few more minutes about nothing in particular and I hang up and set my phone down.
The house is so silent that the click of my phone case against the marble counter echoes like a penny dropped down a well. I already worked out today—but I’m considering going out to my home gym and doing some extra rehab exercises. Mainly because there’s nothing to do and I don’t feel like seeing friends. But instead of going right to the gym, I lie back on the counter and stare up at the ceiling and let my thoughts travel to the one place I shouldn’t.
Nora Mackenzie.
I smile, realizing I know the perfect way to fill my time and the silence.
I’m just getting home from the office after having scanned all the contract papers and digitized them post-atrocious-coffee-meeting with Derek. Of course Marty dropped by my door with his favorite man-minion, Joe, to talk down to me.Be careful, Mac. You wouldn’t want Pender to see you frowning like that. I’d keep that smile up if I were you, sweetheart.
Right, because my beauty is what got me where I am. Because a woman is only as good as her smile. But here’s the thing, I refuse to let these absolute corn nuts take the wonder out of smiling for me. To taint it. If I want to smile every damn second of my life, I will. If I wake up tomorrow and decide to never show my pearly whites again, it’s my choice. But what I won’t do is be manipulated one way or the other. So I just pretended to get a call and ignored them until they walked away.
It was an exhausting day, but now I’m home in the comfort of my lovely little abode and I sigh with relief as I unzip my jeans and drop them the second I step through the front door. They hit the ground with a satisfyingthunk.I shed my hot pink blazer next and thenscoop them both up and deposit them in my laundry hamper (sorting by color because I like to have fun in my off time).
Now I’m alone in my apartment with my polar bear undies andLet’s Go Girlsgraphic T-shirt and everything is right with the world. I refuse to allow Derek’s comment about my pantslessness to permeate my brain, because despite what he thinks, he doesn’t know me anymore. Like everyone else, he sees the flashy colors and my pinky-pink lipstick smile, and he underestimates me and what I’ve gone through to get to this place in my career.
I decide to call the one person who truly knows and understands: my mom. I wait for the line to connect while removing a pint of ice cream from the fridge along with a box of cereal from the pantry so I can make my ultimate feel-better dish: a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a dash of cinnamon sugar squares on top. I should eat dinner first, but honestly, my day was such an emotional roller coaster that I doubt even the strictest of nutritionists would blame me for counting this as my meal.
The line connects just as I’m hopping my polar bear butt up onto the counter. (No one judge me, I live alone so there’s no one here to complain about the countertop butt germs that I’ll most certainly sanitize away before bed.)
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hey, sweetie pie!” Mom says, brightly toned and out of breath.
I shove the cold spoonful of ice cream and crunchy cereal into my mouth. “Are you answering my call in your exercise class again?” I ask, my words littered with crumbs.
The instructor in the background sounds over a grainy microphone. “And kick, kick, and step, step! Faster this time!”
“Yes—but I’m still doing the moves.”
I smile down into my bowl of ice cream, imagining my mom holding her phone to her ear while attempting a high kick in aYMCA exercise class. Ever since I was little my mom has been throwing herself into every group activity under the sun.I don’t need a man to enjoy my life! That’s why community activities were invented, sweets.
She’s one of those infectious souls you can’t help but come to life around. Honestly, I have no idea how she’s still single. I’m starting to believe it’s because she genuinely prefers it. She’s had a few men come and go from her life after I hit my teenage years—but they were never anything serious. Just someone fun to spend time with now and then, but it’s always been very clear that Mom was the one holding them at arm’s length.
Because when a man doesn’t encourage you to reach for the stars, Nora Bug, he’s putting you in a glass jar to contain your light. We don’t have to settle for air through holes poked in the top of a lid. We get to become stars ourselvesis what she’d say to me with a wink after I asked why she and so-and-so broke up.
My mom has had many different career seasons in her life. Times of really going for something and times of working for my school simply so she could be home with me in the afternoons. But one thing is for certain, she’s approached each of her careers with equal drive and passion. She’s shown me that every season of life is important and that no one path is more meaningful than another.
“Anything specific you want to talk about?” she asks, panting for air.
“Uh…let’s see…was there something I wanted to talk about? Oh yeah—just one.I signed my first client today!”
My mom squeals with delight just like I knew she would. She’s always been my biggest champion—never once letting on that she resented the load that single parenting put on her. We couldn’t count on my dad to be a dad, but my mom was parent enough for both of them.
The instructor reprimands her in the background and tells her she has to leave the class if she wants to talk on the phone. She calls him a fuddy-duddy and then walks out of the class.
“Mom! Don’t leave. I can talk to you about it later.”
“Oh please. And pass up an opportunity to miss out on high kicks? No thank you. This way I still get my postclass donut but can also move and sit down on the toilet tomorrow without screaming in pain. Now, back to your client—would I have heard of him or her?”
