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It was so much less than what I once hoped for, and yet in a bittersweet way it made me think of my dad. Did he give up a promising career to put me first, when my mother got sick when I was so little? I don’t actually know. He never said, and to my shame I never asked. But now I wonder, and if it is true, I know he would say it was worth it, in an instant. Just as I would. I don’t have that old ambition any more. Most days I don’t miss it.
Occasionally I torment myself with the what-ifs. Never for more than a second or two, and those seconds shame me. But yes, I have them, just as I believe every working mother does. How can we not? You give up everything – baking cookies, being promoted. No woman can have it all, and so essentially you end up with two halves of nothing, always feeling inadequate even as you know you wouldn’t change a thing.
I push such pointless thoughts away as I sit at my desk on Monday morning, pry open the lid of my daily skim latte and breathe in the comforting steam. I have two start-ups to research – a personal stylist app that’s probably no different than a dozen others that have sprouted up in recent years, except perhaps a bit flashier, and a company started by a woman in her mid-fifties in Indiana, selling child-friendly kitchen gadgets out of her garage.
I’m particularly taken with the self-heating knife to cut butter and the no-blade fruit slicer, all the quirky tools in fun, bright colors that appeal to kids.
It’s the kind of company that Harrow and Heath wouldn’t look at for a moment –grassroots, woman-led, family-oriented. I’m amazed it’s even appeared on my radar, but Betty Mills has got a lot of good press lately – just local and indie stuff, but still. I sip my latte and wonder if presenting this kind of company to the partners would tank my career even more. Do I have any lower to fall? Do I care?
Sara is still with me at least; she stayed even when it was obvious I was being sidelined, and then demoted. She pokes her head into my office to tell me my meeting with a hopeful start-up tech company, a dime a dozen these days, is waiting.
At lunch my cell rings and I see it’s Dorothy. A tightness starts in my chest – a sign of my rising blood pressure. Please, please let her not be calling in sick. Not last minute.
She isn’t, I find out seconds later. She’s quitting.
‘I’m sorry,’ Dorothy says, and she does sound genuinely regretful, a hint of tears in her voice. She’s been with Isaac his whole life. ‘But my daughter’s getting divorced. She needs all the help she can get.’
‘You’re moving,’ I state numbly, even though it’s obvious. My mind spins. I’ve always counted on Dorothy, the one constant in our lives.
‘Yes. I have to move to Chicago.’
‘Chicago…’
‘I’m sorry,’ Dorothy says again. ‘She called me this morning. I didn’t realize how bad it had become, with—well...’ Dorothy sighs heavily. She’s told me a bit about her daughter over the years; the husband’s a drinker, three little kids, a history of depression. ‘She needs me, Grace. I’m sorry. I’m flying out on Thursday.’
‘I understand, Dorothy, of course I do…’ But Thursday? That’s in three days. What on earth am I going to do?
‘I know it’s not much warning,’ Dorothy says hurriedly. ‘But I have to.
My daughter… she’s not doing well, Grace. I really am sorry. I wish I could give you more notice.’
After the call I sit there, my phone in my hand, reeling. Dorothy, gone. Just like that, after seven years. She taught Isaac to walk, she took him to toddler groups, she sat by his bedside through childhood fevers and a frightening bout of pneumonia when his lungs took a serious beating. She’s been there as much as I have and, if I’m torturously honest, sometimes more. And now, just like that, she’s gone.
I can’t even think how Isaac will react, and more urgently, what’s going to happen after Thursday. Hiring a nanny takes weeks, if not months. I’m in serious trouble.
I don’t have time to think about it, though, because work has to take priority if I want to keep the job I do have, never mind any chance of upward mobility. That night I get home by six thirty, early for me, already exhausted even though it’s only Monday.
Dorothy meets me at the door the moment she hears my key in the lock. ‘Everything all right?’ I ask, and she nods.
‘Yes, I’ve just got to leave on time tonight, with my trip to plan.’
I lower my voice. ‘Have you told Isaac?’
Dorothy shakes her head. ‘No, I wanted to wait. You let me know what you want to do.’ She smiles comfortingly, the way she has when I’ve felt clueless and panicked, when I looked to her the way I would have to my mom, to tell me what to do, or at least to tell me I’m doing okay.
‘Right. Okay. I’ll tell him tonight.’ I gulp at the thought. I need to get Dorothy a parting gift, and make Isaac write a card, and right then it all feels like too much. I haven’t ever really wanted a husband, a full-time partner, but occasionally I’d like to be able to say to someone ‘You do it’.
I haven’t dated once since having Isaac. There hasn’t been the time, and I’ve never felt the need. I’m used to being alone in that way, and I have Isaac. But occasionally I feel the absence, and I wish things had turned out a little differently. That there had been someone, that I’d found him. But mostly I tell myself it doesn’t matter, because Isaac and I are a team.
As it turns out Isaac doesn’t seem to mind Dorothy leaving all that much. He blinks and nods, and I gaze into his serious, little face, wanting him to understand the import.
‘Isaac, do you understand what I’m saying? Dorothy’s moving away to be with her daughter. We’re not going to see her any more.’
‘I know.’ He stares at me, wide-eyed and accepting, utterly unruffled, and it bothers me a little. I would have preferred tears, even a tantrum. At moments like this I have to keep myself from being reminded of Kevin, that blank-eyed stare, the hint of surly impatience in the set of his mouth. I hate those reminders, that his genes aren’t mine, that someone else’s blood flows through him, that maybe I can’t shape him the way I want to.
‘Okay. I thought maybe you could make her a card.’
‘Okay.’
