She marveled, not for the first time, at a world where you had to pass an elaborate series of tests to drive a car, but even people who had never changed a diaper could walk out of the hospital with a new baby, no questions asked.
Digging into her purse, she searched for her cell phone. She needed to talk to her husband.
Though he couldn’t plan a birthday party or be trusted to buy the right kind of chicken nuggets at the grocery store, they were volunteers in the same two-person army, sharing the same almost-impossible mission: to raise healthy, kind, emotionally balanced humans in an often unhealthy, unkind, unbalanced world.
She was pretty sure God had created Adam for this purpose. So he could lie and tell Eve the kids would be just fine, even when they were both positive their offspring would end up in jail, in a cult, or running an illegal Bitcoin-mining operation from the family basement, where they would still be living at age thirty-five.
She punched Garrett’s number into her phone, and he picked up on the fourth ring. “Hey. Just heading into a meeting. What’s up?”
“Luke got into a fight.”
A beat of silence. Then, “Hold on.” She could hear his voice, muffled now, telling someone he’d be there in a second. “A fight? You’re sure?”
“Matt told me. Just now.”
A slow exhale on the end of the line. “Okay. We’ll deal with it when I get back.”
“Garrett.”
“Yes?”
“What if this move was a huge mistake?”
Another pause, followed by an impatient sigh. “Look, I’m about to head into a meeting with fifty ranchers who are terrified they won’t be able to feed their herds or their families next year because it hasn’t rained in six months and their pastures are burnt to a crisp. I can’t talk about this right now. I’m sorry.”
“I just ... I didn’t know it would be like this.” The admission filled her with shame. She felt like a homesick child, instead of the capable woman she wanted to be, the strong adult her husband and sons needed her to be.
A long pause on the other end, then her husband’s voice, gentle now, but with the faintest hint of an accusation. “Look, we knew this transition might be hard. But we said we’d give our family thisopportunity for two years. Museums. A chance to live fifteen minutes from the nation’s capital. Exposure to different people and cultures and a different way of life. We made this decisiontogether.”
She wanted to reach through the phone, through time and space, and wrap her hands around his neck and strangle him.
Because he was right.
She desperately wanted to blame him for this decision, but she couldn’t because they had made it together.
She’d encouraged him to take this job.
The arguments came flooding back, arguments that came from her own mouth.You’ll be in a position to make policy that helps farmers and ranchers and small towns. We’ll be living five minutes from Mount Vernon and twenty minutes from the Capitol. So much history! Such a great opportunity for the boys.
Think of all the good you can do in this position.
She’d actually said that. She’d been so stupid.
And it was a chance to break away, for just a couple of years, from the grandparents and aunts and uncles and in-laws who dropped in unannounced at all hours of the day and night, who helped enormously but also made constant well-intended suggestions, criticisms, and observations.
James spends an awful lot of time playing thatMinecraftgame.
Maybe Luke doesn’t have dyslexia. Maybe he just eats too much sugar.
When I was their age, I had chores. These boys don’t do enough to help around the farm.
This move to DC was supposed to provide a break from all that. A chance to parent without the peanut gallery.
But as it turned out, the peanut gallery provided an awful lot of free, high-quality childcare. Not to mention homecooked meals, rides to practice, help memorizing the multiplication tables, and love.
“I gotta go,” Garrett said, breaking into her thoughts. “I’m sorry, honey. But we’ll deal with it when I get home, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered. She knew she should utter the two quick words that normally ended their calls, should force herself to mutterLove youeven if she didn’t mean it, especially if she didn’t mean it.
