Chapter 4
One week later
I added another thing to my “What I Want” list.
It’s a biggie. It’s probably going to have its own list underneath it.
My “What I Want” list, so far, is—
I want a job or career I love.
I want friends. Real ones.
I want to live in a new city.
I want a dog.
I want to figure out who I am—apart from a wife and a mom.
I want a place where I fit in. I want a place where I belong.
I want a hobby.
And now, the last and latest one is . . .
I want to do the things that scare me.
When I wrote it, I wasn’t thinking of cliff diving in Acapulco, or lying in a coffin while arachnologists dump buckets of
tarantulas on me.
I was thinking of simple things. Going out to dinner by myself. Striking up a conversation with a stranger. Trying new foods.
No big deal, right?
I’ve eaten alone before—unfortunately, it was junk food while stalking. After everything that happened, I did everything I could not to be noticed.
Not anymore. Time to figure out what I want, and I’m hoping stepping out of my comfort zone will lead me there.
Or I’ll hate it.
But at least I’ll know, right?
The weight of the past year suddenly comes crashing in on me, and I’m momentarily mentally paralyzed.
I can’t do this.
Then, just when I expected it the least and needed it the most, I get a text from Minnie.
It’s a selfie of her on the London Bridge, grinning so wide it makes my heart skip a beat.
I love her in this photo, and my heart aches to be around her. I reach down with two fingers and zoom in on her face when my phone
vibrates again.
Minnie: Living my best life!
I stare at the words, marveling at how I managed to raise a daughter who doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything, and I wonder
what she thinks of who I’ve become.
Claire: It’s so beautiful! Are you having fun?
Minnie: The best time, Mom! You should come visit!
Claire: Maybe I will!
Minnie: How’s Chicago? Have you seen a lot of the city yet?
Claire: Not yet, but I’m on my way to eat right now.
Somewhere I’ve never been.
Food I’ve never tried.
I’m terrified.
And I am. Lists are great and all, but they’re on paper, and you can cross them out or rip them up, no damage done.
Doing the things on the list? Actually doing them?
Terrifying.
Minnie: Good. You deserve to have an adventure of your own.
Those words hit. Do I deserve it?
Yes, my relationship fell apart in an epically awful way, but I don’t know if the universe owes me some great debt.
Claire: I’ve had plenty of adventures this past year . . . What I need now is a little bit of calm.
My phone buzzes in my hand, and Minnie’s face pops up on the screen. I answer the FaceTime call with a smile. “Hey, you!”
“Mom,” Minnie says in a stern voice. “We need to redefine ‘adventure.’”
“I’d rather hear about Oxford.”
“I’ll tell you all about Oxford, but first we need to talk about you.”
I groan. “You know that’s not my favorite subject.” I prop the phone up and pull on my jacket, then stick my AirPods in my
ears.
I know what’s coming. I’ve had many pep talks from my daughter over the last several months, and it’s not how I want our relationship
to go. She doesn’t need to be taking care of me—it needs to be the other way around.
“Finding out your husband is cheating on you and then hiding in your house for almost a year is not an adventure.”
“I know, Amelia,” I drone. I pick up the phone, then open the door of the apartment to step out into the courtyard. “Look,
I’m on my way to have an adventure right now!”
Minnie squints, like she’s trying to decide if this counts, and finally relents. “Okay . . . So, how’s the new place?”
I flip my camera around to show Minnie the courtyard and the building.
“Ooh! Nice!” she says. “There’s a spot right in the middle to sit? Do they let you grow things out there? What kind . . .
Whoa.”
Her tone changes, and I see on my phone’s screen that as I was panning over, the door of my across-the-courtyard neighbor
opened and a tall brunette stepped out. There’s a man with her, and judging by his bare feet and unkempt hair, he’s the one
who lives there.
Miles.
“Scandal!” Minnie whispers.
I click the button to turn the video back around, eliciting an “Aww, come on . . .” from Minnie. I face the phone in a different direction to give the impression that I’m not filming them, aware that
I might be creeping on a private moment. Still, I can’t help but toss a sideways glance in their direction.
The man I assume is Miles gives the woman a quick hug—not a romantic one—and then lifts a hand in a wave. The whole scene
turns awkwardly platonic.
“Is that your neighbor? Did you just film a walk of shame?”
“It’s 5:00 p.m.,” I say. “So I hope not.”
She giggles. “He looked kind of hot?”
“Amelia Joy!” I glance back up and find the man standing in his doorway, watching me.
I hear Minnie quip, “Yikes, whipping out the middle name, that’s bold . . .” as the man lifts his hand in that same lazy wave. I wave back, feeling conflicted about whether to go introduce myself.
I’m almost thankful when he doesn’t give me the chance. He closes his door, and the woman disappears through the front gate.
“You know, since we’re talking about you having adventures . . .”
I groan, worried I know where this is headed.
“You’re going to start dating again, right?” Minnie asks. “Because I—”
“Minnie—”
“What? It’s not like Dad’s wasting any time moving on.”
“Dad moved on while we were still married,” I say dryly, then hold up a hand as if to suggest I’m taking that back. “Sorry.
I’m not trying to be ugly about your dad. Not to you anyway.”
“He cheated on me too,” she says plainly.
That revelation stops me.
“He did, didn’t he,” I say, almost to myself.
There’s a sadness behind her smile, and I recognize it because I feel it too.
I’d much rather connect with my daughter over literally any other subject . . . but for now, this is where we are. Someday,
hopefully, we’ll both get past it.
She’s sitting on her bed in her little dorm room in England, and I wish I could jump through the screen and hug her.
“I’m proud of you, Mom.”
The words catch me so off guard, I stop moving. I’m frozen on the sidewalk just a few yards from the front gate, staring at
her face on the screen in my hand. “You are?”
“Yeah. You’ve had a lot of crap to deal with in the last year. But this change? This one’s good,” she says. “It’s the first
one that feels like a choice.”
A choice. My choice. I smile at that, suddenly emotional.
“That means a lot to me, Min. Thank you.” I blink to keep the tears from falling.
“And you know that me being here and starting over or whatever—it’s not because I regret anything.
I don’t regret having you or raising you or choosing motherhood over any career I thought I’d have.
” A career that never felt like the right fit anyway .
. . Advertising may have been the plan, but it was clear that was John’s world, not mine.
“Duh. Because I’m awesome.”
I smile. “Yeah, you really are.”
She leans in toward the camera, her face filling my screen. “But, Mom, you launched me. Your job here is done. When I get
back, we can go shopping and hang out like friends . . . but for now, you can be a little selfish, you know? You’ve never
done a selfish thing in your whole life. You’ve earned the right.”
“So basically you’re telling me to get a life?”
She makes a show of snapping her jaw shut and looking back and forth, as if to say, I’m not saying a word, even though she’s said plenty.
“Okay, I have to go get ready,” she says.
“Wait,” I say, doing a quick calculation. If it’s a little after 5:00 p.m. here, then . . . “Isn’t it after eleven there?”
“Yes, Granny, but this is when things are happening.”
I grimace, suddenly uncomfortable knowing that my daughter is going to be out late in a foreign country with people I don’t
know. It’s so much easier to launch a child when you’re still a little in the dark.
“Before you go—what I was going to say before, about dating—”
“I thought we’d moved off that subject,” I say, wishing we could move off that subject.
“I just thought you should know that”—she inhales a deep breath—“I created a dating profile for you. I’ll send you all the
details so you can log in! Love you, bye!”
“Amelia Joy!”
The power of the middle name has no effect. She’s hung up.
Seconds later, a link to an app, along with login details, shows up in my text messages.
A dating app? Really?
I stare at Minnie’s text and scrunch my lips together. Why am I moderately curious about this? Is it because I’ve never even
opened a dating app? Because this is how so many people meet their partners these days? Or because deep down, there’s a part
of me that wonders if maybe one day I might actually fall in love again?
My finger hovers over the link, like I’m about to pull the trigger on something that can’t be undone.
And before I can talk myself out of it, I tap it.
A website pops up, prompting me to download the app: Matched.
And that’s when my sense of adventure turns cold. I’ll have to add this to my list later—but right now? It feels a little
too scary.
I click my phone off and tuck it into my bag, then look up at the neighborhood in front of me. It rained recently and is unseasonably
warm. The kind of weather that makes sun-starved Midwesterners rush to be outdoors, probably in shorts, saying things like,
“Yeah, the rain’s a lot, but boy, the grass sure needed it. Ope, lemme scoot right past ya.”
I turn the corner and find myself walking straight toward a group of young women, probably in their late twenties. There are
four of them, dressed like they just got off work, and my knee-jerk assumption is that they have everything all figured out.
They’re a visual representation of confidence, and for some reason, mine shrinks at the sight of them.
They’re young. They’ve got years stretching out in front of them, and they can do anything with those years.
I’ll never be able to go back to the days when the world seemed to be mine for the taking. The years I spent in college, mapping
out my life plan, and the years of watching every aspect of that plan break off in a detour are still too fresh for me to
ignore.
But more than that—these women have no idea yet how cruel life can be.
And I don’t have that luxury. The luxury of not knowing.
How do I start over with the aftertaste of fresh failure so prominent on my tongue?
The truth is, you can plan all you want, but you can’t account for the curveballs. The one pitch I still haven’t learned to
hit.
I reach the corner at the same time as the group of women, and my eyes snag on the patio of a local restaurant across the
street. I scan the tables while I wait for the light to change.
A toddler screams and tosses a toy on the ground. A group of guys let out a loud laugh, like they’ve all just gotten the punchline
of a joke at the same time. A man and woman sit on the same side of a table, engrossed in only one thing, in spite of the
busyness around them—each other.
There are no single diners at this restaurant. Everyone is paired off or in a group.
Everyone has someone.
And I’m on my own.
Suddenly, eating alone doesn’t feel brave.
It feels embarrassing.
My pulse quickens and my face heats, the way it does sometimes when I start to feel anxious, and as the light changes, a small
crowd of people, including the group of women, maneuver around me to cross the street.
But I don’t move.
I can’t move.
What if I can’t figure out how to make it here? What if city life isn’t for me? Why did I think this was a good idea?
The light cycles through, and a man walking a beagle gives me a sideways glance. His dog stops in front of me, wagging its
tail, pulling on the leash, excited to meet someone new.
I can’t even muster a “who’s a good boy” and a pat.
I can’t even meet a stranger when that stranger is a friendly little beagle.
I shake my head, step back onto the sidewalk, and bolt in the direction of my apartment.
John’s voice plays on a continuous loop at the back of my mind.
“You’re making a huge mistake.”
What if he was right?
What if I was wrong?
What if . . . ?
Then Minnie’s voice cuts through the noise.
“I’m proud of you, Mom . . . It’s the first one that feels like a choice.”
A choice.
My choice.
“No, Claire,” I say to myself quietly as I pass a young mom pushing a stroller. “You can do this. You just need more time.”
Right. That’s it.
Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow, I’ll feel ready.
I hope.