8. Sarah
Work was stressful today, dealing with a few patients who were less than thrilled to be staying in the hospital longer than they thought, and I was bushed. So, when Mom invited Emily and me to have dinner with her, Dad, and Nev, I agreed to join them. It beat having to cook something for us myself, and I enjoyed the family time, even if Dad was a bit overprotective and Mom a bit of a helicopter.
We sat around their small oval table as Mom served dinner to us, passing the serving dishes around for us to take our own helpings. I gave Emily smaller portions of everything, including a half of a breadstick to go along with her spaghetti. She was hungry and didn”t want to wait for me to cut her noodles up, so she picked up the breadstick and started eating right away.
“Oh, baby, one sec and I’ll cut your spaghetti, okay?” I passed the plate of breadsticks off to Dad, who scowled at the way Emily used her hands. He was the type of person who cut his breadsticks with his fork and knife rather than picking them up, but I didn’t mind that Emily still used her fingers.
“Oh dear, no, no!” Mom rushed right over to Emily’s spot at the table and took the breadstick away, then tore it into tiny pieces and dropped them onto her plate one by one.
“Mom, what are you doing?” I asked, chuckling. As Emily’s regular babysitter when I was at work, Mom spent a lot of time with her. She was approaching her fifth birthday and had been eating breadsticks without having them torn up for her for years. “She can just take bites.”
I had to lean out of the way as Mom reached down to put the last few bits of torn bread onto Emily’s plate, and then she proceeded to cut her food for her, despite the fact that as her mother, I was sitting right next to her and was more than capable. It bothered me a little, which was why I’d had more than one conversation about things just like this with my parents in the past.
Those conversations had led to me “renting” the mother-in-law suite from them so I’d have more privacy. But it was still a bit annoying to me that they thought of themselves as Emily’s parents, cutting me out of the picture at times. I was sure they never meant to. It was probably just a natural reaction to being good parents and having a small child in the house with them again.
“She could choke, dear. I’m just helping.” Mom finished her task and returned to her own seat, and Dad grunted a very dissatisfied sound as he took a bite of his meal.
The room, still the same blue floral wallpaper and honey-maple chair-railed walls that I grew up with, felt suffocating. My desire to be independent and just be an adult was stifled by their need to “help” me, which always looked a lot more like telling me how to live my life than actual help. Nev and I exchanged glances, but she avoided eye contact with my parents when things like this happened. At twenty-one, she still had very little freedom to do as she pleased, though she’d been an adult for three years. They were paying for her college tuition and gave her free room and board. There was no way she could afford her own place.
I, however, made more than enough to afford things, especially now with the job at St. Anne’s, and I’d considered getting my own apartment a number of times. But I kept my head down while I ate and helped Emily when she needed something.
“So, how is the new job working out?” Dad asked, his tone gravelly and dry. My Dad was a stern, serious man. His identical twin brother died when he was only nine years old, a horrible accident involving a power tool, though Dad never told us details about it. I knew it was too painful for him, especially considering his father took it so hard that he left him and his mother and he grew up largely without a father until his mother remarried when he was sixteen.
“Uh, really well,” I said nervously. I wondered if Nev had said anything about Michael and how I’d bumped into him again. Mom and Dad knew very little about Emily’s father, only what I’d told them years ago. I wasn’t certain who the father was, which was an outright lie, but better than telling them he was fifteen years older than me and that I was keeping her a secret.
For years now, Dad has assumed the father ran off and I was protecting him, and I never corrected that assumption. Now, with the weight of working with Michael hanging over my head, I knew it was inevitable that they’d find out the entire truth. I sort of wanted to be out on my own when that happened, with Emily in real daycare, not at my parents’ house every day. It would allow me the distance I needed to process their reactions, rather than living basically under their roof while they were angry and taking it out on me.
“Think you’re going to stick to this one?” he asked, and though I knew he didn’t mean that to be hurtful, it was. He’d had the same job for twenty-five years, a position at a factory that he’d earned as he worked his way up the ladder. There was definitely something to be said about his loyalty and work ethic, but my career path was mine to choose, not his. I knew he disapproved of how I left the children’s hospital to go to St. Anne’s, but this place had better benefits and more promise for a career path.
“Yes, Dad…” His desire to see me succeed was always communicated in the wrong way, making me feel like he didn’t notice how hard I worked. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it was getting more challenging the older I got. “I’m thinking of moving closer to the hospital. My commute is so long now.” I plunged my fork into my noodles and spun it around, winding the long strands of spaghetti onto the tines.
“Oh dear, you’ll just have twice the commute, then.” Mom gestured with her hand as she spoke, waving her fork in the air. “Driving from that side of town to here just to drop Emily off.”
Nev cleared her throat, and I looked up from my ducked-head position to see her roll her eyes. She and I were a lot alike in this regard. Both of us understood how our parents’ controlling demeanor was a detriment to our relationship.
“Well, I’m thinking of putting her in preschool daycare.” The words slipped off my tongue without my permission, and I knew how it would come across.
Mom’s silent pout and the soft sigh she breathed out told me enough, but when Dad started in, I felt like picking Emily up and rushing out.
“A girl needs a father in her life, Sarah. Emily has no male role model at all. She’s better here where she belongs. Besides, you”ll have all those bills. I think staying here is what’s best for her.”
I wanted to protest his statement, but there was no point. It would only lead to an argument, and I didn’t want to argue in front of Emily at all. I knew Dad felt strongly about that and why he did, and I didn’t fully disagree, but he was not Emily’s father and the man who was her father had reentered my life in a whirlwind.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, letting him continue as I stayed lost in thought.
“You know you could find a man, settle down. Then you wouldn’t have to work either. Be a stay-at-home mom and really raise that little girl right.”
Dad’s ramblings annoyed me for the most part because of his traditional, conservative view that women should be homemakers and wives, but I wanted more. I didn’t disagree that a mother played a very crucial role in rearing and raising children, but I didn’t want my daughter to grow up thinking all she could ever be was a mom. I wanted to chase my dream of being a nurse and helping save lives. And I wanted to set an example of being a strong woman with a balanced life.
As Dad dived off into the realm of what was “good and right”, I considered Michael’s strange comment the other night. He said he wanted something “more”, though I wasn’t sure what he meant. Part of me had to believe he only meant more sex or more of what we were already doing. After all, he was in his mid-thirties and still not in a committed relationship. However, part of me believed with all my heart that he wanted more of me, a relationship.
But I didn’t think for a second that he’d stick around once he learned Emily was his, at least not for a relationship. What man in his right mind would even consider a relationship with a liar? Because that was what I was. A liar and a cheat. I’d kept him from his daughter during her most formative years, first steps, first teeth, first words. He missed so much, and it was all my fault, and now he wanted back in and didn’t even know she existed.
Heat flushed my cheeks and I felt like I would cry. I looked down at Emily’s plate to see it empty and her chubby hands wrapped around her cup as she sipped juice. She was filthy, hands covered in sauce and face smeared with grease from the cheesy breadstick she’d had. She was such a good eater, I never had to worry about making her eat her dinner.
But mine was mostly untouched. My stomach protested even a single bite after all of that conversation which my parents meant as helpful and encouraging, but which left me feeling dejected and down.
“I’m going to get her a bath now,” I said, pushing my plate back, but Mom was instantly on her feet, protesting.
“I can do it. You sit and eat.” She reached for Emily, but I scooped her up and pulled her onto my lap quickly.
“No, Mom. You cooked. You finish eating. My stomach hurts tonight, so I think I’ll just head back to the apartment and clean Em up for bed. Thank you for cooking.” I stood and didn’t even wait to be excused from the table. I had to get out of there before thoughts of Michael swarmed again and made me start bawling my eyes out.
Once I had Emily in her bath and cleaned up, I sat back and let her play a little. She splashed and giggled, and I thought of how we’d do life without my parents around.
“Baby, do you want to go to school? Maybe find a new home where we can get you your own big-girl bed?” Obviously, I would never leave the decision to move in the hands of my toddler, but she was a huge part of the decision-making process. I knew she loved her Nana and Pop, and not seeing them as much would affect her.
“Yes, but I still sweep wif you sometime… But I want big girl bed. I want pink. I want yewow, and I want gween!” She splashed more, sending water droplets up into the air. They doused me in a spray of lukewarm moisture, and I wiped my face clean as I smiled at her.
“Alright, missy, it’s time to get out. Let’s get pajamas.” I grabbed a towel and managed to pry her out of the bath after a few minutes of coaxing. As I dried her off and dressed her, we discussed school and what that meant for her. She seemed to enjoy entertaining the idea of a school or daycare, though she had no idea what it would really mean for her and wouldn’t until she was in the thick of it.
But I knew it would mean independence for me, and finally, a chance to show everyone I could be self-sustaining. It would also mean more privacy for me, in case something really did work out with Michael. I wasn”t holding my breath that anything long-term would develop, but hope lingered against all odds.
I read my little girl a story and tucked her into bed, and she dozed off. Then I dressed in my own nightgown and shut the lights off, and just as I was setting the alarm on my phone to wake me for work, I got a text message from an unknown number. Confused, I swiped over to the messaging app to see who it was.
Michael 8:34 PM: Hey, Sarah, it’s Michael. I hope you don’t mind. I got your number from your employee file.
I stared at the screen not knowing what to think. He’d gone into my personnel file to look up my number? But why? If this was just casual sex, he’d never have done that, which meant he really was serious about me. I didn’t know whether to be excited that he genuinely liked me and wanted something “more” or be terrified that he’d find out about Emily and hate me. My heart already felt like it was in it too deeply.
But as I stared at the phone trying to decide whether to respond, he messaged again.
Michael 8:36 PM: I wanted to ask if you’ll go to dinner with me Saturday? There’s this Japanese steakhouse I’ve been wanting to check out.
My thumbs hovered over the screen, waiting. Michael was smart and successful. Obviously, incredibly good-looking. He knew how to make my body come alive with arousal, and he hadn’t left me feeling unsatisfied, but there was this secret. And his grumpy streak. There were as many cons as there were pros, and I didn’t know what to do. I liked him, but did I want to keep doing this—seeing him casually outside of work—when I knew my heart was getting attached? And especially when I knew he would be so upset when I told him the truth of our past.
Michael 8:39 PM: Don’t overthink it. Just let me know.
I sighed when the latest message came in and really did start overthinking. It wasn’t just as complicated as my heart and how I felt, or my secret and how it would affect the future of “us”, or even Emily and what would happen with her. We also both had to think about our jobs. Telling HR we were dating meant a red stamp on our employee files. We’d be under scrutiny constantly. People would gossip about us, and I had zero tolerance for any drama.
But despite all of that, the memory of our night together years ago just kept coming back to me. Michael was perfect for me. I didn’t know if I’d ever meet another man with whom I could click so easily. It felt right when I was with him.
So, my thumbs flew across the screen and I hit Send before I changed my mind. No risk, no reward, right?
Sarah 8:41 PM: Yes. You can pick me up at six.
Now I had three full workdays to wrap my mind around how to navigate this growing emotion and connection we were nurturing while figuring out how to tell him something that could destroy it all.
Because the moment he met Emily, he’d know. She looked too much like him to deny it.