Enough

Chapter 3

“MOM, WHERE ARE my soccer cleats?” Marlow yells from her room.

“I think I saw them by the dog’s bed in the family room.”

Marlow thuds down the hall then rounds the corner into the kitchen. “Can you untie my shorts?” she asks.

I put the lid back on the roast and close the oven door before I bend down and sigh in frustration. “Did you make this knot?”

“Yes,” she responds. “I didn’t want them to fall down when I was running, but now I have to pee and I can’t get them off.”

I attempt to dig my nail into the fabric, but there’s no nail there to use. My nail-biting habit is out of control again.

“Mom!” I hear Kale scream from upstairs.

“Kale, if you want to talk to me, come down the stairs and speak in a normal voice.”

“I don’t want to come downstairs. I just wanted you to know that Marlow left her stinky socks on the bathroom floor.”

I sigh at Marlow as she dances from place to place. “I really have to pee, Mom,” she whispers in fear.

“Why did you leave your socks on the bathroom floor?” I ask as I manage to make a small dent in the fabric.

“They were wet.”

“Why were they wet?”

“Roscoe peed in the hall and I stepped in it.”

I stop what I’m doing and stare at my six-year-old daughter.

“What?” she asks with her hands in the air.

The timer on the oven sounds, letting me know the roast is ready.

“Mom!” Kale hollers. “Roscoe peed in the hall again.”

“Then clean it up!” I shout back in irritation.

“Eww… no way!” he responds.

The timer continues to beep when the phone rings. I stand and pull Marlow toward it. I hit answer and place it on my shoulder before bending down to return to the knot from hell. She’d make a great sailor.

“Hello?”

“Did you pay the credit card bill this month?”

“Well hi, Mike,” I respond. “I’m fine, how are you?”

“Shit, Everly, just answer the damn question.”

I sigh. “Yes, I paid it.”

“Are you sure? Because I still have a balance and I told you to pay it off.”

“Mom!” Kale yells from upstairs.

“I did pay it. I called it in a week ago.”

“Mom?” Kale shouts again.

Marlow continues to dance in front of me as I finally free her from her binds and she rushes toward the bathroom.

I stand and turn off the annoying timer.

“What’s the confirmation number?” Mike asks.

“I don’t know, Mike. I’m kinda busy right now.”

He chuckles into the phone. “You have no idea what it means to be busy. You should see my desk right now.”

I pierce my lip with my tooth and begin to form the f to my favorite word when Kale charges down the stairs. I stop myself on the consonant.

“Didn’t you hear me, Mom? I called you like a hundred times!”

“Must be nice to sit around all day while I work and claim you’re too busy to get a simple number for me.”

“Mom!” Marlow cries out. “There’s no toilet paper!”

“Mom, why are you ignoring me?” Kale asks as he pulls on my shirt.

I take a deep breath and attempt to prioritize. Asshat husband wants check number... I stare at the phone for a second as he asks “Hello?” in his annoying voice to gain my attention. I end the call. Check.

Screaming Kale has something urgent to ask. “Yes, Kale. What do you need?”

“I forgot I need to bring cookies to karate tonight.”

I close my eyes to stop myself from asking why he didn’t tell me this morning so I could have picked some up from the store. I open the pantry and grab a bag of Oreos. “Done,” I tell him.

“Those are open!” he states in utter disbelief.

I glance into the package. There are only a few missing. I’m pretty sure I ate them in the car on the way home from the store. “It’ll be fine,” I assure him. Check. He mumbles something under his breath as he makes his way back up the stairs. I’m too tired to ask him what he said.

“Mom… toilet paper?”

I hurry into the laundry room and grab the new pack, pulling off the plastic wrap. I knock on the door before I open it slightly to her shriek of horror. “I’m in here!” she yells. “Privacy!”

I roll the paper to her and close the door. Check.

No more screaming. No more angry husband. All butts are accounted for. I lean against the wall and sigh as the fire alarm blares into my ears. I turn and see smoke coming from the stove.

“Should I call 911?” Kale screams from upstairs.

“What? No, Kale! Everything’s fine!” I open the oven and take out the burning roast, waving the smoke and opening a window.

“What?” he yells over the deafening sound.

I wave my towel in the air under the smoke alarm in the hall.

“Should I exit the house from the window up here like we practiced in the fire drill?” Kale asks in a panic.

“Kale, for Christ’s sake, there’s no fire!”

“There’s a fire?” he screams.

I hustle back into the kitchen and wave the smoke toward the open window. The blaring stops and I take a calming breath, staring at the crispy roast for a moment. In the distance, I hear sirens. They seem to be getting closer. I silently pray it’s the hospital coming to take me away.

“ARE YOU KIDDING me?” Gwen asks through a laugh.

“Nope. That was my day, so far,” I respond. “I dropped Kale off at karate and now I’m sitting on the damp ground at Marlow’s soccer practice. It’s the first of the season at the park district.”

“Did the fire department come?”

“No. I think the sirens were in my head, but I was seriously freaking out that he’d called 911 for like two minutes.”

“I love that kid,” Gwen responds. “He takes after his Aunt Gwen. I would have pissed myself laughing if I were there.”

“Oh yeah. It was hysterical,” I say with a fake laugh. I dig through my purse for a piece of gum.

“Did Mike call back?” she asks.

“Yes, three times. Twice on my cell.”

“He’s such an asshole,” Gwen exclaims.

I can’t disagree, although asshole doesn’t seem like a strong enough word for what I feel for him at the moment.

I open the wrapper and shove the minty gum into my mouth.

I feel better for half a second. “He’s been downright nasty lately.

I know I don’t work a full-time job, but it’s not like I sit around all day doing nothing. ”

“You need to kick his ass to the curb. I never knew what you saw in him to begin with. You could do so much better.”

I roll my eyes, thankful Gwen can’t see me do it. I play with the wrapper in my fingers. “I’m starting to think I’m getting exactly what I deserve. I must have really wronged someone in a past life.”

“Stop! This is all on him. You give and give to him, and he just takes. It’s not fair, Ev.”

I glance down at my thighs and feel a little sick to my stomach. “I have gained some weight. Maybe he just thinks I’m fat and ugly and that’s why he wants nothing to do with me.”

“Goddammit, Everly! Do you hear yourself? Why would you want him, anyway? He treats you like shit every chance he gets.”

“Well, things have been really stressful lately. I guess I should be more understanding. He is supporting us.”

I hear Gwen sigh. I know she can’t stand Mike. I don’t blame her. She’s seen him at his worst and at his best. She isn’t impressed with either.

“He wouldn’t have to be supporting all of you if he would have agreed to let you go back to school to finish your degree instead of him going for his master’s.”

I frown. It’s a sore subject. When Kale turned three and was in preschool, I made the suggestion that I take a few classes.

Mike told me that with his busy work schedule, there wouldn’t be time for me to study and that I should wait until Kale was in school full time.

He added that he couldn’t afford to pay my school bills either, for good measure.

Never mind that I had dropped out of school to take care of Kale while Mike finished his degree.

Those two years of living with his parents still make me shudder.

They were kind enough to let us stay there rent-free but insisted they would not be “raising your kid while you gallivant all over creation.”

“I know. The plan was that I go back to school when Kale turned five, but then I got pregnant with Marlow. Since Mike’s job offered to pay his tuition, it seemed like his going back to school was the right thing to do.”

“Yeah, I know the whole story, Ev. You don’t need to stick up for him. It was all too convenient for him to never be home for Marlow’s first two years because he was supposedly studying.”

I sigh and pick at the grass under my legs.

I hold a small blade in my fingers and then stare out at the other blades throughout the park.

I imagine I’m one small sliver in a sea of thousands of pieces of grass, small and insignificant.

I glance up in time to see Marlow make a goal.

She jumps up with her legs to the side and fist pumps the air.

I laugh to myself. She has such spunk. I would have given up ten careers in a heartbeat for her.

She’s my sweetheart. She makes eye contact with me, and I smile widely at her and give her a thumbs-up.

It still warms my heart that she wants to make sure I see her every success.

“You’re so quiet,” Gwen continues. “I hope I didn’t overstep myself.

It’s just I’ve been where you are. I shouldn’t have married Alex.

Our marriage never worked, and it was good that we both got out after two years.

I know you have kids and it’s not that easy, but I just hate to see you so sad all the time. ”

I refocus on Gwen’s words and feel the ache in my chest. “You know I’ve thought about leaving him more times than I can count, but what about the kids’ needs? And where would we go? I have no job, no money, and I’m a complete mess on the outside and the inside.”

“You could go back to school and finish your degree to start. You only have one year left. The kids are both in school now. What’s holding you back?

St. Mary’s Hospital is hiring. I would totally help you.

Maybe I could talk to some people and get you on my floor.

I know it’s hard to believe, but they love me there. ”

I laugh lightly. “It’s not hard to believe at all. You talk about my being hard on myself… What about you? You’re beautiful, kind, giving, and super smart. Of course they like you!”

“Yeah, whatevs. If I’m so great, how come I haven’t had sex in three years, much less been on any dates?”

I sigh. “You need to leave your house to go on a date!”

“Why would I want to do that? I have movies, popcorn, Nutella, and a nice warm blanket.”

I shake my head. “Sex, remember?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s what Bob is for.”

I almost choke on my gum. “Bob?”

“My battery-operated boyfriend. He doesn’t complain and makes me come on demand. What more can a girl ask for?”

“Oh, Gwen.” I laugh. “What about that dating website?”

“I don’t know…” She pauses. “How about you sneak out this weekend and come over. If you’ll help me set it up, I’ll do it, but you have to write my bio. I suck at that stuff.”

“Deal!” I exclaim excitedly, but secretly I wonder how I’ll get away.

“Seriously though, you should really consider finishing your classes. You don’t have many left in order to graduate.”

I ponder her words for a moment and energy surges inside me.

Maybe she’s right. When she tells me about her day and her patients, I feel so sad.

I’ve wanted to be a nurse all my life. We discuss patients and procedures so much that sometimes I feel like I’m already working with her.

I could still do it, right? I ask myself.

I’m only thirty. As soon as I say thirty, I feel an ache in my back.

Am I too old? I wonder what Mike will say when I ask him if I can.

I shake my head angrily. Why should I have to ask?

This is my life. It’s time I do something for myself for once.