33
“You know it’s your mom’s birthday tomorrow,” I say to Adam as we race through another morning.
We step around each other pouring coffee, wiping little faces and hands, eating bites of toast. It’s really our only time to talk to each other lately because he’s under pressure at work. Bell International keeps merging with smaller construction companies. Great for business, but it means long hours. Adam isn’t home for dinner every night anymore so I have to check in with him in the mornings.
“Yeah,” he says.
Sally, who stayed the night again since Dad’s traveling, gets up to go grab her things.
“Don’t forget the binder you took out back!” I call to her.
“I knoooow,” She says back. I’m pretty sure I hear her mutter, “So annoying.” But I try to block it out. I turn back to Adam.
“And then the next day Loretta has a doctor’s appointment, so she’s off early so my dad is pitching in, which means he’ll feed them dinner and I’ll head there after work.” He doesn’t respond but I have my list, so I press on. “I also saw on the calendar you have the last of the Remington merger meetings in the afternoon Thursday, is that going to run into Jonathan’s play? It’s early, starts at the school right at six.”
“We know!” He almost yells at me, his phone buzzing in his hand. “You told us, okay? I already got like fifty notifications for each of those things. An email, a calendar alert and a damn text too.”
He looks at the boys then sighs and looks down, angry. I don’t say anything, he knows I hate when he cusses in front of the kids. They’re watching Bluey while they eat, though. I don’t think they heard him. Sally did, though.
I wince and close my eyes. Sorry, Mom. I’m doing my best here.
I open them to see him looking back at me. He lowers his voice. “I just don’t understand why I need to get all these reminders. Like, my mom’s birthday? Why is that on there? Just tell me the kids’ stuff.”
I start to explain but he goes on, showing me his phone.
“I mean, do you hear this thing? It never stops. It buzzes all day and if I turn it off, it’ll be the one time you call me with an actual emergency and I’ll miss it and then you’ll be pissed!”
“Oh, well, okay then, if we have an emergency, I’ll try not to call.” I hate how bitter I sound.
“Susan.” He says my name like an accusation. “You know what I mean. I don’t want to miss your call, I want there to be less calls! Less pop ups and reminders and invites. Just take me off all of that crap.”
We stand and fume at each other, realizing we are teetering on the edge of a bigger, meaner fight. A fight about years of me nagging, him grousing, both of us unhappy and unable to come right out and talk about our feelings. A fight we don’t have the time or energy for.
“Please.” His voice is soft now, but still tense. “I’m asking you. Just only put the kids' stuff. Stuff I can’t miss.”
“Fine.”
“Thank you.” He turns and heads to the garage, yelling back. “C’mon, buddy, let's get your shoes. Sally, time to go.”
He doesn’t come back for a kiss goodbye.
Actually, when was the last time he kissed me goodbye?
Or that we kissed, period?
I know he’s frustrated. There have been very few sex windows since That One Time That Must Not Be Mentioned months ago. We both work long hours and the conversations we do have tend to revolve around reminders, activities, errands, chores…
Really just me pestering him.
I guess I also nag him digitally, too.
Well, that’s easily fixed.
I open my phone and remove Adam from all of the calendars. There are quite a few because unlike him, I like to have it all. I want my appointments, his meetings, Loretta’s schedule, birthdays, milestones, family obligations, school dates and all the boys’ extracurriculars in one master calendar. This is how I never miss anything or double book us. If calendar coordination was an Olympic sport I would win gold. No question.
Stuff I can’t miss .
Like he wants to skip things, but can’t. Like everything about our life bothers him. I’m sure that’s not actually the case but damn, it’s got to be pretty close. He’s so crotchety all the time. And it can’t just be the fatigue because he gets way more sleep than I do. Way more breaks.
I don’t know how to fix whatever is pissing him off.
Well, I guess I know this one way. I keep tapping through the options on my apps.
I sigh and feel my eyes sting.
“Mama? Are you sad?” Eli asks, big brown eyes looking just like his daddy’s.
“What? No, buddy, I’m just tired.”
And, yes, sad.
And tired—of just being another annoyance in Adam’s day. I’m tired of how our interactions are now. I feel like we don’t talk much anymore but, well, he never talked much to begin with and, honestly, what’s there to talk about?
He doesn’t want to hear about my job anymore. He definitely doesn’t want to talk about his job when he gets home. I think that’s why we don’t do our scheduled date nights anymore. Nothing to talk about. Or I’d talk and he’d half listen, half check his phone. Neither of us really shut off when we leave the office, or on weekends.
Most nights we tackle dinner then he plays with the boys while I clean up, we tag-team bedtime and then Adam is back on his phone. Working, but also reading news, watching sports highlights.
We do talk about the boys some. Funny things they said or did. Milestones reached.
Mostly, though, we’re ships in the night.
Except, I guess, when I bother him.
I double check that I removed Adam from all of the calendars. Including those monthly date nights, since we’ve been skipping them anyway. I go back and manually add him to the boys’ events that I can see in the next month, then add a reminder for myself to add him to the boys’ events for the next ninety days later when I have more time.
It feels heavy. Lonely. Like removing him from these things means he’s not “in it” with me.
But that’s silly.
This is a good thing.
He’ll be less annoyed and hopefully less resentful.
Things will get better.
_____
Adam: Where are you guys?
Susan: My dad’s birthday dinner
Adam: At the house or the club?
Susan: It was at the house, but we are loading up to come home already
I tuck my phone into my pocket and load the infant car seat, trying not to wake the sleeping toddler in the other seat.
Adam doesn’t reply but I’m sure he feels bad for missing my dad’s dinner. And I’m sure he’s mad at me that he didn’t get a reminder about it this morning. But he was the one who yelled at me about less reminders a couple months ago.
Plus, it was on the huge printed family calendar I keep updated for Loretta in the laundry room. But maybe if he’d taken the time to check it, maybe if he’d asked me about what I had going on this week, he would’ve seen.
But he didn’t.
I start to shake with muffled sobs as soon as I shut the door to my car. I kept up a brave face with my family tonight, told them he was working late. But now, in the silence of the car, I can’t hold it in anymore.
“Want to listen to Moana? ” I say through the start of my tears.
“Okay” Jonathan yawns. I put the music on softly to distract him from my sniffling.
Because what I’m really wondering is now that Adam realizes today is my dad’s birthday, will he realize that yesterday was our anniversary?
I left a few cards and a bag of Andes mints in his work backpack—not just because he loves them but because we discovered how delicious they are on our honeymoon. The resort left them on our pillows at night. He must not have seen them.
He has to know now though. Dad’s birthday was the day after our wedding. Surely that kind of thing is burned into his brain?
I check my mirror.
Three out of three asleep.
Good.
At least I’ll have that as a buffer when I walk into the house.
I’m sure he’ll apologize, try to hug me, try to make some excuse.
I mentally prepare myself to not have a little breakdown or start a big fight.
When we get in, he comes out to the garage and we wordlessly get the boys unloaded from the car and situated in their beds. I all but run to our closet to change. He finds me.
“Was your dad upset I missed it?”
“What?” I freeze. “Oh, uh, no. I told them you were working late, they all understood.”
“Okay.” I feel him come up behind me. I hope he’ll touch me. Hold me and say sorry and let me cry and tell me we’ll somehow fix this. Fix us. But he backs up.
“Thanks.”
“Sure.”
He leaves the room.
Not a word about our anniversary.
He forgot.
Of course he did.
It wasn’t a day he ever wanted to celebrate in the first place.
_____
“What’s going on with you?” Skye whisper-shouts at me the second the marketing meeting is over. Jenn snaps her head in my direction, staying seated while the rest of the team files out.
“What do you mean? I’m fine.” I smile at my sister but I’m sure she can see through it.
“You look terrible.”
“Don’t tell her she looks terrible. Rude.” Jenn says.
I roll my eyes.
These two are going to kill me. Skye officially works for the company now, helping with marketing. Jenn does not love it. The reality is that if they’d stop glaring and one-upping each other long enough, they’d see that they actually make each other better. Skye pushes Jenn to innovate and Jenn teaches Skye how to rework her grand ideas so she can actually implement them.
“You’re saying she looks great? Look at her eyes.”
“Welllll,” Jenn makes an anxious face.
I sit straighter in the bright, colorful meeting room lit by fluorescents that probably aren’t helping matters. I explain, “It’s just been a rough few weeks. We moved Mikey into Eli’s room, all our routines are messed up.”
“And?” Skye presses.
“And…I don’t know. I just feel blah.”
Blah. Sad. Forgotten. Invisible.
Been this way since Adam forgot our anniversary weeks ago and never suddenly remembered. Never had a eureka moment followed by apologies and gifts. Nothing. He had to have found my cards and the little gift. Then he must have forgotten even that.
He’s been swamped at work but so what if he’s really busy? Everyone is really busy.
“You still doing the tennis thing?” Jenn asks.
“No, wasn’t worth the time commitment.”
“That’s crap.” Jenn scoffs. “You had fun, that makes it worth it.”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t that fun. I do still hit my spin class three times a week.”
“But?” My sister continues to read me like a book.
“But it’s not working for me like it used to. I guess.” I slump down in a chair. “I guess nothing is.”
“What’s Adam say?” Skye asks, causing Jenn to grimace even more. Jenn is here, she’s around, with me. Skye lives in New York, only coming in for visits. Jenn knows things with Adam have been tense.
“He’s feeling blah too. I have the expansions here, he has his mergers there. We have the boys. We’re both exhausted.” I say. It’s not a lie, per se. I’m sure if I asked Adam he would agree.
“This is so weird.” My sister studies me. “You and Adam are, I don’t know, energizer bunnies. You’re Susan Canton. Everyday you rise and shine and meet all your goals. You literally designed our Seize the Day Planners. You’re almost as annoying as Samantha, honestly.”
I chuckle.
“Well maybe that’s just it!” Jenn’s eyes light up. “Maybe it’s time for Susan Canton to rebrand.”
“What?” I say in unison with Skye.
“Calm down, I’m not rewriting your Instagram bio or anything. I just mean maybe some new styles, less suits. New hair cut? Something crazy! Something fun!”
Skye looks at Jenn for a beat before looking at me. “It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
“Hm.” I consider it. I’ve been wanting to trim up my long wavy hair for a while now. Maybe just a couple inches?
“I have to go check a few things before my flight but I have a few corporate fashion mood boards I’ve made, I’ll send them to you.”
“I doubt I’ll get as daring as your boards but thank you.” I reply to Skye and she gives my shoulder a squeeze on her way out of the conference room.
“Well then,” Jenn’s face is full of mischief, “just how daring are you willing to get?”
Oh boy. What am I getting myself into?
The answer, a few days later, is some new floppy blouses, work dresses in softer, creamier fabrics and a shorter, much, much blonder hair style. I also swap out my three inch heels for expensive platform heel sneakers, at Skye’s insistence. I won’t wear them to a board meeting but I’ll admit that for around the office they’re sufficiently professional and way more comfortable.
I walk back into the office in a new outfit after my morning hair appointment feeling pretty great. Bobby is waiting outside my office with a hot coffee for himself and a fresh iced coffee for me as well, as usual. But when he sees me, after a double take, he spills his.
“Crap!” He whispers down at the spill on the floor. Then he looks back at me, “W-wow, Susan, you look amazing.”
“Oh, uh, thank you. My sister said I needed a change,” I kind of laugh off his compliment but I hear Jenn clear her throat obviously behind me, headed to her own office. She thinks Bobby is a little bit in love with me. I think he’s just nice.
“I disagree.” He says as I take the coffee from him. I frown for a second and he quickly adds. “About needing it. You look great but you always look great. Boss.” I think he adds the last word in an effort to make things less awkward. It doesn’t work.
“Oh, um, thanks,” I quickly step into my office. “Can you send the notes for the two meetings I missed this morning?”
“Sure thing!” He replies from his desk, overly cheerful.
I can’t help but smile.
My new hair made a guy spill his coffee.
_____
I sit up straighter at the dinner table when I hear Adam come in. I can’t wait to see his reaction to my hair. I haven’t been this blonde since college.
“Hey!” I smile at him as the boys yell, “Daddy!”
“No, that absolutely won’t work for me, Pete.” He gripes into his phone. “Just like I said it wouldn’t when you made up the estimate, then again when you tried it in the blueprints.” He sets his things down and grabs a glass of water while still talking.
“Dada phone!” Mikey says.
“Yep. Daddy’s on his phone.” I mutter.
“I mean did you think I wouldn’t notice? We’re not cutting corners like that. That’s how people rush and make mistakes. Mistakes are dangerous in our line of work.”
He is slumped over the counter, phone to his ear and hand on his glass. He looks defeated. I know he’s remembering an injury on one of their job sites two years ago. It left a worker wheelchair bound for the rest of his life. I know Adam feels the weight of that accident like it was his fault personally, even though it wasn’t even a Bell crew, technically, it was a subcontractor.
“Good. Yes. That’s what I want….Yes. Alright.” He hangs up and looks over at the table where me and the boys have just finished eating. Two out of the four of us are covered in pasta.
“How’s my team?” He asks the boys like he does every night. Ever the captain, he has done a great job of teaching the boys that a family is a team that works together to succeed. The boys have chores already and their favorite thing is to follow Adam around when he does yard work or fixes something around the house.
“Mommy is MVP today!” Eli says. “She made pasgetti!”
Adam finally actually looks at me. He pauses and I smile.
“I finally made MVP.”
He frowns. “You changed your hair?”
“Yeah,” I put a hand to my head and run my fingers through it. It feels a lot shorter, even though the stylist just trimmed two inches.
“She looks like Elsa now!” Jonathan says.
Adam tilts his head like he can see it, can picture me as the Disney princess from Frozen. He then moves to the table, kissing each boy on the head as he goes.
“Not that blonde,” I tussle my oldest son’s hair. “Though I did make Bobby spill his coffee.”
Adam pauses with his hand on his chair before sitting. “Who’s Bobby?”
I can’t help but huff in disbelief. “Really? My assistant? He’s been with me over a year now?”
“Oh.” He sits. “Right.”
Then I don’t know if he looks at me again the whole night. To be fair, I don’t look at him much either. Once the rat race of bathing and teeth brushing and bedtime story reading starts, it’s all hands on deck. Then we might have a minute for me to read or him to watch sports but usually we just go to bed.
Once I make it into the sheets, after my multi-step facial care routine and pre-bed rituals—I’m not in my twenties anymore I have a whole set of night creams for everything from my eyelids to my knees to my dry heels—Adam’s usually already asleep. That’s the case tonight.
Huh.
Highlighted my hair and changed my clothes to feel more awake and alive. To maybe take up a bit more space in my own life and yes, if I’m honest with myself right now, for Adam to not just notice me but maybe see me again. Either as a teammate or friend or at least a sexual partner—not lover. We haven’t been lovers in years.
As I curl up on my side and turn off the light, I feel more invisible than ever.