Day 16
What do you wish your partner knew about you, or your life together?
Sometimes I think about military wives whose husbands deploy for months on end.
Next, I think about wives of consultants, whose spouses are gone Monday through Thursday every week on assignment.
Then, finally, I think about myself, and the single night away Daniel’s had on the calendar for months, and try to guard against self-pity.
Violet and I can handle a work trip for just one night.
I’m curled up in bed, nursing a hot mug of tea and scrolling aimlessly through the worst of the Internet when he calls. When I swipe to accept, my screen fills with my favorite picture, of the two of us in Spain six months post engagement. We look so carefree.
“I’m up,” I reply, and fiddle with a loose string on the edge of our comforter, twisting it around my finger and then sliding it off with my thumb. “How was it today?”
“Good. One of the better offsites I’ve attended—lots of stuff in the works. How are you? How’s Lettie?”
“Also good. She was cracking me up today. You know those oranges we got in the holiday basket from your office? She’s taken a liking to one. She may or may not be sleeping with it currently.” My chuckle lilts, the tail of a kite caught in a breeze.
“She’s going to wake up covered in pulp and juice,” he replies.
“If she does, I’ll give her a bath. She’ll be the best-smelling baby at play group.”
“And how about you? Miss me yet?”
“Terribly. The cards did us dirty giving us the best night yet, right before you skip town,” I say.
“Super rude. They should’ve consulted with us,” he laughs.
“Want to do today’s? It’s probably a talking prompt.”
“No phone sex? What a missed opportunity.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I say, while reaching to my nightstand and peeling the Day 16 card from the pile. “Alright, it says what do you wish your partner knew about you, or your life together?”
“Damn, definitely no phone sex.”
“Nope, just good old-fashioned vulnerability. Wanna go first?” I ask.
“Hmm. This is difficult because you already know everything about me.”
“Do I?” I taunt.
“You can’t see it but I’m rolling my eyes right now,” he says. “Hard.”
I bite the corner of my lip because this back-and-forth banter, teasing each other like this, is fun. This is teenager-style flirting leftover from kissing in the car the other day. I like it.
Daniel clears his throat and says, “Okay, how about this. I…hmm…I, I worry every day that Violet will grow up and resent me because I didn’t do a good enough job. That I’m going to look back and realize I’m as terrible as my dad was.”
“Dan, no,” I say, but he cuts me off.
“Sorry, let me just…I don’t know how to be a good father, Molls. I’m winging it. There’s no model for me—the bar from my family is low enough to step over. I’m trying my best, I think, but I worry it’s not enough.”
What I expected from the prompt today? This was not it. I’ve begged Daniel for years to open up about his dad and his upbringing. Seems the physical distance, that we don’t have to look at each other while sharing, has finally made him willing.
“Do you want the good news or bad news first?” I ask in reply, knowing a list of platitudes about his ability won’t placate him.
“Bad news,” he says, just like I knew he would.
“We’re definitely going to screw Violet up. She’ll be in therapy someday talking about the ways we messed her up and the things we didn’t deal with in ourselves that we projected to her. It’s inevitable she leaves us with some damage.”
“Is this supposed to be motivational? Because if so, you’re doing a shit job of it,” he says with an incredulous huff.
“No, but it’s the truth. For me, that gives some freedom. We don’t have to do this parenting thing perfectly. Even if we somehow did, she still wouldn’t walk away unscathed. That’s the nature of a relationship. We’re imperfect people and we hurt each other sometimes, mostly unintentionally.”
“And what’s the good news?”
“Bad parents don’t worry that they’re bad parents.
They don’t take time to reflect on how they could be better.
They’re too focused on themselves. Do you think your dad ever stopped for a minute to evaluate his parenting performance and feel guilty?
Absolutely not. That’s what makes you different from your dad, and an infinitely better one.
That, and about a million other reasons.
Your desire to get it right is part of how you love Violet.
And you love her so, so well, Dan. I’m pretty sure she loves you more than me, as a result. ”
His sniffles crackle in the speaker against my ear. “You mean that?” he asks.
“Every word. You’re the best dad I know—truly. And not just because my sample size is small,” I laugh. “I couldn’t ask for a better partner and father for our family. We got the best one.”
“I got the best ones,” he replies, and I can hear him shifting positions, maybe stretching or reaching for a tissue. “Now, if we’re done with my trauma dump, let’s hear yours.”
“Okay, this is tricky,” I say, biding myself some time.
“I already told you I get jealous of you sometimes because your life looks mostly the same. But if I’m honest, even deeper than that, sometimes I feel my loss so acutely—the other Mollys I could’ve been if I’d picked a different path.
I don’t regret this one! Hardly ever,” I chuckle, “but I feel homesick, almost, for who I could’ve been in those other universes.
I could’ve been really great, you know.” He tries to interject but I stop him to say, “And don’t you try to say that I am really great!
I’m doing important work, I know. It’s just a small life, I guess.
And those other lives could’ve been bigger. ”
“Do you want a bigger life?” he asks, quietly. Contemplatively.
“Sometimes. And maybe I can still have it, when Violet’s older and we’re done having babies and the brain fog finally—hopefully—lifts.
But right now, my life is tedious. It’s laundry and meal prep, cleaning up and her sleep routine, over and over on repeat.
I could’ve been traveling or researching the cure to cancer or making a film, you know?
Instead, I’m trying to wipe crusty boogers off of my baby’s face while she screams.”
“You hate flying, you dropped out of pre-med after one chemistry course, and you know nothing about movies,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t think those are dreams you’re actually missing out on.”
“First of all—rude,” I reply, echoing his laugh but with a bit of added petulance. "Second, it’s not about the dreams themselves. It’s the loss of possibility, I guess.”
“Why don’t you take some time and write a list of how you might make your life ten percent bigger, with a goal that feels achievable in the next year.
I may not be able to give you a lab or fly us to Europe for a month, but I can give you support—the time, at least—for you to grow.
Those other Mollys are still in there, just buried. I think we should find them.”
Now I’m the one blinking away tears, a few of them collecting against my lash line and threatening to fall. How could this man possibly think he isn’t enough for us?
“I’d like that,” I reply.
“We’ll do it, then. And Molls?” he asks.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for telling me. We should do this more often.”
“How about another card tomorrow?” I offer.
“I can’t wait,” he replies.