The One That Got Away

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For Shelby

F
uck you, Marc Jacobs.
Those were the words running through my mind right before I fell backward and flipped over the side of the Nordstrom escalator.

It was ten o’clock on a Saturday morning. The store was already filled with shoppers succumbing to the addictive, wallet-emptying lure of new leather and hundred-dollar face cream. I should know; I had fallen for this store’s siren song too, and was paying the price. Before I fell, I was gliding up the escalator, cursing and mad, bracing myself to go head-to-head with customer service.

My plan was simple—to beg. They just
had
to take back the glossy red leather purse, even though I had carried it for a few days, and even though my five-year-old daughter had recently decorated one side with a deep scratch, an accidental maiming from a chopstick turned light saber. My hope was that whoever was manning customer service today had terrible eyesight or a forgiving heart, or both. As I made my way up the escalator, I balanced the glossy silver box up and away from my rain-spattered coat and dripping umbrella, careful not to inflict any more damage. In my other hand I held a coffee.
Its steaming liquid sloshed onto my fingers, my sleeve, and the slow-moving metal below my feet.

I was steaming inside too, having just run into two “friends” from high school, their not-so-thinly veiled insults embarrassing me more than the current state of my hair.

“Don’t you look so cozy?” cooed one as they took in my outfit, then exchanged glances under perfectly blown-out bangs. “I wish I could wear something like that, but I have to be careful in case I run into one of Bill’s clients,” said Betsy, looking crisp and confident in her Main Line mom uniform: designer jeans, fur-lined boots, and puffer coat.

“I guess not all of us can be ‘sweatpant moms,’” sniped Ellen as she brushed an invisible piece of fuzz off her Pilates-toned stomach. I was so caught off guard, I just stood there, wishing I could sink into the gleaming marble floor. I couldn’t even think up a lie and found myself admitting to returning a purse that was too expensive. They smiled their close-lipped smiles of pity before rushing off to the shoe department.

Betsy Claiborne was the daughter of a single mom just like me and she never even finished college and now she acts like she’s Jackie Kennedy. And Ellen Hadley gave out hand jobs like Tic Tacs before she lost forty pounds and married the heir to a dry-cleaning fortune. Now they spend their days driving around in Range Rovers, taking their kids to “the club,” and ambushing sleep- and gym-deprived moms at department stores. I was so furious, I stomped up the escalator trembling in fury, cursing them, my bank account, my husband, and even Marc Jacobs himself, whose $598 bucket bag would be returned in favor of running water and pediatrician co-pays.

I loved that bag, and I got to carry it for only two weeks—to work, Rite Aid, Grange Hill Elementary, the Springfield School of
Irish Dance, Rite Aid again, and Mario’s Bake-at-Home Pizza. Not to a trendy restaurant, not to a boutique, not even to the posh Bryn Mawr library the little guy and I crashed for its better Thomas the Train set and less disgusting rug. That bag was like a tree falling in the forest. If no bitchy Main Line moms saw it, did it even exist?

To be fair, it meant more to me than just making people jealous. That bag was a quilted red leather anchor, tethering me by its thin gold chain to a former life. Its links were links to the
real me
, the one who was cool and fun and spontaneous; who wore hip, clean clothes and ate dinner later than five thirty p.m.; who watched foreign films and read the latest novels; and who still recognized her face in the mirror. That bag meant I was still “Abbey,” not Mommy or Mrs. Lahey. And it could have kept my former self alive and afloat for a little while longer, before the chain, so taut under the pressure, snapped for good, setting me forever adrift in the suburban-mom abyss.

But given the way everything was going lately, maybe it was a good thing I knocked myself out on the cold marble Nordstrom floor.

After all, I really needed a break.

T
he day before my accident started like every other morning of my life: pure chaos. The dog was barking, the baby was screaming, my daughter had wet the bed again, and my husband, Jimmy, was long gone to one of his landscaping jobs. Jimmy usually left around five in the morning, silently finding his clothes, lunch, and work boots before slipping out the back door like a cat burglar.

He was always so careful not to wake us, moving as quietly as his burly physique and heavy gait could manage. But early rising must be hereditary, because no matter how stealthily he left the house, one of his small children would feel the change in the parental atmosphere and wake the moment his truck left the driveway. Today, it was both of them.

So at just twenty minutes past five in the morning, right when Channing Tatum was about to hand me the keys to the HGTV dream house, I found myself jarred awake. And just two minutes after that, I was wrestling thirty-two-pound Sam from his crib-in-the-closet and heaving him down the hallway to the sound of muffled whimpers. I saw the telltale yellow stain and the tangled bedclothes before I found a little-girl-shaped lump in a white plastic laundry basket.

“You hate me; I know you do,” said the dirty-clothes-covered heap.

“It’s way too early for psychological warfare, Glo,” I told her. “It’s just a little pee, no big deal.”

“It is a big deal!” screamed the basket. “No one else in kindergarten wets the bed!”

“I think there are a lot of kids who wet the bed,” I said. “Look at Sam. He’s covered in pee twenty-four hours a day.”

“But he’s a baby; he doesn’t count,” she argued. “I’m never going to kindergarten ever, ever, ever again!”

Think fast, Mommy,
I said to myself, shaking off the early morning fog. We were four minutes into the day, and already one of us was making threats of monumental proportion.

I slid the baby down my legs, letting him toddle off toward some contraband, and crouched down beside the lump of laundry. I dug my daughter out of the underpants and sweatshirts and leggings and pulled her close, feeling her familiar warm breath, the messy brown curls, the scratchy pajamas.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” I whispered. “You know who used to wet the bed until he was ten years old?”

“Who?”

“Daddy.”

“Our Daddy?”

“Yes, our Daddy,” I white-lied. “He did it all the time.”

She quieted, so I kept going, embellishing the lie with extra drama. “And because he slept on the top bunk, it would drip down on Uncle Pat too.”

Her eyes widened. Her mouth opened.

“But one day his bladder became big and strong enough to get through the whole night and he never did it again. And that’s what will happen to you. You just have to keep growing, and eventually your bladder will catch up, just like Daddy’s did.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely,” I said, hugging her tiny body close. She felt so light in my arms, three and a half years older than her brother but only a few pounds heavier.

She must have bought the Daddy story because she looked up at me with those big brown eyes, and for a moment, it looked like I was going to get one of those gorgeous Gloria grins. But before I knew it, her little-brother sonar caught Sam as he chewed aimlessly on Celebrity Chef Barbie’s pink plastic whisk. She jumped up, knocking me back hard against the bookcase. An epic tug-of-war ensued, one that was sure to test the very limits of Mattel engineering, leaving me just enough time to run downstairs and start the coffeemaker.

Today would require extra caffeine. Possibly even an intravenous drip.

After the three-hour morning madness, everyone was buckled in the car with their various backpacks, folders, lunches, snacks, sippy cups, nap mats, animal-shaped umbrellas, and, just in case, extra underpants. I had my various necessities too: laptop, week-at-a-glance calendar, refillable water bottle, travel toothbrush, and next to me on the passenger seat—perched scarlet-faced with embarrassment at its shabby surroundings—my new purse.

I had wanted to do the bag proud with a hipper-than-usual outfit, but comfort beat out style once again. For a moment, I stared at my best work outfit, a fitted black J.Crew pantsuit, and imagined the TV version of myself clipping down the sidewalk and being brilliant in the boardroom. But then I pushed the image out of my mind, already too tired to deal with the high heels it required, not to mention the added dry-cleaning expense. Instead, I went with my usual weekday uniform: skirt, cardigan, and flats.

Today’s version was a machine-washable charcoal gray pencil skirt, a long-sleeve white T-shirt, and a nine-year-old lavender cashmere cardigan, its “pearl” buttons chipped to reveal the burnished silver underneath. Though technically I would be classified by most as “skinny,” at least when seen fully clothed, I still needed a pair of super-control-top tights to corral and conceal the flabby postpartum flesh that stubbornly clung to my middle. One of these days I would deal with those extra ten pounds, perhaps take up spinning or yoga or some such thing, but for now, spandex was my strategy. It worked well enough; the zipper on my skirt went up with a few quick tugs. I finished up with some black mascara over my blue-gray eyes but skipped the under-eye concealer and blush. No one important ever came into the office, anyway.

My hair was another story. Once my pride and joy and the subject of much research and development, it currently featured an inch of brown roots on top and an inch of split ends on the bottom, and its highlights had long ago turned brassy. Today, as on most days, there was no time for styling, just a quick look in the rearview mirror as I pulled my hair into a messy bun. Also in the rearview was Gloria, glowering at Sam, still miffed about the morning’s fight. She was no doubt plotting revenge, even as Sam cheerfully tried to woo her with a bungled version of “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

“Shut up!” cried Gloria. “That is not even the right words!”

“First of all, don’t say ‘shut up.’ Second, it’s ‘those aren’t the right words,’” I corrected with my most confident Mom voice. “And please don’t scream at your brother.”

“But he’s soooo annoying,” she cried, her tiny hands clenched in frustration.

“Well, that may be true,” I told her. “But you better be careful; he’ll soon outweigh you.”

I realized too late what I had said, and I cursed Wisecracking
Mommy under my breath. Mentioning Gloria’s size was never a good idea, but especially not on the way to school, where she was painfully aware of being the smallest in her class.

But she surprised me with a question, not tears: “Why am I so small, Mommy?” she asked, the question I’d learned to dread.

“You’re not small,” I lied.

“Yes. I. Am. Mommy,” she said, her clipped tone giving me a sneak preview of teenage Gloria. “Why?”

“Well, people come in all shapes and sizes, and you just happen to be petite,” I explained. “You’ll grow. Just be patient.”

But I knew that wasn’t true. Gloria was tiny and she probably always would be. According to the many specialists we’d visited before and immediately after Gloria was born, she’d suffered from intrauterine growth restriction due to a problem with my placenta. In what should have been an all-you-can-eat buffet, Gloria’s in utero experience was more like nine months at Canyon Ranch. She didn’t have any cognitive problems, but she was tiny, didn’t eat much, and never made it above single digits on our doctor’s height/weight chart. Not fair for a kid whose parents were above average height and whose brother was breaking all-time pudge records. Luckily we hit the school parking lot before she could think of any more questions.

Grange Hill Elementary looked cute from a distance, with a cherry tree–lined drive, wide lawn, and brick- and flower-ringed flagpole. But up close, it was proletarian Russia: all rough cinder-block walls, flimsy wooden doors, and a few bricked-in windows. It hadn’t been renovated, or even thoroughly cleaned, in decades. The classrooms were overcrowded, security was nonexistent, and in winter its boilers ran so hot, the students sweated through their T-shirts. No one seemed to notice or complain, all of us public school veterans.

I unbuckled and unloaded, caught Sam before he toddled into traffic, and then steered both little bodies toward the school door.
Smiling and nodding, but moving fast, I maneuvered past the conga line of silver minivans, the stay-at-home moms desperate for conversation, and a confused grandfather holding a dripping lunch box. He was probably hoping someone might take pity on him and stop to help, but today it wouldn’t be me. I knew I had exactly twenty-eight minutes to get Gloria inside, drop off Sam, and get to my office, ten miles up the Blue Route in Conshohocken. I pretended not to notice the lunchroom coordinator motioning to me but managed to wave to my heavily pregnant neighbor Mary Anne as she waddled past with her three boys. I’d catch up with her over the fence this weekend. Or in fifteen years.

Inside, a quick kiss and Gloria was on her way, a bobbing fuzzy hat, giant backpack, and boots disappearing down the hall. Both Sam and I paused to watch her go. She looked so confident and capable, the morning’s incident forgotten in the shrill of the morning bell.

“Sissie bye-bye,” babbled Sam, jolting me back to the task at hand.

“C’mon, little guy, let’s get you to Grandpa’s,” I responded.

If Gloria’s school was Communist Russia, then Sam’s day was a visit to Middle Earth. Jimmy’s dad, Miles, a gentle but absentminded Irishman, took care of Sam while I put in face time at the office. Over the years, Miles had owned a variety of companies: carpentry, house painting, auto repair, even a short-lived stint as an Irish DJ (surprisingly popular in our town). His house was a little boy’s paradise, full of tool belts, handmade wooden toys, rusty fishing poles, sixties-style turntables, and old car parts. Sam probably wasn’t getting much circle time at Grandpa’s, but at this rate, he’d be able to fix our car’s transmission or reroof the house by age six.

Miles’s house hadn’t always been such a man cave. When Jimmy’s mother was alive, the two-story brick row home had been bright and orderly, even with four boys at home. But since she’d died five years ago, there was barely a trace of her—except for one room. It was the
front parlor, and even Sam wasn’t allowed to trespass. Miles kept it just as his beloved Jane had left it. As if she’d walk in at any moment and ask who moved her figurines and why the shades were still drawn.

Pulling up to the curb filled me with the usual dose of stomach-tightening Mommy guilt but, in my case, not just for my son, but for my father-in-law as well. How did this happen that a seventy-nine-year-old retired housepainter, himself someone who could use a little looking after, was taking care of our rambunctious toddler? Sam should be in day care or nursery school, gluing together Popsicle sticks and singing “Wheels on the Bus,” not watching
The Price Is Right
and going on Powerball runs. And Miles should be reading the paper and napping under an afghan, not struggling with tiny snaps and butt paste and temper tantrums. But since the recession had hit the lawn care business with a wallop, Jimmy and I didn’t have the money for day care, or even a regular babysitter. I knew Miles adored Sam, and Sam adored Miles, but still I worried. The old man was becoming more and more forgetful, and he moved much slower than he used to.

“It’s only temporary, it’s only temporary, it’s only temporary,” I repeated to myself as I lifted Sam out of his milk-stained car seat and onto the tiny patch of grass. I grabbed his bag and beloved stuffed giraffe and walked behind him as he toddled up the front walk.

The door opened and out stepped Miles, looking like an artist’s rendering of a grandfather in his wool cap, chunky cream sweater, and carved wooden cane.

“Good morning, little laddie!” he shouted as he shuffled to meet Sam, his gnarled, work-weathered hand gently taking Sam’s baby one.

“Hi, Pop,” I said, reaching out and handing him Sam’s daily supplies. I kneeled to give Sam’s head a kiss, then ran back to the car, calling out last-minute instructions over my shoulder: “Make sure he naps today. There’s diaper cream in the bag. And no more bean dip!”

As I cranked the ignition, I watched Miles help Sam navigate the front steps. I should have been comforted by their easy camaraderie, but as I backed out of the driveway, thinking of the next eight hours away from him—and all the babbles and giggles and little tumbles I’d miss—I bit my lip to hold back tears.

I arrived at Elkins Public Relations mere seconds before my boss, threw my new bag under the flimsy gray cubicle, took the lid off my coffee, and stared intently at my computer as if I’d been reading e-mails for hours.

“Hiiiii, Abbey,” purred Charlotte, my former underling turned boss with the perfect bob, perfect blouse, perfect butt.

“Good morning,” I said, eyes not moving from my screen. “See you in a few minutes.”

“Actually, I really need to talk to you before the meeting,” she insisted, not even turning her head as she glided toward her corner office.

Of course you do,
I thought.
You want me to bring you up to speed on the account, since you’re always too busy schmoozing to actually do any work.
I sighed to myself as I kicked off the purse straps still tangled around my feet and grabbed my notebook. As I walked by, I made a face at my best friend, Jules, also pretending to work but really stalking the new FedEx guy’s Instagram.

Seconds later, standing in Charlotte’s light- and leather-filled office, I told myself
not
to give up any info, and
not
to fill the silence with my usual blabber. After arranging herself neatly in her chair but not offering me one, Buns of Steel began her usual inquiry:

“Sooooo, what’s new with our friends at Maxim Pest?”

I took a breath.

“Jules and I have the fall e-blast all set for today, just waiting on
one last photo from the client,” I told her, pretending not to notice as her eyes slid from my faded sweater to my scuffed ballet flats. “And I’ve been working really hard to get the word out about the new stink-bug promotion. I’ve got some interest from reporters, but nothing definite yet.”