All the Difference

by Leah Ferguson

  “It could be worse, I guess.” Her throat caught. “They did offer to extend me a short severance, so I’ll still have my health insurance until the baby’s born, and then Scott can add us on to his.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Emily said. “See? There’s a silver lining after all.”

  Molly shook her head again. “But, Mom. I lost my job. And the thing is, I could’ve prevented it. I got lazy, and overwhelmed, and let stuff slide.” The pitch of her voice climbed. “When has this ever happened to me?”

  “Molly, honey, everybody makes mistakes.”

  “Not me, Mom,” Molly said, more loudly than she’d intended. “I don’t make mistakes. Or, at least, I never used to. Lately, it seems like all I do.”

  “Molly, what do you mean? What other mistakes have you made?”

  The line was quiet for a moment.

  “Nothing,” Molly said. She was more subdued now. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Getting pregnant probably wasn’t the best move to make, though.”

  “But that’s said and done,” Emily said. Her tone was brusque. “So let’s move on.”

  “Okay, okay.” Molly laughed. “You don’t have to get all tough love on me.”

  “A mother has to do what’s necessary, sweetheart.” Emily chuckled now, her tone brighter. “You’ll find that out in a few short months.”

  There was another pause. Molly was having a difficult time sorting through her thoughts.

  “What does Dad think of all this?”

  “Oh,” Emily said, “you know your father. He’s got himself starting another project to worry about instead. I think he’s building a new mantel for the fireplace this time.”

  “Not a bad coping mechanism,” Molly said, smiling. She glanced at the clock on the microwave. It was later than she’d thought. Scott had been due to get home from his charity golf outing an hour ago.

  “Hey, Mom? I better go. It’s almost lunchtime.” She sighed. “I should get started on making my man a meal like a good housewife.” The words tasted bitter in her mouth.

  “It’s not nineteen fifty-two, Molly,” Emily said. “You can cook a damned meal without it being a statement against the women’s movement.”

  “I guess so,” Molly acquiesced. “But right now I feel like I’ve taken a couple steps back in life.” She knew she was wallowing, and she could sense Emily losing her patience from the house in West Chester.

  “It’s not a race, Molly. You can take a couple of missteps and still come out ahead.”

  “I suppose. Just call me out if you find me cooking pot roast and potatoes on a Sunday, now, because it means I’m this close to playing backgammon in my spare time.”

  “Cut it out, child,” Emily scolded, but she was chuckling. “That’s exactly what your father and I have planned for tonight.”

  Molly laughed, glad her mother couldn’t see her cringe. “Sorry, Mom.”

  “Molly, you’ll figure it out.” Emily’s tone was warm. “Your dad and I raised you to chase after what you wanted, so don’t you dare think you should stop now. Just keep in touch with your contacts and start over after the baby’s born. Don’t let this hiccup keep you from that.”

  For a moment silence hung in the air, then Emily continued. “No matter what Scott tells you, remember: it’s not nineteen fifty-two. You don’t have to.”

  Molly bit her lip and looked toward the closed front door. The ornate stained glass window set above the entrance to her kitchen was dark. It caught her eye, and she made a mental note to scrub it clean so that it would reflect light again the way it was supposed to.

  “Well, go enjoy your pot roast, okay?” Molly said. “Give Pop my love.” She laughed. “And tell him not to hammer too hard.”

  Molly pulled the phone away from her ear before catching herself. “And, Mom?”

  “Yes, Molly?” Emily never hung up before she did.

  “Thank you.”

  Molly clicked off her phone and stood in her kitchen for a minute longer, turning to brace her hands on the counter and look out the window over the sink. The sky was as cloudy as the thoughts in her head. Other than two weeks over a Christmas break in college, Molly hadn’t been unemployed since she first started busing tables at a Red Lobster while in high school. Even back then, when she had to soak her uniform every night in vinegar and water to get the smell of seafood and spoiled butter out of her clothes, she had loved making her own money. She still got a rush whenever she saw a paycheck made out in her name, and felt satisfied when she could check off bills paid each month. She’d worked to buy her first car, had kept up on the insurance, and had never had a credit card balance that she couldn’t pay off right away. Molly still held the same attitude toward her finances. Unfortunately, she now lacked a job to pay those bills.

  Molly looked around at the soft gray-blue walls and granite countertops. She made note of the cups lined up in straight rows in the glass-fronted cabinets, of the plates stacked with precision along the shelves. Her life had always been something she could keep organized, tidy. But she wasn’t a PR specialist anymore. She had nowhere to go on Monday. It was one more piece of her life that had slipped out of her control, and Molly felt at a loss, like a huge abyss had opened up at her feet and she was about to step into it. It was as if she didn’t have an identity to call her own anymore. She’d fallen off the grid.

  Molly’s feet ached, so she set her glass down on the counter and turned away from the window. She walked into the living room to put some music on the speakers and scrolled through the artist list on her phone in search of songs that were comforting and familiar before settling on some Fleetwood Mac. It reminded her of her father, and she needed that sense of security right now: green flannel shirts and carpentry dust, warmth and solidity. With a jolt of surprise, Molly realized that her father had all the characteristics of a tree. She couldn’t help but laugh at the image. But Jack was stable, and rooted. A person knew that, even if he was quiet, he’d always be there when needed. She understood why her mother, who often reminded Molly of an anxious bird, flitting about, cackling at predators—always moving, always preparing—had settled into Jack’s arms. He gave her shelter, and she provided him with purpose and entertainment, a reason to build trust. It was why they worked, and they loved each other for it.

  Molly felt the baby shift in her belly and ran her hand over her stomach. She knew how important it was for her own child to have parents who could be that confident in their love for each other. Her thoughts shifted to her own current instability.

  “Fired,” Molly breathed. “I got fired.” Because she’d dropped the ball and shirked her duties. Everything she’d worked so hard to get, trampled on like it was last week’s gum wrapper. Molly had never been more ashamed of herself in her life. Stevie Nicks’ nasal voice started singing “Landslide,” and Molly sat back down on the kitchen barstool and put her head into her hands.

  “Oh, mirror in the sky,” she heard Stevie sing, her plaintive question ringing though Molly’s thoughts, “what is love?”

  She hadn’t wanted to tell Jenny—poor Jenny, who was one of the most consistent workers at S&G and got laid off anyway, and who would give anything to have her old job back. Jenny could barely speak after Molly told her what happened. But God bless the girl, Molly thought. She certainly hadn’t said one mean word to her. Her old friend had just taken it in stride, blinked hard once, and given her a hug. Jenny’s resilience, Molly understood, was going to make her a very good mother one day.

  “And what about me, little one?” Molly spoke to her belly, rubbing her hand over her protruding belly button. “I’m not so sure right now what kind of example I’m going to be to you if I can’t even hold on to my dream job. What are you going to think of me?”

  Molly heard footsteps and looked up to see Scott walk into the kitchen. She hadn’t noticed him come in through the front door and knew by
the bemused expression on his face he’d heard her talking to herself. He placed a pink bakery box on the island and reached for her.

  “That baby’s going to think he’s the luckiest—or she, if it’s a girl—kid in the world to have a mama who loves him enough to make raising him her sole job.”

  Scott wrapped his arms around Molly and pulled her against him. “I brought you those chocolate cupcakes you’re always raving about. I knew you’d be hungry after packing up your stuff, especially since you insisted on refusing the help of a certain strong, able-bodied fiancé.”

  Molly gave the pink box a long look and loosened Scott’s arm from her waist. “I wanted to do it by myself.”

  She knew he was trying to make her feel better, so she didn’t understand why she couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye. “No need to bring a pity party with me.”

  “What pity party? This is perfect.”

  Molly rubbed her hands over her face, then back over her head, smoothing her ponytail. Now she knew why.

  “Scott, we’ve been through this a thousand times. I lost my job. That doesn’t mean I want to not have a job. It just means I need to find a new one.”

  Scott blew an exasperated sound between his teeth and dropped his arms from around Molly’s swollen belly. His khaki shorts were smeared with dirt, and the hair that was normally swept back from his face now flopped into his eyes. Molly could smell the clubhouse rail whiskey on his breath, sickly sour and sweet, like cherries left to spoil on a countertop.

  “Yeah, okay, Molly. And you explain to me how you’re going to go on interviews and land a job with a belly out to there.”

  He reached into the fridge for a beer and cracked the top with the opener he kept on the refrigerator door. Molly’s eyes fell on the dull spot the magnet had made on the fridge’s finish and realized how much she hated that bottle opener.

  “Molly, had you even thought about that? I think all that hear-me-roar mojo bouncing around in your head crowded out the common sense. No one’s going to take on a woman who needs maternity leave two months after she’s hired—I think even Ms. Steinem could’ve told you that. You’re not going back to work right now.”

  Scott stood in place, distracted now by the peeling blue label on the bottle he held. Molly knew he was right. She hadn’t considered how having the baby was going to play into her job search, and she found herself shaking her head in disbelief. The doorbell buzzed, and Scott walked out of the kitchen to answer it, patting her on the shoulder as he went.

  Molly suddenly felt very, very tired. She rubbed her hand over the bump in her belly, feeling the baby move around, knocking against the space under her hand. Molly pursed her lips and gazed around the kitchen, the bare dining room, the inviting living area. She tried to imagine the rooms filled with a baby swing and play crib and activity mat and all the other myriad baby gear she kept seeing on parenting websites and in the magazines she’d been reading. This place was about to change mighty quickly, and she couldn’t slow it down, or make it stop, even if she really wanted to.

  It was such a very strange feeling to know that she was about to join her life—her entire life—with two people, and yet still feel like no one would come running if she needed help. There was so much happiness she was supposed to be feeling right now, but she couldn’t quite touch it sometimes. It seemed like it was just past her fingertips, and she had to reach through a haze of uncertainty to get there, a fog so thick and unwieldy she was afraid it would never quite dissipate. And then she’d be stuck. Molly felt the baby kick again, as if in agreement—this baby who would soon enough need her to get her shit together already and focus on being its mom.

  Molly thought about the parents she knew, parents she saw on the sidewalks, in the stores, and she realized something: nobody ever has her shit together. But some people do an excellent job of trying.

  Molly could hear the deep rumble of Scott’s voice as he talked with whomever was at the front door. The sound of his chuckle rolled back through the house to the kitchen, and she fought back the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. She felt like she was staring at her life from the outside, hands to the windowpane. She was just silent, watching the whirlwind of people—in utero and out—clamoring for attention, vying for the lead, tugging her along behind them. And for some reason, Molly had let herself get so out of control that she was listening to them instead of to herself.

  “You okay there, Mol?” Scott was walking back into the kitchen with an armful of wrapped gifts, and Molly looked up to see his mother on his heels, floating on a cloud of Chanel No. 5 and hair spray, a camel-colored Birkin bag slung over her arm. Monica’s grin was radiant, her white veneers flashing against the carefully lipsticked edges of her mouth. She dropped a large pastel-covered bag filled with tissue paper on the floor and reached for her future daughter-in-law.

  “Molly! I just heard the news.” Monica kissed the air beside both of Molly’s cheeks and tut-tutted Molly’s gesture to stand up, motioning that she stay seated on the bar stool. She towered beside Molly in a pair of nude snakeskin stilettos.

  “Your future father-in-law was driving me up the wall,” she was saying, “hollering at that dreadful Phillies game on TV—”

  “Oh, crap! I forgot that was on,” Scott sputtered. He reached for his phone.

  “Anyway,” Monica continued, “he was hooting and hollering and driving me battier than usual—you’d think he was a physician for them and not the Eagles—so I decided it was a perfect time to run some errands. I was just coming through the neighborhood to do a little shopping for the baby and thought I would swing by to see if you two would like to join me for lunch, and then Scott tells me you’re not working anymore, and I thought, ‘Well! Now we have a reason to celebrate!’”

  She looked back and forth between Scott and Molly, beaming. No one else seemed to notice that the air in the room had grown stifling. Molly felt queasy as the odor of Monica’s perfume mixed with the smell of alcohol seeping from Scott’s pores and wafted to her nostrils. They’d finally told Scott’s parents about the baby one evening after Monica had made a comment on Molly’s appetite at dinner. Monica had taken the news like a child being told she was going to Disney World. She came into the city now every few days with excuses of dropping off a gift or checking in to see how Molly was feeling.

  Molly managed a small smile. “I’m not sure if your son told you the whole story, Monica.” She glanced at Scott, who was picking at something in between his back teeth with a fingernail, clearly assuming no one would notice. Molly cringed. He wasn’t going to be much help.

  Monica smoothed her hair over one ear and winked at her. “Of course he did, darling. But I’m just so happy to hear it. Now, I know it isn’t exactly what you want right now.” Her words quickened once she saw the grimace cross Molly’s face. “But you’ll see, Molly, this will be a good thing.”

  Monica looked at Scott for affirmation. He nodded in obedience, tearing his eyes away from his phone to make brief eye contact with Molly. He offered her a shrug as an apology, and Molly felt herself take a shuddering breath. She might as well be alone in the room.

  She no more wanted to be at home with a baby now than she did before she got pregnant. She wanted to be a Kelly Ripa, cute and perky with toned biceps, not a desperate housewife from some cable reality show. She wanted to emulate Ripa because she worked at a job she loved, made enough money to hire someone she trusted to care for her children while she was away, and then returned home to a tidy house to spend time with her little one. That’s what Molly imagined as her future. Balance. Self-sufficiency. Control. It’s what Monica herself had done for years, creating a legacy the likes of which Molly had kept in her sights for her own life. She closed her eyes for a moment.

  Scott was speaking, having looked up from his phone long enough to join the conversation.

  “You could always work part-time or at night
, after I got home,” he was saying to her. “Freelance or something.”

  “No, no, that won’t do,” Monica interrupted. “Look at all those years I wasted toiling away while you were growing up, Scott. It’s a wonder you turned out as well as you did, considering that your father and I were never home and left you with that Bernadette woman to take care of you. Molly should be here, with you and the baby.”

  Molly shook her head in surprise. “Monica, I thought you loved your architecture work. Weren’t you in school for years to do it?”

  “I did, darling, and that was the problem.” Monica rapped her manicured hands against the countertop. “I loved it too much. I was trying to help Scott’s father create a nice life for ourselves, but look! You don’t need to. You have us.”

  Scott moved to stand closer to Monica. Molly wondered why a mother’s relationship with her son so often set up his partner to feel like the other woman, like a mistress tolerated as long as she didn’t ruffle too many feathers. Seriously, you two, she thought. Monica was rubbing Scott’s upper arm. Get a room.

  “Monica,” Molly said, “I’m still paying off my student loans from grad school. I kind of wanted to use my education while I’m still spending money on it.” She paused to take a deep breath. She could feel her pulse racing, and she ran her hands over her hair again to push the stray strands away from her face.

  “Well, then, don’t worry about them.” Monica laughed. “Scott, dear, you never told us Molly had loans.”

  Scott focused on his phone with a renewed, intense interest, and Monica turned her attention back to Molly. “Molly, consider them taken care of. We’ll write you a check to cover the balance.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Molly looked back and forth between Monica and Scott before remembering to close her mouth.

  “Oh, stop it, Molly,” Monica said. “You’re going to have bigger fish to fry, darling. That baby’s going to need his mommy. And now you’ve one less thing blocking your way to do just that.”