Hearing Andrew mention the agenda at the meeting I’d missed the day before caused guilt to creep up my neck. With the discussion revolving around creative hours, I should have been part of it.
“In my opinion, as you know, we need to revisit the whole billing model for creative,” I responded. “It’s not effective. You can’t always forecast how long it will take to come up with the creative that a client needs. You can’t just say, ‘Be creative now’ to a team and then start a stopwatch. It doesn’t work that way.”
Andrew and Charlee nodded. They’d heard the argument before, and I knew they didn’t disagree.
“Plus, the creative team is on the junior side right now. It takes longer. That’s just the way it is. I want to hire more senior creatives but Jack hasn’t approved the positions. If we had more experienced creative minds working on our clients’ business, it wouldn’t take as long.”
“Yes, but those experienced minds come with more expensive salaries …” Andrew responded, and we were caught once again in the same vicious circular argument we always were.
Further into the meeting, it became more obvious that I’d missed an extremely important discussion the day before. We needed to bring in Jack and figure out a way to change how our creative team billed for their hours.
“For now, let’s just agree to bill clients for what they’ve signed off on, and we will eat the rest until we figure out the new estimation model. Does that work for you guys?” I asked. We all knew we couldn’t risk pissing off our clients by billing them for hours that were out of scope.
Our meeting broke just before eight o’clock, and I left the boardroom to head to the meeting at Campbell’s. Emily waited outside the boardroom with my coat, an umbrella, and a cab chit. I had just over thirty minutes to make it across town.
“James and the others are already in the lobby. I told them you’d meet them there,” Emily explained as I shrugged my arms into my coat. She walked with me to the elevator and punched the button for me.
When I reached the lobby, I was greeted by sleepy smiles that matched my own. I knew the team was suffering from lack of sleep as much as I was but, despite our tired brains, we managed to breeze through the creative presentation and get instant approval from the Campbell’s marketing team. We were back at the office just before noon, and I headed to my working lunch brainstorm. Famished, I filled my plate with catered sandwiches and salads, hoping it would give me enough energy to keep my steam for the rest of my afternoon meetings.
By the time I got home, I practically fell through the door. I was exhausted from head to toe, and didn’t know how I’d make it through dinner.
“Smells like pizza!” I said as I walked into the kitchen. It had arrived just before I did.
“Pepperoni and bacon,” Nate said, hobbling up to me and giving me a squeeze. Shocked, I returned his hug and looked questioningly at Pete over Nate’s head. Pete shrugged his shoulders, and motioned he would explain later.
“What happened?” I whispered to Pete as we got out plates and napkins. “I haven’t seen that smile on Nate in forever and a day. It’s amazing!”
“Yes, it is. And I have no idea what happened,” Pete whispered back. “I picked him up from school today and he was like that. It’s like he went back to being his old self. Mrs. Brock said he was quiet in the morning, but seemed to be in great spirits when I took him back to school after lunch.”
“Oh, thank God. I’ve been so worried!” Relief spread its wings, giving my exhausted body the bout of energy it needed. The tension I’d been carrying in my neck began to dissolve.
“How was he at lunch?”
Pete shrugged. “Kind of normal, I guess. He talked a bit more than he has in the past few days, but nothing like this.”
“Well, I’ll take what we’ve got now!” I responded. Pete nodded in agreement as he finished setting the table, and we all sat down to dive into the hot pizza. Pete opened a bottle of wine, and I sipped it freely, taking in the sight of my happy family.
When we were all full of pizza, we watched Spider-Man at Nate’s insistent request, and even Grace agreed to watch the movie again. I could tell she also noticed a difference in Nate, and was happy to have her brother back.
Together, we ploughed through a bucket of popcorn and a bag of Sour Patch Kids. Somehow, I didn’t even fall asleep.
When the movie ended and the kids bounced upstairs to put themselves to bed, I sat back on the couch and enjoyed the peace. I took in the moment. Relished in the joy. And felt blessed by bliss. My day at work had been both challenging and rewarding. Nate was clearly back. And my family was happy.
Life was good.
22
The next few weeks flew by at lightning speed. Work escalated and became frenzied, and my family bounced back into the normalcy of routine. With Nate’s ankle growing stronger every day, much like his demeanour and behaviour, I was able to return my focus to my career and give Jack the drive he was looking for.
“Mom?” Nate asked. He walked into the kitchen early one Sunday morning without even the slightest trace of a limp. “Can we have pancakes?”
“Can we have pancakes …?” My voice trailed off as I waited for him to finish the sentence.
“Can we have pancakes, please?”
“We sure can, Bean. How about chocolate chip?”
“Yeah!” Nate pumped his fist into the air. I took that as a good sign.
While I pulled out all of the ingredients to make my family-famous homemade chocolate chip pancakes, Pete walked lazily into the room. He looked tired, as if his full night of sleep hadn’t fixed his exhaustion.
“Coffee?” I asked him. He nodded sleepily in response, before coming up behind me to give me a hug and kiss my cheek.
“So gross!” Nate jumped in. “Take it somewhere else, would you?”
“Go wake up your sister and tell her to get out of bed. And if she threatens to throw you out, tell her there will be no bacon for her unless she’s down here in ten minutes to help.”
Nate bounced from the room.
“It’s nice, right?” I asked Pete, turning to face him.
“What’s nice?”
“This. Us. Our family. It’s wonderful for everything to feel nice again.”
He nodded, handing me the eggs for the pancake batter. He had already put the bacon into the oven, and the intoxicating smell of Sunday morning started to fill the house.
A few moments later, Grace came into the kitchen and asked if she could go over to Emma’s house that afternoon.
“Nope. Not today, hon. It’s Nate’s first hockey game since he sprained his ankle, and we’re all going as a family to watch him play.”
“Come on … really?!” Grace retorted. Clearly she’d had other ideas about how she was going to spend her afternoon.
“Yes, really.” I ignored the dirty look she shot my way. I didn’t want to ruin my feeling of nice. “Now, why don’t you help me by setting the table?”
“Well … can I go over to Emma’s after the hockey game?”
“If you help me set the table, we’ll see.” I’d learned a long time ago to accept the fact that bribery wasn’t beyond the scope of my parenting tactics.
“You ready for the big game today, bud?” Pete asked, taking the plates from the cupboard to help Grace set the table. She was the proverbial daddy’s girl in every sense of the phrase, and Pete was constantly helping her when I asked her to do something around the house.
“I guess. I just hope my ankle doesn’t hurt too much.”
“It looks good as new to me, bud. I think you’ll be okay.” Pete winked at Nate. “Now, who’s hungry? These pancakes look fantastic!”
I poured the kids some orange juice, and within minutes, they’d scarfed down six pancakes each.
After everyone helped to clean up, Nate and Grace bounded upstairs t
o get ready for the day. We planned to run errands before lunch, yet another thing Grace had to complain about.
We took the kids to our favourite place for lunch, an old-school pizzeria with black and white tiled floors. They served their steaming pies on high stands.
Once we’d ordered, Grace catapulted into her never-ending narrative, chattering on about who she might see at Nate’s hockey game, and asking if her hair looked okay in case it was Devin, the cute boy she had met there the last time we went to Nate’s hockey game. I assured her it did. The half-pepperoni, half-Hawaiian pizza that arrived was the only thing that seemed to halt our talkative daughter in her long-winded tracks.
“Are you excited about your game today, Bean?” I asked Nate. He shrugged, pushing at the pizza on his plate.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
He shrugged again, before answering, “No. Not really.”
“Well eat up, little man,” Pete interjected. “You’ve got a big game in front of you!”
Nate begrudgingly ate the half a piece we forced him to have before we paid the bill and returned to our car. By the time we made it to the parking lot at the arena, I couldn’t help but notice that Nate seemed quieter. Eerily silent, in fact, and even more so than he had been at lunch. I wondered if he was nervous about getting back on the ice. But when I asked him, he simply shook his head and said that he felt tired.
“You sure, Bean? You’re sure everything’s okay?” Panic tainted my voice, but I couldn’t help acting paranoid. Even the slightest twist of energy in Nate was enough to start the crackle of my nerves.
Nate shrugged. “I don’t know. I told you before that no one likes me on my hockey team. I’m not sure that I want to play anymore.”
“But you’ve always loved hockey! And of course the guys on your team all like you. I’m sure they’ve missed you while you’ve been gone.” It was a white lie. The boys on his team didn’t have the same bond with Nate as they did with each other. But the strict no-bullying rules of the league ensured that no one would say one mean word to any other player, and I’d always hoped that, over time, the kids on Nate’s team might think of my son as their friend.
Pete slammed the car door shut and threw Nate’s hockey bag over his shoulder. He whisked our son up in the air, and called out that he thought Nate would be late unless they moved quickly. Within seconds they were gone, and Grace and I went to buy hot chocolates before taking our seats across from Nate’s team’s bench.
“Let’s gooo, Naaate!” Grace called out as Nate stepped onto the ice. Her indifferent attitude from breakfast had taken a back seat to the sisterly pride I knew she always felt when she watched her brother play hockey. Despite his lack of kinship with the team, Nate was good at the sport, particularly for his age, and typically scored the majority of the goals.
About halfway through the game, Nate skated off the ice and benched himself for no reason. The whistle hadn’t even been blown. I strained to see what had happened, but couldn’t make out what Nate was doing or saying on the bench.
“I’m going to see what’s up,” I murmured aloud to no one in particular. Pete shook his head in disagreement, but he knew not to try to hold me back.
When I made it across the arena, I called Nate’s name, and motioned for him to come and see me. He ignored my plea, and turned his attention back to the game.
“Nate!” I called out, this time louder. He turned, finally, and looked blankly through me. His eyes seemed hollow again. Empty. He refused to come talk to me, no matter how many times I called his name or waved him over.
When I started to feel like I was making a fool of myself, I gave up and went back to sit in my seat. Nate didn’t play again that day, and when I was finally able to ask him why he’d left the game, he said simply that his ankle was hurting and he hadn’t felt like playing.
Our drive home was quiet, and I stared out of the window, lost in thought about what had happened in the middle of the game. The more I thought about Nate’s behaviour, the more I was convinced that something had snapped in him to make him slip back into the odd behaviour of recent weeks. He had regressed.
With every block we drove, my fearful thoughts became so rampant they almost took on a hyper state, and I made a mental note to book a doctor’s appointment for Nate the minute the office opened the following day.
~
“Ashley! You’re crazy. There is nothing wrong with Nate. Why are you saying this again?” Pete practically snarled at me while brushing his teeth. We were getting ready for bed, and I had brought up what had happened at Nate’s hockey game earlier that day. Pete spit into the sink and put his toothbrush back into the holder before walking around me to retreat to our bedroom.
“Pete … you’re not listening to me. There’s something wrong with Nate. I know it sounds extreme because he’s been so good the past few weeks, but I know what I know. I can’t explain it. Every motherly instinct is telling me there’s something up with him. Something’s not right.” I followed Pete into our room and sat beside him on the bed. He clicked on the TV and switched it to sports highlights.
“Don’t be rude, Pete. I’m trying to talk to you about our son.”
“Yeah … I heard what you have to say. And I responded. So we’re done talking about it. Got it?” Pete turned the volume up on the TV, which increased at about the same speed as my rage.
“No. You’re not ignoring me this time. I’m seriously worried. What if Nate leaves in the middle of the night again?”
“That’s why we got the alarm,” Pete responded. We’d installed it shortly after Nate had broken his ankle. I couldn’t deal with another episode of Nate deciding to go on a joyride in the middle of the night.
“That’s not the point, and you know it,” I retorted. But I was getting nowhere. I paused, searching my husband’s blank face. “Pete, I think we should take him to see a doctor.”
“He doesn’t need a doctor, Ash. He’s a boy who’s acting perfectly normal. So he has a few mood swings … so what? It’s not a big deal. Nate said his ankle was bugging him today, which is perfectly understandable, so why don’t you just drop it already?”
“But —”
“Look, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. He’s fine. Now drop it.” Pete turned the volume on the TV even higher, as if to make a point, and I gave up trying to pursue the conversation. Instead, I walked into our bathroom and purposely locked Pete out, just as he was doing to me, before drawing myself a bubble bath.
Frustrated by my husband and feeling very much alone, I sank deep into the searing fizzy water, which bit at my skin and caused it to turn a deep shade of red. The sting of the heat was prickly and somewhat painful, but it was enough to finally disrupt the raw, maternal panic that I otherwise couldn’t seem to shake.
23
I kicked off my Cole Haan flats and tucked my feet up underneath me. I was flying to New York for the Amex meetings, and was taking the nine p.m. Sunday flight out of Toronto. Sitting on a black leather chair in the Maple Leaf lounge, my heart was heavy. The deep navy sky provided a backdrop to the polka dot lights that lined the runway, and an oversized plane lazily taxied into its spot before being connected to a gangway.
Pete and I had lived through another tense day, snapping at each other far too quickly about things we both recognized as being unimportant. I knew our bickering was the symptom and not the cause, but it didn’t make it any easier.
Nate had continued to walk about the house in a fog all week. We had taken him to another hockey game earlier that day, and he had begged to be benched. When the coach said no, he actually sat down on the ice and refused to move until the coach let him sit out.
I was grateful when the other mothers tried to make light of the situation by saying he was probably just not feeling well or his ankle was probably sore. I appreciated the gesture, but couldn’t help but feel judged as they sipped at t
heir fat-free lattes and occasionally cheered for their own sons.
When we got home from the game, Nate asked if he could take a nap.
“A nap?” Grace had chided Nate. “What are you? Like three or something? What a wittle baby you are.”
And Grace wasn’t far off in her assessment. Nate had bawled like a newborn when the town car had pulled up to our house to take me to the airport that night. When he realized I wouldn’t give in and stay, he threw an unreasonable temper tantrum, kicking his feet and smashing his folded fists into the ground. Pete had to pick him up and carry him to his room; our son flailed his arms and legs the entire way up the stairs, drool dribbling down his cheeks and mixing in with tears. I had barely been able to force myself into the waiting town car.
Sighing, I pulled out my laptop at the airport and tried to read through a creative brief I needed to review. After reading the same paragraph eight times and not remembering what was in it, I gave up and wandered to the bar. After the day I’d had, a glass of Monte Bello would hit the spot. But when I got to the small self-serve counter, I realized I’d have to make do with a glass from the bottle of unknown red sitting by itself.
I helped myself to a wineglass, filled it too full by the standards of any wine snob and returned to my chair. The wine was bitter and too warm, but it was better than nothing.
As I swirled the wine in my glass, I looked around me. For the most part, the lounge was pretty quiet, with a few lone business travellers speckled throughout its seating pods. Every one of them had his or her nose buried in a laptop or smartphone, and none of them seemed interested in what was going on around them.
Several rows away, sitting next to one of the glowing lamps, a tall man with silver hair punched away at his keyboard. At almost the same moment my eyes found him, the man looked up and momentarily gazed out the window.
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