This book is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.
Except the original material written by the author, all songs, song titles, and lyrics contained in the book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders.
I Win
I'm in heaven. It all feels so good, so unexpected, I'm afraid if I open my eyes I'll discover it's all just a dream. It's Tuesday, my husband's face is between my legs and he's waking me up in style. I grind my pelvis into his face and grab his head with my hands. I want to hold him here as I feel my orgasm building. It's been so long since he's done this. We never have the time. These days sex is just a fast and furious race against the clock. Usually behind the locked doors of our bedroom or our bathroom while we pray our kids won't come knocking before we can both get there. So this . . . this feels like he just whisked me away to Paris for the weekend.
I moan his name as I start to come and his hands tighten on my hips as he grunts in approval. And then like the dream I feared it was, it ends.
"Daddy, are you looking for a baby down there?" Comes the perfectly composed, inquisitive voice of my five-year-old son, Jack.
We both go still. My husband's mouth stops moving but he doesn't move otherwise. I drop my hands from his head, but otherwise I just lie there and stare at the ceiling. I am searching for a way to explain this to my son. Not because I hope he understands, but because I don't want to say anything that is remotely interesting enough that he'll want to repeat it at school this morning. He hasn't actually seen anything. My husband is mainly covered by the sheets. I glance in the direction of my son's voice and see that he is standing at the foot of our bed, so his view is only of the back of my husband's head.
With a heavy sigh, my husband, Nathan, slides up my body. He wipes his mouth on the hem of my nightshirt. Our eyes connect and I see panic tinged with amusement in his eyes. He flashes me a conspiratorial grin. I can't imagine what he finds funny, I'm horrified and annoyed and frustrated. I was almost there. Our son just walked in on us while my husband was going down on me and now he wants to know what we were doing.
Nathan flops onto his back and props himself up on his elbows. "Yup, buddy. That's right. I was looking for another baby. But I didn't find one."
"Oh. I'm hungry. Can I eat breakfast at home?" my son responds. Apparently satisfied with his father's explanation.
I sigh and swing my legs over the side of the bed. He goes to a private pre-kindergarten and they give the kids breakfast there every morning. I insist he eats it because we pay for it. Normally, I wake him up with only minutes to spare before we have to leave the house. This lets me avoid his pleading for a homemade breakfast. But he's awake early, so I prepare myself for the argument. Making breakfast on a weekday is not a thing I do. My oldest has a bowl of cereal before he heads off to school but he is old enough to get that for himself.
"No, buddy, let's get dressed. Then you can eat the yummy breakfast they make you at school. You love that breakfast," I say in the most jovial voice I can muster given the time of day and the fact that this kid just robbed me of what was sure to be a spectacular orgasm.
"No," he says. Sharp, short and determined. I groan inwardly. I swear I feel like I'm the only parent whose drop off is so full of tears and whining. I try to keep calm and remind myself that he'll feed off my energy. If I remain calm. So will he.
"Okay well, let's just get dressed and see where we are then, okay?" I say as I walk up to him, place a hand as gently as possible on his shoulder and walk him out of the room. I hear my husband chuckling and I look over my shoulder and shoot him an annoyed glare.
"No. I want to eat breakfast at home. I hate school breakfast. It's always too hot. I want waffles," he says, his mouth set in a mulish pout, his arms crossed over his chest and each word punctuated by the stomp of his feet as he lets me lead him out of our room and up the stairs to his room to get dressed.
I glance at the clock that hangs on the wall on the staircase and note that he's awake almost thirty minutes early. It's time to wake up my oldest, James to make sure he gets to eat his breakfast, brush his teeth and get dressed before it's time to go.
I glance down at Jack and decide that I'll just let him eat breakfast with his brother. No waffles, but a bowl of cereal. So he won't eat breakfast at school. That $2.50 line item they add to our bill is something I'll just have to eat. It's a cheap price to pay for a tear free drop off and seems like a gift right now. How else was I going to fill the extra thirty minutes?
"Okay Jack Jack, you can have breakfast at home," I say trying to sound as excited as I know he'll feel when he hears me.
"Yes!" he says in a triumphant little hiss as he pumps his fist. For a minute I marvel at how much he's grown in the last few months. He's only got a month left in pre-kindergarten and as much as I can't wait to not have that bill to pay anymore, I've been nostalgic for the days when he was still a baby who wanted to be carried up the stairs. Now he's this kid who ran up ahead of me and is already in his room stripping out of his pajamas. I pull out his navy-blue shorts and red polo shirt that make up his school uniform. I say a silent prayer of thanks to the otherwise totally inept school management staff for having uniforms. It's one less argument in the morning.
By the time we get downstairs, my oldest is already there, eating his bowl of Frosted Flakes while watching Mr. Peabody and Sherman. His attention is rapt and he barely grunts a greeting as I set a bowl down for his brother. His demand for waffles has been forgotten as he munches happily on his Rice Krispies.
I rush back to my bedroom to grab a quick shower and get myself ready for work. My husband and I pass each other with practiced dodges and sidles that have become the choreography of our weekday mornings. He's done showering by the time I get to the bathroom and he barely spares me a glance as I strip and hop into the shower. I miss the days when he took every opportunity to fondle or grope me. Now, we are all just trying to get ourselves and our children out of the door so that everyone gets to their destinations on time.
I emerge twenty minutes later, dressed for work. My hair is pulled back in a bun and I'll put my makeup on once I'm in the car. Yeah, I know. It's not good to drive while distracted. But Houston traffic means lots of sitting. Over the course my twenty-five-mile journey, I'll have plenty of time to put my face on.
Once we spend five minutes getting everyone's shoes on, backpacks slung over their shoulders and ourselves out the door, we only have a few minutes to hit the carpool lane to drop off James.
As I pull up the drive, I see his teacher has carpool duty and have to suppress a scream as I see her home in on me and start my way.
"James, unbuckle your seatbelt and get ready to jump out as soon as I unlock the doors," I say over my shoulder. If I can get him out of the car fast enough I can pull away from the curb before she gets to the car. No such luck.
"Mom, I didn't want to wear these shoes today. Can you bring me another pair?" James, my unusually fashion conscious eight-year-old whines while he's NOT unbuckling his seatbelt or preparing to hop down from the car.
"No. You'll have to deal. I'm not a shoe delivery service," I shoot back. "Hurry up!" I snap.
But just as always, when I'm in a hurry, he seems to be bogged down by molasses and his movements are slower than a drifting iceberg.
When the door opens and he hops out with, "Bye, Mom" and a wave before he runs into the building, Mrs. Westing is waiting. Fake smile in place, judging eyes piercing.
"Good morning, Mrs. Bailey. I don't want to keep you, but James hasn't turned in his permission slip for the end of year field day. It's due today," she says as she peers down her nose at me. Fine, she wasn't peering, but it felt like it. I haven't checked that boy's folder in two weeks, so I just say, "I haven't seen it in his folder. He must have lost it; can you send anoth
er one home today and I'll make sure it's back here by tomorrow," I say with a smile that I hope is easy and honest.
"Of course. I always ask the office for extras because I have a few parents I know will need them." This time, I don't imagine the patronizing expression on her face, but I don't have time to worry about it. I nod in thanks and say, "Have a great day." As she closes the door and I jet away from the curb.
I drop Jack off with a quick word about his having already eaten breakfast, a quick peck on the cheek and I run out of his classroom before he can start crying about wanting to go back home.
When I get to my office, I'm quickly caught up in the day's crises. Mostly manufactured by my boss. I've got so many fires to put out, calls to make and meetings lined up that the morning flies by. So, when my phone rings two hours later and I see the name of Jack's pre-school flash on my caller ID, it's with a distracted "hello" that I answer.
"Mrs. Bailey, this is Regina from Pinwheel, we have a little bit of a problem." Comes the twangy, smoke roughened voice of the school's director.
She has my full attention as she continues.
"Jack's been complaining of a stomach ache all morning and he just vomited. We need you to come and pick him up."
She says this like she has just dropped a match onto the kerosene soaked, dry kindling that is my day. I swear I hear a whoosh as her words sink in.
"Did you call my husband?" is the first thing out of my mouth.
"We didn't. You're the first emergency contact," she returns, sounding annoyed.
"He threw up?" I ask, "Jack never throws up. You said he had a stomach ache?" I ask her rhetorically. I am already scanning my calendar to see what appointments I need to cancel before I leave the office.
"Yes. After breakfast he started—"
"After breakfast?" I interrupt. "He ate breakfast? I told them when I dropped him off that he had already eaten," I say, my annoyance growing.
"Well, they must not have heard you and he cleaned his plate when it was put down in front of him," she says. She sounds bored. "Either way, you need to come for him. He's vomited, he has to leave and can't come back for twenty-four hours," she says with a dispassionate yet somehow commanding voice. "And, since he doesn't have a change of clothes, we've put him in some extra things we keep around for situations like this." And although she doesn't sound like she accusing me, I feel it.
"I thought I'd brought his extra change of clothes. It would be good if you let us know they are missing before they actually need them," I say in a tone I know conveys my defensiveness.
"Well we send a reminder home every week, Mrs. Bailey. If you checked his folders, you'd see it," she returns in a voice that reminds me of my mother when she does one of her passive aggressive "I'm disappointed in you" speeches.
I roll my eyes and decide that it's time to end this call. "Let me see if my husband is available to come and pick him. One of us will be there within the hour," I say quickly, my hand already on my desk phone as I prepare to call my husband to see if his day has more flexibility than mine.
Less than two minutes later, I'm emailing my boss and the rest of my team to let them know I'm leaving the office. I'm the only person on staff who has young children. I know that they don't understand when things like this happen and I hate having to deal with their snide comments about how nice it must be to be able to leave the office whenever I want and blame it on my kids.
As I drive back towards my neighborhood to pick Jack up, I put my Kendrick Lamar Spotify station on and try not to think about how I'll make up the work I've left behind. I don't think about how my husband is never the one who has to make these sorts of sacrifices and I don't let my mind drift to what life would be like without my children.
I don't regret having them. I love them more than anything and cannot imagine life without them. But I do have moments where I resent them. I know that sounds horrible, but it's true. It's as if as soon they were born people stopped seeing me as an individual and judge everything I do through the lens of my motherhood. My career path has totally changed because they became my priority when they were born. I thought I'd be in the C-suite by now. Instead, I'm doing a job I'm overqualified for, reporting to a woman who doesn't have half my experience and making half the money I did five years ago. But I needed a job that gives me this kind of flexibility and that lets me work from home occasionally. My husband didn't feel compelled, nor was he expected, to make these sorts of changes once we started having children. So I have moments where I feel resentful. When I can't lie in bed and read, when I can't have sex whenever I want to. And I also resent that no matter what I do, there will be a teacher, an aunt, activity leader who will remind me where I'm falling short.
I pull into the pre-school's parking lot just as one of my favorite songs comes on. I throw my car into park, press the button to turn off the car and hop out. My poor little guy is sitting on a bench outside the office waiting for me, dressed in pants that are two sizes too small and a shirt that is so big, it comes all the way to his knees. I scoop him up and when he wraps his arms around my neck and presses his cheek next to mine, I forget all of my irritation and just hug him.
The assistant director comes out of her office and smiles warmly at us. "Let us know how he's feeling tomorrow." She brushes a hand over his cheek and smiles at him. "Hope you feel better soon, Jack."
"Thank you," he returns feebly and then buries his face into my neck.
She is holding the bag they put his dirty clothes in and says kindly, "I'll walk you out to the car and carry these for you."
"Thank you." I smile, grateful to not have to find a way to juggle him, my purse and the bag.
We walk out and I open the backseat and buckle him into his booster seat. As I close the door, she hands me the bag of clothes.
"We just did assessments yesterday, I was talking to Jack's teacher and she said that he scored above average across the board."
"Oh, that's great," I return with the first genuine smile I've been able to muster today, but start to fish in my bag to find my car's key remote. It's hot and the door is closed, I want to get the A/C going if she wants to chat.
"Just one second, let me turn the car on and we can chat for a couple of minutes," I tell her. I open the door, hop in and press the ignition button. And as soon as I do, "I love bad bitches, that's my fucking problem, and yeah I like to fuck, that's my fucking problem." Comes blaring out of my speakers. Kendrick Lamar and A$AP Rocky's collaboration "F*cking Problems" is one of my favorite songs, but the look on Ms. Jessica's face tells me it's not one of hers.
I turn the volume down right away and step back out of the car with an apologetic smile. "Sorry, it was playing when I got out."
"Of course. Well, I'd better get back inside. I'll make sure Ms. Davis schedules time to talk about his scores." And without waiting for me to respond, she turns and hurries back into the building.
"Fuck her," I mumble to myself as I get back into the car and put the car in gear. I don't listen to explicit songs in front of my kids. It's not because I worry about them hearing bad words . . . I heard them constantly growing up and I turned out just fine. But mainly because I'm afraid they'll repeat them at school or somewhere they could get in trouble for using them.
I glance in my rearview mirror to see Jack is sitting patiently and when he catches my eye and gives a sweet smile, I decide I don't care what Ms. Jessica thinks of me. That smile is all the validation I need in this world.
The rest of the day is uneventful. Well, except for James telling me, when I picked him up from school, that everybody else's mom comes to school to eat lunch with them. He wondered if it's because I'm a "fenimist" like his friend Alex's mother said I was when she was there for lunch today. I'm not the only working mother in my neighborhood, but I know that I'm in the minority. Most of James' classmates have mothers who have chosen to do the work of full-time mothering and are home during the day. I don't begrudge them any of it. If I didn't have student loan paym
ents that were almost as much as our monthly mortgage, I'd quit my job and follow my dream of writing and publishing the stories I've been writing in my notebooks since I was a child. But I don't appreciate random people qualifying my life choices by painting them and me with an ideological brush. Especially one my son doesn't even understand.
I sit down at my kitchen island to read through my emails and see one from James' teacher like a flashing neon sign as soon as I log in.
Dear Mrs. Bailey. I found the permission slip you said James lost in his folder when I opened it this morning. I noticed it's been more than a month since you've signed our daily behavior chart. Perhaps if you checked his folder more regularly you'd have a better grasp on what was going on in the classroom. I can introduce you to Heidi Granger, our class mother. She is very organized and perhaps can give you some tips. Please return the permission slip tomorrow so that Jack can participate in the fun field day we have planned for the end of the year.
"Fuck you, too bitch," I grumble at my computer as I delete the offending email.
And then I hear, "Mommy said the B word and the really bad F word," Jack sings out to whoever is in hearing distance.
I sigh and hop down from the stool and start to walk to where he's standing on the other side of the island.
"Yeah, I did," I say to him with a grin as I wriggle my fingers in his direction. He giggles is pure glee.
"Come here, let me show you another B word." I start to reach for him in a playfully menacing way, my eyes narrowed to slits and my grin huge. "I'm going to bite you!"
His eyes widen in delight and terror and he takes off running, shrieking, "Help, Mommy's going to eat me!" He runs without caring if I'm giving chase and a few seconds later, I hear him dashing up the stairs shouting for his brother to save him.
#MomFail: 24 Authors & 24 Mom-Coms Page 11