Forever and Back
Ready to meet June? Of course you are! Chapter one of Forever and Back (Life on the Ledge Duet, Book One) is below :)
ONE
Spaghetti night is my own personal hell, yet here we are again. Because it’s easy. Because everyone will eat it. Because the thought of thinking of something different makes my eye twitch.
“Boys! Lyra!” I shout over my shoulder as I set bowls on the dinged-up kitchen table. “Dinner!”
When the twins appear—seemingly out of nowhere—I nearly drop the pot of pasta. “Hank! God! Get that plastic bag off your brother’s head!”
Hank frowns as Tyrus pulls the bag off his head and climbs into his chair, revealing a tiny-toothed smile. “I was seeing how long I could hold my breath.”
There’s no time for a safety lecture before they both start shoveling sauce-covered noodles into their mouths.
“Where’s Dad?” Lyra asks, seventeen-year-old vibe of nonchalance as she strolls into the room and drops into a seat at the table. The bright green lace of her bra pops against her skin as the oversized neck of her dusty grey T-shirt slides down her shoulder.
I do not say the sarcastic great question that stabs at the tip of my tongue. Instead, I ignore her. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
I wince when the dog barks, a booming sound that nearly rattles the walls of the small house. Thor, our godforsaken bullmastiff, prances into the room—claws tapping against the wood floor at a cadence that scrapes at my sanity—until he reaches the table.
He sits, drools, and whimpers as he eyes the food.
“Ty, Hank . . . gross,” Lyra says, scrunching her gold-hoop pierced nose as she looks at her twin brothers, already elbow deep in their dinner. Literally.
“Boys, slow down,” I tell them, trying not to focus on how much of their meal is missing their mouths. Positive moms focus on positive points.
The phone vibrates in my back pocket.
I don’t need to read it to know what it says, but I do anyway. Because apparently, I like high blood pressure.
Camp: won the softball game grabbing dinner and beer with the guys tell the kids good night for me
Camp is late—again.
Camp is off having fun while I’m dying in the trenches of the dinnertime war zone—again.
Camp texts like a Neanderthal with no regard for punctuation marks—again.
I slide my phone back into my pocket without responding to him and force a smile. “Your dad has a softball game.”
Lyra grins. “Living his best life, as usual.”
A bitter taste fills my mouth as I try not to glare at her. Lyra is whip-smart, top of her class, and, much to my fucking chagrin, her dad’s biggest fan.
“Sure,” I mutter, glancing at the clock as I scoop spaghetti in my own bowl, swallowing every annoyed thing I want to shout.
Because why wouldn’t he join a recreational softball team on top of the baseball team he coaches and the full-time job he has as the athletic director and the planning of the new sports complex and all the team sports events he goes to because he’s supportive and can’t say no to anyone except his own wife?
“Is that gluten-free?” she asks.
I shake my head, pointing to the pot with the less flexible, more mushy-looking pasta. “That one.”
“What’s gluten?” Hank asks, the marinara sauce covering the corners of his mouth the perfect match to the wild red hair and freckles that cover his four-year-old face.
“Looks like glue,” Tyrus observes from next to him around his own spaghetti-filled cheeks, identical freckle-smattered nose scrunching.
I chuckle. “I don’t think it’s glue, Ty.”
“It’s healthy,” Lyra says, defending her current dietary trend as she swirls a mass of glue-pasta onto her fork, hair falling in her face—currently dyed pink. “That stuff you’re putting in your mouth is toxic.” She widens her eyes for dramatic effect; they ignore her, shoveling more toxic food into their mouths.
“Ms. Mitchell put a note in your folders, boys,” I say, situating myself in my chair, positioning my own bowl of spaghetti in front of me, eyebrows raised. “You got red cards today.”
Ms. Mitchell’s approach to teaching preschool errs on the side of terrifying with a discipline system that doubles as a barometer of parental capabilities: green means good mom, yellow means less-good mom, and red means I suck.
“She doesn’t like us,” Hank whines, noodles plastered to his chin. “She says our red hair makes us mean.”
I scoff. “She does not.”
“Does too!” Ty shouts, meat sauce spitting out of his mouth like a volcanic eruption across the table. “She’s only nice to the girls! They never go to time-out!”
I sigh. “You know that’s not—”
“I have a scholarship essay to write tonight,” Lyra says, oblivious to the boys’ shouting.
“Need help?” I ask her as the boys continue to shout their grievances. “After dinner I can—”
“Meh. I’ll wait for Dad,” she says over the boys’ shouts, twirling spaghetti onto her fork. “It’s about chasing your dreams, and, I mean, duh, that’s, like, Dad’s expertise, right?”
I drop my fork on reflex, every molecule in my body taken aback.
My face must show everything I’m thinking, because she adds, “No offense, Mom, it’s just, you know . . . Dad chased big dreams, and you were happy with this.” The boys take this opportunity to have a race to see who can finish their spaghetti first, red noodles being shoveled into their mouths at warp speed as Thor’s dinosaur-sized brown head squeezes its way onto the table between them, lapping up the food that misses their mouths. Lyra’s face twists as if she’s witnessing life’s worst-case scenario being played out in front of her. “You know, just being a mom. Simple.” I try to make an agreeing noise, but there’s not enough momentum in my body to will it out of my mouth before she continues. “Don’t get me wrong, someone has to do it—all this—but Dad . . . he’s just out there doing it, you know? Making a difference and creating a legacy.” She shrugs. “Plus, he went to App State, so . . .”
My jaw drops. “I went to Appalachian State University, too, you know. And had a 4.0 GPA. And got a degree!”
She laughs, like I’ve said something silly. “I know, Mom, but you know, it’s Dad. He, like, went went to App. What was your degree even in?” She squints, but her tone is rhetorical. She doesn’t care. “Either way, I’ll wait for Dad.”
I nod about thirty-two times as the boys holler and the dog whimpers. “Right.”
I smile through the searing pain that burns through my body. Like my heart is pumping lethal chemicals through my veins. As if she didn’t just say the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard in my life. As if she didn’t just let me know that nobody sees the real me. The living, breathing thing that lingers in a dark cage beneath my bones; a silent being that only I know exists. Invisible.
“Let’s do Today’s Best,” I say, mostly to distract myself from the fact I wish the floor would open up and swallow me whole.
I listened to a podcast once that said having kids reflect on their day and talk about the best parts promoted compassion and increased likelihood of healthy relationships long-term. Out of my own inadequacies, one of our many podcast-inspired practices was born.
“I did the monkey bars at school today,” Ty says, proud.
I smile. “That’s ama—”
“You cheated! I saw you standing on Rhett’s shoulders!” Hank argues, outraged his brother would even claim such a thing.
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
“Boys!” I snap, taking a breath to level out. “Either way, Ty, that’s amazing. Hank, your turn.”
When he says, “I did the monkey bars,” another argument ensues, Lyra telling them both to shut up, neither of them listening.
The dog barks.
Ty starts crying because Hank pinches him.
“Hank, don’t do that. That’s not nice,” I say as Ty climbs onto my lap, smearing the spaghetti sauce from his face to my shirt—the only white one I own—as he cries.
Lyra eats two bowls of pasta, then tells me she doesn’t like that brand.
“I’ll buy a different type next time,” I tell her, forcing a smile. “Today’s Best, Ly?”
Hank’s spaghetti spills on the floor. I want to yell, but I stay quiet. Blindly reaching for a useful piece of advice in the doldrums of my mind.
Kids can’t self-regulate if parents don’t demonstrate self-regulation.
3-2-1.
3-2-1.
I do a mental countdown. Keep myself in check.
“Hmm.” Lyra seems oblivious to the chaos, which only fuels the feeling of insanity that’s thrumming through my body. “Oh, I know!” She perks up, starting a story about something that happened in science lab. I force a smile, but mentally I check out.
Ty’s milk spills. I calmly get a paper towel. Keep my cool even though I’m a pot of water sitting over a roaring flame, the boil consuming my body.
The dog barks.
A phone rings—Lyra’s. She stands, mutters, “God, this place is a circus,” then drops her dirty bowl in the sink and disappears down the hall into her bedroom. Her door clicks closed.
The room starts to spin. The whole house.
The dog barks again.
It’s not so different than any other night, but I feel like I’m about to die. Like a plastic bag is over my head.
Where the hell is Camp?
Jamming my palms into my eyes, I force myself to take a deep breath. Then another.
Since the day I sat on an off-kilter toilet lid, fresh out of college but still working as a waitress, and saw that positive pregnancy test, I was in it. I may have never wanted to be a mother, may have never held a baby in my life, but damn if I wasn’t going to be the best one this world had ever seen.
Now, sitting in the middle of this disaster—this loud, thankless, exhausting disaster—I feel every shortcoming in my life. A simple truth sinks deeper into me with every strangling breath: I suck. At all of it. A mom that can’t control her kids. A wife whose husband doesn’t show up to dinner. A once-ambitious girl turned forty-year-old worn-down hag.
Reality threatens to swallow me whole.
In a haze of mayhem, dinner ends, and I get the boys clean, in pajamas, and tucked into bed.
Now I face the war zone of a kitchen. Multiple dirty pots for multiple kinds of pasta. Slobbery sauce smeared on the table and floor.
3-2-1.
3-2-1.
Pushing the earbuds into my ears, I cue up the next podcast from The Perfect Mom. While I’ve been listening to podcasts nearly a decade, I found this one after the boys unexpectedly came along and connected to it right away. Abbigail, the host, started it as a “one-stop shop to fix all your parenting woes,” interviewing a different expert in their field every week, gaining millions of listeners. Social proof she was on to something. I’ve been hanging on to every word since the first episode.
I had been a young mom with Lyra, but suddenly, with the boys, I became the old mom. Everything felt different this time. Every day happening with quicksand beneath my feet and a vise around my chest. Camp focused more time on work; I was drowning. Babies, a tween, a dog the size of a Shetland pony . . . it was overwhelming. The advice that played in my ears helped me regain control. Solidified the ground beneath me and deepened my breaths.
Experts, guiding me to be better than I was. Than I am. Sometimes even solving problems I don’t know I’m having.
I turn up the volume and reach my hands into the soapy water.
THE PERFECT MOM PODCAST WITH ABBIGAIL BUCHANAN
EPISODE 208: The Plight of the Stay-at-Home Mom with guest Dr. Lisa Cowart
Abbigail: Alright, mamas, we have special guest Dr. Lisa Cowart here to talk about her new book, The Plight of the Homemaker. Welcome to the show, Doctor.
Dr. Cowart: Thanks for having me, Abbigail.
Abbigail: Let’s get right to it, shall we? Tell us about your book. What inspired you to write it, and what do you want all those perfect mama listeners to take away from it?
Dr. Cowart: That’s such a great question.
In her brief pause, I snort a small laugh. Is that really a great question?
Dr. Cowart: I was a stay-at-home mom for years but felt like I was just in a hamster wheel, you know? Like I did the same thing over and over and over and over. And everyone around me seemed so fulfilled. My kids won awards, and my husband got promoted at work, and they were all celebrated, while there I was, riding on their coattails . . . a doctor, for God’s sake! Then, I found out the whole time I was working so hard to make everyone happy, my husband, along with pursuing whatever dreams he wanted, was also having an affair.
Abbigail: Gosh, that must have been hard.
Dr. Cowart: The hardest. And us wives—we want to believe our husbands love us, don’t want to see what they are doing—but it’s part of the plight I discuss in my book, which you can purchase at my website, doctorlisacowart-dot-com. We are so closed off in our own bubbles of chaos, we forget that everyone else out in the world is exposed to so many choices. People. Sure, Stan, as you’ll read about in my book, left me for a younger version—a working woman, as you’ll read in my book—but you know what? It was the shove I needed. Getting out of my marriage opened my eyes to everything I’d given up. How wrong I had it. I leaned on my psychology background and looked into what happened—how I got it so wrong. I went through studies—conducted my own—and found the biggest problem is women who choose to stay home and raise babies are simultaneously handing over their happiness to others without even knowing it. They take care of others to the point of draining their own happiness tanks! Think of any stay-at-home mom you know, Abbigail . . .
When she pauses, I still, mid-drying of a pot, eyes pinging around the room as if a hidden camera is watching me die a death of domestic duties.
Dr. Cowart: Do they pursue their own interests outside of their family? Are they taken seriously? Do their kids and spouse even know them? Do they even know themselves? Do they take an active role in making choices for their own life?
She pauses, dramatic and all knowing, as the word no fills my skull like a balloon.
Dr. Cowart: If the answer is no, they need to shake it up.
Abbigail: Shake it up?
Dr. Cowart: Rediscover themselves. Remove the bruised fruit. If a woman is slaving away at home, not being appreciated, while her husband—for example—is out having beer with friends, or golfing, or getting into another woman’s bed . . . where’s the justice? The balance?! One person can’t always sacrifice. And these women, home and working hard to raise kids the best they can but not being supported by a spouse, their ability to parent suffers with that.
Abbigail: So you’re saying that if the women listening aren’t being supported by their husbands, they’ll never be the moms they want to be?
Dr. Cowart: You are exactly right. Not just want to be, need to be. And studies show—all included in my book—that children raised in homes by mothers who aren’t respected and fulfilled are more likely to grow up lacking the ability to set and achieve long-term goals.
At this, my eyes bug out of my head.
Abbigail: So unfulfilled women should what—leave their husbands? Go to work?
Dr. Cowart: Let me ask it to you this way: Is it fair that men get to chase their dreams while women don’t?
Abbigail: Hmm. I definitely see what you’re saying. But what about the mamas out there listening that are skeptical of this. Who think “I like staying home and taking care of my family. This is advice from a woman scorned”?
Dr. Cowart: I can see how people think my husband walking out on me for a younger version and posting photos of their European vacation all over the internet would make them think that, but it’s simply not true. I’m happy in my life—single and independent and navigating the narcissists of modern dating—and presenting this information, all in my book, from a completely unbiased and healed perspective. I harbor no ill will toward my ex leaving me high and dry. None. Without him shattering my life into a million pieces I wouldn’t be where I am now. I’m saying, if you have even the slightest feelings of being unappreciated, the slightest inkling that your husband isn’t around enough because he’s selfishly pursuing his own interests . . . feel like you’re failing because you are being swallowed in the daily grind. The fun sponge while your spouse gets to be the hero . . . maybe you don’t know what’s best. Take it from me, things are never what they seem. For every person sacrificing, there is someone who isn’t. Who never will.
She pauses, dramatic silence hanging in my earbuds, anticipation squeezing my throat.
Dr. Cowart: At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself: Is your marriage a source of life or the demise of it? Is your husband supporting you or standing in your way? Is he really trying or just making excuses?
Abbigail: Wow . . . that’s wow. Okay, mamas, on that explosive note, we will break with a word from our sponsors. We’ll be back in a minute.
I pop the earbuds out of my ears. Stare at the soap. The small house we live in. The snoring dog on the floor. The door my husband still hasn’t walked through.
All I can think: how the hell did I get here?