Now as an experienced mother she knew never to disturb sleep. Even if breathing appeared slightly compromised. She felt proud of herself for reaching this minor parenting milestone until the image of juggling two kids as a divorcée popped into her mind.

Thomas cleared his throat, gently remind her of his presence. Lisa had been silent, lost in her thoughts, for 30 minutes now. In the past he would have been annoyed, but knowing she was carrying his child somehow bestowed him with additional patience.

“How far along are you?”

“The doctor thinks about nine weeks.”

The dad-to-be racked his mental encyclopedia. What does that mean? Does it have fingernails? Eye sockets?

Lisa read his mind.

“I heard the heartbeat.”

He sucked in a deep breath. “Wow.”

Two boys, around 6 and 8, tumbled out of a nearby minivan and sprinted to the park’s jungle gym. They were followed by their leisurely walking, smiling parents.

The mom was dressed casually in a breezy pink pastel chiffon skirt and matching sweater. Lisa looked down at her dark denim and college sweatshirt (which felt a bit snug) and suddenly felt like an unfit mother.

Perfect Mom called out to her roughhousing boys, “Play nice!” before spreading out a red and white checkered blanket for her and her well-groomed husband to lounge on.

Lisa suddenly felt nauseous again. She grabbed her purse.

“I’m going to get Gracie home.” Children are the perfect excuse for almost anything.

Thomas began to speak, “But we haven’t even talked.”

“What is there to say?”

“What are we going to do…what do you want to do…about the-, about us…”

Lisa had no answers but didn’t feel comfortable expressing her doubt in front of a man she had now put in the “enemy” category of her emotional world.

“It’s my body so I’ll let you know.”

A burst of satisfaction and power flooded her being and she smiled tightly. Finally, he’d know what it was like to be on the wrong end of the control stick.

Thomas stared. “But it’s also my child…”

Lisa was on a high now. “But it’s my body. Can you understand that?”

She knew this bumper sticker conversation wasn’t about women’s rights but it felt so good to see him squirm.

Thomas felt empty and turned toward the siblings dangling like orangutans from the monkey bars. He knew these lies weren’t worth losing another child over, whether by surgeon or by bitterness. It was time to come clean.

Lisa saw a look she’d never seen on his face before, a combination of fear and desperateness, and was immediately brought back down to earth.

“You know I’d never-,” she began.

He cut her off. “I’ll tell you everything tonight. I’ll come by the apartment at 10.”

With that Thomas kissed his sleeping daughter gently on the head and briskly walked away before Lisa could say anything.

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Separation counseling. In a perfect world she would be wandering the aisles of her local baby boutique with images of pink and blue floating through her mind, not deciding the fate of her marriage.

Grace let out a shriek as her multi-colored blanket got caught in the stroller gears and was yanked from her hand. Lisa quickly pulled the lovey free and handed it back to her daughter. As she rose she saw Thomas in the office building parking lot. She would have thought the woman he was speaking to was the counselor, as she’d never met her before, but the distance they were standing from each other was too close for to be just business.

Lisa began to take a slow step forward but stopped when she saw her kiss Thomas on the cheek. She blinked. Did she just see that? She gripped the stroller handles tightly as if they the only thing anchoring her to the ground.

Thomas stood expressionless with his hands in his suit pocket as the woman walked away, entered a car and left. It was only when the car passed right by where Lisa and Grace were standing that he noticed them. He look startled.

“That was…” he began as he walked briskly over to his family.

Lisa pushed past him and made her way into the building. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s get this over with.”

Below her cool tone were a plethora of questions: Was that the woman? Was he staying with her? Was he in love with her?

The elevator ride up to the third floor felt painfully long. Grace was now happily squiring in her father’s arms. Lisa struggled to integrate her husband’s cheating partner and loving father personas. It amazed her how two seemingly opposite words, cheating and loving, could coexist within one human being. Kind of like pregnant and alone.

Before long the family was in the office of Dr. Rosen. Lisa tuned out while Thomas explained their situation to the licensed psychologist. Her attention drifted from the certificates on the wall, to the thin branches waving to her from outside the window, to the pretty pink hem on her navy blue skirt. Her mind did everything it could to convince her that she wasn’t there.

“Lisa? Lisa?” Dr. Rosen’s voice brought her back to the present moment.”And what is your intention for this session?”

Lisa ignored the question and turned to her husband. “Who was that?”

Thomas looked at Dr. Rosen and then back at his oddly calm wife. “Dr. Rosen asked you to state your intention for this counseling session.”

Grace sat on her father’s lap sucking on a teething biscuit. Wet, crumbling pieces of cracker fell to the carpet.

“Was that her?” Lisa crinkled her brow.

Dr. Rosen started to speak, “Before we get into any specifics I’d really like to-”

Lisa stood up. “This was a mistake. Counselors are for people committed to solving problems and moving forward. I’m not an idiot.” She turned to the doctor. “Thank you for your time.”

She started to scoop Gracie into her arms when she caught the scent of the damp crackers. The ordinary mundane smell stirred her almost-empty stomach. She felt the orange juice, the only thing she’d been able to “eat” that morning, begin to make an appearance.

Luckily the trash can was within reach.

The room was silent as Lisa came up for air.

Dr. Rosen began to rise slowly, “Are you okay? You’re obviously in distress.”

Lisa’s eyes avoided Thomas’ stare.

“No,” he said flatly, “She’s pregnant.”

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Lisa entered the apartment carrying a sleeping Grace on her chest. Somehow it was emptier than it had ever been before. Signs of life were everywhere; dishes in the sink, baby clothes and diapers on almost every surface, magazines, an abandoned cup of tea.

To anyone else it would have looked like a typical messy living space but to Lisa, it was an evacuated war zone.

Although it was the last room she wanted to enter, Lisa walked into the bedroom and placed Grace down in her playpen. She watched her baby stir, turn down the corners of her mouth as if she were going to cry, then settle back down to slip against the familiar smell of her blankets.

Without making a sound she curiously turned to the small closet and whipped it open quickly, in the same fashion one rips off a band-aid. Thomas had taken his clothes. She felt as if someone had removed all of the air from the bedroom and had to sit down on the bed to catch her breath.

Grace would be up soon.

Lisa pushed her way up to her mismatched pillows and crawled under the sheets and away from the world. She envied her child’s innocent and simple life. She felt a hunger pang in the depth of her stomach followed by a tidal wave of nausea and remembered.

Touching her palm to her abdomen she realized that all of the times in her life when she’d thought she didn’t know what to do had been a farce. In those moments she had known what path to take, word to say, and choice to make. She’d just been to scared to act. This was the only true moment in her life that was marked by an ominous question mark.

When she and Thomas had talked briefly and coldly the night before about a schedule for Grace and meeting with a separation counselor there just wasn’t a right moment to say, “Oh yeah and I’m pregnant.”

As Lisa’s eyes lost the battle against fatigue she decided to wait. Maybe time, for once, would tell.

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“Shh! She’s waking up,” Dawn hissed.

“Do you think she’ll recognize us,” River whispered, worried.

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

Lisa willed her eyes to flutter open.

“Honey!” Dawn took her hand.

Lisa smiled weakly from her hospital bed. Her first thought upon realizing that she was wearing a hospital gown was how many people had seen her naked. She tried to remember what underwear she’d put on that morning.

River stroked Lisa’s hair.

“I’m so glad Dawn caught me before I got on the train! My heart almost stopped. Sweetie, have you fainted before? Did you skip breakfast?”

Lisa remembered and closed her eyes, trying to find peace. She focused on the beeping heart monitor as if it were her own personal metronome.

River turned to Dawn.

“Should we call the nurse?”

“No. She just needs a minute. I’ll explain later. Do you mind grabbing me something sweet from the vending machines? I’m feeling a little weak myself.”

River grabbed her purse. “Of course I can! Ladies, it’s the most important meal of the day.”

Dawn and Lisa watched the door slowly close behind River.

“Tell me.” Lisa’s voice was hoarse and low.

Dawn looked at her friend and although she desperately wanted to spare her the details, she began.

“It was last year. I’d just finished up a meeting with our Japanese distributor. As I was in the lobby…I turned and saw him. Thomas stepped out of the elevator with a..a…woman. He kissed her.”

Lisa looked up at invisible answers on the ceiling.

Dawn continued.

“I followed him out to the parking lot. I guess my mind wouldn’t let me believe it was really him until I saw that he was driving your car. Gracie’s carseat was in the back…Lisa I am so sorry. I would have told you…I confronted him and he fell apart, he cried. Told me about how she was a friend from work …that they’d mostly just talked…they were both lonely. You’d just had the baby. I didn’t want to upset you. I wanted to believe that he’d been scared straight.”

Lisa felt a million miles from the conversation. She tried to imagine what she could have been doing while her husband had been sharing a hotel room with another woman.

Maybe she’d been giving newborn Grace a bath. Pouring warm water over her pink Buddha belly.

Dawn squeezed Lisa’s hand harder, silently begging for forgiveness.

River burst into the room with two handfuls of packaged trail-mix.

“Under normal circumstanced I’d never let you eat this cra- .”

Feeling the thick mood River stopped talked and stared.

Suddenly the door flew open again and Thomas rushed over to Lisa’s side. He put his hand on her head.

“Geez, Lisa, what happened? I just checked my voicemail..Are you okay? ”

He cupped her face with both hands as if trying to determine what was broken.

Lisa couldn’t bring herself to speak.

Dawn turned to River.

“Let’s give them a minute.”

When they were alone, all Lisa could do was stare at her husband. He assumed her unchecked gaze was a result of an injury.

“Has the doctor been in yet? Lisa, how do you feel? What happened?”

“I fainted.” Speaking was painful, but not physically. Each word she heard herself speak made the the situation more and more real.

“What? Why? Where is the doctor?” Thomas was frantic.

“Where’s Gracie?”

“With Mrs. Michaels in 4C, she said take as long as we need…Where is the doctor?”

“Are you having an affair?”

Thomas felt the air unnaturally leave his lungs as if he’d been kicked in the stomach.

Lisa repeated her question, “Are you having an affair, Thomas?”

Thomas slowly sat down in the chair next to her bed. He folded his hands and silently begged the God of his childhood to rescue him. In the moments before he answered he pondered time travel, what his life would look like after today, and if he was about to lose everything that ever mattered to him.

Without looking her in the eye, Thomas released the truth.

“No. Yes, I did, but no, I’m not. It was a one time thing, I’m so sorry Lisa, you have to believe me. I was crazy, I’d lost my mind, I-”

“Stop talking.”

Lisa felt herself grow up. Suddenly there was no room for all of the adolescent self-loathing she so often indulged in. Puberty ended by infidelity.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I found out?”

“I knew she’d tell you eventually.”

“Which is why you tried to ruin my relationship with my best friend by relentlessly pursuing a job you knew she’d never give you…” Lisa began to piece the picture together. “You knew she’d come off looking like Cruella De Vil.”

“I thought that I could fix things…but not if she were there to-”

“Tell me the truth.”

Thomas was breathing shallowly, afraid.

Do you want me to-”

“Leave.”

Thomas looked up at his wife, trying to guage the scope of her request.

She clarified.

“Leave the room. Leave the apartment. Leave my life.”

“Are you serious? Gracie…”

“I’ll have someone pick her up.”

Thomas wasn’t asking what would happen with his daughter that afternoon but Lisa knew that.

Although he was scared to leave the room terrified of leaving things as they were, he couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him.

He stood up and walked out of the room. Lisa stared straight ahead. Before he closed the door he turned back as if he was going to say something and then reconsidered.

When she heard the door click shut Lisa let out a deep, shuddering breath and again looked toward the ceiling, this time to begging her tears to sink back beneath her eyes.

The door opened again and she turned quickly, surprised that Thomas had come back.

Instead of her husband, a young doctor stood in front of her holding a chart.

“Good afternoon Mrs. Nichols. All of your tests came up fine, you’re just a little bit anemic. I wrote you a prescription for a some iron.”

Lisa nodded as she took the white slip of paper from the doctor’s hand.

He shook his head and smiled as he headed for the door.

“And there’s no need to worry. The baby is just fine.”

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Lisa took a deep breath. For a moment she was overwhelmed by a simultaneous sense of personal power and vulnerability.

Dawn waited patiently and coolly; five years of running an international company had gifted her with the most stoic of poker faces.

“What’s up?”

“Do I even have to ask?”

“Lisa, for the third time, I’m very sorry my secretary sent that letter out. What, do you want me to fire her?”

Lisa cocked her head. “Do I really come off as that stupid?”

The young waitress walked up to the table just in time to hear Lisa’s words. Feeling the tension between the two customers she slithered away before asking if they needed anymore tea. Better to leave them without an abundance of hot liquids should the fight get nasty.

“What in the world are you talking about,” Dawn countered, offended.

“I mean, I know I come off as oblivious sometimes… In my own little angsty world but come on. It’s become crystal clear to me that in the past few months you and my husband have declared war on each other. I want to know why.”

Dawn stared at Lisa like a raccoon about to be flattened by the virgin all-terrain wheels of a speeding Range Rover. Trapped.

Lisa took a deep breath. “Did you and Thomas have an aff-“

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Dawn spit out the words.

Lisa had seen that face before.  It was when they were in Cabo and a boutique owner had made the almost deadly mistake of trying to pass off faux python slingbacks as the real thing.  Why anyone would want to stomp around wearing reptile was beyond Lisa’s imaginative abilities but one thing was clear to her—Dawn was an insulted now as she was then.

She was telling the truth.

A wave of relief slammed over Lisa, washing away the tough chick act. Her posture dropped and hands flew up as she asked, “Then what the hell is going on?!”

Dawn’s face was turned away from the table.

“Dawn?” Lisa was alarmed.

She rose quickly, almost knocking her chair over, and took the seat next to Dawn, who was now rushing to collect herself. Lisa felt terror rise in her, the way a child is scared to the bone when a previously God-like parent exhibits fear for the first time.

Dawn turned to Lisa and locked eyes. She drew a long breath and took Lisa’s clammy hand.

“You are only half correct. Thomas husband did have an affair. But it wasn’t with me.”

Lisa had heard fainters use the expression, “the ground rushed up to meet me,” but never realized how true it was. She didn’t even feel her head hit the floor.

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She’d tried everything: explaining, sympathizing, rationalizing…nothing worked. He’d still said less than 8 words to her all night and four of them had been, “Please pass the ranch.”

What did he want her to say? That she’d never speak to Dawn again?

Lisa tried putting herself in Thomas’ shoes but just couldn’t wrap her mind around the situation.

A year ago Dawn had been so close to hiring Thomas as her graphic supervisor and then *poof* everything seemed to change overnight. Thomas began acting overly critical of the whole fashion design world and even made snarky comments about what he called the “gross materialism of anyone who would pay more than $5 for a piece of dead cow.” Then Dawn’s board of directors enacted a mysterious hiring freeze that placed Thomas in limbo for the next 11 months.

It’s like they were intentionally torturing each other.

Lisa’s stomach filled with the uneasy feeling that she often felt when something wasn’t right. It was the same feeling she’d felt as a teen before her parents announced their decision to separate.

She tried to stay awake and think but her fatigue had other plans for the evening. Within minutes she was asleep.

When Lisa woke up Thomas was already in the kitchen. She could hear him singing Grace silly songs. The smell of pancakes wafted into the bedroom.

She pulled her old robe tight around her waist and peeked in to the happy morning scene.

Grace laughed loudly from her highchair as her dad effortlessly flipped a pancake high into the air and caught it in the hot pan.

Lisa couldn’t help but smile. Thomas spotted her and returned her grin.

“Good morning sunshine.”

“Oh, you’re speaking to me?”

Lisa slid over to Thomas cautiously.

Without a word, he turned to her and put both arms around her waist. He studied her face silently and kissed her.

“I was wrong to take my anger out on you. You did nothing.”

The apology rested on Lisa’s ears unevenly. His tone was pointed. Once again Lisa was clear who the unspoken party in the room was. The wrong unspoken party. Dawn.

Against her own judgment Lisa heard herself say, “You know, I’ve had it with this. It’s ridiculous. I’m so…confused. Should Dawn have sent the letter? No. But I don’t even understand why you’ve been pursuing that job in the first place. You two can barely even stand each other anymore.”

Thomas’ face was blank.

Lisa continued, “Thomas. Am I missing something? Help me. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

Thomas finally pursed his lips and turned back to his pancakes.

“You’re making this more complicated than it is. For most wives the decision to chose their husbands over their girlfriends is pretty simple.”

Lisa felt physically cut by his words but for the first time in her life didn’t doubt herself. She knew she wasn’t crazy. Her instincts weren’t wrong. There was something going on and today when she met up with Dawn and the girls, she’d find out what.

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She dove for the receiver, not wanting Grace to wake up early from her nap. There are few things she feared; an overtired baby was one of them.

“Meeghan is getting a divorce,” the words tumbled out of Dawn’s mouth.

“What?!” Lisa’s shout woke Grace in an instant. Her daughters whine turned into a howl within moments.

“Hold on one second,” Lisa said while shuffling into her bedroom to retrieve her daughter. She balanced the cordless phone between her ear and shoulder while making her way to the couch.

“What are you talking about? Since when? Did you talk to her?”

Lisa lifted her shirt and popped a nipple into Gracie’s open baby bird mouth. The baby nursed eagerly and angrily at being prematurely stirred.

“She’s leaving him. I never liked Max, you never liked Max, none of us did, but is she crazy? I wanted her to grow a backbone not uproot her life. She won’t get a penny from him.”

“Did something happen last night? She blew up my cell phone but I didn’t have a chance to call her back, Thomas and I were talking…”

The line went quiet. Lisa heard Dawn take a deep breath.

“About what?”

“Well-“

The front door flew open and Thomas, glistening from both his workout and obvious anger, walked toward her swiftly. He threw a crumpled piece of white paper on the table.

Lisa was as startled as she was confused.

Grace released from the breast for a moment, sensing a change in the room, and then continued to nurse.

“Lisa?” Dawn called, “Are you still there?”

“Hold on a sec, Dawn. Sorry…” she pressed the phone against her chest and looked up at Thomas who was pacing furiously in front of her, “WHAT is going on?”

Thomas stopped pacing. “That’s Dawn? Why don’t you ask her what’s wrong.”

He picked up the mangled sheet of paper and put it in Lisa’s hand.

She read from it: “Dear ma’am or sir, thank you for applying for the position. We at Capisce…oh no…”

Lisa realized what she was reading. “A rejection letter?” she asked aloud, “Why would Dawn send an informal rejection letter?”

“To humiliate me, as if practically begging for an interview at my wife’s best friend’s company isn’t enough,” Thomas raised his voice, doing his best to make sure Dawn heard.

Lisa poured a now sleeping Grace into Thomas’ arms and hurried into her bedroom.

“What the hell were you thinking, Dawn? Thomas just opened a Dear John letter from your company. You couldn’t call him yourself?”

Dawn sounded flustered, “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry, those things go out automatically when I make hiring decisions. My secretary must have taken the notes from my desk and sent out the notifications. I was going to call, Lisa, I swear.”

“Well now I’ve got to clean up this mess. His ego is destroyed.”

“Your husband’s ego isn’t your problem. He’s a grown man…”

“And I’m his wife so my loyalty lies with him.”

Silence.

Dawn cleared her throat before continuing. “Well, I’ll let you two work things out. Talk to you later.”

The line clicked off.

Lisa rushed out of the bedroom and into the living room. It was empty. She saw the missing diaper bag and stroller and knew Thomas had taken Grace out for a walk. Anything to avoid talking to her right now. She sank into the sofa, put her face into the soft cushions and cried.

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“I quit.”

“Thank God.”

River fell into Lisa’s arms, surprising her friend who helped her into the apartment and on to the couch, not before pushing off a half-empty bottle, newspaper, and an orphan baby shoe.

“Is this a bad time, I’m so sorry to come over like this…”

“This is a perfect time. Thomas is out, Grace just went down. I just wish I could have seen the action first hand. Did Captain Charles wet himself?”

River drew in a deep breath. “I can’t believe I made such a scene. Maybe if I go back and explain that Naomi has been teething…I’m sleep deprived…delirious..”

Lisa took River’s shoulders and gave her a look that she usually reserved for Grace when she looked ready to treat a sandbox mate to an angry bite.

“Absolutely not. You’ve been talking about quitting for three years now. After you had Naomi everything changed for you there.”

Fresh tears. River nodded her head, sadly. She was mourning.

“When I started at Green Helps it was like…the fire I’ve always had for the environment, for the Earth finally had a place to grow. I wasn’t a weirdo or a hippie. I was admired. It’s like once I became a mom they totally lost respect for me. What’s that about?”

River reached into her diaper bag/purse and pulled out a cloth diaper cover. She blew her nose into it.

“It’s their loss. Not yours. Think of this as an opportunity, River, to move on.”

“I do, I really do. It’s just that, I’m not mad at them. Sometimes I don’t even recognize myself. I used to be bolder, wilder, more daring,” she looked down at her middle, “skinnier.”

Lisa balked. “Oh come on. If I had your body I’d sell it in the red light district.”

They giggled. The mood lifted a bit. It was cut by the sharp whistle of the steaming teapot.

Lisa stood and kicked through the floor clutter to make her way to the kitchen. She poured two cups of spicy sweet chai and added a splash of cream creating delicious brown and ivory swirls.

Sitting back down next to River she handed her friend a warm mug of comfort.

River smiled weakly. “I’ll find another non-profit to work for. I just wish I’d quit after we paid this month’s rent and caught up on a few bills. What was I thinking? Things are already so tight.”

River shook her black bob furiously the way hopeful souls rattle liquid-filled magic 8 balls hoping for a good answer to a tough question.

Lisa held up a finger. “Wait here.”

She stood up and disappeared into the back bedroom. Grace was sleeping soundly in her Pack ‘n Play. Even though she knew Thomas wasn’t around she still looked right and left before opening the small closet door and pulling down the purple cardboard scrapbooking box. Her fingers pushed back the photos, stickers, and scraps of paper to reveal a bulging white envelope.

Without removing the envelope from the box, Lisa opened the flap and counted out $200.

She quickly placed her stash back under the crafting supplies and returned the box to the shelf. Before leaving she placed a hand on Grace’s chest. The rise and fall of life’s breath in her child’s chest flooded Lisa with maternal satisfaction. One day she’d explain to her daughter that every woman needs to have her secrets.

River looked up curiously when Lisa returned.

“Don’t even think about refusing this,” Lisa said as she pressed the bills into River’s palm.

River opened her mouth in protest but her eyes were filled with thanks, and then again, tears. She hunched her shoulders and squeezed her eyes tight.

When she opened them they met Lisa’s also teary eyes. Lisa quickly pressed her sweater cuffs to her eyes, embarrassed.

“Go home. Kiss Naomi for me. And stop crying! It’s obviously contagious.”

Lisa watched as River made her way down the apartment complex stairs. She smiled and shook her shoulders a bit to help the blood, displaced by River’s massive bear hug, return to her arms.

As soon as she was back in the apartment she felt the hero-woman feelings the morning had left her with slip away and familiar worries begin to bubble up. She knew Dawn wasn’t going to get Thomas a job in her graphic design department. As much as Thomas wanted the work, he didn’t have much respect for the world of fashion design and he’d made it more than clear on several occasions while in mixed company.

She glanced at the microwave clock. He’d be back from the gym in 20 minutes.

All she had to do was explain this to him. And convince him not to resent her or hate her best friend because of it.

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Opening the door to her third floor downtown apartment Lisa listened without breathing. Nothing. Thomas must have taken her to the park. She greedily flopped down on her Ikea futon and prepared to devour a few moments of toddler-free stillness. Cheap plastic “educational” toys littered the small two- bedroom flat, the kitchen smelled of soggy Cheerios and stagnant water, but all of that could wait. Like any mother, Lisa was keenly aware that any opportunity for silence must be grabbed.

While domestic improvements weren’t on her immediate To-Do list, somehow self-improvement always seemed to demand a place amongst her quiet thoughts. Dear Lisa, they began, Here’s what’s wrong with you…

Awkward is a word used to describe beings in a state of transition; a lanky self-conscious teen, a clumsy child sloshing juice, a recently birthed deer just gaining use of its still slimy hind legs. Lisa didn’t feel awkward so much as perpetually misplaced. Most individuals seem to have that group with which they fit perfectly, blend in, and almost become comfortably invisible. These groups serve as affirmations of an individuals belonging in a world full of rough patches and mysterious, dimly-lit bends. For Lisa, this luxury proved either too expensive or rare; she wasn’t sure which.

Unlike River, Dawn, and Meeghan, she didn’t really have a circle in which she functioned beyond their quartet. Her friends left their quirky coffee table to real social lives rich with people who matched them in thought and lifestyle.

She thought about the nights she was able to spend with River, laughing quietly on the phone until 3 AM in complete denial of how the sleep deprivation would affect her ability to function in the morning. But when River invited her to a PETA function last month to intermingle with her coworkers, Lisa spend the time between the vegan cheese and rice cracker spread and hiding behind the string trio.

Camouflage didn’t seem to help either. She remembered the care with which she walked in the $1,300 Vera gown Meegahn lent her for a charity auction in Sausalito. By the end of the evening Lisa had managed to secure more clumsy interactions than her dress had sequins.

Even with Dawn, Lisa didn’t understand how to deepen their friendship to extend into the greater social scene of San Francisco. Dawn had been her college Resident Advisor; keeper of the Roommate Transfer Request binder and enforcer of music decibel levels. It would have been unheard of for a Senior to spend hours giggling in a Freshman’s dorm room so they settled for weekday lunches off campus. Sometimes when they’re out together, even now, Lisa still feels as if she’s fraternizing with a superior.

“I need some friends who are just like me,” Lisa thought. Before she could ponder how she’d find such unlucky, kindred spirits she could hear the laugh and jumble of Thomas and Grace at the door. Their voices were muffled until the door flew open and their happy energy spilled into the apartment banishing Lisa’s angst into oblivion.

“Mama!” Grace, 12 months and built like a truck, plowed through magazines, pillows, and ABC blocks to jump hug her mother.

“Did you and Wisteria Lane have a nice afternoon?” Thomas was already pulling items out of the freezer to prepare dinner. So on task. All the time.

“Yes, thank you. Dawn says ‘hello.’” It wasn’t until the sentence had already escaped that she regretted saying it.

“Any word from her on – ”

“No, not yet, she’s working on it.”

The lie hung in the air like poison gas.

With his face inside of the fridge, Tom continued. “Well, let her know that in a couple of months my work will probably pick up. I’d love to help with her company’s graphic design needs but first come, first served.”

He always got superficially arrogant when feeling vulnerable.

“I’ll let her know. Sometimes these things just have to go through the channels.”

“She’s the CEO, seems like she’d pretty much be the only channel we need.”

A second wave of poison gas. His “we” was pointed and sharp, a reminder from her dear husband that marriage vows are thicker than lattes.

Lisa shifted her attention to the quiet toddler laying in her arms, exhausted from the jungle gym but keenly aware of the tension in the room. She wondered if these mild but spicy conversations didn’t upset Grace in the same way that her parents’ late night screaming matches did. Sure, she and Tom were quieter and rarely raised their voices but was it disturbing to see your two rocks butt heads no matter the volume level?

The sizzle of chopped vegetables hitting a hot, oiled pain cut through the apartment. As Tom bustled skillfully around the kitchen rinsing rice, slicing tofu and washing dishes, Lisa, more out of a need to feel productive than from instinct took Grace into the apartment’s lone bathroom. Somehow in Tom’s presence she felt more like a nanny, or unskilled intern, than a wife and mother; she was constantly checking her internal manual and looking for external cues on what to do next. When would her naturally-domestic-woman chip activate?

Grace stood dirty and proud on the white bathroom tile trying to grab strands of her mother’s hair while she gently stripped his sandy clothes away from her body, being careful to keep the mess contained.

The rush of warm water filling the tub around her child drowned out her babble, the sounds of dinner being made, and most importantly, her thoughts. It wouldn’t be until 10:45 that evening until she’d discover it had also covered the sounds of 5 missed phone calls from Meeghan.

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