The living room was empty and Meeghan cautiously peeled off her jacket and placed her bag on the couch before creeping into the kitchen. Peter, Melanie and her mother were already seated around the small round table.

“Mom mom mom!” Melanie waved happily.

Peter, engrossed in texting, glanced up to acknowledge his mother.

Meeghan pulled out a chair next to her mom. “So sorry I’m late, after court I did a bit of shopping….”.

She froze mid-sentence when she heard the toilet flush in the hall bathroom.

“Is someone here?”

Peter and Melanie looked up- sensing drama.

Grandma spoke, “Well-”

Max sauntered in the room, unrolling his sleeves.

“Meeghan, how nice of you to finally join us.”

Meeghan shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Hi”.

“I thought I’d catch you after court but you slipped away pretty quickly.”

“I just did some-”.

Max pulled out his chair and had a seat.

“Shopping. I know. Your credit card charges show up on my Blackberry.”

Max took a calm sip of water.

Meeghan eyed her mother who averted her eyes. The children pretended not to be listening.

“Charming. All business as usual.”

Meeghan’s mother rose. “Thank you so much for coming by, Max. Kids definitely need to spend time with their father.”

Max stood and smoothed his shirt. He kissed both his children on their heads.

“Thank you, Sylvia, for the scrumptious meal.”

Meeghan’s mother, a woman pushing sixty, swooned like a teen.

Meeghan rolled her eyes upon seeing how smitten her mother was with the compliment. She was always so impressed with Max the Great.

“I’ll walk you out.”

Melanie jumped up and gave her dad a bear hug. For a few moments while they embraced, Meeghan felt her heart soften for her almost-ex. The thought of him receiving reports of which brand of tampons she purchased at Walgreens on his PDA brought her back to reality.

Controlling, manipulative, demanding…she repeated the words in her head over and over in an effort not to crack.

“Say bye to dad, Peter”.

Peter nodded.

When Max and Meeghan were in the living room alone the gloves came off.

Meeghan tossed his coat roughly at him.

“What are you doing here? You hate my mother’s cooking- if you want to see the kids just take them out. Must you constantly invade my space?”

Max said nothing for a moment. “You’re right, Meeghan. Next time I’ll call and run my plans by you.”

The world stood still as Meeghan tried to contemplate the fact that her husband had just agreed with her.

“Um. Ok. Thank you. Thank you. Well…I’ll see you in court next week.”

“Would it be alright if I saw you before then?” Max opened the front door.

“What do you mean?”

“I’d like to take you to dinner tomorrow.”

Meeghan shifted her weight from one foot to another.

Max continued, “to discuss the children. Peter, specifically. He seems depressed.”

“Oh sure. Yes. Fine. 8 o’clock is good for me.””

“See you then.”

He closed the door behind him. Meeghan didn’t realize how deprived she’d feel of the standard “goodbye wife” peck on the cheek until it wasn’t so standard anymore.

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It was only 8:45 and San Francisco was already teeming with life. Yuppies, bicycle messengers, and ordinary folk weaved between each other without managing to actually make contact or collide. Everyone took such care, even in their haste, to avoid touching. A large industrial garbage truck shrieked steadily and loudly, warning the world that it was backing up. Meeghan wished her marriage had come with a similar alarm.

She took a sip of her coffee and felt a tap on her shoulder.

“Wasn’t ‘being on time’ required to pass the bar?” she half joked.

The blood drained from Meeghan’s face as she turned to see Max rather than her slightly irresponsible cousin.

“Oh…”

A man running up the court steps grazed Meeghan’s purse almost knocking the strap off of her shoulder. She quickly steadied her bag and scowled. Max mock-reached out his hand to help

“Watch yourself. We wouldn’t want to lose any of those pills.”

Meeghan squinted her eyes at him. It was way too early in the morning to throw around passive aggressive insults.

“My prescriptions are none of your-”

“None of my business?”

Max took a step toward his wife.

Meeghan, suddenly uncomfortable with this stranger, took a step back. In the last few years of their marriage they’d had a silent agreement: she went along with everything he said, and he didn’t mention her chemical dependence.

“No, none of your business. Especially not now.”

She took another step back and found herself up against a concrete pillar.

“You can use me as your excuse for your rapidly declining unhappiness but if you happen to find a lucid moment in which you’re willing to be honest with yourself you’d see that you were on this path long before you ever met me.” Max rested an arm on the pillar behind Meeghan and spoke just a few inches away from her face. A passerby could have interpreted their intimate distance as affection had they missed the fight or flight flashing in Meeghan’s eyes.

Max went on, speaking in a slow, low tone. “I never deluded myself. I know you married me as an escape from your myriad of fears.”

“And you just wanted someone to control.”

“You friends may say that but the two of us, we know different. From the start you refused to make a decision. I saw how afraid you were of failing at anything and tried to make it easy for you knowing you’d blame me at some point. And here we are.”

Meeghan felt herself becoming angry. “Well thank you for rescuing me. Aren’t you a saint. Next time I’ll bring a medal.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“I may have needed you then, Max, but I’m not a blank canvass for you to draw all over anymore.”

“You’ve found another artist?”

“How dare you. If I’m such a weak, pathetic woman then why did you-”

“I thought the children would help ground you and was wrong.”

“You don’t know me.” She blinked back stinging tears at the mention of the kids.

“You don’t either.”

Meeghan turned her head and could see Ellen stumbling up the stairs. She juggled an oversized designer bag and slippery file folders. Finally.

She felt Max’s eyes searching her face and avoided meeting his intense gaze. “C’mon Ellen,” she pleaded silently.

Ellen reached down to rescue a pen that had fallen out of her bag and nearly fell over.

Max leaned in closer and for a moment, Meeghan was petrified that he’d kiss her.

He spoke. “But I do want to.”

“Want to what, ” Meeghan was surprised that she could speak as she felt without breath.

Ellen popped up, puzzled. This couldn’t be the Max she’d heard so much about from the family. She wondered if Meeghan had already started dating.

Max took his hand off of the pillar and stepped back giving Meeghan her personal space back. She took a deep breath.

He put both hands in his coat pocket. “Know you. I want to.”

And he walked up the steps.

Ellen waited for him to be out of earshot before adjusting her glasses and turning to Meeghan. In a tone that sounded more girlfriend trying to get the dish than divorce lawyer she asked, “Ok, who was that?”

Meeghan answered without turning towards her, “I have no idea.”

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It was almost 5:30. Her mother would be getting the kids ready for a dinner prepared, no doubt, with both skill and love. Meeghan marveled at how she’d managed to get the first part down, but adding “love” was a meal ingredient she never could seem to muster up. It had been chased away by her need to be perfect. For Max.

Somehow during the years they’d been married, all of the things she used to love to do: shopping, cooking, even tidying up their home between housekeeping visits, had become unbearable.  It was impossible to buy a novel or pick out a fall trench without wondering, “What would Max think?”

Meeghan rested her body against the steering wheel and hugged its leather curves.

She wasn’t afraid of the meeting before the judge tomorrow even though she knew losing was inevitable. Nobody beats Max. She wondered what he wanted. Her mind wouldn’t let her consider that it was the children.

A tap on the driver’s side window startled Meeghan. It was Melanie. The small girl looked at her mother solemnly. Meeghan began to wind down the window and then thought it better to open the door.

“Hi honey, how was school today?” She struggled to sound enthusiastic.

“Good. When are we going to see daddy,” Melanie asked in a voice more mature than a 6 year-old should posses. Meeghan noticed how her inquiry didn’t really sound like a question at all– more like a patient demand.

“Soon soon. Let’s go inside.”

Meeghan took Melanie by the hand and walked her up the stairs and into the warm home.

“Mom’s home!” Melanie called into the house before collapsing onto the couch and switching on the television.  She made it sound like a half-warning.

Melanie’s mother, a petite woman in her early fifties, peeked into the living room from the kitchen.

“Hi honey. Come in and make yourself useful, ” she sang with a smile.

Meeghan reluctantly made her way into the kitchen. Chopped red bell peppers, onions, and garlic sat waiting on a cutting board on one counter, fresh bread cooled on another. Pots sat atop all four burners, bubbling away, releasing different but complimentary scents.

Before she could say anything an apron was being tied around Meeghan’s waist. She thought about the $400 sweater she was wearing and how 2 square feet of polyester wasn’t going to protect it.

Meeghan’s mother went back to chopping vegetables and gave her daughter a wooden spoon. She motioned toward which pot needed stirring. Slowly and awkwardly, Meeghan stirred.

“How was your day, Meeghan?’

“Great mom, I met up with the girls and then had a quick meeting with the attorney…”

“Very nice, how is Dawn? Is River still saving the world?”

“They’re fine.”

“How old is Lisa’s daughter now?”

“She’s one.”

“So cute that Gracie is. Lisa is such a sweet mother, too. And wife.”

Meeghan was starting to feel sick. Suddenly the food didn’t smell all that nice.

“She really is.”

“You know I’ve always told you and your sisters: being a wife and mother is as important as any other job in the world. It takes dedication, commitment.”

Meeghan stared into the red pot of whatever she was mixing, secretly hoping it would start to burn.

“Yep. Yep,” she answered hypnotizing herself with the around and around motion of her spoon.

“Children take a lot of work to raise. It’s why stayed home to take care of all of you. I could have done many other things with my life. Wonderful things, but I realized that the only success that mattered was having a happy home life. If you don’t have that…”

Meeghan had stopped stirring and a large bubble of red liquid burst on to her sweater and face. The hot splatter stung and for a moment she wondered if someone had slapped her.

Her mother rushed over with a dish towel.

“Oh dear, are you okay?” she said as she carefully and lovingly wiped the thick liquid from her daughter’s face and then began to dab it from her soiled top. “I think it’s ruined. I’ll get you another. Where is it from?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m going to use the restroom.”

Meeghan undid her apron and handed it to her mom.

She stood in the small bathroom staring into the mirror. Red flecks sat on her cheeks. “Just like war paint,” she thought, “but then again, I’ve never fought for anything in my life.”

Warm water splashed from the sink quickly removed any signs of battle. Trashing the sweater required no mourning ceremony as it had been a gift from her husband. It now sat amongst snippets of toilet paper rolls and Q-tips in the trash. Standing in her bra, Meeghan opened the mirror and removed the prescription bottle. She raised it as if initiating a toast at her best friend’s wedding.

“Cheers.”

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Now as Meeghan surveyed the wreckage that was her life, she wondered how she could have ever been so silly.

She scooped up a pile of clothes and dumped them into a large trunk. The movers were arriving tomorrow. She needed to focus. All of her mental energy needed to go into helping the children with the transition and starting over. Both kids were at her mom’s house in San Francisco, they suspected nothing.

Meeghan was delicately running her finger across the lace trim of a Gucci corset when she heard Max making his way up the staircase. She felt her shoulders go back and chest come out; her brunch-time confident indignation returned. She was ready for a fight.

Max swung open the large french doors to their bedroom and stared at his wife and the sea of garments surrounding her.

“I was notified that you contacted our lawyer. I’m not going to get mad. I’m not going to ask why. All I want you to know are two things.”

Max walked over to Meeghan and crouched down to meet her eye to eye. “You’re not getting a cent and you are not taking my children.”

With the second half of his sentence, Meeghan felt her resolve crack and shatter like a windshield brought to its knees by a single stray pebble. One of the things that had attracted her to Max was that he always got what he wanted. She’d always pitied the unlucky souls who happened to find themselves opposite him on a real estate dispute or construction debate because when he was done with them…well, they never crossed him again.

Max was out of the room as fast as he’d entered it.

Meeghan closed her eyes and thoughts began to swim in her head. “What am I doing? I need to find myself, reclaim who I was but is this really the way to do it?”

As the question came, so the answer followed. Meeghan knew that it was already too late to turn back. War had been declared and Max smelled blood.

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A waiter wearing a white jacket and Hawaiian shorts appeared.

“Another piña colada, señorita?”

Her answer was  interrupted by a strange bellowing noise coming from the horizon. It grew louder and louder.

“Mooooom! Mom! Mom!!”

Dawn’s eyes popped open. It took her a moment to recognize her own bedroom.

She turned to Rick, her peacefully sleeping husband, before flying out of the Egyptian cotton cloud and into the hallway.

“Charlie! Can I help you? It’s not even 9 AM?” Weren’t pre-teens supposed to sleep in?

Charlie was at the bottom of the staircase, completely dressed.

“Robbie’s mom is here to take us to Santa Cruz.”

Dawn felt silly for overreacting.

“Ok, Ok, well come up and give me  a proper goodbye,” she said with a smile.

Charlie bounded up the elaborate staircase and hugged his mom like a toddler; generously and freely. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby. Have fun.  See you tonight.”

Dawn walked her son downstairs and waved to his playmate’s mother as they drove away. She glanced down the street amazed at how busy the city already was. What time was it?

A quick glance at the grandfather clock answered her question. 8:40. She paused. Wasn’t there something she was supposed to…Meeghan!

Within 10 minutes a Dawn was in her black SUV making her way towards the Golden Gate Bridge.

As she swerved into the Milk parking area she could already see Meeghan, wearing an ivory sun dress, sitting on the patio. Dawn glanced at her phone 8:58.

“Hello there, sunshine.” Dawn greeted her friend playfully as she walked up to the table.

“Hello yourself. I know a rushed diva-preneur when I see one. You almost took out a family of four as you pulled in.”

They giggled as Dawn took her seat.

Then quiet.

Dawn studied her girlfriend’s face.

“How are you.”

Meeghan played with the napkin in her lap.

“I’m fine. Ok. I’m not really sure. I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking…wondering…wishing. You know. ‘What ifs.’ ”

Dawn waited, saying nothing.

“Dawn, do you ever get the feeling that you made a gigantic bet and lost without even realizing it?”

Dawn smiled sympathetically.

“I guess that’s why it’s important not to gamble with anything you can’t afford to lose.”

The women stared softly at each other in contemplation, both knowing what Meeghan had lost, both wondering if it was possible to recover it.

“May I start you ladies off with a mimosa?” Dawn turned to the waiter and was slightly dissapointed to see him in khaki slacks rather than Hawaiian shorts.

“You absolutely may.”

Dawn turned back to Meeghan. “So. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I look at your life, your family, your career and what you’ve built for yourself and could just kick myself for being so weak. So passive in creating…joy.”

Dawn took her friend’s hand.

“I mean, what was I thinking?” Meeghan started to breathe faster. “Did I really think that I could make up for my own fears by marrying someone with enough courage and ambition for the both of us? What was a I thinking?”

As Meeghan’s voice grew louder, Dawn’s eyes followed grew. Was she really witnessing the emergence of old Meeghan? Oh to have this on camera…Lisa and River would never believe her.

“This is it. I’m done being backseat driver!”

The waiter set the mimosas on the table.

Dawn listened eagerly holding back the urge to speak although her mind was rushing with ideas and images of Meeghan stepping back into the fashion design world and taking the industry by storm. Maybe they’d even go into business together. A smile curled up the edges of her mouth.

“So,” Dawn said quietly, holding back her excitement, “What are you going to do?”

Meeghan elegantly reached for her chilled champagne flute and took a long sip of the bubbly orange liquid.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m getting a divorce.”

One would have thought that as Meeghan’s suddenly steely eyes met Dawn’s shocked ones the result would have been sparks.

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Her phone read 11:25 PM. Neither Lisa or Dawn had returned her calls. She contemplated calling River but hesitated. There was something so untouched, sacred about her earthy friend that made complaining feel like an act of human pollution. Or sacrilege.

In the meantime, another blue pill it would be.

Meeghan stepped back from the deck and curled up in a sturdy, oak patio lounge chair. She sank into the cushion and pulled a cashmere throw over her shoulders. Within seconds she was asleep.

A few minutes later when the always momentarily unfamiliar sound of her ringtone sang, Meeghan jumped.

Dawn.

“Hey,” Meeghan pulled herself to sitting.

“Sorry I’m calling so late.  Charlie had a thing and then we went by the studio to watch Rick’s live broadcast, he really is a shoo-in for the lead anchor position so I figured a family cameo wouldn’t hurt….Are you OK?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Meeghan cleared her throat. She actually did feel a bit better. “It was just Max…dinner…I don’t know.”

Somehow her problems always seemed so trivial when it came time to explain them. Was she supposed to say that her husband, the one who had rescued her from a failing career and given her the life she’d always dreamed of had hurt her feelings?

Dawn was silent.

Both women sat with the discomfort of Meeghan’s situation. Max wasn’t cruel. He was simply unaware. There were probably thousands of women who would love an everyday Extreme Wife Makeover from the inside out, but Meeghan wasn’t one of them and perhaps she’d discovered that too late.

Meeghan started to explain, “I’m not ungrateful for all that he’s done for me, for us. The kids love their life. It’s just that most days I feel like he looks at me like a coat hanger, something empty and unfinished that needs a designer label to be complete.”

Dawn still didn’t know what to say. Should she tell her friend that she saw all of this coming from the minute Max came into her life? Should she tell her that maybe if she hadn’t given up on herself and her goals she never would have been attracted to Mr. Fix-It?

A good friend would never say any of those things.

“I know how you feel. It’s getting late. Let’s meet for breakfast tomorrow.”

Meeghan paused before answering. She knew a filtered response when she heard one.

“9 AM? Milk?” The Sausalito cafe had always been a favorite of theirs.

“Perfect. Try to get some sleep. Love you.”

“You too. Night.”

Meeghan placed her glowing cell phone on the small coffee table and looked out across the black, still water.  She smiled a bit, grateful for friendship even when it was strained by unspoken words.

Tomorrow, she decided, would be an opportunity for truth.

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Dad would be home any minute.

“Well-” and before Meeghan could speak, Max burst through the front door, briefcase in hand, still on his cell phone. His charcoal trenchcoat flapped behind him in the breeze created by his all-business tornado of obvious importance.

The children barely looked up, both silently wishing to be excused to an evening of television, video games, and magazines in their individual bedrooms.

Peter stared at his mother, pleading. She raised her eyebrows and tightened her lips together leaving him hopeless for a quick exit.

From the foyer, Max continued his conversation. His voice echoed to the top of the spiraling staircase.

“Look Chip, I just stepped into the door where my wife and kids are waiting for me to sit down to a gourmet home-cooked meal. Fax me the proposal tomorrow and we’ll talk.”

Eleven years ago Meeghan would have been momentarily flattered that he’d prioritized her in a business call but the more experienced version of herself knew Max loved painting portraits of a perfect family life in the heads of clients, friends, strangers…whoever would listen.

“OK, sounds great. Talk in the morning.”

Max breathlessly walked into the dining room and kissed his son, daughter, and wife on the head.

“Hello my love. How was your day?”

He took his seat at the head of table and placed a napkin over his lap. Upon meeting Meeghan’s eyes, he hoped the void in her pupils was an eerie effect of the candlelight.

“Wonderful. I did some shopping, met up with the ladies in the city…”

“What did you buy?”

Meeghan’s face grew hot and cold, the way one feels when a teacher summons them to the blackboard.

“Oh just a sweater, cashmere, a few blouses and a coat.”

The children picked at their meat and dreamed of pizza.

“What stores? Designers?”

“I can’t remember just this minute-” Meeghan waved her fork in the air trying to make light of the urgency in Max’s voice.

“Well did you stick to the list Marie made?” He shoved a forkful of tender meat into this mouth and paused to savor how the buttery meat dissolved against his canines.

Meeghan felt herself become a child.

Marie Serdoné was the French style and fashion consultant Max had given her a series of sessions with for their 15th wedding anniversary. Their last instructional meeting ended with a laminated list of the designers, cuts and colors Meeghan should avoid based on her shape and disposition.

With a forced smile. “No, I didn’t take the list.”

Max stopped chewing and stared into his plate as if it were a Rubik’s cube.

Melanie’s eyes were glued on her mother trying to make sense of how she could crumple while keeping perfect “shoulder’s back” posture.

“OK then. Peter how was school today? Straight A’s?”

While Peter could have answered that report cards weren’t given everyday, he recognized his father’s inquiry for what it was; “Is there anything I need to worry about?”

“Straight A’s.”

Meeghan didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. She silently unfolded her napkin to reveal a small, triangular blue pill with the prayer “Xanax” written on it. After saying her own private grace, she received her blessing.

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