He has become more and more successful since they married. His hours are longer, the accompanying stress almost unimaginable. The last thing he needs once home, Eddie claims, is to be confronted by a miserable, nagging wife, or children screaming and fighting for his attention. He snaps at Sarah that he needs to relax; he is, after all, the breadwinner, the one working so hard to support them all. Every night he pauses to give Sarah a perfunctory kiss, then goes upstairs to change into a T-shirt and shorts, before spending the rest of the evening lying on his leather sofa, watching the game on TV.
And Sarah, poor Sarah who feels that she does absolutely everything, watches him resting the bottle of cold beer on his large, rounded belly, and feels a wave of disgust. Time, commitment, tiredness has taught her to ride these waves. They occur so frequently now she doesn’t bother telling him he ought to lose weight, quit drinking, spend some time with the children, help her with the washing up. Every time she used to bring these subjects up it would erupt into a huge fight. These days she simply doesn’t have the energy.
Later that night Sarah climbs into bed with her book, pretending to be engrossed as Eddie comes to bed. He has always slept naked. In the early days she loved how free he was about his body, how comfortable in his skin, but now she tries to avoid looking at him, tries to lose herself in her book to stop thinking about how they became quite so unhappy.
Eddie clambers into bed and reaches out to turn off his overhead light. ‘Night,’ he mumbles, as he turns his back to a grateful Sarah.
‘Night,’ she says disinterestedly. Long after he is gently snoring Sarah lies with her guilty thoughts. She thinks of something terrible happening to Eddie, something tragic and terrible that would take the decision out of her hands.
Not death, not necessarily, but maybe he would leave, fall in love with his secretary, announce it was over. She looks over at the back of his head with resignation. This is a man who can barely muster the energy to change television channels, let alone leave her. He’s never going to leave.
Sarah lets out a long, dissatisfied sigh and lays her book down. Maybe it will all feel better in the morning.
Chapter Two
‘But you said you’d be home tonight by six,’ Sarah sighs. ‘It’s book club tonight and I’m hosting. How am I supposed to get the kids fed, into bed, and get ready for book club?’
‘What can I do?’ Eddie snaps. ‘It’s work. I didn’t plan a five o’clock meeting and I can’t get out of it. Can we not do this again, Sarah. What do you want me to do? Leave?’ Sarah says nothing. ‘Is that what you want? You want me to leave? You want me to get a job locally? Sure, I could get some lousy-paying job in a local firm and we’d have to move to a much smaller house. I don’t care. If that’s what you want, say so.’
Sarah grits her teeth and squeezes the phone, frustration rendering her speechless. ‘Forget it,’ she says. ‘Fine.’
‘I’ll grab something to eat in the city,’ Eddie continues. ‘I probably won’t be home until late. I’ll see you later.’
Sarah nods silently and puts down the phone.
Before they had children Sarah and Eddie were not big believers in television. Before they had children Sarah and Eddie had many different beliefs about child rearing and parenting, beliefs that would make them, unequivocally, the best parents in the whole history of parenting. Ever.
They would never use the television as a baby-sitter, Sarah remembers saying when Walker was only two years old and she had come back from a harassed play date where the mother had put the television on for everyone to get some peace and quiet toward the end of the day.
Sarah had been horrified. ‘We’d gone there to play!’ she’d said in horror to Caroline. ‘Not to watch television. Can you imagine?’
Sarah and Eddie vowed never to use television as a baby-sitter. They would never use sugar to calm a child down, would never raise their voices to their children, and would treat their children with kindness and respect.
At 5:30 that afternoon Sarah runs into the family room to find Walker screaming as Maggie disappears behind the sofa with an evil grin on her face. Sarah’s heart plummets. How can this three-year-old who looks so angelic be such an unbelievable handful? Walker is her mama’s boy. Sweet, gentle, and sensitive, he’s always been a good boy, always done exactly what he’s been told, and if he has any fault at all it’s that he’s too sensitive, that he has a tendency to collapse, like now, in tears, at the slightest thing.
Walker never had the terrible twos, a fact she and Eddie put down privately, and horribly smugly, as the result of their amazing parenting. They have had to reconsider with Maggie; Maggie who displayed such extraordinary stubbornness and willfulness since the day she was born.
Even when she was a baby, when Maggie decided she wanted something, she would exert what Eddie called the death grip until whoever was holding it – usually Walker – had to let go.
‘My girl’s a winner,’ Eddie would smile proudly, and Sarah would shake her head as she comforted a crying Walker, wondering whether all girls were inherently more evil, or whether it was just her daughter.
Sarah pulls Maggie out from behind the sofa, a wriggling monkey who tries to writhe out of Sarah’s grip.
‘Maggie, what have you got?’ Sarah says sternly. She then turns to Walker. ‘Be quiet, Walker! Stop crying.’
‘Nothing.’ Maggie says, little fingers clutched tightly around something.
‘No!’ Walker wails, before dissolving in hysteria.
‘Walker! Be quiet or you’ll go upstairs to your room. Maggie, give it back to him or you will get a smack.’ Maggie keeps her fingers tightly closed until Sarah manages to pry them open, to find Walker’s favorite Power Ranger there.
‘Here you are, Walker.’ She gives it back to him, as Walker’s cries grow louder. ‘Maggie, you are not to take Walker’s toys!’ she berates, but even as she says those words she knows they’re having no effect.
For Maggie has no fear. Has never had any fear. Threats of time-outs turn into real time-outs, during which Maggie will sit quietly singing to herself, playing with her fingers, keeping herself amused, while making it clear to all the punishment doesn’t bother her in the slightest.
Sarah now threatens a smack, in the hope that that will frighten her daughter into behaving well, but Sarah knows she would never actually be able to go through with it, and the threat sounds empty even to her ears, much less to Maggie’s.
‘I want M&Ms,’ Maggie suddenly calls out from the pantry. ‘I want M&Ms.’
Walker’s face lights up, the tears stopping abruptly. ‘Me too!’ Walker says eagerly, Power Ranger fiasco forgotten. ‘I want M&Ms too.’
‘Neither of you gets M&Ms until after dinner.’ Sarah looks at her watch.
‘Please!’ Walker starts whining.
‘I want M&Ms,’ Maggie repeats as her face starts to crumple, hand reaching up for the shelf where the M&Ms are hidden.
‘I’ll make dinner now,’ Sarah sighs. ‘How about some television?’
Walker’s eyes light up. ‘I want to watch Spider-Man!’
‘No!’ Maggie comes running into the kitchen. ‘I want to watch Spongebob.’
‘No,’ Walker wails. ‘Spider-Man.’
‘Spongebob!’ Maggie says firmly, raising a hand, about to hit Walker.
‘No, Maggie!’ Sarah scoops her up and drops her on the sofa in the family room. ‘I get to pick tonight and we’re going to watch The Lion King. Twenty minutes,’ she says to the children, ‘then the TV goes off and we’re having dinner.’
There’s no reply – they’re already absorbed in Simba’s world.
An hour and a half later Sarah has made a fruit platter, laid the cakes and magic bars out on the table, the wineglasses on the kitchen counter and set the wine chilling in the fridge. She has tidied the kitchen, put on the laundry, and had a super-quick shower. Although not exactly glamorous, she has managed to put on clean clothes and a dab of old lipstick, pulling her hair back i
nto a neat ponytail.
‘Mom!’ Walker shouts out from the family room. ‘It’s finished.’
‘Damn,’ Sarah mutters to herself as she shakes slices of frozen pizza bagels out of the box and onto a grill pan. ‘Right,’ she says, in an upbeat tone. ‘Who wants delicious pizza bagels for dinner?’
‘Me! Me! Me!’ the kids shout, running into the kitchen and climbing onto the counter stools, where Sarah keeps them quiet with Goldfish until the pizzas are ready.
‘As a special treat tonight,’ she whispers, as if it’s the most magical thing she’s ever suggested, ‘it’s a no-bath night.’
‘Yay!’ Walker whoops with joy, and Maggie copies him, even though she adores bath time.
‘First one into pj’s gets M&Ms,’ Sarah says wearily, collecting the dishes to wash up as the kids run upstairs shrieking and giggling. ‘And then –’ she walks to the bottom of the stairs and calls up after them – ‘the mommy monster’s coming to get you.’ Shrieks of delight waft down the stairs as Sarah smiles. Why does she get so irritated when she loves them so much?
‘How can I love them so much when they’re so difficult?’ she says to Caroline, the first to walk through the door for book club.
‘I know.’ Caroline smiles. ‘Clare woke Maisie up at five o’clock this morning, and by four o’clock this afternoon they were both melting. It’s been horrific at my house.’
‘Not much better here,’ Sarah says, handing Caroline a glass of wine. ‘Cheers.’
‘God, I need this.’ Caroline takes a mouthful of wine. ‘Please tell me you read the book because I couldn’t get through it. We can’t keep meeting for book club with none of us ever reading the damn things.’
Sarah winces. ‘I didn’t. I was hoping you had.’ The swoop of a car’s headlights shines through the kitchen window as the others arrive. ‘Let’s hope someone has or it will be another night of moaning about our husbands.’
‘Wasn’t the last book club kind of racy? If I remember rightly weren’t we all horribly revealing about our sex lives?’ Caroline grins. ‘Please keep the wine bottle away from me tonight. I was so wasted last time.’
‘I was pretty drunk too.’ Sarah smiles. ‘And it was pretty racy. Do you remember what Lisa was telling …’ She pauses as the front door opens. ‘Lisa! How are you? Come in, come and have some wine! I was just saying that the last time we spoke you were saying you would definitely read the book this time.’
Lisa grimaces and shrugs in apology as she proffers a bottle. ‘Wine?’ Sarah and Caroline laugh as they sit at the kitchen counter to share their maternal woes and wait for the others to arrive.
Book club has been going on for two years and is the highlight of Sarah’s month. She would never dream of telling her friends in the city that she’s part of a book club – the very words book club conjure up such parochial, suburban images – yet she has come to value these meetings, the friendships she has with these women; in particular, the dynamic they have when they all come together for book club, above all else.
There are now five women: Sarah; Caroline, an English girl whom Sarah met when Walker was in the two’s program with Clare at the local preschool; Lisa; Nicole; and Cindy.
The women met through a series of coincidences. They don’t socialize together when not in book club, other than Sarah and Caroline, who have become the closest of friends, but have found a freedom and support in book club that they have not found elsewhere; a trust that whatever they say at the meetings will stay in the meetings. All the women agree they have a unique bond.
Once upon a time they did all read the books.
They would meet and talk earnestly about what they thought, attempt to analyze in a way none of them had done since school, relate the topics to their own lives, but as they got to know one another better, as they grew more comfortable with one another, they started to share their lives. It is increasingly rare for the books to be read, and the ensuing discussions are usually cursory, an attempt to validate the meeting before moving on to the real topics – life, love, children, friendships, husbands.
In a relatively short period of time these women have come to know one another intimately; such is the nature of their sharing at the monthly meetings.
They know that Caroline and her husband, Louis, once separated for two years, before they had children. They know that Lisa is married to a recovering alcoholic who has been in AA for six years. They know that Nicole had four miscarriages before finally accepting she could not have children and adopting instead, and they know that Cindy hates the East Coast and spends every night dreaming of going back to California, where she says the sun always shines and it doesn’t snow, although in truth Cindy only feels this way in winter. In summer she says she’d never live anywhere else but here.
They know that some of them are happy with their husbands, their marriages, their lives, and some of them are not, but none of them know quite how unhappy Sarah is with hers.
The unhappiness, when it emerges, emerges in the form of jokes. They will laugh about their husbands. Roll their eyes as they share the same stories of the husbands thinking they do nothing all day, wondering what the husbands would do if the five of them took off for a weekend, left them with the kids and the house. Then they’d know, they laugh, knowing the husbands wouldn’t be able to handle it.
No one, it transpires, has read this meeting’s chosen book, and tonight is a night when the women each bring their frustrations to the table, able to vent them in a safe environment.
‘Here’s what kills me,’ says Nicole. ‘I’ve been with the kids all day; they’re exhausted, I finally get them into bed, then Dan gets home from work and goes in to see them, and he gets them all excited again, and they won’t go back to sleep for hours. I can’t stand it. I keep telling him not to but he doesn’t understand what it’s like for me, how hard it is to get them into bed. I thought I was going to kill him last night.’
‘At least he comes home and wants to see the kids,’ Sarah says, now on her third glass of wine. ‘Eddie doesn’t care. All he wants to do when he gets home is collapse in front of the television with his beer. Heaven forbid the children should get in the way of his beloved games.’ Sarah studies the wine in her glass as she sighs. ‘I don’t know who he is anymore,’ she says quietly. ‘He doesn’t care about himself, doesn’t care about us; doesn’t care about anything. I wish he’d just leave but he’s too goddamned lazy.’ She finishes her wine, unaware that there is now a shocked silence, that nobody knows what to say, that nobody knew it was quite this bad.
‘Well,’ Cindy says brightly after a long pause. ‘Nothing quite like a bit of soul-baring at book club. I’m going to get some cheesecake. Can I bring anyone some?’ She rises out of her chair, as do the others, all murmuring about getting more coffee, or cake, or another of those delicious brownies.
Only Caroline stays behind, sitting next to Sarah on the sofa, and when Sarah puts down her wineglass, Caroline takes her hand briefly and squeezes it.
‘I didn’t know it was that bad,’ she whispers. ‘You should have said so.’
Sarah looks at her as it finally registers that she has confessed out loud. ‘Tell me I didn’t just say out loud what I think I said.’
Caroline winces.
‘Oh, shit,’ Sarah mutters. ‘I guess I’d better have another glass of wine.’
Chapter Three
Caroline is the last to leave, needing to make sure Sarah is okay; wanting to know if there is anything she can do, a shoulder to cry on if that’s what is needed.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ she says, eyeing Sarah warily as Sarah washes up the coffee cups. ‘That was pretty momentous, what you said in there.’
‘Caroline, be honest with me. Was it really that momentous? Don’t you sometimes wish that Louis would leave? Don’t you just hate him at times?’
Caroline nods. It’s true, she does sometimes feel that way, but only if they’ve had a really big fight, only once in a blue moon, a
nd only for a very short period of time. Never enough to mention it to anyone, to even dwell on it at all.
‘See?’ Sarah attempts a light laugh, which comes out sounding ever so slightly strangled. ‘I’m just having a bad day.’ She dries her hands on a paper towel, then reaches behind to tuck her hair back into her ponytail.
‘Do you ever wonder what happened to yourself?’ Sarah says absently as she fiddles with her hair.
‘What do you mean?’ Caroline smiles. ‘What happened to that cool chick who men used to whistle at in the street?’
‘Kind of. Yes. What happened to the woman who wore great clothes and makeup, and cared about what she looked like?’
Caroline grins as she gestures down at herself. ‘You mean instead of Gap sweats and clogs, even if they are the most comfortable things in the world?’
‘I know. Look.’ Sarah lifts a foot to show off her own ugly but practical shoes. ‘I keep asking myself what’s happened to me. I was looking at my wedding picture earlier today and thinking about the early days, and it’s not even that I feel it was such a long time ago; it’s that I feel it happened to another person, in another lifetime. I get up in the morning and I see this middle-aged woman …’
Caroline interrupts. ‘Middle-aged? You’re thirty-six; that’s hardly middle-aged!’
‘But I feel middle-aged,’ Sarah insists. ‘I see a woman with bags under her eyes and gray in her hair because I haven’t the time nor the inclination to get to a hairdresser. I was a woman who had a wardrobe of beautiful clothes, who used to read Vogue every month, who worked at Poise! for God’s sake, and now look at me. I just want to know how I got here. Where I lost myself. What happened.’
‘You got married and had kids,’ says Caroline gently. ‘It happened to all of us. But aren’t you happier now? I sometimes think the same thing but then I look at my girls, and at my husband, and I know I have a great life and I wouldn’t change anything.’