But Sara did. She wanted it all. And then she wanted to double it.
SARA
Sara always ate lunch at her desk and always while she was multitasking. As she raised a forkful of cobb salad, her phone rang.
“Sara Beck,” she said in her serious lawyer voice as she smoothed back her long brown hair, which was possibly infused with vomit. She really had no idea. She had thrown it into a bun on her way into work. Her worn navy suit jacket had probably been hit too. Whatever. After she was back to her usual size ten, she planned to throw out the size twelves (okay, some fourteens too) and maternity items for good. Maybe she would burn them.
“Scott Beck,” came back a deep, teasing voice.
“I’m busy, Scott,” chided Sara.
“Busier than taking care of a pukey baby?” Scott tossed back.
“And I’m eating lunch,” said Sara.
“Well, lucky you! I’m cleaning lunch up off the floor, and I’m taking a vacation day!” Scott retorted.
“Okay, I’m putting down my fork,” Sara conceded with a sigh.
“I just wanted to be sure that you can pick up the kids from aftercare and soccer. And probably pick up dinner.”
Sara tried to control her annoyance. To be fair, Scott was taking his turn with the baby today. Not that it would matter. Even though they had been taking turns staying home when the kids got sick, Sara had missed almost six days in the first quarter alone because of a family strep outbreak, which she couldn’t seem to halt even after replacing every last toothbrush three times (total cost—fifty-four dollars). If she kept at it, her boss would give her that sad look he got when he thought she wasn’t performing up to her potential.
“You got it, honey. I have to get back to work. Love you,” she replied in the most positive tone she could muster.
She needed to do better and be kinder to her husband, Sara reminded herself. Since she and Scott had gone for baby number four, the very little time they had together had evaporated. Like ships passing in the night, her friends would say. Not exactly, thought Sara, More like exhausted shift workers forced to put in overtime without extra pay. And when she was tired, Sara was snappish at best.
Sara’s work friend Katherine came into Sara’s cube to chat. Katherine was more than a decade younger than Sara and back from maternity leave from her first baby. She was finding it hard to keep her energy up throughout the day because the baby barely slept. Sara was also happy to lend a sympathetic ear or just chat for a while to help Katherine keep it together. To be fair, it helped them both keep it together.
“I’m tired,” said Katherine.
“Same,” agreed Sara.
“Hey, what’s going on with your fancy friend in California?”
“Heather Hall?”
“Do you have other fancy friends I don’t know about?” asked Katherine.
“No, she’s pretty much it, sorry,” Sara said with a laugh. “Let’s consult my favorite guilty pleasure, Facebook, shall we?” She turned to her computer. “You know, my friends and I barely hear from Heather anymore. She’s gone, like, supernova.”
Sara clicked over to Heather’s page, and there was her old friend. Well, technically, not a “friend” on Facebook. Heather only had “followers” at this point.
There she was. Heather Hall, Global COO of FLASH, the leading internet-based clearinghouse for, well, everything on Earth. She looked so perfect in her profile picture. Perfect maroon dress and cardigan set off by her perfect blond bob and blue eyes. Her cover banner featured three perfectly turned-out blond children posed along the perfectly blue ocean.
Yeah, Sara was jealous. Definitely jealous.
“What does her husband do anyway?”
“He invests,” replied Sara.
“That’s nonsense,” said Katherine.
“One hundred percent,” Sara agreed, laughing. “Stars, they’re not just like you and me.”
“What do you think it takes to be a Heather? She clearly has all the help in the world. But there has to be something special there, right? If we all could just focus one hundred percent on ourselves, do you think we could be Heathers too? Do you ever think about it?” asked Katherine.
You have no idea, Katherine, Sara wanted to reply. Sara often wondered what her life would look like if she hadn’t been so eager to start a family with Scott in her twenties. At the time she’d made that decision, she really thought she had what it took to come back to her firm and make it work after her first baby was born. But she didn’t. She had been so young then. She hadn’t learned yet that when you leave a place and come back, even just months later, it’s never going to be just the same as it was before. The place will have changed, and, more importantly, you will have changed. The rewards and benefits that had seemed so enticing were—how could she describe it?—flatter, perhaps.
“Nope,” Sara said to Katherine. “Heather is just one of those one-in-a-million people.”
“Well, good for her. Just thinking about that life makes me more exhausted. But it does look amazing on social media, I’ll give her that. Hey, I think I’ll go for a Starbucks. Want one?”
“No, I’m good,” replied Sara as she watched Katherine trail out of her cube.
As Sara sat alone, she reflected on whether she might have become a Heather if things had been different. In truth, she believed all four of her old friends were wildly talented. But life, for lack of a better word, had happened to all of them.
In Sara’s case, she had traded the exciting big firm life for marriage to the guy who had shown up to fix her computer on her first day, a less demanding attorney job at a local company, and four babies. So not Heather’s life, but, truly, not bad.
Speak of the devil, she thought as the phone rang and she saw it was Scott calling again.
“What is it, Scott?” she asked, taking care to sound light and pleasant.
“I think the baby needs to go to the doctor.”
“Okay, what are the symptoms?”
“So, basically he won’t stop crying. And more puking.”
“A lot of puke?”
“Well, no, but the dry heaving makes me want to puke.”
“Nope. It’s a virus. You just have to deal with it.”
“Sara, you know I really don’t do bodily fluids. Can you just work from home or something, please? I need a break. I’ve been at this for like five hours since you left.”
Sara bit her tongue. Mmmkay. Five whole hours. Daylight hours at that.
“Yes, I’ll come home,” she replied, “but Scott, we still need to pick up the kids.”
“I thought you could give me a few hours off, then pick the kids up, and maybe get dinner while you’re at it.”
She wanted to reply, Sure, Scott, I’ll just do everything.
Instead she said simply, “Sure, Scott,” trying not to use a sarcastic tone. She just wasn’t up for another round of The Fight today.
The Fight was always about the same thing—who was doing more, especially more of the shit work: dirty diapers, food prep, food service, food cleanup, cleanup in general, day care coordination, soccer driving, registrations, private lessons, doctor appointments, parent-teacher conferences, and on and on. The list was endless.