The Hole in the Middle (4 page)

“Not yet,” I say.

“Well, you're going to have to sort it out without me. I've got to go. I'll call you later and check in.” And I'm listening to dead air.

I think of the four e-mails and two phone messages about Christmas and I know that I am not going to try my mother. I'm going to close my door and burst into tears. I'm going to sweep all of the paper off my desk and into my bag so that I can do it after the kids are in bed. And then I'm going to get into my car and take my son to the doctor.

And that's exactly what I do.

monday, december 2, 2013

And so it is that I find myself in the car on Monday afternoon (how can it still be Monday?
how?
), inventing crazy routes to avoid traffic as I race to the doctor's office. There is no woman more desperate on earth than the one with a sick and deeply unhappy toddler in the back, trying to make it to the pediatrician before he leaves for the day. A lot of ink has been spilled drafting laws to make the roads safer from people who drink and drive or talk on their cell phones and drive, or wear sexy bathing suits and drive, which is apparently very distracting for drivers in Kentucky. But in my opinion, regulators have really missed the boat here, since the most dangerous, distracted drivers on the road are moms with screaming children in the backseat. You can see them everywhere, belting out their little one's favorite tunes from the Creative Caregivers Singing Circle and shimmying in the driver's seat, contorting backward through the gap between the seats to shove pacifiers and animal crackers into their darling babies' mouths, or just weeping hysterically at the horror of it all. And today, I'm one of them.

I've got my wireless headset wedged in my ear, and I'm trying to do a modified staff meeting over the phone, which is profoundly unsatisfying for everyone concerned since at least half of the discussion is
drowned out by Scotty's howls. It's the standard docket: three press releases for approval, two major proposals in development, and a variety of daily media inquiries, none of them particularly earth-shattering. Erica's peevishness comes across the line loud and clear; she feels ignored and she's not wrong. But she's a grown-up and writing press releases isn't rocket science, for God's sake, and for today, I'm delegating supervision of her work to Geoff. In my current state, he's going to do a better job of it anyway. And he has much more innate patience than I do for the delicate emotional states of my little group of writers, all of whom think that they should be producing the Great Novel and exist in a state of quiet despair that the exigencies of mortgages and groceries require them to write thank-you letters and donor profiles instead. Thank heavens for Geoff, the sanest creative type on planet Earth, and his unexpected talent for HR management.

I had been planning a brainstorming session on the Gala theme, but the shrieking is hitting an alarming crescendo, and after nearly rear-ending a city bus, I decide that I am going to have to concentrate on getting to the doctor in one piece. I ask them to continue the meeting without me and hang up. And I need to calm down before we get to the office so that I can pull off my Competent Professional Mother in Control of Her Life impression. For reasons that I don't fully understand, sitting in Dr. Goldstein's waiting room seems to trigger intense paranoia in me. I'm always convinced that he will take one look at my kids and diagnose them with scurvy or some other disease that has been eradicated in all but the most negligent households in the developed world. As a result, I talk too much and put words in the children's mouths, boast inappropriately about their achievements, and generally undermine my own efforts to portray myself as a successful and relaxed parent.

Dr. Goldstein comes into the examining room. “What do we have here?” he asks. “Another ear infection, young man?” He pulls out his scope and looks at me expectantly. “I'll need you to lay him down and hold his arms so I can get a good angle into his ears.”

Scotty, who has been sobbing at a slightly lower volume since we
arrived, ramps it up at the sight of Dr. Goldstein. He goes rigid as I try to lay him down, kicking furiously and making contact with my left breast, which hurts so much that it takes my breath away. I lose my grip on him entirely. Dr. Goldstein steps in. “Like this,” he says, and in a nanosecond he has Scotty pinned on the table. “Now hold his hands here—no, not like that, like this—right.” With practiced movements, he jabs the scope in one ear and then the other, and takes Scotty's temperature for good measure. “All done,” he says. “You can let him up.”

And now Dr. Goldstein turns his attention to me. “The right ear is red and his temperature is slightly elevated.” He reaches over and grabs a prescription pad and scribbles something completely illegible. “He's had a few more ear infections this year than I would like. I'm giving you something a bit stronger this time. But if the infections don't taper off, we're going to have to consider tubes.”

At this, I feel my calm façade start to crack; in truth, Dr. Goldstein's pronouncement makes me want to wrap my sick baby in my arms, sink down to the floor, and start bawling right along with him. Antibiotics are one thing, we have them every couple of weeks, but how am I going to manage a surgery? And where is Jesse going to be when all of this happens? He's not the one here now, listening to Dr. Goldstein announce that our son has defective ears, and my bet is that he'll manage to have a meeting that conflicts with everything that follows—the pre-op, the surgery, and the days of recovery spent unwrapping Popsicles and switching
Backyardigans
DVDs. Not that Jesse would be able to pry me away from Scotty's side, since nothing fills me with purpose like nursing my children when they're sick. I'm never more patient, more effortlessly loving, than when my children need me. And never more conscious of the fact that their father enjoys a different kind of freedom.

Dr. Goldstein appears surprised, and I can tell that whatever expression is on my face at this moment, it is inappropriate. “It's a minor procedure,” he says soothingly. “And it may not be necessary at all. Let's just cross that bridge when we come to it, all right?” And I know in that moment that neither he nor I believe that I am a Competent Professional Mother in Control of Her Life, Her Children, or
Anything Else. “And what about you?” he asks, adding insult to injury. “You look a little flushed. Are you sick as well?”

A responsible adult would admit weakness, would reach out and take help where it is offered. But I am determined to cling to the one little raft in the roiling sea of chaos that is my life. I will not give in. I may have a cold, but it is only a small, insignificant cold that will be gone tomorrow because I refuse to acknowledge its existence. No retreat, no surrender. “No,” I say. “I'm absolutely fine. Thanks so much for fitting us in.”

I pack Scotty back into the car. When we reach the drugstore, I lift him out of the car, whispering soothing words while he screams his head off, and carry him inside where I bounce him up and down on a hard plastic chair for fifteen minutes while the pharmacist fills his prescription on a rush basis. I stroke his sweat-damp hair and sing a song about sleepy bunnies, which has no effect on Scotty but makes all of the busy people waiting in line look at us with varying degrees of pity, annoyance, and outright dislike. When we finally make it home, it is four-thirty, far too late to find alternative care arrangements, even if I had any bright ideas about how to do that, which I don't. I give Scotty a dose of medicine, tuck him in on the sofa with a blanket and a DVD, and contemplate drinking heavily. But Jamie is due back from school any minute, so I decide to do a few minutes of work while I can.

As I empty the papers from my desk out of my bag, a pink message slip drifts to the floor. I scoop it up and feel a rush of adrenaline as I read the name. I haven't seen Will Shannon in at least three years, but the thought of him never fails to trigger a chemical reaction. I examine the message slip with the attention of a scholar deciphering the meaning of an ancient manuscript. Joy hasn't given me a lot to work with here. Assuming that she ticked the correct box, I can expect a call back. But the bottom of the check mark is touching the box below, which could indicate that Will is expecting me to call. There's no number on the slip, but Will knows that I have it, and Joy is really unreliable when it comes to getting full information from callers. And there's no actual message, so it's hard to justify jumping the gun and calling him first when there is no obvious
issue that needs to be addressed. I could send an e-mail, something quick and light saying that I got his message and asking when might be a good time to connect since my schedule is so crazy. I don't want to give the impression that I've been sitting by the phone. I'm mulling over the possibilities when the phone rings.

“Hey, Soph,” says Jesse. “How did it go at the doctor?”

“Scotty has another ear infection,” I say. I'm still irked by the ease with which Jesse passes responsibility for our kids over to me, but he gets a few points for calling to check in. I communicate this by adopting a tone that is measured and mature, and only a bit chilly.

“No scurvy today?” he asks. I smile in spite of myself. “Did you pick up the prescription?”

My smile vanishes so quickly that the corners of my mouth hurt, and I put the phone down on the counter for a second so that I don't throw it across the room. As if I wouldn't pick up the prescription! As if there would ever be a slight chance that the job would fall to Jesse! I bristle with indignation; that the sum total of Jesse's contribution to today's misadventure should be to drop in at the end and ask stupid, self-serving questions, and that this should count as engaged fatherhood, seems wildly unfair.

“Are you there?” he asks.

“Sorry,” I say. “The line cut out for a minute.” The surge of rage is fading, and I wonder if any of this is really Jesse's fault. In choosing to juggle the competing demands of work and family, I was bargaining on a professional life that would be worthy of the effort. Juggle—the word annoys me intensely when applied to the multiple responsibilities of my life, suggesting as it does a trifling hobby with the sole purpose of entertaining a paying audience, none of which actually relates to the conditions of my existence. When I made my choices, I anticipated a steady rise in stature and an accumulation of accolades that would make the wisdom of my choice clear. Perhaps more importantly, I was terrified of finding myself on the stay-at-home end of one of those excruciating conversations in which a working mother attempts and generally
fails to persuade a stay-at-home mother that she values and admires the choices that have led the latter to a life of unpaid, unappreciated, and unremembered domestic labor. Am I actually angry because the biggest challenge and crowning achievement of my day has been the mere acquisition of a prescription?

“I got the prescription,” I say. “I've given him the first dose.”

“Great,” he says. “What's he doing now?”

“He's watching unlimited episodes of
Dora
and
Diego
, which is making him marginally less miserable. When will you be home?”

Jesse pauses, and now I can hear the telltale clicking of his keyboard and I think my head is going to explode. I can't believe that just moments ago, I was trying to persuade myself that anger is just shame turned outward. Jesse can't even concentrate for more than two minutes on a conversation about our poor sick child, who is running a fever, for God's sake, on the couch in the next room, without doing e-mail.

“I'm sorry, Soph, but I'm going to be late,” he says. “The meeting this afternoon went well, and this group of investors seems serious, but Anya thinks that it's important to cement the relationship by taking them out to dinner.”

“I'm sure she does,” I say, not very nicely. Anya is all sharp edges: cutting wit, experimental jewelry, severe bangs over prominent cheekbones, bony hips. She doesn't have kids and, I'm quite sure, doesn't like kids; and most of the time I think she pretends that Jesse doesn't have them either. She has primary responsibility for business development at the firm, which gives her the power to disrupt our family schedule by routinely booking after-hours command performances for Jesse that I am certain could easily be accommodated during the workday. I can't stand her.

“Sophie,” says Jesse, in a tone that is both a plea and a warning.

“Fine,” I say. This is an old conversation and I know better than to go there. When Jesse started the business with Anya, I gave him my full and unconditional support by learning to appreciate Anya's strengths and accept her differences (what Jesse actually said) and not driving Jesse mad
by unpacking every exchange with Anya and looking for imagined slights (what Jesse actually meant). It's been a bigger struggle since our disastrous trip to Las Vegas earlier this year. Jesse and Anya had a trade show that fell on our anniversary weekend, so I tagged along, thinking that we'd be able to carve out some time together. But in the end, Anya found a reason why Jesse had to be with her at all hours. I sat by the pool and got drunk in the desert sun and ordered room service by day; and by night I watched bad movies on pay-per-view and tried unsuccessfully to beat back my paranoid suspicion that Anya's ambitions for her relationship with Jesse extended well beyond the confines of the business. But I'm committed to getting past it, because I know that Jesse is incredibly stressed about the funding for their new project. It is a huge condominium development with street-level commercial space and state-of-the-art environmental technology, which is Jesse's area of expertise. If they can get the financing together, their little company will establish its reputation in a tough and crowded market. But they've had to extend themselves a long way to get all of the permissions, plans, and computer-generated renderings, and if the financing falls through, the company is likely to go the same way. I reach for my better self.