Chapter 1

Mike is nearly through the door before I catch him.

“What the f-fmmgh?!” (I censor myself just in time. Little ears are always listening.) “You said you’d take the kids this morning!”

He pauses in the entryway. From the guilty look on his face, I know he never for one second forgot that he’s scheduled to handle transportation duty. “Shoot, completely slipped my mind. Stan called for a code walkthrough today, and I need to be there. I’ll take them Monday, promise.” Ducking as if to weather a hailstorm of recriminations, he edges in the direction of freedom.

Fuck! I really needed Mike to have my back on this. Instead, he’s not only dropped the ball, he’s essentially flushed it down the toilet. Offering to atone on Monday is worthless to me.

But ... dammit, I don’t want to start a fight. For one thing, I don’t have time for a fight, any more than I have time to drive the kids to school. And on top of that, we’ve also got a big, romantic date-night scheduled this evening. If I lay into him now, we’ll both be bitter and resentful all day, and the whole thing will be spoiled.

So, I choke down the venom and do my best to sound reasonable, accommodating. “I just wish you’d coordinated with me, that’s all. You know I have that big presentation.”

He interprets this as permission to flee. “Thanks babe, I’ll totally make it up to you.”

Once again I’m left holding the proverbial bag. But I don’t have the luxury of brooding over the injury. Not right now, at least. Instead, switching into emergency panic mode, I plop the kids and their cheerios in front of Bluey, and cram an hour’s worth of personal prep time into a white-hot 15 minutes. Hunting down an unstained blouse and skirt ensemble that isn’t wholly casual. Wrestling my hair into ‘suitable to be seen in-person’ shape. Making a perfunctory gesture toward blush and lipstick. Finally, scooping up my iPad and purse, I indulge in a final glance in the mirror—not bad, really, given the circumstances.

After visually confirming that Kit and Jemma have their backpacks and lunches in hand, I hasten them outside and into the car. Treading my foot into the gas pedal, I careen backwards out of the driveway, until—yikes!! There’s the blare of a horn, a squeal of breaks, and I lurch to a stop.

Oops, it’s the neighbor kid Kyle in his beat-up old pickup. He was just heading out too, apparently, and I cut him off. Barely missed backing into him, in fact. He doesn’t seem aggravated though—we make eye contact and he breaks into an easy grin, accompanied by a friendly wave. I offer up an apologetic hand in answer, before maneuvering awkwardly out of the jam.

The close call serves as a good reminder to obey all state, county, and municipal driving laws—something I strive hard to do whenever the kids are in the car with me. So, even though I’m dying to shave a few minutes off the journey to Henry Clay Elementary, I conduct myself like a model citizen the whole way.

The thing about Mike flaking on me this morning (I have time to obsess on the drive) is that I know those software hacks at Three-Rs Educational Software, and how they operate. It’s not like we’re talking about some cutting-edge, supercharged Silicon Valley startup here. 3Rs attracts the sort of coders who are baseline competent and don’t like to work too hard. Why, I’d bet dollars to donuts today’s ‘code review’ involves first ambling over to the canteen for hot Americanos, and then an hour or two of sitting around in the conference room talking shit. Probably at this moment, the single guys are showing off naked pictures of their latest girlfriends, while the married guys live vicariously through them.

Well, at least I hope the married guys aren’t showing off compromising photos of their wives. I know for a fact that Mike isn’t, because I’ve never let him take any. He pushed the idea, years ago, just for his private use (as he put it). But I never agreed. It’s not that I’m prudish or self-conscious about being naked with him. Well, not much anyway. Mostly it’s just that once a picture like that has been taken, you never know where it will end up, right? This way I don’t have to worry about it.

Anyway, Mike definitely could have skipped the meeting, whatever it is. He just didn’t want to look whipped in front of the boys. He’s never taken my career seriously, and today is merely the umpteenth confirmation of that fact.

Once the kids are dropped off, I jettison the safe-driver act, pushing my battered CR-V to the limit on the trip over to Pine Ridge Corporate Park. If I pound the accelerator mercilessly, run every fleeting yellow, and roll through every stop-sign, I can get there in under a half hour.

It’s not that Mike is a bad person (oops, spiraling again). It’s just that the hopes and expectations we brought into the marriage have turned out to be more mismatched than we probably realized back then. We were both excited about having children; and motherhood has turned out to be even more rewarding than I expected. But I never wanted to end up as a housewife. It was a rude shock when we started doing the math and realized that it would be cheaper for me to quit working than to pay for childcare.

Mike is perfectly content with the arrangement. Why shouldn’t he be? Sure money is tight, but we squeak by. And meanwhile, he’s happy the kids have their mother around instead of a random stranger—while he gets to escape every day to the pretty-fucking-easy, maximum-ego-boosting tech job he’s always done.

Plus, the really great thing is, there’s nothing sexist about it, right? It’s just a matter of logic that male web coders should make three times what female marketing managers make. And naturally (he’d say), if the tables were reversed, he’d be the one staying home.

Yeah, right. If you believe that last one, then I’ve got some lovely beachfront property you might be interested in.

So, here we are, seven years later—me a part-time freelancer, trying to resurrect my pathetic shell of a career, while he goes right on assuming that his job should always take precedence. I understand how he slipped into that mindset, but I’m struggling to figure out how I can shake him free of it...

I arrive at Three-Rs Educational Software, mercifully breaking the acrid train of my thoughts. Most days I work remotely, but today I’m meeting the client onsite. And this client happens to be the same company where my husband works, 3Rs. Not that I owe the gig to any efforts on his part—I landed the contract through my own hustle and connections. Mike has zero pull there anyway.