My mother calls every Sunday at 10:15. She has called every Sunday at 10:15 for as long as I’ve lived in this house, which is twelve years. Before that she called at 10:00, but I asked her once to push it back because Zoe’s swim lessons ended at 10 and I was always in the car when the phone rang. She adjusted without comment and has hit the new time with a consistency that I find both comforting and slightly unnerving.
Today she asked about Zoe’s SAT prep. She asked about Max’s tournament. She asked if Doug had fixed the garage door opener, which he has not. Then she asked how work was going.
“Fine,” I said. “Same as always.”
She said “good” and moved on to her neighbor’s new fence, which is apparently six inches over the property line and generating the kind of conflict that keeps her entire block engaged.
Here is what my mother did not ask: whether I’m happy at work. Whether I want to stay. Whether I’ve spent three weeks building a business plan while sitting in meetings about Q3 retention targets. She didn’t ask because she wouldn’t think to. Not because she doesn’t care. In her framework, having a good job means you’re fine. You don’t interrogate fine.
My mom was a school secretary for 31 years. Same school, same desk. She started in 1978 and retired in 2009 with a sheet cake and a gift card to Kohl’s. She never once, in my memory, talked about wanting to do something else. Not complained. Not daydreamed out loud. Not sat in a parking lot reconsidering her entire trajectory.
I used to think that meant she was content. Now I’m not sure. I’m not saying she was secretly miserable. That’s not what I mean, and I should be careful here because she deserves better than me rewriting her life to serve my narrative. What I’m saying is I never asked, and she never volunteered, and I genuinely don’t know. Maybe 31 years at the same desk was the thing she chose and kept choosing. Not everyone has the itch.
But she never talked about it either way. And now I’m the one not talking.
The list of people who know what I’m doing: Terri. And whoever is reading this. Doug does not know. My mother does not know. Zoe and Max don’t know, which is appropriate, they’re teenagers who can barely locate their own shoes.
Doug should know. He should have known two weeks ago. At this point it’s not that I haven’t found the right moment. I’ve had at least three. Yesterday he stood in the kitchen and asked what I was working on and I said “just some research” like it was nothing.
I keep telling myself I’ll do it when there’s something concrete to tell. When I know who the buyer is. When I have a plan instead of a spreadsheet and a phone note and one phone call.
But there is something to tell. There has been something to tell since April. I am thinking about leaving my job. I have a business idea. I started writing about it publicly. I did all of this without mentioning it to the person I’ve been married to for 21 years. That is the something.
After the call with my mom I sat at the kitchen table with cold coffee. Doug was reading the news on his iPad, which he holds slightly too far from his face, like a man who refuses to admit he needs reading glasses. I almost said it. I opened my mouth. Then Zoe came downstairs and asked if we had almond milk, and the moment dissolved the way moments do when you let them.
I’m not going to write “tonight” again. I’ve said it to myself three times now, in my head if not here, and broken it three times. I don’t want to make a promise I’ll have to explain away tomorrow.
What I’ll say is the silence is getting heavier than the conversation would be. I think. I’m not totally sure about that math yet. But the ratio is shifting.