What If

     She swirled the rich taste of good coffee around her mouth as she looked out on the world evidently trying to escape from winter’s grip.  The newly showing grass was nowhere near the brilliant hue it would be in weeks to come, but for now it was a welcome spot of any color besides white or grey.  She could barely make out the lake in the distance, its water somehow still sparkling and lovely, even on a sunless day.  Amid the aroma of roasting coffee beans mixed with the scent of new book pages, she studied the little person across the table from her, brown hair tangled despite its brushing a few hours before, bottom scooting on and off, on and off the high bar-style chair, mouth with numerous missing teeth silently forming the words of the book she held.

Her daughter. Usually, this child seemed like a ubiquitous presence in her life, a kind of extension of herself.  Today, in this place, she saw Claire as one sees an actress picked to play the part of a well-known role.  Familiar, but yet able to be played by an array of possibilities.  Only one actor is chosen to play a part in one run of a play, though, never to be performed again in the same way, in the same place, at the same designated block of time.  She was playing the role of Claire’s mom. 

She was a good mom.  She did most things moms were supposed to.  Made lunches, kept clean clothes in the drawers and closets, put meals on the table, attended various events her children were a part of, was generally available for the past 12 years of the first one’s life.  She was a good wife.  Dependable, keeping the house in order, shouldering the care-taking of the kids and buying of family birthday gifts and impressing the necessary dinner guests.  She wondered if her family, her family who she dearly loved, knew she felt like an inadequate phony.

She was a strange fit for this life of ordered domesticity.  At heart, she was a wanderer.  Becoming anchored and dependent, she found herself beating back depression at times.  She liked to be spontaneous, enjoy the moments life presented, and answer to whims.  Her favorite memories of motherhood were times when she set the baby up in a backpack and wandered for hours.  Her babies always seemed content at those times, as long as she had stashed enough snacks and diapers in the backpack too.  It was if their little hearts could sense their mother’s peace, and they knew they could be at peace too.  Even little Claire, her fussy, stormy, strong-willed child, would gleefully kick her little legs until she lost a shoe when going on lazy adventures with Mama.  

Now, looking over the bewitching lake that was one place still able to cause her to grab her children for a stolen afternoon of reading on a picnic blanket, she was beckoned to consider the path not taken.  What if? 

She allowed herself to see the single and young version of herself, renting one of those rooms over the quaint little shops lining the street.  She could perch up there in a small space furnished just the way she liked, or not, with a cup of tea, experiencing the changing personality of that lake over the seasons.  She could live her life in this town with all of its interesting treasures.  Why hadn’t she done that?  Why had she not taken an adventure when she was young? Picked a place to live because she fell in love with it, working nights and weekends at a little place just like this bookstore/coffeeshop.  She could see her younger self, long hair swept up and back, chatting with interesting customers on a busy night, being fueled by the energy and inspiration of the place, the live music, the writers.  Now it was too late to go living in an apartment over a storefront, working nights and weekends.  Wasn’t it?

Please.  She was nearing what was probably the exact middle of her lifespan, and she was expected to have “real” commitments.  A nice career when the last child was in school, a nice house in a nice suburb.  She was married to a doctor, for goodness sake.  She was living the kind of life she was supposed to.

She had always lived the kind of life she was supposed to.  She had listened to her parents and stayed close to home.  She got the kind of job they told her girls are supposed to get while waiting to marry and have children.  A secretary or bank teller or something.  She had done the bank thing and vowed she would never do it again.  When she felt as if she were suffocating, she used to take off from her parents’ house and just drive for hours, wondering where she could go, knowing she wanted to be anywhere but where she was. 

She married a nice guy.  She wondered if that would have changed.  She fell in love, after all, was still in love to this day.  He factored in all the versions of her daydreams and alternate longings.  Maybe she would not have married him, but from the time they had started getting to know one another, she knew in her heart that they would be in each other’s lives, in some way, for the rest of her life. He was so unlike her, but he was as much a part of her being as her children.  No matter what scenario of her life she imagined, her family could not be written out of her soul.  

She suspected they all knew.  Everyone probably did.  She was a person who wore her heart on her face.  The kids, after all, were most at ease when she was off script.  Perhaps all those things she and her husband and society thought they needed weren’t so necessary after all. What about her husband?  He seemed to like his job.  He was an ambitious guy.  But what if he had the freedom to do exactly what he wanted without any financial obligations?  There were times the two of them were in the same room, struggling with some aspect of their separate obligations, when she sensed they each just wanted to look at the other and say, “To hell with all this.”

She watched Claire leap down from the high stool and onto a nearby couch, unaware of anyone else in the room watching her, her words now audible, her whole six year old self involved in a drama of her invention.  She smiled, remembering what it was like to be Claire’s age, hoping Claire would stay like this longer than she herself had. Would she allow Claire to do that? Or was she forcing things upon Claire she thought she should.  What if twenty-something Claire wanted to rent a room above a store and write and wait tables? 

Little Claire was now directly in front of her, her intense blue eyes narrowed, “Am I going to be late for school?” Her hands were on her hips and her heart-shaped mouth puckered into a frown.  She reached out and touched Claire’s still baby-soft, slightly-chubby cheek.  “We’re fine, Claire.  Would you like to leave now, just to be sure we make it?”  In answer, Claire began to gather up her jacket, her new book, and her half-full bottle of lemonade. 

She sighed and drained the last drops of coffee from her mug.  She saved the file, but paused a moment before she shut her laptop down.  She looked at the words on the screen, wondering if they would stay there forever, or would escape and become a possibility.  She wondered if she would show her husband tonight, if they would have the conversation that hung silently in the air around them so many times, but never found form in their voices.  

“Mama!”

     She snapped the computer shut, slid it into her bag, and followed Claire out.