Anger is a hot thing.
What I felt was colder and more precise.
It was clarity.
The clarity of a problem that has been named.
You’re just always tired and no fun anymore.
I was tired.
That part was accurate.
The no fun part, though.
That was not about me.
That was about what he thought fun looked like.
I was extremely capable of fun.
I had simply been doing it alone for years.
I called my sister.
Her name is Dana and she has two children and a husband who is visibly present in the management of their household and she has been watching my situation for two years with the specific concern of someone who loves you and who is trying not to say too much.
She answered on the second ring.
I said: I need help.
She said: today?
I said: yes.
She said: what kind of help.
I said: I need you to take the older four for the afternoon.
She said: done.
She said: Ellie.
I said: yes.
She said: are you all right?
I said: yes.
I said: I’ve decided to be fun.
She was quiet for a moment.
She said: I don’t know what that means.
I said: I’ll explain later.
She said: I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.
I called my mother.
My mother is sixty-three and recently retired from teaching and has the specific energy of someone who has found retirement agreeing with her.
I said: Mom.
She said: yes?
I said: can you take Nora for four hours?
She said: absolutely.
She said: is everything all right?
I said: yes.
I said: I’m just doing some work.
She said: I’ll be there in thirty minutes.
I showered.
I showered with the specific luxury of someone who has not had an uninterrupted shower in seven months.
Not a long shower.
A complete one.
The kind where you finish what you start.
I got dressed.
Not in the stained sweatpants.
In the clothes I wore before the children, the ones that had been pushed to the back of the closet and that still fit because graphic designers do a lot of walking around and because I had not had time to sit still.
I looked in the mirror.
I looked like myself.
Not the 3 AM version.
The other one.
Dana arrived.
My mother arrived.
The children were distributed.
The house was quiet.
I sat at my desk for the first time in months with the specific quality of uninterrupted time.
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