I shrug. “I’m not that fancy.” I’m ready to change the subject. We usually save this kind of talk for later in the evening, after the girls have had a few drinks, but apparently we’re starting early tonight. Maybe because Julia is already a few drinks ahead of everyone. The subject matter doesn’t embarrass me, but it does remind me that, technically, I am in need of a replacement for Chris.

The temperature has climbed significantly since this morning and the rain has moved on, so we’re going to sit on the deck to play our game. I turn on the stereo and try to remember which button activates the outdoor speakers. “Can someone pop their head outside and tell me if they hear music?”

We play several rounds of bunco and Bridget wins the pot every time. “Sam will be so proud,” she says with just a hint of sarcasm. “Maybe he’ll win big tonight, too.”

Bridget will have to give her babysitter most of the money because her two oldest boys are at a sleepover and she had to hire someone to watch the two youngest. Sam is no more likely to stay home on bunco night than Chris is to share his feelings with me.

When we come inside, Julia tries to convince us to go back to her house. Justin and Skip are hanging out with the kids and are probably knocking back a few drinks of their own.

I beg off even though it’s only nine o’clock. The babysitter has brought the kids home and they’re upstairs taking showers. I’d have no one to watch them, and I’m tired and looking forward to relaxing with a DVD after I get them in bed.

Julia stands and sways slightly as she pours the last of the chardonnay into her glass. She makes her way through my kitchen, sipping the wine, and heads toward the front door. “I’ll bring your glass back tomorrow, Claire,” she says over her shoulder. But she won’t. I always have to retrieve them.

Elisa pecks me on the cheek and gathers her things. “Thanks, Claire. I’ll see you later. Bye, Bridget.” She hurries out and I know it’s because she wants to follow Julia and make sure she gets home okay.

Bridget yawns. This morning’s caffeine boost has been eclipsed by the sedating effects of a few beers and the cumulative fatigue brought about by a day’s worth of parenting.

“See you tomorrow at seven?” I ask as I walk her out.

She leans over and gives me a quick hug. “Sure. Thanks for hosting.”

“You’re welcome.”

It takes me fifteen minutes to clean up the kitchen and the deck after I tuck the kids into bed. Before I head upstairs to slip between my own sheets, I check my e-mail.

To: Claire Canton

From: Chris Canton

Subject: Kids

I got your message. Tell the kids I’m sorry I missed them—I was on a conference call, but it was nice to hear their voices on the recording. Busy day tomorrow. I’ll try to check in when I get back to the hotel. Closed the deal in Albuquerque. Hope I can do the same in Santa Fe.

7

claire

When we returned home from Hawaii last year, the first month of Chris’s unemployment was almost behind us. Our lives didn’t seem that different, because even though he was home all the time, he never stopped working. Idleness was a foreign concept to Chris, and he spent his days fixing things around the house and offering to drive the kids to their playdates and after-school practices. He worked tirelessly in the yard, planting trees and building a large retaining wall, which he landscaped with shrubs and rosebushes.

He was confident that the headhunters who fawned all over him would soon call to tell him they’d located the next lucrative position, complete with a sign-on bonus and six weeks of vacation time. This mind-set didn’t come from a place of entitlement, and Chris certainly didn’t take the recession lightly, but there were sectors of the economy that were still performing well and he thought it was only a matter of time before the headhunters found a company that needed a proven sales leader, pairing them like the matching cards in a giant game of employment concentration. Patience isn’t one of Chris’s stronger virtues, but he waited, and though he got a bit quieter, pensive, and slightly brooding, I don’t think anyone noticed but me.

School let out and in the months that followed, Chris volunteered to coach Josh’s summer baseball league and shuttle Jordan back and forth to her swimming lessons while I spent the days appeasing my clients. For the first time ever I had the freedom to take on additional work and more challenging projects. I didn’t have to drop everything in time to meet the school bus or run someone to practice or facilitate a playdate.

Frequent monitoring of our bank account showed more money going out than we’d planned for. The premiums for our health insurance were so high it barely seemed legal, Chris’s car needed four new tires, and our dentist referred us to an orthodontist who informed us of the costly treatment Jordan would need to correct a problem that was invisible to the untrained eye. “We can postpone it,” I suggested.

Chris wouldn’t even consider it. “No,” he said. “If she needs it, we’ll do it now.”

He came home one day and found me mopping the kitchen floor. “Why don’t you let Kathy do that?” he said, referring to our bimonthly cleaning lady.

I dunked the mop in the bucket and then squeezed out the excess water. “I let her go,” I said. I felt horrible about it because she was a single parent and really needed the money. “I told her I’d call her back when our budget eases up a little.”

Chris wouldn’t look at me, or maybe I was the one who avoided his eyes, afraid to see any kind of hurt in them. “Our budget is fine,” Chris said softly. He skipped dinner that night and spent the evening in our home office with the door closed.

I took on additional clients, and I hustled for more, following up on every lead I encountered. Sometimes I worked until midnight but even then Chris would stay up later, and it was around this time that he stopped coming to bed altogether, preferring the couch so he wouldn’t disrupt my sleep with his restlessness. I slept worse without him next to me, but I refrained from complaining so I wouldn’t add to his stress.

One night in August, after I tucked the kids into bed, I found Chris in the office with a calculator and the checkbook on the desktop in front of him, fingers flying over the numbers, his brow furrowed.

“We’ll be dipping into our savings by winter,” Chris said, shaking his head. He exhaled and massaged his temples.

The money he had received in one lump sum equaled eight months of his base salary but didn’t include the commissions he once earned. Though we didn’t have any revolving debt we paid a small fortune to our mortgage company every month. The irony was that the home Chris and I were once so proud of had lost a significant amount of its value when property values plummeted; we probably couldn’t unload it if we wanted to, and we would lose money even if we found a buyer.

“I’m taking on more work than ever,” I said. “If you weren’t here to help me with the kids, I’d never have had the ability to bid for these jobs, and there’s no way I would have had the time to devote to them.”

“Well, that makes me feel so much better,” he said, sighing, not bothering to hide the defeat in his voice.

I’d always thought we were equal partners, but my normally open-minded husband apparently harbored some fairly strong 1950s opinions about who should be bringing home the bacon and who should fry it up in the pan. Or maybe it was just his wounded ego that was feeling old-fashioned.