AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ADDISON
Within forty-five minutes, I arrive back at the condo. I toss my purse and keys on the foyer table, then toe off my tennis shoes.
On wobbly knees, I move further inside. I have an hour to kill before I need to head out to the studio and plaster a smile on my face so ten kids get to enjoy their last dance class before summer break.
As I walk toward the dining room, a wave of discomfort hits me.
I wish I had caught Ethan anywhere other than our home. What was once my sanctuary now feels like a foreign space. How can I possibly continue walking in here every day, remembering what happened this morning, and not feel that same sharp twist deep in my gut?
My father purchased the condo as an engagement present for me and Ethan almost three years ago. It’s close to the downtown firm and has just enough space to encourage us to give him grandchildren, but not too much space that we’d go wild and create a basketball team.
He’s methodical like that. Every decision is heavily weighed to ensure that, in the end, he always gets what he wants. His insistence on us having children right away was comical considering he had no intention of actually being a grandfather to them.
He was after that requisite family picture to put on his desk, an attempt to earn his clients’ respect by showing he can be a hard-ass attorney while still making time for his family. The thought would be laughable if it weren’t so depressing.
My heart aches all over again as I make my way into the large dining room. I slowly run my fingertips down the hard wood of the ten-person table that had been a staple of my childhood. When I went away to college and my father downsized the house, he wanted to get rid of the behemoth chunk of wood, but I begged him to keep it for my own home someday.
Any other day, walking into this room would put a smile on my face, allowing me to reminisce on the wonderful memories I created at this table. Today, with my heart in knots, I’m reminded of how much I’ve lost.
Growing up, my father had a strict rule that dinner was the only time we utilized the dining room, but with his long work hours, he was rarely home to enforce it.
My mother would often clear off the runner and centerpiece, then cover the entire table with giant sheets of white butcher paper. We would paint and color and build make-believe worlds. We’d play hide-and-seek or fill the space with blankets and pillows and spend the day reading together, only stopping to stuff ourselves full of her delicious peanut butter cookies and other treats.
And then every afternoon, we would transform the dining room back into the lonely and boring space my father wanted it to be.
My mother was my best friend. She was a professional ballerina when she met and fell in love with my father. She left her career behind once she had me, but she never stopped dancing. In fact, she encouraged my own love for it, though I was never as graceful as her. My interests lay more in contemporary than ballet, but she never bat an eye over the fact. She took me to every class I wanted, helped me practice hour after hour, and was in the front row at every recital.
She passed away when I was eight, and suddenly my father’s long hours at the firm seemed to stretch into days. He was no longer around to reprimand me if I played in the dining room. He wasn’t even around for dinner most nights.
I was left with only my memories and the promise of the years to come, filling my own home with love and laughter and enjoying family dinners with my children around the table each night.
Feeling defeated, I sink into a chair, my nose burning from unshed tears. I lay my pounding temple on the table, enjoying the sharp contrast of the cold wood against my flushed skin.
With no one around to care if I keep it all together, I let the tears pour out of me.
When Ethan and I got engaged, I let both him and my father convince me to pull back on my work at the firm. Ethan promised we’d be starting a family right away, and it was important to him for me to be a stay-at-home mom for those first few years. I didn’t fight it.
I loved the idea of being a mom. Plus, I was still teaching at the studio, and getting to be the one to introduce dance to so many little boys and girls like my mom had for me was much more exciting to me than working a job I had never truly loved.
However, what I thought would be a quick elopement ended up being stretched out into three long years. Coming from two influential Los Angeles families, our impending wedding was sure to be one of the more talked about events of the year. Still, neither of us cared for the meticulous planning, so we left the details up to Ethan’s mom and the wedding planner she had hired. I only chimed in with a “yes” or “no” occasionally to keep her pacified.
Even so, the whole process has been stressful for us both. No part of me wanted a six-figure wedding, which I made clear early on. If I had it my way, we would have eloped at the local courthouse and called it a day.
But Ethan lives and breathes for the spotlight. He wanted everyone buzzing about the wedding and has continuously fed into the pomp and circumstance his mom has been planning. At some point, our wedding day began to feel like a dreaded chore rather than an exciting time to celebrate our love for each other. If anything, I’m relieved at no longer having to take part in the upcoming ceremony.
Even our daily lives had shifted to more time spent apart than together. He worked longer hours at the firm. I taught more classes at the studio. He stopped coming to recitals or showing an interest in my goals and excitement as a dance teacher.
It seems as if we’ve just been going through the motions of life instead of actually taking the time to enjoy each other. I rack my brain for the last time I’ve felt otherwise and come up lacking.
The thought causes me to hitch in a breath, my head spinning.
How did I get so caught up in my idealization of life that I was willing to dismiss all the red flags that are now waving around in my face, clear as day?
And now what am I to do?
In one day, I’ve lost my fiancé, walked out on my father, and lost my job—no, quit my job.
My relationship ending doesn’t feel like much of a loss at the moment, even if his affair still stings. I don’t find myself bothered by leaving the firm either, because that was never my dream.
