When Anne was a child, her favourite movie was "Sleeping Beauty". The best part was where the Prince and Aurora looked into each other's eyes and fell in love. She dreamed of the day it would happen to her, that instant, magical recognition of True Love.
So, the day she plunked the loaded plate down in front of the good-looking, curly-haired guy sitting at Table 6 in Gabe's Cafe, and saw his face light as he looked up at her, she knew that this was The One. When he asked her to go out with him that night, she forgot all her mother's warnings about strangers and agreed with shy eagerness.
Steve was unlike any of the young men in Anne's home town. He was so much more mature, so sure of himself. But then he had grown up in Toronto, and had a good job selling fabrics to shops all around southern Ontario. She listened, fascinated, as he told her about his travels, the challenges of his job, the big commissions he was piling up. He was planning to buy a house - he had friends in the business who would give him an inside tip on the real sweetheart deals - renovate it himself, and sell it for a rich profit. It was all a matter, he explained, of having an eye for opportunity and the guts to grab it.
They were married in 1977. It was a big wedding and a perfect one, full of fun and laughter. Steve looked so handsome in his white tux, just like a prince. It was Sleeping Beauty all over again, and they couldn't help but live happily ever after.
Anne threw herself into married life with enthusiasm. She and Steve bought a fixer-up house, and sat together over the kitchen table for long, happy hours, drawing up the plans for renovation. On weekends when he wasn't working, Steve went to garage sales, looking for the tools and materials he needed to make their dream house come true.
As time went on, it was hard not to get impatient, waiting for their plans to materialize. But it seemed that something always came up to delay the start. The summer was full of garage sales, auction sales and buildings being torn down with good material to be salvaged. By fall, football season was in full swing, and being an ardent sports fan, Steve couldn't miss any of the games. Winter was hockey season. When spring finally arrived, he was away several weekends in an unexpected rush of work.
When Anne became pregnant, she was thrilled. Steve, too, was delighted by the prospect of being a father. The two of them talked about their hopes for the child. Steve was eager to start an education account, and mused about the thousands of dollars it would accumulate with the shrewd investments he had planned.
As the months went by, Anne's anticipation became clouded with worry. The bedroom they had chosen for the nursery was draughty, poorly lit, and had cracked, uneven flooring. So much needed to be done before the baby came, and still Steve didn't find time to get to it. He did find time, however, to bring home more "bargains" and pile them around the yard. Her placid temperament strained with worry and hormones, Anne became less and less diplomatic about pressing him to get on with the renovations. Steve never argued with her or bit back at her nagging. He just became more terse.
"It's only two months until the baby is due, honey." Anne rubbed her aching back and tried to keep the edge out of her voice. "Don't you think it's time..."
Steve jumped up from the supper table and strode out the door without a word. Heart-sick and repentant, Anne waited long into the night for him to come home. She tearfully wondered if he had left her for good, before the door finally banged open and Steve thumped onto the bed beside her, reeking of beer.
Shaken by the experience, Anne resolved never to make the same mistake again. She kept her worries to herself.
Christopher's arrival was difficult, a breech birth that left Anne exhausted and torn. It seemed to take forever to recover. The baby was fretful, and she was always short of sleep. It helped that Steve was good with their child. He paced the floor with the wailing Christopher for hours each evening while Anne made supper and cleaned up the dishes. He often got up in the night to bring the baby to their bed to be nursed. She was grateful for his help, and deeply pleased to see how much he loved his infant son.
Still, it was hard not to be resentful when he sat with the baby on his knee and watched football while she dragged herself through her household chores.
But Anne had learned her lesson. She didn't say a word, the day the first snow came. She just taped a sheet of heavy plastic over the leaky nursery window and cut a chunk of used carpet Steve had picked up at a garage sale to lay over the worst of the cold, cracked linoleum. He said nothing either. But when she came back downstairs with the carpet knife and scraps in her hand, his mouth was set tight as he stared at the television.
When Spring came and Steve's work became busy again, Anne found herself both lonely and a little relieved. The house was sadly empty, with her husband gone until late at night and sometimes for weeks at a time, but at least she didn't have to deal with the constant tension between them. It worried her, but she had no idea what to do about it. Despite her own lack of confidence with words, she did try now and again to talk things out with Steve. It was strange that he talked so easily, so confidently, about anything else, but refused to discuss their relationship. If she pressed, he walked out of the house, buried himself in his basement workshop, or, worst of all, went out to the bar and didn't return until late at night. There were times when she wondered why work seemed to be eating up so much more of his time, while his commissions weren't increasing. There was no discussing that with him, either.
Unable to deal with the haunting fear that she was failing as a wife, Anne determined that at least she would be the best possible mother to Christopher. She and Steve had agreed, after all the stress and trauma of his birth, that it wasn't worth the risk to have any more children. This would be the only one, and she was determined to get it right. With her long post-partum depression finally lifting, she had the energy to really get into mothering. She read books, attended seminars on child-raising, nursed Christopher until he was over a year old, made all his baby food herself, and became an expert on the evils of preservatives in food. She would no more have brought white bread into the house than arsenic, and knew every market gardener and organic food source in Milborough.
Like eager new converts everywhere, she did her best to bring her friends into the health food fold. But with limited success.
It annoyed her no end that even though she used only whole wheat and organic fruits and vegetables in her cooking, she couldn't lose her 'baby fat'. For a while, she tried jogging. But it wasn't much fun without someone to go with.
Elly ran with her a few times, reluctantly. But then Elly's long-time pal Connie decided to take up jogging. As Connie and Elly became more frequent running mates, Anne stopped asking her friend to go with her. Elly suggested she come with them and make a threesome of it. But Connie never added any encouragement, and Anne was not about to push in where she wasn't wanted.
Anne didn't care much for Connie, anyway. They were different in too many important ways to be friends. Their backgrounds were similar - conservative French-Canadian communities with deep roots and strong family ties. But while Annie was proud of her heritage and content to live according to the traditional, tried-and-true standards in which she had been raised, Connie seemed determined to rebel against all of them.
It bothered Anne to see the values she believed in being flouted and scorned. She couldn't see where it had done Connie much good, either, being a career woman, spouting women's lib and trashing the institution of marriage every way she could. It had only left the other woman lonely, insecure and unhappy.
Anne could have overlooked Connie's affairs, her divorce, even her belief that women who were "only" housewives had somehow demeaned themselves. It was harder to forgive Connie for the fact that, in the selfish pursuit of her own pleasure, she had burdened an innocent child with the shame of illegitimacy. Loving her own son as she did, Anne couldn't understand why anyone would do such a thing. Every child deserved an honourable birth, two parents, and a loving home to grow up in.
There were times, though, when she had doubts about how loving her own child's home was. Steve's absences were becoming more frequent, his excuses thinner for the late nights he worked and the weekends he spent away. Once, she was sure there was a whiff of perfume from the suit jacket she was ironing. She couldn't bring herself to confront him. Not on such slim evidence. But when she discovered that the rhythm method they used had somehow skipped a beat and she was pregnant again, she couldn't help feeling that she, too, might be irresponsible. It was carelessness that would bring a child into a doubtful future.
She delayed a long time before she finally told Steve, or anyone else.
"You're expecting? Honey, that's fantastic!" Beaming, Steve gave her a rib-cracking hug.
Stunned, she stared up at him. "You're happy about it?"
"Of course." He looked surprised. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Well, we agreed not to have any more children. And - you haven't been home much lately." Annie kept her voice level. She would not nag at him. She cautiously went on, "I thought maybe you were getting sick of - of the mess and fuss of family life."
"No way." He caught her by the shoulders and shook her gently. "Don't ever think that, Annie. I know I've been preoccupied lately, but there is nothing that means as much to me as my family. All of you." He laid a hand over her belly with such warm happiness in his face that Anne's heart skipped a beat. "Hey, now we have to think of names again! Remember how we argued so long about Christopher? If it's a girl this time, I warn you, I'm going to insist we call her Sally-Mae-Susie."
They had a hectic trip to the hospital when the big day came. The car ran out of gas, they had to hitch a ride in a ridiculously small sports car, and they screeched up to the door of the hospital with very little time to spare. But for Anne, none of that mattered. What was important was, this time, the labour went easily. It surprised and touched her, too, that Steve stayed with her through the delivery.
She came home from the hospital feeling happy and well. It was fortunate, because Richard was an exhausting baby. He never slept more than two hours at a time, cried constantly, and when she tried to comfort him, struggled furiously against being held.
Annie was deeply grateful for Steve's support through that draining first year. She couldn't have survived dealing with an active two year old and a difficult baby as well, if he hadn't been so helpful with the children. She refused to let it bother her this time that his help didn't extend to the housework, or even that he did much of his babysitting in front of the sports channel. Her tolerance even went so far as to humour him in his addiction to buying tools and supplies for projects that she now realized would never happen. In the overall picture, it seemed a small enough vice.
When a management position came up in the company Steve worked for, Annie eagerly encourage him to apply. It would mean not only a higher salary, but more regular hours and all his weekends free. Steve had often told her about how well he was doing at work, how high his sales were and the way his bosses praised him. It seemed a certainty he would get the job.
When the days went by without Steve saying anything about interviews or short lists, Anne decided that he must be planning to surprise her. She waited in eager anticipation.
After a month, she stopped waiting. Once, she ventured to ask Steve, very cautiously, what had happened with the job. He didn't seem to hear her. A moment later he was playing a noisy game of piggy-back with Christopher and the opportunity for questions was gone. As soon as supper was over, he went out to a sports bar for the night.
She didn't ask again. Steve began working even more overtime than before. She didn't dare criticize. But it was hard managing the boys without him. Richard had grown from an unhappy baby into an unruly toddler with a knack for impressive tantrums. Her quiet child, Christopher, was acting out more, too, and in increasingly destructive ways. Anne suspected he missed his father and resented the amount of attention his younger brother claimed. Whenever she could, she tried to find some time to spend just with him. Even if it meant taking advantage of a friend once in a while.
When Elly decided to go back to work, Anne was lonelier than ever. She hadn't realized how much she had come to depend on their conversations over coffee in one kitchen or the other. Now she had no one at all with whom she could share her doubts and worries.
It was almost a relief when she realized she was expecting again. This time she didn't hesitate a minute before telling Steve. As she had hoped, he was just as pleased as before. Even better, the news seemed to shift his focus back toward his family. He became affectionate again, spent time with the boys, and gave her some much-needed time to herself by taking the children off to the park or the stadium whenever he could.
Anne was glad to let go of all the worrisome doubts that had been plaguing her. Steve still loved her. Their marriage was sound. As an added bonus, the new parenting techniques she was trying with Richard seemed to be helping. He was easier now, less destructive, able to play with other children. Watching him happily sharing a sand box with Christopher, she realized once again just how important her job as a mother was.
She hated to admit it even to herself, but it almost helped to know that Connie's "liberated" lifestyle had recently imploded. Much as she sympathized with the other woman's woes, it helped to vindicate Anne's own sometimes rocky domestic choice. It was nice, too, having more of Elly's time after Connie moved away to seek a fresh start.
Her third child came quickly, and Anne was thrilled when it was a girl. Her happiness was fleeting. The doctor waited until she had recovered a little, then told her gently that the child wasn't perfect. Shock turned her blood cold as visions of every deformity she had ever heard of rushed through her mind. He placed the baby in her arms and lifted the tiny hands for inspection. Her beautiful daughter had six fingers on each hand.
Anne was stricken. It could be repaired by surgery later. The doctor and nurses kept saying so. It wouldn't handicap little Leah. But all Anne could think of was her own failure. She had done something which had damaged her child.
Steve, Elly, her doctor and all the nurses assured her that it wasn't her fault. Still, Annie searched for an answer. Was it that she had slipped from her health-food diet? It had seemed so much trouble, with two small boys to care for, making her own bread and hunting up organic oranges to hand-squeeze for juice. Heaven only knew what awful chemicals were floating in her blood stream. It was her fault, her selfishness that had done it!
Logically, she knew she was acting like a drama queen. But logic couldn't beat back the suffocating weight of guilt.
It was Steve, once more, who came to the rescue.
Through the mirror of her sons' attitude, Anne realized that her husband saw their little girl as special, not different. He loved his daughter just as she was, without any reservations. The simple rightness of it snapped Anne out of her guilt trip as no amount of argument could have done. With a shock, she realized just how far she had sunk into the sin of pride, thinking she could somehow control everything in the world. Use enough whole-wheat flour and banish all sorrow. Right. What an idiot she was!
When they took their baby home, Anne showed her off to their family and friends with contented pride and a minimum of explanation. Leah was Leah. Nothing more needed to be said.
With three children to care for, life became very busy. Chris started kindergarten, which meant lunches to make, bake sales to supply and a constant mess of construction paper and glue in the house. Chris attacked all his school projects with enthusiasm and often insisted on duplicating them at home. Richard continued to take up a lot of her time, as she continued with the parenting strategies needed to keep him progressing with his still-shaky social skills. And Leah, although a sweet, contented baby, still had so many time-consuming needs.
"I think she is actually toilet-trained now." Anne sighed and settled on the couch one night after the children were in bed. "At two years old, I'd say it's about time. And people say that boys are the hardest to train. Ha. Not in this house."
Steve gave her an odd look and turned back to the TV.
"What is it?" She sighed a little. Steve had gone moody on her again. He had also gone back to collecting junk and planning more projects. It was a sign she had come to recognize. He was discontent. There had been some trouble at work, too, she knew, although she'd never found the time it always took to pry any details out of him. Well, if he was looking for attention, his timing was off. The last thing she needed was another child to mother right now.
"Do you realize what this Friday is?" He kept his eyes on the screen.
"Friday?" Anne tried to focus. "Leah's check-up is Friday. And the wind-up for Richard's Day Camp. Which reminds me, I have to make cookies. Chocolate chip." She made a face. "Is that what you meant?"
"Friday is our tenth anniversary."
"Oh!" Shocked, Anne swivelled to look at the calendar on the kitchen wall. There it was, pencilled in with a red heart. Steve must have done that. She hadn't even noticed it under all the other notations crammed into the little square.
"I'd hoped we could go away somewhere to celebrate," he said. "Just the two of us, for the weekend."
"But we can't." Dismayed, Anne stared at him. "You know we can't. There's the Camp wind-up, and Saturday Chris is going to a birthday party. I offered to help with the face-painting. And Sunday - ". She caught herself. "Well, Sunday is busy too."
"Oh yes. I forgot." Steve's voice was a monotone. "You want to clean out the garage on Sunday."
"Well, it needs to be done." Anne swallowed against the constriction in her throat. This conversation was going all wrong. "It's so full of lumber and - stuff, there's no room for the boys' bikes. We need somewhere safe to put them. There's been some thievery lately in the neighbourhood."
"Yes. Yes, that's important. Well, forget it. It was a dumb idea anyway." Steve turned back to the Sports channel and flicked the volume higher on the remote.
"I'm sorry, honey. If you'd only mentioned it sooner - "
"I said forget it."
The edge in his voice had Anne biting her lip in guilt and resentment. That was the trouble with Steve, he just wasn't practical. Thinking they could run off at a moment's notice for a romantic rendezvous. He knew how hard it was to get a babysitter for three kids even for one evening, never mind a whole weekend. And how did he think they could afford it, with school fees and rink fees due so soon? It had been Steve who had insisted Chris start hockey this year.
Sudden anger shook her. She was tired of being the one who was supposed to do it all, think of everything, keep everyone happy, stretch a budget that was always too tight.
"Fine." She jumped to her feet. "I'm going to bed."
She thought about the argument often during the rest of that week. The realization hurt, but there wasn't much romance left in her feelings for Steve. The handsome Prince had long since faded away.
By Friday, Anne was regretting her part in the quarrel. Steve had been unrealistic to think they could get away for the weekend, but he was right that their tenth anniversary deserved to be celebrated. She bought steaks for supper, a rare indulgence, and a bottle of wine to share once the kids were in bed.
Steve didn't come home for supper. When he did finally show up late that evening, it was with three friends, a case of beer, and a rented video of Sports Bloopers. The message was painfully clear. He was going to celebrate, but without her.
When Steve's 40th birthday came around two years later, Annie made sure it was well recognized. The surprise party she threw was noisy and cheerful, with good food, lots of gag gifts, and all his friends were there. She even gritted her teeth and invited the men she couldn't stand, the ones who were always talking him into going out to the bar.
Steve didn't seem too thrilled with the party. It was disappointing, She had a feeling he was depressed about turning the big 4 - O. He was buying more junk, never a good sign. Nor were the long hours at work, the weekends away. But as usual, though he could talk for hours with his buddies about the latest "big game", he clammed right up if Anne probed him about his feelings.
It should have been a relief when he finally started to cheer up. But he cheered up a little too much for her comfort. He started buying sharp clothing in styles suitable for a man twenty years younger. His Old Spice aftershave vanished and a bottle of Brut appeared in its place. He refused to let her cut his hair any more, but had it styled at a salon.
With an effort, Anne bit her tongue and said nothing about the expense or how pathetic it seemed for him to be chasing his youth. Besides, with all the boys' school activities, Christopher's Cub Scouts and the speech therapy Leah was taking to clear up her lisp before kindergarten started, she didn't have time to deal with Steve getting middle-aged goofy on her. It was a phase. If she ignored it, it would pass. She firmly told herself so.
It was the tie that forced her out of her determined denial. The beautiful, unfamiliar silk tie that she found when she took advantage of yet another of his weekends away to clean out his closet. She always bought Steve's ties for him. She hadn't bought this one. And, unless her imagination was running away with her, it had a smear of lipstick on it...
Anne sat on the bed and stared at the tie for most of an hour. Then she did something she had always sworn she would never do. She called Steve's boss. He was home. It surprised him to hear that Steve wasn't. "No, none of our salesmen are on the road this weekend. Not on company business, at least." He was still chuckling as Anne hung up.
When Steve came home Sunday evening, looking infuriatingly smug and a little wary, Anne held her tongue. It wasn't until the children were all asleep and he was stretched out in his recliner for the evening that she dropped the tie into his lap. He stared at it as though he had never seen a tie in his life. To her shock, he burst into tears.
It all came out then, the whole slimy story. He hadn't meant to have an affair. It just happened. A young waitress had smiled at him. He'd been flattered. He'd taken her for a drink. Just one drink, a bit of innocent flirting, that's all it was going to be. But there was a band in the bar, and she'd wanted to dance. Then, well...
Listening to his halting excuses, Anne was amazed at how calm she was. Disgusted, but calm. Perhaps some of it had been her fault. She hadn't given Steve what he needed, hadn't understood how afraid he was of getting old. He had relied all his life on dreams of tomorrow. Tomorrow, he would make the big sale, get the promotion, become a big shot in the company. Tomorrow, he would find that one brilliant investment to make them millionaires. Tomorrow he would renovate the house, turn it into a showpiece. Turning forty had woken him to the terrifying realization that his tomorrows were running out. The best part of his life was yesterday.
"Don't divorce me. Annie, I know I've given you every reason, but please don't leave me. I couldn't stand it if I lost you and the kids."
"No. I won't do that. You know I don't believe in divorce." Feeling suddenly bone-weary, she walked to the window and looked out at the moonlit snowmen the boys had built on the lawn. Lopsided, misshapen, with their pebble mouths crooked and stick arms askew. But then, how many people in this world could claim to be perfect? "But it can't happen again, Steve. This may not have been the first time - no, don't tell me, I don't want to know - but it has to be the last."
She turned back to him, felt a stir of impatient pity at his hopeless, hangdog look. "I won't be so trusting the next time. I'll be paying attention to where you are, who you're with. And if I find you've cheated on me again, I will take the kids and go."
It was just as well he didn't ask where she would go. If he ever forced her to act on her threat, she would be in serious financial difficulties. Still, Anne meant every word of it.
Whether from love or fear, Steve became a model husband for a while. But a year or so later, Anne found herself wondering again.
It had always been important to her to have a plan to deal with problems as they arose. Stifling the impulse to simply scream at him, she mapped out the same approach to Steve's destructive behaviour as she had to Richard's. She did her research on the causes and effects of middle-aged male crises, set up firm limits and supports to help him control his impulses, and then made plans to deal with the fallout if he couldn't.
As part of her Plan B, she made the difficult decision to find a job. Leah was in Grade 2 now, so it wasn't impossible, although Anne hated the idea of not being home for her daughter. It hurt, as well, to tell Elly that she couldn't baby-sit April any longer. But she had to make sure her own children were cared for if Steve forced her to act on her threat.
It wasn't easy to find a job. She hadn't worked outside the home for twenty years. But she did know a lot about nutrition and was good with people. On those slim credentials, she finally landed a job as a restaurant hostess at the upscale Empire Hotel. Given her shyness, it surprised her to find that she was good at it. The management clearly thought so, too. Within a year, she was promoted to a supervisory position. Two years later, she was the hotel's kitchen and catering manager.
She had worried about the effects that going to work would have on her family. It was a relief to find that the positives far outweighed the negatives. The extra income was a big help as first Chris, then Richard, moved into the expensive teenage years. Leah, a born leader, eagerly took on the role as "woman of the house". It worried Anne that Leah was doing too much, until she realized that the little girl loved it. Far from being a slave to her father and brothers, she was, they good-naturedly complained, becoming a small tyrant as she bossed them about their chores.
At first, Steve's reaction to Anne's working was a little hard to read. He didn't argue when she told him of her decision, but she thought she saw a stricken look in his eyes. It vanished before she could be sure, and then he was all reasonable agreement. Yes, it would help with the bills. Yes, the children were old enough and might even benefit from a little more independence. Yes, he understood she needed new challenges. Yes, yes, yes.
But he was very quiet for a long time afterward.
Anne is still catering manager for the Empire, and still loves it. There's a satisfying rush that comes from the effusive thanks of brides who loved their wedding banquets or businessmen grateful for the flawless dinner that mellowed their clients into a signing mood. Her staff have become a skilled and smooth-running team, and as she quietly strives to help each one of that very mixed group of individuals reach the potential she sees in them, there are times when she feels she is mothering a whole new family.
The Nichols children are all doing well, now that Richard has outgrown his teenage relapse into destructive behaviour. He worked off his community service sentence doing janitorial chores at the fire station, fell in love with the tough, risky job, and now works as a fire fighter in the Alberta oil patch. Chris and his wife are also in Alberta, where he has a good job as an avionics technician, maintaining onboard navigation and computer equipment for a large air transportation company. Leah spent a year travelling Europe after graduation and is now in the final term of her Business Administration degree.
Steve has consistently supported his family in their career ambitions, and was a rock for Richard during his year of delinquency and its painful aftermath. His own career was rockier in its last years, as he lost all interest in his job. He was quick to take early retirement when his company offered it to him the year he turned 55.
The first months of his retirement was hard for everyone. Steve spent all his time watching TV and sinking deeper into apathy. Anne tried to talk him into counselling, into a hobby, into anything that would get him off the couch. He refused it all.
It was Leah who finally found a way to break through. She had biked through much of Europe before a bad fall on a mountainous road in Spain left her with a limp and, she told her father, a fear of bikes.
"I'm afraid to get on, Dad. And I'd really like to bike again. You taught me to ride and I trust you. If you could just come with me, ride alongside me..."
There was little Steve wouldn't do to help his kids, especially his daughter. Still, he balked at getting on a bike. Maybe he could just ride beside her in the car ...?
"No way I'll get my nerve back on a public road. It's gotta be on a bike path, and you can't take the car there."
He went, finally, grumbling all the way. The first ride, he told Anne with heartfelt anguish, darn near killed him. But Leah needed her daddy, and he wasn't going to fail her. The next day he strapped a cushion to the saddle, bought a giant-sized tube of liniment, and went off with her again.
By the end of the summer, Steve had lost ten pounds and enough of his depression to give in when Leah urged him to volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club.
"You're a great dad," she said, hugging him hard as they waited for the bus to take her off to university, "the best in the world. Other kids need the kind of support you've given us all these years. It could make all the difference to some of them."
Because his daughter expected it of him, he went.
Steve now volunteers regularly at the Boys and Girls Club, coaches the Junior Girls' ball team, and has signed up with Big Brothers. The boy who is currently his "Little Brother" is a bit of a tough egg, but Steve is convinced the kid can shape up with the right guidance. Out of necessity, Steve keeps up with the exercise regime which he still hates. The kids at the Club would kick his butt at touch football if he didn't. He still hangs out in the Sports Bar on occasional weekend night, but is happy to be home in bed with his wife by midnight.
Anne isn't quite sure when she will retire. Things are as good as they have ever been for her and Steve, and she is content to not rock any boats for the moment. It isn't quite the happy-ever-after she once imagined when she dreamt of True Love. But she thinks, sometimes, that the happiness they have is richer and deeper because it didn't come easy.
