A Year of Second Chances

“Great watch dog you are, Muffin. What if I’d been a robber? What then, silly dog?”

She rolled over onto her back, waiting for me to rub her belly. There was a day when Muffin would’ve been at the door barking before the garage door was halfway up. She was in the twilight of her life and her old terrier body wasn’t as quick as it used to be.

I remember the day we brought her home. She weighed about three pounds and her black button nose took up most of her face.

Tory had begged to get a dog. Mike, who never had pets growing up, didn’t want the responsibility or expense. “Please,” Tory had pleaded. “I’ll take care of her. Promise.”

Mike never could say no to Tory so when he brought home a big box with a red bow on top I wasn’t surprised by what was inside. That was twelve years ago.

My cell phone beeped and I pulled it out of my purse. It was a text from Shonna.

Worried about you. What did your parents say?

I texted back: Didn’t tell them. Don’t want them to worry.

Makes sense. I’m sure you’ll be fine.

I texted Shonna about finding the list.

The List? she texted back.

Yeah!

For real?

Yes. Found it in my yearbook.

Wish I still had mine.

Lots to talk about.

K. Call you after work.

I don’t get to see my bestie that often. After graduating from college, she’d moved to Vermont. Growing up, we always said we’d attend the same college and move to New York City when we graduated. We planned to share an apartment and have great careers. Eventually, I wanted to open my own boutique. We did attend the same college, but that’s the only part of the plan that came true. I met Mike my senior year and his list became my list.

I filled up Muffin’s water bowl, picked up the box I’d brought home and opened it. I pulled out a couple of the painted rock magnets and put them on the refrigerator. I also stuffed one in my purse. They’d be a daily reminder of that long-forgotten dream.

I carried the box upstairs to my bedroom and pulled out the list before storing it in my walk-in closet.

I sat on the edge of my bed, reading the list again. I remembered the night Shonna and I wrote them. It was the summer I’d turned seventeen. We were hanging out at the town pizza joint waiting for Jake and Shonna’s boyfriend, Butch, to finish their shifts stocking shelves at the local grocery store.

I’d pulled two napkins from the metal dispenser sitting on the table and handed one to Shonna. “Let’s make wish lists.”

Shonna took the napkin and retrieved a pen from her purse. “Oh, this is going to be so easy. I might need a second napkin because my list will be long.”

“Just unfold it,” I said, “and write small.”

“Wouldn’t it be cool to keep these lists and look at them years from now and see how many of them came true?”

I nodded. “Great idea. Let’s keep them.”

Later that night, I’d stuffed the list into my yearbook, between the page featuring the homecoming court and the one containing group photos of the bowling and ski clubs.

I scanned the list again, noticing that my penmanship at seventeen was the same as at forty-nine. Some things never change, I thought, and other things definitely do. Like my marriage. For the first couple years it was great. The next few, which included the birth of our two children, weren’t bad either. But little by little Mike and I grew apart.

He resented me for pressuring him to give up his dream job in New York after David was born so we could live closer to my parents. David came as a surprise after we’d both had too much to drink one night and had left the condom lying unwrapped on the nightstand. I’d been having terrible headaches and had to stop taking the pill. A month later, I was pregnant.

At first Mike was furious and blamed me for getting pregnant. But once David was born, we both fell in love with him. Our one-bedroom apartment became even smaller and, after months of nagging, Mike finally gave in and found a job closer to home. I think it was the one and only time he compromised in our marriage. Things were great at first. I was happy and I thought Mike was happy, too. But as news of big promotions and raises filtered in from his New York buddies, he began to resent me for taking him away from it all. They were living the life Mike had wanted to live, the one I’d “forced him” to give up.

I, on the other hand, began to resent Mike. He worked all the time and whenever I said something about it he complained he wouldn’t have to work so hard if I’d find a decent job.

He didn’t consider my working in the school cafeteria a decent job. To be honest, I think he was embarrassed that his wife, who had a degree in marketing, had settled for a job as a cafeteria monitor. But I took the job because it fit the kids’ schedules. I had off when they had off and didn’t have to worry about finding before- or after-school care or lining up weeks of summer camps.

I looked back over the list, wondering which item I should tackle first. Some of them were no longer relevant or possible. Like marrying Jake, although I’d be lying if I said I never thought about what my life would’ve been like if I had. Jake and Mike were as different as yes and no. Jake was the consummate gentleman while Mike was a bit of a bad boy. Jake followed the rules and only took calculated risks while Mike was a rule breaker and took chances.

The two loves in my life were so different that comparing them seemed like an injustice to each. In the end, I chose Mike. He was mysterious and sexy, so different from kind and dependable Jake. I guess I wanted someone different and was seduced by Mike’s boundless energy and wild ambition.

Still, I’d never forgotten Jake, my first love and the guy I thought I’d marry. The one I’d lost my virginity to while making out on a blanket spread beneath a peach tree in an orchard near his home. I still couldn’t pick up a peach without remembering that night.

It was a sultry August night, scented with teenage sweat spiced with musk cologne and a powdery perfume. After the movies, Jake and I headed to our kissing spot. We considered ourselves lucky. Unlike our friends, we had the perfect make-out place, free from cops popping by to tell us to “move along.”

We talked about going the whole way for a while, but I was still nervous. It was Jake’s first time, too, and I can still see his hands shake as he ripped open the condom. That first time wasn’t quite like we’d imagined, but the awkwardness subsided and our lovemaking got better over time. Then college came and both of us were thrust into different worlds states apart. We held on through the holidays, but by Valentine’s Day our freshmen year, there was no denying Cupid had other plans – for both of us. I was terrified of ending a romance that started in Mr. Mummert’s sixth-grade class. While I knew it was the right thing to do, I worried no one would ever love me as much as Jake did. Turned out I’d found someone who loved me more, or so I thought.

Mike and I met in the college cafeteria. I reached for the tongs in the container of carrot strips and he did, too. Our hands brushed, and he pulled his away. “Sorry,” he said. I turned to look at him and melted as I stared into his chocolate eyes. His tousled chestnut hair hung down past his chin, and he whipped his head to the right, trying to free a renegade strand tangled in his long eyelashes. His beautiful smile sealed the deal. I wanted to get to know him better.

By the time we graduated, we were engaged. Mike didn’t have money for an engagement ring, so he made one out of a large paper clip. He somehow managed to twist the wire into intertwining hearts. It was the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen. He gave it to me one winter night after walking back from the library. It’d started snowing while we were studying and by the time we left, a few inches had blanketed the ground. He stopped at a bench in the courtyard next to the library. It was the same bench where we’d shared our first kiss, the kiss that turned my insides to liquid and made me feel like I was being tickled from the inside.

“Mind if we sit?” he’d said.

I sat down beside him and he took my hands in his, trying to keep them warm.

I looked up at the sky, watching the icy flakes, illuminated by a nearby street lamp, as they fell. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Mike smiled. “Not as beautiful as you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I playfully slapped his shoulder.

“No, I’m serious, Scarlett.”

He let go of my hands, stood up and knelt before me on the snow-covered ground. He reached into his pocket and my chin trembled. I could feel tears pooling in my eyes. He held up the homemade engagement ring. “I know I don’t have a lot to offer you right now, but will you marry me? I’m in love with you, Scarlett. I love everything about you. Your strawberry-blonde hair and the way it bounces on your back when you walk. Your shimmering green eyes with specks of gold. The way you talk with your hands and laugh at my jokes, even when they aren’t funny. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I’m hoping you feel the same.”

A warm tear had slid down my chilled face as Mike held up the ring. “It’s beautiful.”

“I promise you I’ll buy you a diamond someday. A big one. As big as you want.”

I laughed. “Diamonds don’t matter.”

“But I thought they were a girl’s best friend?”

“Maybe some girls, but not this one.” I stood and touched his heart. “What matters most is what’s in here.”

It was the most magical moment of my life. Surrounded by falling snow and wrapped in his arms, we kissed until our tongues were tired.

I shook my head, trying to shake the cobwebs from my mind. It was at times like this, when I remembered how it once was and wondered how something so good could turn so bad, that my heart ached.

My parents weren’t happy about the marriage. They’d wanted me to go to grad school. After graduation, Mike and I moved to New York where he took a job in banking (the one I later forced him to give up) and I took a job as a nanny. It was the only work I could find, and I loved kids. I didn’t mind that my career had taken a backseat to his, but I sometimes wondered what my life would’ve been like if it hadn’t.

I walked over to my dresser and opened the silver jewelry box Mike had given me the first Christmas we shared together. I retrieved the ring and slid it onto my finger. After all these years, it still fit. But unlike the ring, which had maintained its shape, our marriage had not. Somewhere between running the kids to music lessons and game practices and myriad other activities, we’d lost one another.

Sometimes I wondered if it was my fault. Mike wasn’t perfect but I wasn’t perfect either. Maybe if I had done more. But then I’d remind myself that I was the one who ran the kids everywhere – doctor and dentist and game practices and music lessons. I was the one who organized every birthday party and scout gathering, who taught Sunday school and vacation Bible school. Who helped with homework and so many science projects I considered buying stock in the company that made those trifold display boards. Even after weighing what I did against what he did, I was still willing to accept some blame, but his affair had tipped the scale. The damage was too great.

While I was taking care of our children, he was taking care of his dick. He tried to blame me. He actually said the affair was my fault.

“You were never there for me,” he’d said.

“That’s because I was taking care of your children, something you could’ve helped with.”

We’d trade jabs and eventually he knocked me out. I was tired of fighting and just wanted to move on with my life.

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