Free The Beach House by Sally John Page A

asked about mine.” A long silent moment passed before Molly posed the question. “So how is yours?”
    “Unavailable. Yours?”
    “Ditto.”
    “Unavailable” was the adjective they’d finally chosen as the most apt to describe their mothers. “PTA” and “sleepovers” and “movies” were words that never crossed the women’s lips. The thought of sitting on a bleacher, watching their girls’ volleyball game, was as foreign to them as strolling through the slums of Cabrini-Green.
    Jo smiled. “Back to us girls…Distance divided us first. I moved away, remember? Followed a guy I thought I wanted to marry halfway across the country.”
    “And I thought you came out here for med school.” Molly winked.
    “Yeah, right. No, first and foremost was Ernesto Delgado. I never regretted not marrying him.”
    “Then you truly are contented? Fulfilled?”
    Jo leaned back in the chair. “I thought so, until this year. On my birthday I even asked myself if I did regret leaving Ernie. Maybe I’ve only been fooling myself all these years. But I don’t think that’s it. More likely ‘it’ is turning forty and realizing my career has not fulfilled me.” She shrugged.“How about you? You don’t really feel guilty for having a family, do you?”
    “No. Marriage and motherhood have been my greatest joy, and on most days still are. But like you with your career, I have not been fulfilled by them. Which is what struck me on my birthday. And it scared me.”
    “It scared you?”
    “Mm-hmm. When we got married, I was so in love, so happy to leave Chicago for a higher calling, and a year later so happy to care for my own child instead of a classroom of other people’s kids. It never entered my mind I’d want something different someday.” She paused. “And then I turned forty.”
    “What exactly happened on your birthday?”
    “Breakfast in bed was a sweet gesture. It was great. Then Scotty had to leave and I had carpool duty since he reneged on his promise to do it. Later, as I was eating cold pancakes and scrubbing frying pans—the eggs and bacon that
they’d
burned—I realized I wasn’t happy. Not really. The more I thought about it the more disturbed I got. I was fed up with being known as Pastor Scott’s wife, mother of Eli, Betsy, Abigail, and Hannah. Where was
Molly
? Obliterated by marriage and motherhood!”
    “But at the airport you said life was great.”
    “It was. Then all of a sudden, wham! I’m forty and guess what? I have succeeded: I
don’t
look like my mother! But I don’t look like Molly, either. I didn’t lose myself in a career like your mom or in the social scene like my mom. I wasn’t ever unavailable to my husband or kids. But I lost myself somewhere along the way. In being so
available
, I created five monsters. Well, four. Hannah’s too young; she doesn’t count. But the others depend on me for every single thing. I’m not just talking about picking up socks. I mean the whole kit and caboodle, every detail involving house and schedules and kids, not to mention running the Sunday school department.”
    “So what happened after you scrubbed the frying pans?”
    “I marched right into Scott’s office, interrupting his session with the guy who’d called and interrupted my birthday breakfast. And I let loose.” She wrinkled her nose. “Screaming mimi.”
    “Eww.”’
    “Eww is right. I said this stay-at-home business was supposed to be a joint effort. But while I’m doing laundry, he’s out there in the world getting fulfilled.”
    “What’d he say?”
    “He didn’t get it. Totally clueless. He didn’t understand how I could be perfectly content one day and ready for the funny farm the next. Truth is, I can’t either.” She shrugged.
    “Maybe it’s like Andie said about herself turning a corner. Her perspective simply changed.”
    “That’s it. Life no longer looked the same to me, but it did to Scotty, and he refused to budge. Pastoring consumes