She put her toast down. “Because it suited our lifestyle. One of us had to be there for the girls. Your job involved so much traveling. You weren’t always there for the school run, parent-teacher meetings and those middle-of-the-night emergency runs.”
“But Rosie left home four years ago. If you wanted to do something different, you could have done it.”
She pressed at the toast crumbs with her forefinger. Should she tell him? “I applied for a job a month before she left. I thought it would do me good to be occupied with something.”
He stared at her. “You applied for a job? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Maggie shrugged. “Because I was afraid I wouldn’t get it. And I didn’t.”
“But you didn’t even tell me you were going for it. Why?”
“Why do you think?” She fiddled with the crust of her toast. “I was protecting myself from humiliation.”
“We’re married, Mags. I love you. Why would it be humiliating to tell me about it?”
She decided not to point out that he’d said I love you, when what he’d meant to say was I used to love you.
“Because you always succeed at everything. You get every promotion and every job you apply for.”
“But—” He looked flummoxed. “What was the job? Was it another publishing role?”
“No. I applied to be a garden designer.” It sounded ridiculous now. How had she ever thought she’d stand a chance getting a job with no qualifications? And yet she’d felt so hopeful when she’d applied. She’d put together a portfolio of photos of her garden, and friends’ gardens she’d worked on, sure she’d be able to prove herself in an interview. But she hadn’t been offered an interview. Instead she’d received an impersonal email telling her that she didn’t have the experience they were looking for.
She’d printed out the email and put it in her file. And never mentioned it to anyone until today.
“I know you love the garden. You’ve transformed Honeysuckle Cottage. Do you remember when we moved in? It was a wilderness.”
She remembered. And she remembered her excitement at the gradual transformation from wilderness to a dream garden. “A hobby doesn’t qualify you to do a paid job.”
“Very few people get the first job they apply for. These days people apply for multiple jobs.”
She pushed her plate away from her. “I applied for multiple jobs.”
“What? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this.”
She shrugged. “There was nothing to tell. I didn’t get a single interview, let alone a job. Maybe I don’t sound like the type of person who uses a planner.”
“I didn’t know you were unhappy with your life.”
“I wasn’t, but my life has changed, Nick. It changed after Rosie left home. I needed something else, but it isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies. That isn’t how real life works.” Her head throbbed. Which of them had started this conversation?
“I hadn’t thought about the sacrifice you made until last night in the car.”
“Staying at home wasn’t a sacrifice, it was a choice. And you’re right, I loved being there for our girls.”
“But it makes you feel inferior. And I don’t understand why it would.”
“Think about it, Nick! Do you ever read a feature praising a woman whose life is to care for her disabled child or parent with Alzheimer’s? No, you don’t. When someone talks about ‘achievement’ they’re talking about salary and status, not the fact that you actually managed to take a shower and change your clothes after being in the hospital with your child for two nights straight even though, believe me, that’s an achievement. You read about hedge fund managers who get up at three in the morning so they can get their workout done, use the gym, clear their emails and make a healthy breakfast for the whole family before putting in a full day of work in the city and returning home in time to read bedtime stories and then do another few hours of work before having perfect sex, three hours undisturbed REM sleep and waking up and starting again. You read about women who were at home with children and suddenly realized that if they started charging for all the cupcakes they made for their children’s friends and school events, they could turn their baking skills into a profitable business. And, by the way, the woman I read about didn’t look as if she’d ever baked a cupcake in her life and she certainly hadn’t eaten one. What