Again, my computer pings.
“Ugh. I don’t think monks have a million messages backing up. Besides, don’t they take a vow of silence or something?”
“Then a nun,” Sally replies. “That’s it. You’re right. You make a better nun. Celibate and wine drinking.”
“Hey!” I reach up to my long brown hair, currently pulled to the side in a low ponytail resting on my shoulder. “I could never wear a habit. Can you imagine how flat that would make my hair?”
Sally laughs. “Speaking of habits. Try giving up that celibate thing and I know a habit you'll enjoy again.”
I purse my lips. “I don't know. My parents are always willing to watch Jase, but he goes to bed at eight-thirty. I'm sure Mr. Sexy-ex-hockey-player slash rock-hard-playboy isn't interested in a date that turns into a pumpkin at eight o'clock, even if he does have erection issues.”
“I bet if you ask nicely, your parents will keep Jase overnight. As a matter of fact, I know they will.”
“You know?” I ask suspiciously as my stomach twists.
I'm not ready for this. I should be. Jason just turned five years old and it's been nearly five years since I last saw his father. The memories incite the same emotions they always do. I see his blue eyes, the same ones I see daily in our son. I remember his parting words, telling me he'd return safe and sound. I remember the touch of his lips on mine just before he pulled away from me and headed toward his unit. And then I remember the terrible knock on the door. I knew what had happened before I opened it. No military wife wants to see a man in uniform at her front door who isn't her husband.
The following few weeks are still a blur. I can't remember how I functioned, if I ate, or if I even took care of Jase. He was so young. I tried. Thank God for my parents.
Somehow we survived. Somehow time has moved on.
In a few days, Jason will begin kindergarten as a relatively well-adjusted little man. I couldn't be prouder of him, and I know Jackson would be too. That's why I let Jase consume my life: he deserves more than what I can give. He deserves two parents. Thanks to a roadside IED, it's up to me to be both.
Yet there are times that I wonder what it would be like to be a twenty-five-year-old woman, instead of the responsible mother, if only for one night.
Ping!
“Shit, Sally, I need to get on whatever Ms. de Vil wants. If I don't, I won't hear the end of it.”
“You didn’t even take lunch. You deserve a few minutes.”
We both know that won’t happen as long as the puppy killer is on a rampage.
“Okay, fine.” My friend brushes my shoulder. “Call your mom and ask her to watch Jase on Friday night, or I will.”
I shake my head. “Sometimes you're a real bitch.” My accusation is quiet and accompanied by a big smile.
Sally lifts her chin as her grin grows. “That's why you love me. Don't make me call your mother, because I will. We both agree you deserve a life beyond Jase.”
“Are you seriously ganging up on me?”
She doesn't answer.
Before she walks away, I ask, “You mean this Friday night?”
“Yes, just the four of us.”
It's only Tuesday. “Give me a day to think about it.”
“I'll give you until five o’clock; Brian needs to talk to Pep.”
“Bitch,” I mutter under my breath as my attention is quickly diverted to the list of things my manager needs done ASAP. Number one: water her plants.
Are you shitting me?
I put myself through college to get a degree in financial planning to water plants?
“Careful,” Sally whispers. “You don't want anyone to think you're using my endearment on someone else.”
My face snaps upward as I stand and peer about the room of cubicles. Thankfully, no one is looking my way.
“Go. Get out of here. I have work to do. God knows that if I don't, puppies may die.”
“Save the puppies and the sexy men,” Sally says as she walks away.
My boss's name isn't really de Vil. It's DeVoe.
One evening, not long after I got my job, Sally came over to my apartment. Jase loves her and so do I. She was the one who recommended me for my job. The title, administrative financial assistant, was everything I wanted.
Sometimes ideals and reality don’t match.
With Jase in bed, Sally and I talked about work over a bottle—or two—of wine. It was purely a slip of the tongue. I could probably blame it on Jase's obsession with Disney. Nevertheless, instead of DeVoe, de Vil came out—as in Cruella de Vil. Ever since, whenever I'm upset, I imagine Glenn Close and the animated character, and it makes me smile, well, other than the twinge over the puppy coat. That's easier to imagine in cartoon form.
“Amanda.”
My neck straightens as my name, accompanied by the click of Christine DeVoe's heels, reaches my ears.
“Amanda, have you received my messages?”
“I have,” all five hundred of them. I don’t say the last part. “I've contacted the purchasing department and Jim is supposed to get back to me. I was waiting until I had an answer. I’ve sent the emails about the withholdings—”
She nods as her lips come together. As if she were expecting it to be my first priority, she asks, “And what about my plants?”
“They're on my list.” Along with fifty other more important things. I don't say that part either.
“Don't forget. Phil is looking a little limp.”
It takes all of my self-restraint not to burst out laughing. Phil is a large philodendron in her office. However, after the conversation with Sally, a limp Phil has taken on a whole new meaning. “Let me get right on that. The spread sheet for Mr. Smithson can wait.”
“Hmm,” she murmurs in agreement as she walks away because heaven knows that her plants are more important than the new distribution costs.
Bitch!
I smile as I walk toward her office to get the watering can. This time that title wasn't meant as a term of endearment. That plus the extra toothy smile on Cruella in my imagination adds to keeping my sanity.
A few minutes later back at my desk, my phone rings.
“Hello,” I say. “Amanda with Stevens Financial Planning.”
“Mrs. Harrison?”
My heart rate triples as I suck in a breath.
When Jackson and I were first married, there was a mix-up with my name change. Someone at some government office checked the wrong box. Though I went by Harrison for two years, it wasn’t legal. It was the first year we filed taxes that we discovered the discrepancy. Though I was Harrison in my heart, on paper I wasn’t.
At first we laughed about it, saying we knew we were married—that was never questioned—and other than on legal documents, it didn’t matter. Like many other plans we had for the future, we thought we would have time to get it all straightened out. With the military, nothing is easy. Jackson went away on deployment sooner than we planned. We figured it could wait. And then, after his death, my life and Jase’s were too mixed up. My legal name paled by comparison to other worries on my list of concerns.
Of course, Jase was born with his father’s last name. Therefore, though my name was never legally Harrison, I'm only called Mrs. Harrison when it has to do with Jase or Jackson.