Читать книгу Unravelled: Life as a Mother - Maria Housden - Страница 18

The mid-July sun was hot on our faces and shoulders, but the water along the stretch of isolated beach on Lake Superior had risen from the icy depths of the deepest of the Great Lakes, so our bare feet were red with cold. Hannah, 10 months old, asleep in the infant carrier strapped to Claude’s back, had a yellow pacifier in her mouth and a rumpled white sun hat on her head. She had spent much of the morning pushing her stroller around our campsite, Claude and I cheering her on and congratulating each other that, like Will, she was going to be an early walker. I knew that anyone watching us would see that we were the perfect family, especially if they knew we also had a handsome young son.

My parents had invited Will to spend a week with them at the Cherry Festival in Traverse City, so Claude and I had decided to continue north after dropping Will off, and spend the week camping and hiking along the National Lakeshore. It felt great to have stepped away from the busyness of our daily lives. Now that we had become used to juggling the needs of two children, it felt easy to take care of just one. Almost a week before, we had pitched our tent on the sand, under a stand of pines, but although we had begun to feel more and more relaxed as the week progressed, the decision we had to make still hung in the air between us.

Claude and I were at a crossroads in our life. For too long, now, Claude had felt unhappy at work. The most progressive and experimental cellular technologies were being developed in companies on the east and west coasts, not in the midwest. As a design engineer, if Claude wanted to work with the best, we would have to move. But, to me, the thought of uprooting our family at this time in our lives didn’t feel like such a good idea. In the past year, we had already experienced a number of significant changes. I had quit my part-time job soon after Hannah’s birth, and although it was a dream we both shared that Claude would provide financially for our growing family so that I could be with the children at home, it seemed that neither of us felt happier or less frustrated, despite our new arrangement. The arguments between us had been growing louder and more hurtful, and more than once I had allowed myself to flirt with the idea of a divorce.

I couldn’t help thinking of a story I had recently heard about Picasso. After sitting in front of Gertrude Stein for more than three months, painting her portrait, one day Picasso stood up and asked her to leave. ‘I can’t see you anymore when I look,’ he said.

For some time now, I had felt as if I were experiencing the same thing. After eight and a half years of marriage, I felt more distant from Claude, rather than closer. Our love for our children was one thing we unquestionably shared, but no matter how much that meant to me, it did not feel enough. The life we had constellated together felt more like a fantasy than a reality, much less familiar and comfortable than either of us had expected it to. I was afraid that a move might leave us both feeling even more vulnerable, and further compromise the already frayed connection between us.

Now, though, watching Claude pick his way along the path ahead of me, moving carefully so as not to wake Hannah, the contrast between the glum, frustrated man who left the house each morning to go to a job he did not love, and the sun-tanned, smiling man ahead felt too great for me to ignore. This, I realized, was the adventuresome, curious man I had fallen in love with. Perhaps Claude was right – a change of life and scenery were exactly what we needed. And, as his wife, it was up to me to support and encourage him to make the best decision for our family.

Running ahead to catch up, I grabbed Claude’s hand and smiled at him as he turned. ‘I think we should go for it,’ I said. ‘Your career is important, and you deserve to feel good about what you do. Besides, no matter where we move, with our kids and each other we’ll be able to make any house a home.’

Claude’s wide grin was the only response I needed. Throwing our arms around each other, I realized that Hannah wasn’t the only one taking her first steps. I felt happy to have made such an important decision with Claude’s interests at heart, and I couldn’t help hoping that I was finally on my way to being the wife I had always wanted to be – the wife Claude had always wanted to have.