Author's note: I try to tell my stories from both partners' perspectives, but this one's largely for the married moms out there who feel like they could do better. If it seems like certain scenes in the female lead's life are repetitive, that's the point. If you don't understand her mindset, just know you're probably not the target audience, and that's okay.
***Year One***
"I can't think of what's in your hands more, Lo; that nail gun or your phone." Marshall Beauvais was pretty sure his voice rose above the utter chaos that was ground zero for the latest residential neighbourhood being constructed by their builder. But somewhere in the back of his head, he could feel it may have been a bad idea to call out his buddy while he was on his break.
"Wow, that's real funny Beauvais, I was going to say the same thing about you and your dick," Logan Kudlak shot back without even blinking an eye. The six other guys on their crew erupted and even Marshall couldn't help but crack a smile.
"Someone as smart as you should be reading a book or something," he called back, "not wasting your time sending those jokes no one even gets."
"Hey, memes are an artform, and every person I know who understands them is a goddamn genius," Logan glanced up from his phone for just a second to grab his box of Bannock he'd made last night. "Now if you'll excuse me," he said before heading up the dirt road to hear himself think, "I'd like to be alone with my snack, and this picture of a cat mooning Gandalf."
Joking about his perceived addiction to his phone was just easier, he thought as his boots gently sunk into the soft mud around him. It was easier than thinking about the absolute bullshit he had to put up with sometimes on the job; it was easier than being reminded of the women it didn't work out with, or the family he'd had to leave thousands of kilometers behind in Nunavut just to make a living in Canada's south.
Sure, he was addicted to his phone in the sense that what he preferred to do when he needed to empty his mind was look at memes. But what was the difference, he rationalised, between sinking into his recliner with his phone and his black cat on his lap at the end of the day, versus a newspaper? Or the numerous mom groups his sister was in who made a running joke about their wine-chugging habits?
At least he was actually unwinding instead of laugh-crying about getting through another day of school lunches and husbands who couldn't even find the toilet paper cupboard, let alone replace the roll.
Ten minutes left,
Logan thought as he posted a pic to his Toronto-area meme group, then calculated how long he'd have before needing to pee and then get back to work. Immediately, a laugh-react popped up beside his post.
Vita Tanjung? Who's that?
he wondered. They had a mutual friend in Liz, his sister's former roommate who lived out in Prince Edward Island now. He clicked on her profile, surprised to not only see one of the most beautiful women he'd ever laid eyes on, but also a woman who was a former Olympic athlete and had thousands of followers.
"Shit, she's married," he muttered, just before laughing to himself for imagining he'd actually have a chance with someone like that. It was weird how men first looked at whether a woman was taken, as if a husband or boyfriend was the only thing blocking their path.
He thought it was ridiculous, but what was more ridiculous was that he did the same thing like it was a reflex. Not only was she married and something of a celebrity, but she lived all the way out in Calgary.
Logan hit the follow button and made a mental note to reconnect with Liz, trying to think up an excuse for reaching out to her after all this time.
Hey, do you really know that gorgeous chick who liked my meme?
probably wasn't the way to go.
***********
"Hey, do you know a construction worker in Toronto?" Vita glanced out the window at the good 40 centimeters of snow that had blanketed most of southern Alberta overnight, as she split her focus between the video call with Liz and the three stove burners she had simmering.
Sometimes it felt like they were eons apart in not only distance but also time, the years they'd spent together on Canada's national volleyball team seeming like they were in another life. As Liz's toddler screamed in the background and Vita's TV blared dinosaur videos behind her, it was impressed upon Vita once again that they were now just a couple of moms facing 40, and definitely in another life.
"A construction worker?" Liz asked while comforting her four-year-old and popping her doll's head back on its plastic, anatomically incorrect body.
"Yeah, his name is Logan... he's Inuk, originally from Nunavut..." Vita stirred the jackfruit mixture she had going before pouring in the coconut milk. Calgary was shut down due to the snow, and she was glad she'd had all the ingredients on hand for traditional Indonesian
gudeg jogja.
Although her mother would for sure side-eye the idea of jackfruit and coconut milk coming out of cans.
"Inuk... oh, he's Laurie's brother!" Liz recalled. "I saw him all the time when Laurie and I were roommates at U of T, and then again at her wedding. He eventually moved to Toronto when work dried up in Iqaluit."
Huh, I guess I would have met him if I'd bothered to go by the student houses instead of living at home the whole time,
Vita thought as it struck her how they'd just narrowly missed each other.
"He's a good guy, no worries," Liz added. "Not a troll." She knelt with her daughter on the foam mats in their living room and gathered her megablocks. "But still pretty cute, don't you think?"
"I am not going to venture an opinion on that, seeing as how my husband's right upstairs," Vita smiled, taking a glance back at her five- and seven-year-old sons who were mesmerised by the long-dead reptiles the world now used as a major fuel source.
"Pssshhh, come on!" Liz scoffed. "There's nothing wrong with saying someone's attractive! You're not jumping into the sack with him."
"Uhhhh, I don't think Glen would see it that way," Vita hedged. "He's really traditional about this stuff and I wouldn't want to say or do anything that he wouldn't find above-board."
"Translation—you wouldn't want him to overhear anything that would further his insecurities."
It was a shaky fence, and Vita didn't always know on which side of it she fell. She minded her words, she thought, out of consideration for her husband, but there were definitely days when it felt stifling. As the coconut milk stew reduced, she popped several eggs into a pot of boiling water.
"
Ibu
, I'm going to draw the brachiosaurus and Bertie is going to outline him," her seven-year-old, Hunter, informed her. Bertie was five, and she was glad Hunter was including him.
"Do you need help?" she called back, making sure the stove elements weren't turned up too high. She quickly got out their markers, gathered their Legos back into the box, and resumed her place by the stove.
"Okay, okay, Logan's... fine," she admitted when she got back to her friend. Liz rolled her eyes.
"Like Glen doesn't look at women on the street!"
"I'm sure he does but it's different when it's some guy on the Internet."
"He's not 'some guy.' I know him."
"Who
your
husband wouldn't want you leering at either!"
"That's where you're wrong," Liz corrected. "I'm taking a look now and finding that Logan is in some of the same online ENM groups we are."
"I don't even know where to start with that," Vita turned off her pot of boiling water and fished the eggs out. "I told Glen about ethical non-monogamy and he first laughed, then started calling them philanderers. A term he still uses today."
"Charming, as usual," Liz said dryly. She'd heard it all by now and she was not going to get into another pointless debate about a lifestyle that made both her and her partner feel closer to each other.
"
Ibu
!" Hunter presented her with a pretty good rendition of a brachiosaurus. "Look at how nicely Bertie did the edging!" Vita paused and Liz's face froze on the screen.
"The... what?" Liz said flatly.
"The edging! It's the outline!" Hunter showed his mom's friend the picture. "We're taking turns. He's going to edge the next dinosaur too, then I'm going to edge the ones after that. I think my edging will be better, though." Vita and Liz were on the verge of losing it but held in their laughter.
"Sweetie, you can't go wrong with edging," Liz volunteered. "Everyone pretty much does it the same way."
"Stop it, oh my god, stop it," Vita hissed to her friend. Then she turned to her little boy and choked back her laughter. "Hunter, I love it. Tell me if you need me to help you."
Then she submerged the hard-boiled eggs in the jackfruit stew and allowed them to soak, escaping far enough out of earshot but close enough that she could still keep an eye on her kids.
"You're a menace," she told her friend.
"I accept the compliment with many thanks," Liz retorted. "Just promise me I can be there when you tell them one day what grown-up edging is."
"You haven't changed in almost 20 years, you freak." Amazingly, it actually
had
been that long. The two had each been in university when they made the national team, coaching kids' volleyball for Parks & Recreation departments across the Greater Toronto Area when they weren't training or studying.
Vita had met Glen in the meantime, eventually retiring early and moving to Calgary with him. Liz moved back to Charlottetown soon after to help her parents run their local garage. It was strange to think the length of their online friendship rivaled the number of years they'd seen each other daily.
"You know, you could have kept competing right up until a couple of years ago," Liz reminded her. "My dad was getting old and I
had
to come back; why couldn't Glen have stayed in Toronto with you for a few more years?"
"We wanted to have kids," Vita shrugged. This question had been asked and answered between the two of them for years, but it never really felt resolved.
"Yeah, but he wanted them sooner than you did."
"Well..."
"You still have your savings, right?" Liz asked. "Your fuck-you money? Plus whatever passive income you're making from your socials?"
"Yes,
mother,
" Vita rolled her eyes. "I still have my separate money that I'm probably never going to use." The irony was that Vita's actual mother was as traditional as they came, to the point of nagging her on every phone call to take her savings and use it to upgrade the house. "Look, we have our issues like anyone does, but it's not that bad." Liz pursed her lips to one side.
"I love you and will always support you. But just know that I say this to all stay-at-home parents. If you're dependent on a spouse's income, you better have a massive-ass cushion
just in case
. Neal might work at the garage, but I still co-own it. It's like wearing a seatbelt—you hope it'll never come in handy, but JFC you'll be glad it's there when you need it."
Vita wondered if it was a requirement for best friends to not like each others' spouses. Maybe not, since she liked Neal. And their local friends seemed to like Glen.
"But you're not wrong," Liz went on. "You'll probably never need it as long as you not only stay partners, but also friends."
