Friends in Napa

by Sheila Yasmin Marikar

She wondered if a condition of being an adult was that you always thought you should be doing something other than what you were doing.

But the thing none of those romantics got was that you didn’t get to grow old and wistful if you didn’t have money, that spending time with your loved ones was expensive, that if you blithely switched off your notifications and let the cogs in the wheel turn, you would be replaced. Especially if you were a mother. You would be replaced by something younger, faster, and cheaper. A shinier, newer cog. Probably made of flimsier stuff than you, but replaced nevertheless.

When husbands had business to handle on vacation, it was fait accompli; put a wife in the same scenario and she was sabotaging her marriage, her family, being selfish instead of serving the greater good.