Whisper Network

by Chandler Baker

We were connoisseurs of dry shampoo brands. It took us four days to watch a complete episode of The Bachelor on our DVRs. We fell asleep with the heat of laptops burning our thighs. We took two-hour breaks to read bedtime stories to toddlers and tried not to calculate the total number of hours spent working as mothers and employees, confused as to which came first. We were overqualified and underutilized, bossy and always right. We had firm handshakes and hefty credit card balances. We forgot our lunches on kitchen countertops.

The longer they were married, the easier it was to push “pause” on an intense disagreement and pick it up at a later time—preferably one that wasn’t past Sloane’s bedtime.

We pretended that all of this was a myth. That we had neither fallopian tubes, nor menstrual cycles, nor breasts, nor moods, nor children. And then we took it as a compliment when one of the men in the office told us we had balls. So, tell us again how this wasn’t a man’s world.

Her body, she knew, had always had the better memory.

Women walked around the world in constant fear of violence; men’s greatest fear was ridicule.