Expectation

by Anna Hope

“Yes,” Lissa says, though to what she is saying yes she isn’t quite sure. All of it, she supposes. Yes, it’s wonderful she can pass for thirty. Yes, there’s nothing between thirty and fifty, not just in Chekhov, but in everything else. Perhaps in life. Perhaps this is it—Womanhood. The Wasteland Years.

“You must keep ahold of your friendships, Lissa. The women. They’re the only thing that will save you in the end.”

“Well. You’ve had everything. The fruits of our labor. The fruits of our activism. Good god, we got out there and we changed the world for you. For our daughters. And what have you done with it?”

Her mum closes the door softly, and it strikes Hannah, not for the first time, that her parents, whose sphere of life has always seemed so small, so constrained, have mastered the art of kindness.

“Young people become older people. They’ll compromise. That’s what we do. We stop fighting. We capitulate. We become part of the problem.”