Nora Goes Off Script

by Annabel Monaghan

Pink ribbons, then orange creep up behind the wide-armed oak tree at the end of my lawn. The sun rises behind it differently every day. Some days it’s a solid bar of sherbet that rolls up like movie credits and fills the sky. Some days the light dapples through the leaves in a muted gray.

I know from my own childhood that when you are ten years old, the stakes are high. You are teetering between childhood and tweendom and any single action can push you forever into the realm of the uncool. The kids around you are unconsciously planning to ditch you in middle school, so if you’re not an alpha child you need to be prepared with a backup friend group.

I am aware that this sparkly scene is a fantasy, but I let myself enjoy it. Smiling children and the promise of fine wine with a terrifyingly attractive man. Thursday’s going to be brutal.

I guess the problem with Ben in bed was the same as the problem with Ben out of bed: Ben’s all about Ben. Ben is focused exclusively on what’s going to make Ben happy, what’s going to make Ben feel good,

I guess I just wish the focus didn’t need to be so much on her ex. It feels like she’s still not over him, so it’s hard to root for her moving on when she’s still clearly working through some stuff.

Sometimes we run so far out that we walk back, and sometimes he holds my hand. We are in the middle of a days-long conversation that winds around the most inconsequential and most monumental details of our lives.

This is my pet-peeve in romance. Show us, don’t tell us.

I laugh, because it all is a blur. Real life made into a movie that turns into a wild affair with the man who pretended to be my husband on-screen. For a person whose life is pretty straightforward, I never thought all my story lines would loop back in on one another.

“Well, that’s nice,” says Vicky, who left her underwear in my husband’s Audi.

We stop to catch our breath. We are in a meadow of yellow and lavender wildflowers with old oak and apple trees scattered among them. The creek has reappeared and winds its way through the meadow and beyond. We stay quiet to listen to the birds sing at one another across the trees.

The basic truth of parenting fills my heart: If your kids are okay, you don’t really have any problems. I will relish this feeling.

And second, that the best things come back. Sometimes it’s right after the commercial, sometimes it takes longer. But time and sunshine bring growth, and life unfolds just the way it’s supposed to.