Don’t Forget to Write

by Sara Goodman Confino

And if you married a prince, sure, you got nice jewelry, but you never got to have your own life again. No thanks. I’d much rather rescue myself.

“That’s because she had children. And grandchildren. Nothing ages you like children.”

“Don’t just stand there,” Ada said. “We have work to do.” “What work? I’m here to relax.” “Relaxing takes work. Come on. Those bags go upstairs.”

What does that mean? “Uh, okay.” “Don’t say uh. It makes you sound uncertain. Speak with assurance and people will treat you as intelligent.” I willed her umbrella to blow

I looked at her in awe. I had never known a businesswoman before. I had known secretaries and nurses and teachers. But not someone who fully managed her own finances for a lifetime without the help of a man. Without a father or husband, credit would be largely out of her reach. But she had built an empire that survived the worst economic crisis of our country through her own shrewdness—something that most of the men had lacked. “Was it hard?” Ada sighed. “It still is. But the only things in life that are worth it are hard. It was worth it to maintain my independence. And now I can help others.”

It was the same future I didn’t want with Daniel. And I didn’t understand how these men could claim to be attracted to the fact that I was free, then try to cage me.

“No. It’s never going to be ‘right.’ I see that now. It’s me. I don’t want to be someone’s wife. I want to be myself.” Ada had the first pitying look in her eye that I had ever seen. “When it’s right, you’ll find you can be both.”

Where I had felt trapped my whole life by society and the expectations of everyone around me, I was free in this world that I had begun to spin around my characters.

He was looking at me the way he had in his father’s office. And I didn’t want that. He might have said he liked me because I was wild, but the reality was he still wanted to put me in a cage. And if I fell for sincere eyes and a smile, I was going to be walking into that cage myself while he locked it behind

“That’s the problem. ‘I.’ I don’t want someone who solves problems for me. I want someone who lets me be an equal partner. And I know that may not exist, but if it doesn’t, I’m fine being like Ada and not being tied down.”

There’s so much nuance to a good photograph. It can capture so much emotion, all by snapping the exact right moment and framing it correctly. You get to decide what to focus on and what to blur.”

It was true. She could pass for younger everywhere else. But hands never lied. Mine still had the dimpled knuckles of someone who had never done a day’s honest labor. But Ada’s were spotted and worn, with pronounced knuckles and veins. It was a reminder that, as much as she claimed she wasn’t going anywhere, nothing lasted forever.

My parents loved me because I was their child. But there was a lot they would change in me if they could. Ada was under no such obligation to love me. And, no matter how many critiques she had of my behavior and manners, she wouldn’t change a thing.

She didn’t understand. And she never really would. She looked at the world through her own lens and didn’t know how to see it through mine. And I supposed I couldn’t see her life through hers either. Ada had said she was happy in her choice. I didn’t understand how, and she would never understand how I could be happy with a different one. Which made me sad, knowing even if she accepted me for who I was, there would always be a judgmental rift born of a lack of comprehension.

is the first thing that the Lord did after creating man—creating a match for him. We are each only half a soul, and when Ada made a match, she created whole families, both the partners and the children who were born of those marriages.”