Second Chance. Elizabeth Wrenn

light with Matt, Lainey, and Nan all sitting in the backseat. I remembered when my kids used to fight over the front seat and who would get to sit next to me. It wasn’t that long ago. But it was.

      All three were now engaged in a lively game of rock, paper, scissors. As I watched the light, listening to their repetitive counting to three then bursts of laughter, the hot flash began. Streams of perspiration started from my underarms and slid down my sides. I didn’t have to check the rearview mirror to know that my face was flushed to nearly purple. I could feel my scalp moisten. Then the rivulets started down my face.

      ‘Whew!’ I said, unlatching my seat belt, pressing the window button down. ‘Warm in here.’ Now I couldn’t help glancing in the rearview mirror. Matt and Lainey exchanged knowing looks with each other, rolled their eyes and turned toward Nan.

      ‘She does this a lot lately,’ Lainey said. ‘You might want to put your coat on.’ Matt, his long sandy bangs shaking back and forth with his head, blushed.

      I was struggling to unzip first my fleece vest, then my sweat jacket, having worn a thin tank top beneath. I’d learned to dress in layers. The vest was easy, but I wrestled with the jacket zipper, which was stuck at the bottom. The light turned green and the car behind me immediately honked. A kid about Matt’s age in a red Mazda Miata.

      ‘Mah-ahm! Go!’ Lainey cried. In the rearview mirror I saw Matt looking out the window, suddenly very interested in the look-alike condominiums springing up like a bad rash on what used to be rolling farmland. I had one arm in a sleeve and one arm out. I grabbed the wheel with my free hand and pulled into the intersection, slowly, because I had not yet rebuckled my seat belt. I stuck my sleeved arm out the window and leaned my head out too, the delightfully cool air rushing over my face, blowing my ponytail out behind me as I picked up speed.

      ‘Mah-ahm!’ Lainey said. ‘You look like a dog!’ The backseat erupted in a different kind of laughter.

      Miata kid honked again, then sped around me, cutting off a woman in a yellow bug in the other lane, then pulling back in front of me. Yellow bug honked and Miata kid gave me the finger out his window.

      I quickly redid my seat belt, still half in and half out of my jacket, my heart pounding from being assaulted by a sixteen-year-old’s middle digit. And the laughter from the backseat.

      As I pulled into the main drive of the mall, the kids started gathering their things for a quick getaway. Matt was meeting friends and knew he’d be safe from me at Scourge of the Underworld, or whatever the arcade was called. But as I pulled into a parking space, Lainey felt the need to lay down the law about my proximity to her.

      ‘Mom, just so you know, we want to hang out alone.’ I pictured the girls floating deliriously in and out of various teeny-bop clothing shops, and those olfactory overload candle and body-liquid emporiums; I assured them it would not be a problem. I’d go for a good walk, then buy myself a skinny latte and go sit on the leather couch in Pottery Barn and stare into space. A middle-aged woman’s nirvana.

      As the girls clamored out, I yelled, ‘Shall we meet back at the food court at twelve thirty?’ Lainey waved without looking back as they ran off.

      ‘See ya,’ said Matt. He ambled off, careful to affect the loose-kneed, slumped-shouldered australopithecine walk of teen boys.

      ‘Twelve thirty! Food court!’ I said to his back.

      I found the beginning of the mall walking course, strategically located next to Godiva chocolates. What were they thinking? Well, selling chocolates to fat people is obviously what they were thinking. But I was motivated and strode right past. I successfully made it past the Orange Julius, too. But it did remind me of the dish towel, and that nameless anger surged through me again. Still striding along, and getting increasingly breathless, I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and punched in the direct dial to Neil’s cell phone, which I was pretty sure would be off. As I’d hoped, I got his voice mail’s brief greeting, then the beep.

      ‘Neil. For the hundredth time (puff, pant) in our marriage, please do not use the dish towels (gasp) as floor mops. We have paper towels, or an actual floor mop (wheeze), for just that purpose!’ I hung up and kept walking, stuffing the phone back in my purse.

      My stride slowed somewhat at the Popcorn Palace, but I kept moving. Three assaults and still standing. Maybe starting my new exercise program in the mall wasn’t the best choice given all the temptations, but my anger was like a fuel, propelling me forward.

      Ten minutes later, however, I was again panting with fatigue, but the anger had somehow morphed into desire for the almost visible waves of cinnamon, sugar, and butter wafting over me from CinnaMania. And right across the corridor was the Coffee Cauldron. I was being mugged in the mall by three out of the four American food groups: fat, sugar, and caffeine. And there was undoubtedly the ubiquitous salt in the bread dough, rounding out the Fab Four. I pulled up, holding on to a nearby brass railing to catch my breath. It might be misinterpreted if I breathlessly ordered a cinnamon roll. Or worse, it might be correctly interpreted.

      Ten minutes later I was near Victoria’s Secret, licking the last of the hugely and delightfully excessive cinnamon roll frosting from one hand, my coffee in the other. I had my index finger entirely in my mouth when I looked up and saw my reflection in front of a tiny, seemingly magically suspended floral bikini bra and panties in the display window. I had frosting on my cheek and nose.

      My ears burned with embarrassment. Even though this new mall was not in Fairview, its sprawling largesse drew the masses from there, Denver, and beyond. I could only hope that no one had seen me, or rather ‘Dr Munger’s wife.’ Neil was much loved in our little community, being one of the older and last remaining independent family-practice docs in town. He was starting to deliver the babies of the now-grown babies he’d delivered. I didn’t want my lack of willpower to strike a blow to either his practice or my pride – the former being quite healthy, the latter in tatters.

      My fingers were still sticky so I tossed my empty cup in a trash can and fished out my little packet of hand wipes from my purse. Despite my embarrassment, or maybe to assuage it, I felt a smack of satisfaction: If you needed it, this purse contained it. Early in our marriage Neil used to affectionately tease me about my purse, saying I carried a diaper bag long before we had babies, prepared for anything from a medical emergency to an auto breakdown. But, to his credit, he never balked about holding it for me if I needed to try something on, or just tie my shoe. I couldn’t help but smile, remembering Neil holding my purse at a carnival. It was before we had the kids, back when we still took just ourselves to fun places. We’d gone to the county fair and I’d wanted to ride the Ferris wheel. Neil had trouble with vertigo and would rather do boot camp than an amusement park ride, even a Ferris wheel, so he’d offered to hold my purse, a big red straw bag that I adored. It had rolled leather straps, a large gold fastener, and, the pièce de résistance, half a dozen multicolored daisies embroidered on each side. The ride had been fun, but what had made me laugh riotously as I sat by myself in my gently swaying, ever-rising chair was watching Neil holding my big red purse, walking back and forth below me, hips swaying, blowing me kisses and waving like a beauty queen. He’d then insisted on carrying it the rest of the day, laughing good-naturedly at the people trying to hide their smirks behind their cotton candy.

      Neil no longer carried my purse. It embarrassed the kids. Holding your water glass wrong could embarrass teenagers. But, as in most things, we accommodated their tender sensibilities. Then again, it wasn’t really even an issue any longer. Neil and I rarely went anywhere together these days. As our kids outgrew their jeans at record pace, so too did Neil and I seem to be outgrowing each other. But like those jeans, I wasn’t aware of any particular seams of our marriage giving way, just that they had rather suddenly begun to feel terribly binding.

      I tossed the used wipe in the trash can and put the packet back in my purse, carefully tucking it in its spot between the travel pack of Kleenex and the tin of mints. I grabbed an open pack of Doublemint and pulled a stick out with my teeth, then returned the pack to my purse and wrestled with the broken zipper. I looked up, once again self-conscious.

      With the tip of the foil-wrapped