The Girls Of Mischief Bay. Susan Mallery

a sink full of dishes sitting around. “Any chance you got to the sheets today?”

      His expression turned blank. “Did I say I would?”

      “Yeah, you did.”

      “Oh, man. I’m sorry.”

      “I appreciate that, but Eric, we need to talk about this. You’re excited about your screenplay and that’s great, but lately it seems you’re doing less and less around here.”

      “I’m not. I do the grocery shopping and take care of Tyler when he’s not in day care. I forgot the dishes, but I’ll do them. And the laundry.” His expression tightened. “You have to understand. It’s all about the writing for me. I’ve got to focus. That’s my job. I know it’s not paying anything right now, but it will. When I’m working, I’m as committed as you are at your job. I need you to respect my time.”

      “I do.” Sort of, she thought grimly. “I need to be able to depend on you.”

      “You can. Trust me.” He glanced at his watch. After picking up his backpack, he headed for the door. “Tomorrow. I swear. I’ll get it all done. Gotta go. Bye.”

      And he was gone.

      She stood alone in the kitchen and let various emotions wash over her. Annoyance, confusion, exhaustion, regret. They churned and heated until they formed a large knot in her belly.

      Respect his time writing while she busted her ass to support them all? She closed her eyes. No, she told herself. That wasn’t fair. He was working. At least she hoped he was.

      The changes in her relationship with her husband had started so quietly, in such tiny increments, that she’d barely noticed. Excluding his decision to quit, of course.

      At first he’d taken care of stuff around the house. The laundry, the grocery shopping. But over time, that had changed. He forgot to get everything on the list. He put clothes in the washer, but not the dryer. He didn’t pick up Tyler at day care. Now he wasn’t cleaning up the kitchen as he’d promised.

      She thought about going after him to talk about what was happening, then shook her head. He would be focused on getting to class. Soon, she promised herself. She would sit down with him and talk about what was wrong. She didn’t want to have a roommate, she wanted a husband. Someone who was invested in their family, and not totally focused on his own dream.

      Did he really think he was going to sell a screenplay? The odds against that were what? A billion to one? Talk about ridiculous. And yet there was a part of her that wondered if he would make it happen.

      The knot in her stomach didn’t ease. But that wasn’t important right now. She picked up the empty laundry basket. Prioritize, she told herself. She could probably stay awake through two loads, so which were the most important?

      Five minutes later their old washer was chugging away. She turned the radio on to an oldies station and danced with Tyler as they worked together to tidy the kitchen. Or rather she worked and he shimmied while “Help Me, Rhonda” played. By seven the dishes were in the dishwasher and the food put away. Tyler had had his bath the previous night so they had a whole hour before his bedtime.

      She sank onto the floor in front of her son and smiled at him. “What would you like to do? We could play a game, or watch a show.” She didn’t offer to read a story, because that went without saying. Except for the two nights she worked late, she always read him a story. Usually some adventure about wily Brad the Dragon.

      “A movie!”

      “There’s only an hour.”

      “Okay.”

      Tyler took off running toward the family room. His shows and movies were on a lower shelf where he could browse on his own. She walked to the refrigerator and opened the door. Nothing much inspired her, although she knew she had to eat. She picked a blueberry yogurt and an apple.

      “This one,” Tyler told her, holding out a familiar and battered DVD case.

      Nicole studied the grainy picture on the front. It was sixteen years old. She’d been all of fourteen and this was a copy of her audition performance for The School of American Ballet in New York. For their summer session.

      Not the actual audition. No one was allowed to watch, let alone record that. But she’d re-created the dance for her mother. On the same DVD were a half dozen other performances.

      “Honey, you’ve seen that so many times,” she reminded her son. “Don’t you want to watch something else?”

      He thrust out the DVD—his small face set in a stubborn expression she recognized.

      “Okay, then. Dancing it is.”

      She put in the DVD, then settled on the sofa. Tyler cuddled up next to her. She offered him some of her yogurt, but he shook his head. On the TV, the picture flickered, then familiar music filled the room.

      Nicole watched her much younger self perform. She was all legs, she thought, without the usual gangliness of adolescence. Probably because she’d been studying dance since she’d been Tyler’s age.

      She’d made it into the summer program only to be told at the end that she didn’t have what it took to make it professionally in ballet. At the time she’d been both heartbroken and secretly relieved. Because her being a famous ballerina had been her mother’s dream for her.

      Nicole’s mother had cried for two days, then come up with a new plan. There were many kinds of dance, she’d informed her only child. Nicole was going to conquer them all. There had also been acting classes and voice lessons. She’d barely managed to get the grades to graduate from high school because she was always attending some coaching session or another.

      On the screen, the scene shifted to yet another performance. Nicole figured she’d been about seventeen. It was the year her mother had started complaining of headaches. By the time Nicole had received word of a full dance scholarship at Arizona State University, her mother had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. The funeral had been the Saturday before Labor Day. Nicole had already started at ASU.

      So many choices made that weren’t really choices at all, she thought, pleased she’d reached the point of only sadness. For a long time she’d tasted bitterness, too, when she’d thought about her past. Maybe watching the DVDs with Tyler helped. He only saw the beauty of the dance. There weren’t any emotional judgments. No history fogged his vision.

      Nicole hadn’t been so lucky. Her mother had wanted her to be a star. The origin of the dream wasn’t clear. Something from her own childhood perhaps. But they hadn’t talked about that. Instead, their most intimate conversations had been about how Nicole could do better, be better. Always strive for more, her mother had told her. How disappointed she would be today.

      Sometimes Nicole wondered if she was disappointed, too. How different things would have been if she’d been just a bit better. A hair more talented. Not that regrets helped, she reminded herself. They only wasted time and energy because regrets didn’t change anything.

      She stared at the screen and watched her younger self dance with a grace and confidence that seemed to be lacking these days. While she didn’t regret not being famous, she knew that somewhere along the way she’d lost something important. All the elements of a happy life were there—a growing small business, a husband, a wonderful son, friends—but somehow they didn’t come together the way they should. She accepted the exhaustion. That came with the territory. It was everything else—the sense of never having quite found what made her happy, the wondering if she’d made a mistake somewhere along the way. That was what kept her up nights.

      * * *

      Sunday morning Pam double-checked the contents of her refrigerator. The whole family was coming over for dinner later that afternoon and she needed to make sure she had all she needed.

      Sunday dinners were an Eiland family tradition. When the kids had been younger, they were all required to be home by four, regardless of whatever fun they might