NIKKI NEVER KEPT us in one place for more than a year or two. The longest we’d ever stayed put was in our dark and dingy duplex in Prairie Garden, Kansas. We lived there from the time I was born until I was six. About a year after my father left.

So when I think of my childhood home, that’s the place that’s seared in my memory: orange shag carpet, peeling linoleum flooring in the kitchen that I used to pick at with my fingernails, the smell of Rice-A-Roni (one of Nikki’s only forays into cooking) mixed with clouds of smoke from her perpetually needing-to-be-ashed Virginia Slims.

The biggest presence in the house, though, after my dad had hit the road, was Nikki’s brittle moods. One day she’d be misty-eyed from a recent breakup—hands endlessly working a cigarette or her curling iron—and the next, she’d be giddy and humming while she squeezed herself into a pair of tight-fitting, acid-washed jeans for a date while leaving me in the care of our neighbor, Miss Denise, an ancient woman with hands the size of a trucker’s.

I understood, very early on, that I was—for the most part—just a side note in Nikki’s life, so I often retreated to my twin bed and curled up to read one of my Nancy Drew books. But at least in Prairie Garden, we were in a proper neighborhood and I had friends up and down the street to entertain me.

After that we moved into more shiftless environments: a condo in Tallahassee, Florida (one of my favorite places, though—I loved the howl of the sea breeze and walking along the shore, collecting shells), followed by apartments in Ann Arbor and Tucson.

Nikki liked this unattached mode of living—never getting too close to others—so I was excited when we moved to Mapleton and she finally sprung for a rental house on a wide street lined with magnolia trees. Even though my only possessions were a bubblegum-pink dresser and wood-framed twin bed—the rest of the house Nikki filled out with furniture from Rent-a-Room—I could at least pretend to myself that our lives were veering toward normal.

Which isn’t to say it was all bad growing up with Nikki. She did have her moments. As flighty as she could be with the rest of her life, she took her career very seriously, and by extension, took my studies very seriously, too.

We’d sit, knees touching, at the kitchen table, where she’d help me with my homework. Long division in the third grade, for instance, which I struggled with, but she made sure I finally got it. She was big on good grades and getting into college.

“You don’t wanna have to rely on some no-good man,” she’d say, time and again. “We take care of ourselves, you hear me?”

* * *

—

SO OBVIOUSLY I didn’t consult with Nikki about my decision to upend my career at the magazine and move to Mapleton. I knew she would never understand actually wanting to hang out with a kid as much as possible.

* * *

—

I DIDN’T GET the chance to consult with Rox, either. And now I wish I had. While I was on maternity leave, she took a job in Iceland—as a freelance photographer for an ad agency—and now she roves around Europe taking gigs. We stay in touch on Instagram (everyone in Mapleton is on Facebook, and it’s as if Instagram and Twitter don’t exist here yet), liking each other’s posts, but I haven’t actually spoken to her since a few months after Jack was born.

Rox got me over the hump that day in the café—over my fear of commitment and my college-years addiction to chasing bad boys—and I threw myself headlong into my marriage with Graham and headlong into my career. And I was content for a while, even ecstatic.

Soon after, I became pregnant with Jack.

And pregnancy—the surge of hormones, the urgent desire to nest—deeply bonded me to Graham. He would stand in the kitchen after working all day and make me elaborate dishes. Chicken piccata, mushroom risotto, cooking on a whim to satisfy my latest cravings, and as our evening drew to a close, we’d sink into our pillowy sofa and he’d cradle my feet in his strong hands, massaging them until I drifted off to sleep.

After Jack arrived, I loved them both with a fierceness I never thought possible. Jack was a colicky baby, his face beet red and screwed up into a wet ball most nights, but Graham would lift him from me and walk the floors until he was soothed while I rested in between feedings.

I felt like I wore new-mommy-hood well. I luxuriated in the whole attachment-parenting phenomenon—wearing Jack in a pumpkin-orange sling across my chest as often as I could, having him sleep tucked between me and Graham. And I stayed home from the magazine for a full six months before I managed to peel myself away from his tender, warm body that always smelled to me like peach cobbler.

I tried to put down roots in Evanston. Literally. I planted a showy rose garden in our backyard one Saturday morning while Jack snoozed in his stroller in a patch of sunlight.

I promised myself I’d be a better mom to Jack than Nikki was to me.

But after a year or so into Jack’s life, my old bad-boy urges resurfaced when I profiled a painter for the magazine. He was an Austrian transplant named V, short for Victor, and the assignment almost led to a fling. After the piece ran, V—tall and tattooed—texted and begged me to go out for drinks in return for running such a glowing article.

I knew what he really wanted, of course, and I’m ashamed to admit that I wanted it, too. And fantasized about it. There were sparks between us, so one sunny afternoon, I left the office early and went to a pub across town to meet him for happy hour.

I strolled down the sidewalk in a yellow sundress, adrenaline shooting through me at the prospect of what was about to happen, but when I peered through the warbled glass door of the pub and saw the back of his head as he waited at the bar, I stopped in my tracks. He wasn’t my Graham, and I knew what I’d be in danger of losing if I stepped through that door.

I turned and walked away.

* * *

—

ERIN AND I had been more in touch since having kids, and I was lured by the glimpses of Mapleton she’d show on Facebook: family picnics at a nearby berry farm with homemade pint jars of lemonade at their fingertips. The three of them—Erin, Ryan, and Mattie—at a Halloween carnival in downtown Mapleton, sipping mugs of apple cider in front of a giant pumpkin patch.

If I’m being honest with myself, yes, I wanted to move back here for Jack, for us, but also, it seemed like the kind of place where I could conform to the version of my very best self. In moving here, I thought I could become someone more wholesome, more grounded. Someone I could admire. Someone like Erin, for instance.

As it turns out, you can’t outrun who you are. My darker urges simply followed me here and are even more amplified because it’s so quiet, and sometimes so boring.

And though I’d do anything to be back in the café with Rox just now, talking through everything, I know exactly what she’d say.

She’d tell me that my feelings are normal. That I couldn’t have predicted how isolating working from home alone could be, especially living in a small town. That it’s understandable I was eager to ditch the hustle and bustle of the magazine world, but that there’s a real part of me that misses the glamour of it all.

She’d tell me that I’m now getting my glamour fix from fantasizing about Margot, and that I need to find a healthier outlet. That I should find what I’m looking for within.

11

Friday, March 23, 2018

I’M DRIVING OUT to Margot’s lake house. The GPS says I still have twenty-three minutes to go and it’s already six fifteen. I’m running late.

I told Graham about it last night during dinner. I made sure to top off his wine first, and between forkfuls of roasted chicken and potatoes (his favorite), I asked if he minded my going.

He swished the wine around in his glass and beamed at me. “Who are you, Annie Oakley now?”

I soft punched his shoulder.

“Who’s going to break the news to Ryan and Erin?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“I was going to surprise you, actually. I made dinner plans with them at the pub for Friday. And I booked a sitter.” He raised his glass to his lips, took a sip. “And also, I think I’m developing a crush on Ryan.”

“I think you’re adorable. And I think you’re just as bored as I am in this town,” I said, and leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Heeeey, Mommee!” Jack chirped. “I want iPad!”

His plate was licked clean, so I complied. “Sure thing, Jack-o-licious.”

He scooted off his chair and ambled down the hall.

“But just one show before bed, remember, honey?” I called out after him.

“That was so sweet of you to want to surprise me, but can you cancel with them?” I asked. “But don’t tell them why. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you.”

“Ooooh, a secret club,” Graham said, his eyes flashing. “I like it!”

He slid the bottle across the table, refilled our glasses.

“But seriously,” he added with a bemused smile, “why weren’t you supposed to tell me?”

Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have. But I had to.

“Probably for no good reason,” I said, hoping to dismiss it. “These women probably just like the idea of being a part of something exclusive, ya know?”