Page 95 of From Maybe to Baby

Thank God for Frenchie.

I’ve watched him juggle all this from my cowardly distance. It hasn’t been hard, since he’s so high-profile. The gossip pages share glimpses of him sneaking the kids out the school's back door to avoid reporters, and show him rushing from practice still in gear to make parent-teacher meetings. One blogger has started a campaign of women writing him love letters, and is taking bets that someone snags him in the next year.

The Paris deadline looms over everything like a storm cloud. Twenty-four hours to decide. Twenty-four hours to choose between the dream I've always had and the one I never did. Ryan keeps calling, talking about Fashion Week and luxury travel and everything I always thought I would die for.

Instead, I am haunted thinking about Jonas juggling all his shit.

"They'll adjust," my mother says when I call her in a panic. "Children are resilient."

"They shouldn't have to be."

Twenty-four hours.

Two kids.

Three hearts.

Infinite happiness… or regrets?

Reality sets in, heavy and formidable, obscuring everything I thought was clear. I'm not just choosing between Paris and San Francisco. Between fashion shows and hockey games. Between freedom and family.

I'm choosing what I want my goddamn life to look like. The question is, am I brave enough to decide?

And that’s when it hits me. Life’s not about choices in and of itself. It’s about cleaning up the messes after you’ve made them.

I finda drawing stuffed into my laptop bag. Crayon stick figures on construction paper—two tall ones, two small ones. There I am, a purple stick figure next to Jonas, wearing what appears to be a crown and holding a hockey stick.

She's even drawn my coffee mug.

I make it to the hotel bathroom just before I throw up.

The drawing mocks me from the counter as I rinse my mouth, splash water on my face, and try to breathe. Purple stick-figure me, holding stick-figure Jonas's hand, while stick-figure Lukas and Jace smile their crayon smiles.

I stare at my reflection—designer outfit, perfect makeup, all the trappings of my carefully curated child-free lifestyle. The woman in the mirror looks nothing like the purple stick figure wearing a crown and holding a hockey stick.

Which one is real?

Which one is me?

"Take some time," Jonas had said in his infinite patience, when I tried to explain about Paris. About dreams and careersand everything I thought I wanted. "Really think about what you want."

What I want.

What I want is to stop crying in hotel bathrooms.

What I want is to stop breaking tiny hearts.

What I want is...

The mini bar beckons. Tiny bottles of clarity. Or at least tiny bottles of numbness.

The first vodka burns. The second one less so. By the third, I can look at the drawing Jace sneaked into my bag without throwing up.

My laptop sits open to flight bookings. Paris. One-way. Everything I've worked for. Just a click away.

Another tiny bottle.

I trace the crayon figures with unsteady fingers. Like I'm not about to ruin everything.

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