Page 4 of An Introvert's Guide to Life and Love
Chapter 3
The next day, Mom has invited us all over for Shabbat dinner. I’m in the back seat of Maeve and Blake’s SUV, next to baby Adam. From the passenger seat, Maeve chirps on about how happy she is not to have to cook tonight. My nephew starts to wail but Maeve keeps talking, stopping every few breaths to make shushing noises, which Adam does not seem to find soothing. My ears hurt.
It takes half an hour to drive to our parents’ house on the Eastside. I try to psych myself up for the inevitable high energy of the next couple hours. My parents are talkers. I love them, and my sister and her cute little family, but spending time with them wears me out. What can I say? I thrive on alone time. Fortunately, a lot of their conversation revolves around the baby and lawyer stuff. My parents, Blake, and Maeve are all attorneys.
I frequently remind myself that most parents would be proud of a child who makes a decent living as a project manager at a big tech company. And I think my parents are proud—technically. But it’s not exactly a secret that I’m the disappointment of the family. My dad’s dad was an attorney. Lottie was a public defender—one of only two women in her law school class. My parents met in law school. Maeve and I grew up knowing that we would be lawyers, too.
It sounds silly when I spell it out like that. I’ve gotten a few weird looks from people over the years when I explain that my parents aredisappointed that I never went to law school. But it’s just how things are in my family. My parents had certain expectations; one daughter lived up to them, and the other did not.
If I’m being honest, I had those expectations, too. I enjoyed the certainty of knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up. Some friends held similar certainties, knowing they wanted to be teachers or nurses. And then there were those who floundered and flip-flopped through college, changing majors two or three times, some opting for grad school just to put off making a decision for a few more years.
Grad school: That’s where it went wrong for me. I didn’t get in. I applied to three law schools: one reasonable choice, one reach school, and one where I thought I’d be a shoo-in because my parents went there. But I didn’t get into any of them.
My parents were crushed. But they tried to hide it by reading through brochures for different graduate school programs with me and sending me online job listings. My mom encouraged me to consider other options, like medical school. My dad wanted me to work as a paralegal and reapply to law school the next year. I couldn’t face any of those options. Deep down, I’d grown up feeling like the awkward daughter—less social and less intelligent. Getting rejected from law school while Maeve was halfway through her program seemed to reaffirm this belief. So I applied to some random jobs and accepted the first one that offered.
It was a data entry job at a local tech company. It wasn’t as prestigious as my sister’s budding law career, but the pay was okay for someone fresh out of college, and it had one thing going for it that most people didn’t have at the time: It was remote. So I made lemonade from the lemons life had dealt me. I traveled as often as I could afford to, bringing my laptop with me. Not only did it help me heal from my disappointment, but the tales of my travels alsoseemed to impress my family, something I was desperate to do. I had some incredible experiences, like biking through the Dutch countryside with a couple of my friends from college, and spending a solo week in Paris, living out my Parisian dreams. But after nearly two years, I’d lost touch with almost all my friends—I guess that happens when you’re out of town so often that you miss all the happy hours and girls’ nights. And then I guess I got too comfortable phoning it in to my job, because my lack of work ethic caught up to me. I was fired.
Just like that, I had no paycheck on the horizon, and I was stuck in my apartment lease with an embarrassing amount of credit card debt from my travels.
The conversation that followed is burned into my memory. I confessed it all to my parents, and we sat down at their kitchen table and went through my finances in painful detail. They coached me through breaking my lease, and loaned me money to pay for that and for all my debt. Of course, this was only after we’d agreed to a strict repayment schedule. At the time, it felt like my life was over; I was positive no one would ever hire me again. Who would want to?
My parents let me stay with them—asking me every other day if I was planning to reapply to law school—and after four long months of camping out at their neighborhood Starbucks applying to hundreds of jobs, I finally got one. An entry-level project manager job that I will never take for granted. The day I got the keys to my (second) very own apartment was one of the best days of my life.
And now that I’ve settled down and have a job that I take seriously, I can actually contribute to my family’s conversations about working life. So that’s something.
When we arrive, there’s the usual hubbub as our parents fuss over the baby and give each of us a hug. One thing I didn’t mind about the pandemic was the moratorium on hugging. I enjoy a hug nowand then; it just seems excessive to have to hug every single person on arrival and departure for every social event. But maybe that’s just me.
My mom ushers us into the sitting room and encourages us all to help ourselves to the veggie platter. She returns a few minutes later with gin and tonics for everyone. Soon we’re all settled on the sofas. Dad is bouncing Adam on his knee, and Mom is updating us on a case she’s been working on. Maeve and Blake gulp down their drinks with looks of muted glee, like they’re high on the freedom of—what? Being in someone else’s house? Having another adult hold their child? I’m not sure, but clearly they’re enjoying themselves more than I am. There’s nothing wrong with having dinner with my family, really. I’m fortunate to have family nearby and to be on good terms with them. It’s just that I feel like I’m invisible half the time.
I sip my drink as Maeve peppers Mom with questions about her method of gathering evidence from someone or other. Blake and Dad are talking animatedly about a baseball game. I make eye contact with Adam and give him a little smile. He stares at me and then farts. This catches everyone else’s attention. They all laugh and then remember that I exist.
“Mallory, how’s work?” my mom asks.
“Fine. Good. I’m working on…” I try to think of something interesting to tell them, but all I can think of is the awkward misunderstanding about status reports. I don’t want to bring that up. “I’m just chugging along. Keeping those engineers on schedule.”
There’s a pause as everyone waits to see if I have more to add. I take a sip of my cocktail, and an ice cube bumps against my teeth.
“Well, I’m glad you’re good.” Mom smiles uncertainly.
“Yeah.” Dad nods in apparent agreement. “Keep on keepin’ on, Mal Gal.”
As they return to talking about work, my mind drifts to thepair of Frye boots I’ve been dreaming about purchasing after my next paycheck. I recently finished repaying Mom and Dad—a huge weight off my shoulders. Now I might actually have some expendable income.
We gather around the table as Mom leads the blessing over the Shabbat candles. Dinner is a lentil-based faux meat loaf and a salad that’s heavy on nuts, seeds, and crumbled blue cheese.
Maeve delicately spears a forkful of lettuce. “How is Gramps doing?”
“You know, it’s hard to say.” Mom pats her lips with her napkin. “He sounds relatively upbeat on the phone. I’ve been calling him every couple days, and Trish visits him once a week. But he’s never lived alone before.”
“No?” I look up, surprised. How is that possible?
“No, he never has. He went from his parents’ house to living with college roommates to getting married to my mother. He’s never lived alone until now.” Mom’s voice quivers on the last word.
“Oh, Mom.” Maeve reaches out and puts a hand over hers. “It sounds like he’s doing as well as can be expected.”
“I think he is, yes.” She takes a deep breath, straightens her shoulders, and looks around the table. “Who’s ready for dessert? I made gluten-free molasses cookies.”
At home, I muse over the idea that Gramps never got the chance to live alone. Obviously, he’s now living alone for the saddest reason—he’s a widower. The idea of it is just foreign to me. I love my alone time so much.
