Alice worried about how having a family would affect Anna’s career. It had been an arduous journey to tenured full professorship for Alice, not because the responsibilities became too daunting or because she didn’t produce an outstanding body of work in linguistics along the way, but essentially because she was a woman who had children. The vomiting, anemia, and preeclampsia she’d experienced during the two and a half cumulative years of pregnancy had certainly distracted her and slowed her down. And the demands of the three little human beings born out of those pregnancies were more constant and time-consuming than those of any hard-ass department head or type A student she’d ever come across.
Time and again she’d watched with dread as the most promising careers of her reproductively active female colleagues slowed to a crawl or simply jumped the track entirely. Watching John, her male counterpart and intellectual equal, accelerate past her had been tough. She often wondered whether his career would have survived three episiotomies, breast-feeding, potty training, mind-numbingly endless days of singing “The wheels on the bus go round and round,” and even more nights of getting only two to three hours of uninterrupted sleep. She seriously doubted it.
As they all exchanged hugs, kisses, pleasantries, and birthday greetings, a woman with severely bleached hair and dressed entirely in black approached them at the bar.
“Is everyone in your party here now?” she asked, smiling pleasantly, but a little too long to be sincere.
“No. We’re still waiting for one,” said Anna.
“I’m here!” said Tom, entering behind them. “Happy birthday, Mom.”
Alice hugged and kissed him and then realized that he’d come in alone.
“Do we need to wait for…?”
“Jill? No, Mom, we broke up last month.”
“You go through so many girlfriends, we’re having a hard time keeping track of their names,” said Anna. “Is there a new one we should be saving a seat for?”
“Not yet,” said Tom to Anna, and “We’re all here,” to the woman in black.
The period of time that Tom was between girlfriends came with a regular frequency of about six to nine months but never lasted long. He was smart, intense, the spitting image of his father, in his third year at Harvard Medical School, and planning on a career as a cardiothoracic surgeon. He looked like he could use a good meal. He admitted, with irony, that every medical student and surgeon he knew ate like shit and on the fly—donuts, bags of chips, vending machine and hospital cafeteria food. None of them had the time to exercise, unless they counted taking the stairs instead of the elevator. He joked that at least they’d be qualified to treat each other for heart disease in a few years.
Once they were all settled in a semicircular booth with drinks and appetizers, the topic of conversation turned to the missing family member.
“When was the last time Lydia came to one of the birthday dinners?” asked Anna.
“She was here for my twenty-first,” said Tom.
“That was almost five years ago! Was that the last one?” Anna asked.
“No, it couldn’t be,” said John, without offering anything more specific.
“I’m pretty sure it was,” Tom insisted.
“It wasn’t. She was here for your father’s fiftieth on the Cape, three years ago,” said Alice.
“How’s she doing, Mom?” asked Anna.
Anna took transparent pleasure in the fact that Lydia didn’t go to college; Lydia’s abbreviated education somehow secured Anna’s position as the smartest, most successful Howland daughter. The oldest, Anna had been the first to demonstrate her intelligence to her delighted parents, the first to hold the status of being their brilliant daughter. Although Tom was also very bright, Anna had never paid much attention to him, maybe because he was a boy. Then, Lydia came along. Both girls were smart, but Anna suffered to get straight A’s, whereas Lydia’s unblemished report cards came with little noticeable effort. Anna paid attention to that. They were both competitive and fiercely independent, but Anna wasn’t a risk taker. She tended to pursue goals that were safe and conventional, and that were sure to be accompanied by tangible accolades.
“She’s good,” said Alice.
“I can’t believe she’s still out there. Has she been in anything yet?” Anna asked.
“She was fantastic in that play last year,” said John.
“She’s taking classes,” said Alice.
Only as the words left her mouth did she remember that John had been bankrolling Lydia’s nondegree curriculum behind her back. How could she have forgotten to talk to him about that? She shot him an outraged look. It landed squarely on his face, and he felt the impact. He shook his head subtly and rubbed her back. Now wasn’t the time or place. She’d get into it with him later. If she could remember.