When I Ran Away, Ilona Bannister [read 50 shades of grey TXT] 📗

white, she taught me French. My dad’s Jamaican, I look like him. My husband’s white, my kids are mixed like me, people think they’re Black. We’re all OK. You should be too, so stop being so American, talking about race all the time. This is the UK, you know, we’re not all racists like your lot.” She was only half-joking, sliding past an uncomfortable conversation that she didn’t want to have, using humor to disarm in that way that British people are so good at.

Still, in the office, I knew it was visible but unspoken: her skin color, the extra scrutiny it brought, both unconscious and very conscious; expectations others had of her and she of herself; assumptions made about her in the office, or barristers’ chambers or the courtroom; worries about her children and what they would face and how it would be different and how it would be the same. Hoping things would move forward and knowing they wouldn’t move forward enough. It was all there in the crumpled-up wrappers of her apple pie.

She and I don’t get to socialize much in the office because we both have our heads down, working as fast as possible so that we can leave at five on the dot to pick up the kids. We understand what it’s like when you’re trying to do a good job and your children are constantly lighting up the background of your mind. We see what other people don’t notice about us. The blouse turned inside out and then covered with a jacket to hide the stain before the client shows up. The skirt that used to fit that still almost does if you don’t button it at the top but instead hold the waist together with a safety pin. The massive crack in the screen of the phone because your kid dropped it. She always has an emergency cardigan on hand and a Sharpie for coloring in scuffs on our heels. I always have a few spare tubes of mascara in my desk for brushing into my roots before big meetings. We’re both just making it work, every day, like most moms.

When I saw her at McDonald’s the first time, because she also knew that no one from the office would ever be seen there, our friendship was sealed.

I break our usual code of silence and I say, “Is it just the bad night?”

Charlie, staring at the lid of her coffee cup, chipped manicure toying with the pie wrappers, says, “This is hard. Much harder than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Sometimes I don’t know why I’m doing it.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“It’s much harder with two than it was with just Noah.”

“Sure it is,” I say, looking up at her, involuntarily putting my hand to my belly.

Without looking up from her coffee lid she says, “I don’t know if this is worth it, you know? I did it, I’m successful, but I feel like shit. You know what happened yesterday? They shut down the nursery. A water main broke and they shut the water off for the whole street. So I’m standing there with the baby and Noah, their bags, my files and nowhere to go. I had twenty minutes to get to court, counsel wasn’t picking up his phone, Pete had a board meeting and couldn’t get out.”

“Your parents weren’t around?” I ask, already knowing the answer but giving her a chance to get the frustration about them out.

“Fuck no. I didn’t even call because I knew they had my sister’s kid, who needs the undivided attention of two adults. So there I was, in the middle of the high street, and then Noah stepped in dog shit and I just gave up. I mean, why do people have dogs if they don’t want to fucking look after them? Don’t they realise that they are putting actual shit on my children’s shoes? It’s so fucking offensive.” Charlie leans back with a thump, shaking her head, infuriated, exhausted, exasperated by humanity.

I say, “Oh, sweetie, I know, people are monsters. So what happened?”

“I went home and put them in front of CBeebies and fell asleep on the sofa during Waybuloo. And now Aneela wants to meet with me because she said I lacked professionalism. Can you believe that? Granted, I didn’t call the office until 10:30 because that goddam Waybuloo gets me every time but I have never, never put a foot wrong until yesterday. I have left my children in all kinds of shady childcare establishments, left them at nursery until they were the last ones there at night, I have…so many things I’ve done and I had one bad day, one crisis, and I’m lacking—lacking?—professionalism…”

“Wait, that can’t be right, I’m sure she’s just going to give you a pep talk. She has kids, she knows,” I say, trying to make her feel better.

Charlie looks at me, pushes her tray away. “Aneela knows fuck all. She knows about her parents living next door, and her live-in nanny, and her cleaner who comes three times a week. She’s going to say I can’t use childcare as an excuse, that I’m supposed to have it sorted, that associates without children are expected to be here and I can’t expect special treatment, that there are plenty of parents in the office and maybe I can’t handle being on this track…”

I don’t know what to say to make it better, so I say, “Shit, I’m sorry, hun. Here, you’ve got apple pie in your eyebrow,” and I pass her a napkin.

“Fuck,” she says, in that way Londoners do, with the extended “f,” practically spitting out the hard “k.”

I pull back. “I’m sorry, it’s not easy.”

“It’s just…I’m grabbing at sand and it’s running through my fingers. What am I doing this for? Why am I doing everything alone?” Charlie looks up at me and I wish I had an answer for her other than all women do it alone. I don’t know when it started but that’s what everyone