Tracey often got home from work later in the evening than she would have liked, but she did her best to always cook a real dinner anyway. Some nights she just didn't have the energy, but even if dinner was fast-food nuggets, they ate it together at the table. With everything else going on, it was one of the only ways Tracey could feel like she was still doing something right. If they could still sit together at the end of the day over a home-cooked meal, things could still work out.
Tonight, still floating on the buoyant cloud of her interaction with Sheikh Adil earlier that day, she felt like she could have cooked a five-course meal. She'd only had the money to get ingredients for chicken parm, though, so that would just have to do.
"You're floaty today," Charlie said as he picked the breading off his chicken.
"Good floaty or bad floaty?" Tracey asked, still mentally tallying up what she needed to do this weekend. She was behind on dishes and needed to buy groceries for next week. She kept losing track of her thoughts, remembering Sheikh Adil instead.
"Hmm. Good floaty," Charlie decided. "Like, ooowooowooo!"
He demonstrated with a green bean, waving it through the air in a dizzying, fanciful pattern. Tracey, mildly embarrassed, shook her head to clear it.
"Sorry," she said. "I had a really nice day at work, and I keep thinking about it."
Charlie stuck the green bean in his mouth.
"Why?"
"Don't talk with your mouth full," Tracey admonished. Charlie swallowed.
"Why?"
"I talked to the man I work for today," Tracey said. "He was a lot nicer than I expected. That makes me happy, because I think it means I'll get to keep this job for a long time."
"I thought you wanted to take care of animals?" Charlie said, poking his chicken with his fork.
"I do," Tracey admitted a little wistfully. "But that just costs too much money right now. It's more important to me that you get to be an astronaut, or an archeologist, or whatever you want to be."
Charlie pondered this for a moment and went from stabbing his chicken with his fork to using it to draw in the sauce.
"You could be an astronaut too!" he finally said. "Then we could share."
"I don't think so, buddy." Tracey shook her head, amused. "Space gives me the heebie-jeebies."
"But it’s so cool!"
"Nah. Too big and empty."
"It's full of aliens and stuff!"
"Tell you what," Tracey said. "You become an astronaut, and I'll fly in your spaceship with you."
"Yeah!" Charlie cheered, and Tracey winced as his excited gesture splattered tomato sauce across the table. "Oops."
Tracey handed him a paper towel and took one for herself, wiping up the mess. After dinner and Charlie's bath, Tracey, her eyes already itching and her head heavy with tiredness, read Charlie a chapter of the book they were working on together while he settled into bed. It was a familiar ritual, one Tracey had, to the best of her ability, kept up for six years, even before Charlie was able to talk. Even during the worst times with Derek, this end-of-the-day routine was what kept her stable. Dinner, bath, story time, bed. She hoped the stability of it did as much for Charlie as it did for her.
"Mom?" Charlie asked as Tracey put the book away and pulled his blankets up. "Do you like working?"
"Why do you ask, sweetie?" Tracey frowned, confused by the surprisingly somber question.
"Mike's dad is always mad when he gets home from work," Charlie said. "Mike says he says he hates it. He talks about how much he hates it all the time. I don't want you to be angry."
Tracey smiled, smoothing the wispy blond hair back from Charlie's forehead, and bent down to kiss him.
"I don't hate my work," she said. "My work is important so I can take care of you. My boss is nice, and I like the people I work with. It doesn't make me angry."
"Even though you want to do something else?" Charlie asked, like he was suspicious.
"Even though I want to do something else," Tracey said. "We can't always have everything we want. Sometimes we have to pick the things that are most important to us and focus on them. So we learn to be okay with things that maybe aren't exactly what we wanted, but aren't bad either. You're what is most important to me, so as long as I can take care of you, I don't mind that my job isn't the one I really want. Does that make sense?"
"Not really," Charlie said, shrugging.
"Maybe it will when you're older." Tracey tucked the blankets in around him and stood up to turn off the light.
"Dad was angry," Charlie said quietly. Tracey paused with her hand on the light switch. "But I don't think it was because of work."
"Dad's gone," Tracey said softly. "We don't have to worry about that anymore. Good night, Charlie."
"Good night, Mom."
Tracey turned the light off, looking back briefly at her son, who was dimly illuminated by the blue glow of the nightlight. Her love for him ached keenly in her chest. With a last glance, she left him to sleep. She didn't plan to stay up much longer than him, but she had work to do first.
Tracey put together a grocery list and paid bills on her battered old laptop. Derek had pawned the ancient machine twice while they'd been married, but Tracey had always managed to get it back. It was a more constant and reliable companion than almost anyone else in her life, honestly.
She frowned at the open Excel document in front of her as she shifted her budget around, trying to find enough money to pay the electric bill and still afford food. It was going to be a hard month, she realized, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she resisted the headache building there. Things would only get harder in the fall when she had to purchase school supplies and new clothes for Charlie. Maybe she needed to get a second job. But then she'd have to pay someone to watch him at night. She already only saw him a couple hours out of the day...
Eventually she gave up and went to bed, glad she was too exhausted to lay awake worrying for long.
The weekend went by in a flash, catching up with housework and running errands while trying to spend some time with Charlie, as she only really got to on the weekend. All of this ran contrary to her overwhelming desire to lie in bed and do precisely nothing for two days straight.
One of the reasons she'd looked for a job in housekeeping was that as long as you weren't working for a hotel, weekends off were pretty standard, as the owners of the houses they cleaned tended to want their homes to themselves those days. Having a regular day off to spend with Charlie was one of the things Tracey couldn't compromise on. Even if all they could do was play a board game and watch TV, she knew the time together was critical. If she didn't make time to be with him now, things would only get harder in the future.
By the end of the weekend, after getting so much done, she felt even more tired than she had on Friday night. But the fuzzy warmth of her conversation with the Sheikh, plus the time spent with Charlie, lingered and lifted her up. She'd always wondered how her mother had managed to do so much and work so hard. She imagined this must have been it—just getting by on the little joys.