It was his hideous cheval mirror that provoked Lotty. The pompous owls carved into the edges sneered at the bedroom as if they knew her and Jason’s marriage was falling apart. The crack in the top corner reminded her of everything that had gone wrong between them. She normally steered clear of the monstrosity, but today it caught her eye and she stopped right in front of it. Smack dab in the middle where she could see every stupid owl.

Somehow Jason’s mirror highlighted all her imperfections. Maybe it was the way he saw her now. She closed her eyes so she couldn’t see the stranger with slumped shoulders and tired eyes. She tried to think of herself as the confident, young mother she’d been, but the image dissolved before it ever came into view. Gone were the skinny jeans and heels. Now it was yoga pants and a muffin top. The bright-eyed Lotty Brooks was a distant memory. She missed the excited version of herself, the one who loved her husband and felt loved in return. The woman she’d become was a sad shell of her former self.

Lotty turned away with a sigh and shoved the last bite of her breakfast pastry into her mouth, letting the gooey deliciousness numb her sadness. Who needed skinny jeans and heels in a world where chocolate brioche masqueraded as breakfast? Maybe she should resign herself to a life in pants with stretchy waistbands.

She picked up Jason’s jacket from where he’d left it on the floor. Jason. Maybe what she needed to resign herself to was a life without him, but the thought tore at her heart. She reached into his pocket out of habit. It had been a joke between them, a lifetime ago. He’d always been terrible about leaving his clothes on the floor so Lotty had begun taking things out of the pockets and hiding them. Money, keys, business cards. He retaliated by filling his pockets with things he hoped would gross her out: dirty Kleenex, stale food, or his personal favorite - an ad for beer with a picture of a very heavy man in whitey tighties doing ballet. Over time, it turned into little notes. Just a sentence or two about something funny that happened at work or what he loved about Lotty. Emptying his pockets became something she looked forward to. 

Tears stung her eyes as she pushed away the memories. She cursed her brioche. It was not doing its job of numbing the pain. 

“Mom. Mommy. Mom. Mom. Mama.” Little fists pounded on Lotty’s door.

“Yes, Ty?” she answered.

“You’ve been in there a real long time, Mom. And Aiden’s bein’ naughty again. He wiped his chocolate all over his chair. And then he tried to gr—” 

“Okay, I’ll be out in a second.” She wiped her eyes.

“Can I come in there with you? I need to show you somethin.”

Lotty cracked the door open and Ty’s four-year-old body popped through like a bar of wet soap. She tried to force a smile. “What do you need to show me?”

“Okay, Mom. Watch.” He squatted down and with a look of determination that rivaled any professional athlete, he jumped two inches into the air. “Did you see that? I’ve been practicing. How high do you think that was? Was it as high as our house?” His big, brown eyes, identical to Jason’s, watched her with excitement.

“Good job. That was crazy high,” she answered with the little enthusiasm she could muster, hanging the jacket back in Jason’s closet.

“How good? Do you think Dad could jump that high? The secret is my booster pack. See?” He pointed to a spatula tucked into his back pocket. “Oh, Mom, can I play with Play-Doh?”

Lotty stared past Ty. She needed to get out of this room, out of this house, and do something that took her focus off the growing distance in her marriage, if even for a moment. She thought back to an article she’d seen on Facebook last night titled “8 Reasons I Love Running.” It mentioned increased endorphins and had a lot of pictures of women with broad smiles gliding across beaches and in front of beautiful sunsets. Perfect. She pulled open the bedroom curtain and peeked through her blinds. The sun was starting to peek out over the tops of the Rocky Mountains and glimmer across the lake. It was impossible to stay upset when she visualized running in this picturesque setting.  She could wear her pink nylon running shorts that she’d bought last summer when she’d thought of trying CrossFit. That fell through when she found out what CrossFit actually was, but now she could see herself as a runner.

She was gliding around the cove and down to the lake, waving to neighbors as she passed. Trinity stopped her to ask how she maintained such toned legs. She shrugged with a smile and said, “I guess it’s all the running.” A handsome stranger, who must be new to the neighborhood, flashed a smile and joined her on her run. He introduced himself as Giovanni and said he’d like to get to know her better. Maybe they could spend some time together at his villa in Italy. She thanked him, but said she was happily married. He muttered something about the lucky man before they returned to the neighborhood.

“Mom, you’re not watching,” Ty whined.

“Sorry,” she said, her toned legs and Giovanni disappearing. “Ty, do you want to go for a bike ride?”

“Yay!” He threw his arms up and jumped. “Is Dad coming home?”

“No, I’m taking you.”

“You know how to ride a bike?” he asked, his eyes wide.

“Yes, I can ride a bike, but I’m actually going to r—”

“Without training wheels?”

“Yes, Ty. I can ride a bike without training wheels.” She’d really let this sedentary lifestyle get out of control. Her son could hardly fathom that she knew how to ride a bike. “But I’m going to run and push Aiden in the stroller while you ride your bike.”

“Yes.” He jumped up again. “I’ll get my shoes.”

She ran to the closet and changed into her shorts. She must have washed them in hot water because they had definitely shrunk. She grabbed one of Jason’s t-shirts. A wave of sadness passed over her as she held it up to her nose and breathed in the scent of her husband. A jumble of memories poured through her mind. Going to Alberta one July and not taking enough layers so she’d spent the whole week with his arms around her. Sunday afternoons spent cuddling on the couch while Ty crawled all over them. Rolling over to his side of the bed after he’d gone to work because she liked the smell of his pillow.

“Ready, Mom,” Ty yelled from the hall. Lotty slipped the shirt over her head and opened her door. He stared at her with his little eyebrows furrowed. “Your legs look kinda funny.”

Lotty sighed. “Let’s go find your brother.”

“Do all moms have squishy legs?”

“No, Ty, not all of them. Aiden, where are you?”

“Mo, mo, mo.”

“More what?” Lotty asked as she rounded the corner into the kitchen and gasped. Her cherubic eighteen-month-old was covered in cream filling. It was smeared through his hair and on the tips of his eyelashes. He stood in a puddle of filling and made pictures in it with his feet. His fists were clenched around pastries, squeezing out every last drop of cream. The entire kitchen was a canvas for his artwork. 

He grinned when he saw her. “Mo, Mama.”

Lotty headed to the linen closet to get towels, while silently cursing Jason for surprising the boys with that box of pastries.  As she passed the living room window, a blur of black caught her eye. She ran to the window and looked outside, but nothing was out of the ordinary. More anger towards Jason swirled around in the pit of her stomach when she saw the lawn mower sitting out and the gate open. If a stray dog wandered into their yard and attacked one of the boys, it would be his fault. Maybe that’s the black blur she saw. It was probably a rabid dog. Thanks, Jason.

Across the cove, Trinity was outside watering an empty flowerbed while her kids waited for the bus. Blonde curls cascaded down her back and her silky, purple, lace-edged pajamas didn’t even look too ridiculous on her. Trinity’s kids probably never called her perfectly tan legs squishy.

Lotty decided to wait a few minutes before leaving the house, with the hope Trinity would go back inside. The last thing she needed right now were looks and comments from her neighbor. She wiped as much cream as possible off Aiden with the dish towel and rinsed it off. What a horrible end for the poor chocolate brioche. She peeked out the window again. Trinity hadn’t budged.  

“Can we go?” Ty asked.

Lotty took one more look at perfect Trinity and nodded. She knew she shouldn’t care what Trinity thought, but it was still hard to take off running under her watchful eye. Lotty picked up Aiden and hauled him into the garage. “Mo, mo, mo.”

“No more, Aiden. We’re going outside. Want to go in your stroller?”

He went limp in an attempt to slide out of her arms and continued crying for more. She opened the garage, hoping he’d cheer up, but his screams intensified.

“Mom, where’s my helmet?” Ty asked in the background. “Can you help me with my bike? It’s stuck on Dad’s. Can we stop by the cool rocks and pick a few? A few is three. Dad says six is not a few. Get it?”

“Mm hmm,” she answered, though she wasn’t entirely sure what Ty had said since Aiden was screaming in her ear. She buckled Aiden into his stroller while he fought against her. The purple hue in his face deepened with each scream. She jerked Ty’s bike free and searched for his helmet.

“Who is that, Mom? He doesn’t live here. Where is my helmet?”

Lottie looked up into Ty’s confused face. She looked around, but didn’t see anyone out of the ordinary. “Who, Ty?”

Ty said something, but it was lost on her as she spied the missing helmet.

“Here. Here is your helmet,” she said, setting it on his head. “Now let’s concentrate on biking and running.”

She turned to check on Aiden, who’d suddenly gone silent. Her best friend and neighbor, Nikki, wearing a long, fluffy, white bathrobe, held a bubble wand out to him and demonstrated how to make bubbles with a wand of her own.

Lotty smiled. “Thank you.” 

“It looked like you were having a fun morning,” Nikki answered before blowing another stream of bubbles. “And my kids think they’re too cool for bubbles now so this gives me an excuse to use them. I think they’re unbelieva-bubble.” Nikki looked at Ty and laughed at her own pun. Lotty shook her head, but couldn’t help the smile on her face. Nikki told the worst jokes.

Aiden laughed and reached out. Nikki grabbed his hand and gave it a kiss. She looked at her hand and found sticky cream on it. Without saying a word, she wiped it on her robe. One more reason why Nikki was great. Nikki glanced at Lotty’s pink shorts and then back to the stroller. “You giving CrossFit another shot?” 

“I’m going for a run.”

“Sounds ambitious.”

“We live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country and I don’t spend enough time enjoying the great outdoors.”

“It is beautiful,” Nikki answered with a knowing smile as the bus pulled into the cove. She blew kisses to her kids while her two oldest ducked their heads and pretended not to know her. “Good luck with your run, Lotty,” she yelled, crossing the street back toward her house.

“Run?” Trinity perked up as the bus pulled away. “You’re going to run?” Trinity flashed her million-dollar smile, which should actually be called her twelve-thousand-dollar smile since that’s how much she paid the plastic surgeon.

“Yeah. I’m headed out for a quick jog,” Lotty answered, stretching her quad and hoping she looked more comfortable than she felt. Her balance faltered, and she grabbed the handle of the stroller to steady herself. Trinity held her smile as she crossed the street and walked up Lotty’s driveway. 

“You know, Dan went through a phase when he thought he was going to be a runner. His thighs were too thick and were always rubbing together so he bought several sticks of Gold Bond Chafing Formula. I have them in the house if you’re interested.” She nodded toward Lotty’s shorts. “I think you’re going to have the same issue.” The plastered smile on her face didn’t budge a millimeter.

Lotty tried to match her with an ear to ear grin. “Oh, that’s too sweet of you, Trinity, but I’ll be okay.” She widened her stance to prevent her thighs from touching, but no longer looked like she was standing naturally so she bent over and acted like it was all an attempt to stretch more. If only the human body would allow her to suck in her thighs.

Lotty stood up straight, gave one final stretch to her arms, and took off. She wasn’t even out of her driveway when her shorts started riding up. Her thighs rubbed together with every step and oh, the burning. There was probably enough friction to start a fire. She prayed Trinity wasn’t watching, but didn’t allow herself to look back and check. She continued down to the trail on the edge of the water. Their cove sat on the tip of Strawberry Lake, which was named for its rounded triangle shape. Its giant neighbor lake, Flathead, made Strawberry seem more like a pond. 

The waist band of her adorable pink, nylon shorts bumped into her sports bra, forming a sort of bodysuit, rendering her t-shirt pointless. However, the horror of what she must look like was quickly replaced by the horror of what she felt like. Painful darts shot up and down her legs, her lungs were consumed in a searing flame, and her head spun.

“C’mon, Mom. I can’t keep my feet on the pedals when you’re goin’ so slow.”

“Coming,” Lotty huffed. None of the women from the running article had appeared to be moments away from death. They’d looked ecstatic as they loped over rocks and gracefully frolicked in the flowers. Liars.

As the pain intensified, she tried to comfort herself with the mantra “Running won’t kill me. I’ll pass out first.” It was less reassuring than she’d hoped.

The path wound into the trees where she knew she was out of sight of anyone in her cove. She pulled the stroller off the path and leaned against a tree, gasping for air. 

“Mawawm,” Ty whined.

She held up her hand, signaling for him to give her a minute.

He ignored the gesture. “Dad tells me I have to keep pedaling when I’m tired. That’s how my muscles get stronger. You have to keep going to get strong muscles, Mom. And eat broccoli even though it’s gross.” 

“Go, go, go,” Aiden yelled, pointing to the path.

Lotty slid down the tree and sat on the ground. Little pieces of bark and dirt stuck to her sweaty skin.  Her pastry threatened to make a second appearance.

“Go!” Aiden yelled with more force. When Lotty didn’t move, his little lip quivered and tears came. Ty looked longingly down the path, but said nothing. Lotty blinked back her own tears. How had life come to this? She thought of the dozens of times she and Jason had walked along this path - even jogged it - excitedly talking about their future. A future where they didn’t ignore each other, where they didn’t pick each other apart over pastries and lawn mowers, and she certainly didn’t fall to the ground with chafed thighs after running a half-mile.

Ty got off his bike and walked to Lotty. Squatting down so his eyes were staring directly into hers, he patted her head. “It’s okay, Mom. You’ll do better next time.” Lotty wrapped her arms around her sweet boy. “Ugh, you’re all wet,” he said.

“Why don’t we go home and get the van and we can drive over to the cool rocks?” she suggested, standing up and trying to balance on shaky legs.

“Okay.” His eyes lit up.

Sweat dripped down her face as they headed back toward the house. The beautiful Montana spring morning had felt much cooler a few minutes ago. Now it was warm and sticky. Maybe she didn’t need to spend more time enjoying the great outdoors. Instead, she could write an article about eight reasons she detested running.  It could highlight chafed thighs and longing to pass out.  Plus, without running in her life, she’d be better equipped with extra food storage on her hips, butt, and thighs if she ever found herself facing a famine. 

The cove was quiet so Lotty went as fast as her trembling legs would allow, hoping to get out of view before anyone saw how short her run had been. She unbuckled Aiden from the stroller and he immediately wrapped his arms around her neck and lay his head on her shoulder. The fact that she was dripping with sweat and smelled like a teenage boy’s laundry basket didn’t seem to faze him. The simple gesture brought more tears. Why was she such an emotional mess this morning? She unlocked the car and started it to get the air conditioner going. As she relished a few more moments of Aiden holding her tightly, the empty space next to the gate grabbed her attention. The lawn mower was gone. Had Nikki put it away for her? Ty continued messing with the buckle on his helmet while she ducked inside to grab her purse. She froze as soon as she crossed the doorway. Her heart raced and sweat beaded on her forehead. Chairs were tipped over, furniture had been moved, and the TV and computer were gone. She squeezed Aiden tighter. Slowly assessing the damage in the front room, she could only think how thankful she was that she and the boys hadn’t been home. Maybe her morning run had been a good thing after all. A loud engine revving broke into her thoughts. The minivan. She sprinted out the door and watched as the van pulled out of the cove, Ty running after it.