The remarkable thing about my taking Jake to visit my sister-in-law Maureen last weekend was that it seemed so very unremarkable to me.
Mike, you see, had brilliantly realized that even if three of us couldn’t travel to Napa for three days to attend a wedding I had, quite frankly, been dying to attend, he could go without me and Jake. The bride, after all, was the sister of one of his closest friends, and Mike knew his support would be appreciated.
Never mind that this same friend had been the officiant at our wedding, imbuing me, I felt, with a legitimate claim to lend my support to him as he gave away his sister in this one. Never mind that I quite love his sister myself and am truly, deeply thrilled for her. Never mind that I love a wedding in the same unabashed way I love a good romantic comedy — getting dressed up, feeling pretty, dancing with my husband, ending up all teary and thankful when the couple says their vows. And never mind that — to twist the knife a little deeper – the wedding was at the Culinary Institute at Greystone, for crying out loud, and the bride knows how to put on a party.
Never mind all that. I’m a mother, and one who knows better than to believe a 20-month-old would willingly travel a total of 5,000 miles in the space of three days to be left in a strange hotel room with a strange sitter while his parents yuck it up at a big, once-in-a-lifetime party. My job, plainly, was to stay home with him.
My first thought — if you start counting after the many less than charitable thoughts that went through my head as I sweetly agreed with Mike that he should go on his own — was where I could go with Jake that would feel like a getaway and not like three times as much work as staying at home. It’s not that I was scared to stay home for a weekend alone with my child, really. It’s just that the thought seemed so … exhausting. And if Mike was having fun, shouldn’t we as well?
And so I thought of Maureen. She and her family live about a four-hour drive away in West Virginia. Managable, especially if I could count on a two-plus-hour nap from Jake along the way. We haven’t been to see her since October. And, best of all, she has an eleven-year-old daughter who both adores Jake and is itching to start babysitting. Suddenly, Lewisburg, West Virginia, was looking as relaxing and resort-like as Cabo San Lucas.
Truly, it didn’t once cross my mind that going to see Maureen without Mike would make him jealous. I didn’t even think about, say, sticking it to him like he was sticking it to me by going to a fabulous wedding in Napa without me. And, perhaps most to the point, I didn’t think I needed him along to visit myself.
Which means it didn’t seem at all remarkable that I was going to visit my sister-in-law without her brother. Which, as I mentioned, is actually quite remarkable.
