neighbours

Erin leaned over to grab her mug of tea off the coffee table. She was tired; the baby had been keeping her up every night for a week and didn't show any signs of being ready to accept a regular sleep schedule. With the cup still just out of reach she stretched an inch further and in doing so knocked the remote onto the floor. The baby woke with a start and started wailing. Again.

At 31 she was not the youngest mother on the block. In fact, part of her decision to have a child now was due to the pressure she felt from her peers. The sense of being left behind as everyone entered their 30's with babies. And then of course there was Jacob - he had wanted kids since they first married 3 years ago. The fact that she had managed to put him off this long was a miracle.

It wasn't that she didn't enjoy being a mother. She did love looking into her baby's face and seeing the wonder in what she had made. And she loved Jacob more than ever before; he was an amazing father already and watching him with the baby often brought tears to her eyes. But, there was this feeling that she would get, sometimes; usually, during the day, when she should have been at work and instead was at home nursing and watching daytime television. She felt afraid to go out. For one thing, it was so much effort to get the baby ready and she was never sure if he was warm enough or what to do if he started crying in public. But also, she never could figure out where to go. She saw the other women in her neighbourhood walking all over with their strollers and their dogs and meeting for coffee but she couldn't get her dog to behave around the stroller and walking was still painful because of the c-section. The days seemed long. Long and lonely. And of course, as a constant reminder of the life she gave up (and never really grasped) there was the girl who lived downstairs.

The girl, actually she was the same age as Erin, was constantly coming and going. It was obvious that she worked a lot but Erin would also see her leaving the house with sports gear and on her way out for runs and walks nearly every day. She always seemed to be doing something. She was married to a guy that Erin guessed was a little bit older and over the first summer that they had lived below Erin had noticed how they always seemed to be having fun together. She became obsessed with watching the girl’s comings and goings and wishing that she could get out of the house and be free.

It not that Erin hated her. Yes, she was jealous, but that wasn't the real problem either. The real problem was that Erin wondered if she had made the right choices in life. She began to rewind her life over the past 10 years and see how much time she had wasted and how little she had done for herself before becoming a mother. And now it was too late. Now she would never again be able to think about herself first. And, what was worse, neither would Jacob.

But, these thoughts really only occurred during the most quiet moments of the morning. When it was still dark and the whole city was still asleep and she felt hers was the only mind awake. During the day she could abate the thoughts by watching tv, or strapping the baby up into his stroller and walking into the shops, or by talking on the phone to her other friends who had babies. Besides, everyone else thought she had made the right decision in having a child now. That was important too.

Dominic traded one more snooze for breakfast. Of course, when he finally did get up at 5:19am he was angry. Angry at himself, angry at his ex-wife, angry at the neighbour who told him to quiet down the music last night, angry at everything. As he stood before the toilet bowl he could feel nothing but anger and frustration seething within him. Not that he identified the emotions. No, instead his head was filled with thoughts of, “You’re so stupid. No one is ever going to love you. Your daughters hate you. You’re such a loser” and so another part of his brain translated those thoughts into, “Everyone is against me. Why can’t I just get a break? Why is everyone trying to control my life?. And, in yet another part of his brain, the most conscious part, those thought s were being translated into, “That fuckin piehole upstairs thinks he tell me when to be quiet? I’ll fucking show him” And with that Dominic donned his heavy work boots and set about walking all over the apartment while listening to Sepultura at level 6 and banging the walls a few times.
“Lets’ see how you like this, fucker”, he thought.

40 minutes later, when he opened the front door to leave, the guy from upstairs was standing on the front stoop. Just waiting.
“That’s it buddy. You just totally fucked yourself.”, he told Dominic.
“Get out of my way ass pipe, some of us have to work for a living”, Dominic said.
“I had the Strata president here this morning, you’re going to be fined for the noise and it’s not going to be light. Get ready to say goodbye to $500 you asshole”
And with that the guy turned and disappeared up his own stairs. Dominic tried to think of a response but was muted. He couldn’t believe it. $500! There was no way he could pay that. Between, child support, bills and the mortgage he barely had anything left for himself at the end of each month – a garbageman only makes so much. As he trudged towards the beat-up camper he used as a vehicle he thought sullenly…”Where did I go wrong?” But, after stating up the engine, lighting a smoke and pressing play on the tape deck, he knew that it was the world against him and that no matter what he did he would always get pushed down.

Before going to work this morning, Louise watered the plants, had a nice light breakfast, walked the dog and packed a nice lunch for herself. She was dressed sensibly in a pair of black slacks and loafers and was wearing a new sweater set that her niece had given her for her birthday. As she walked towards the underground parking she waved at her neighbour from the far side and thought to herself, “Why is she always so damn happy?”.

Work was a bore again today. Being 50 and still working as an Admin Assistant was not exactly the way she had envisioned her career path progressing. At 25 she had been a super star – just graduated with a degree in Communications and working for a large advertising company in Toronto. As she thinks back to those days it’s hard to stay focused on work. She had a challenging position back then, she had respect and was marked for great things. She also had a boss who was intensely attractive and whom she was having an affair with almost from day one. They went on for 6 years with him telling her over and over that he would leave his wife and four children. Finally, when Louise turned 31 she knew what she had to do. Get pregnant or get out. Of course the moment she went off the pill he seemed to know. The break-up was bad. She called his house and spoke to the wife, she stalked him, she threatened to go to the partners and expose their relationship. In the end, her work deteriorated and she was canned. In all likelihood the partners probably knew all along; it’s just that she was the more expendable one. After that she seemed to be black listed. Without a reference from her last employer she was just a 31 year old with a bit of education and a dubious job history. When finally the bills got out of control she took a job as an administrative assistant at a seniors housing facility in Vancouver. A fresh start, maybe it would make a difference. But, that was 18 years ago. To think of it put a lump in her throat – she was 50 and childless. She had Peter in her life but he was barely a companion. Most of their evenings together were spent talking about him and then retiring for clumsy sex that was never satisfying.

Lying in bed at night she would sometimes imagine herself in an alternate life; a life with a purpose. But her thoughts would always bring her back to the reality of who and where she was. Waiting.