The Anchor

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Okay, Charlotte. Okay.”

“I’m serious!”

“I hear you. I got it.”

“C’mon dude. I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t, I just–”

“You just? You just, what? Go ahead. Tell me what you meant.”

We are walking back to the car after a late showing of whatever superhero movie is out. The ground is covered in fresh snow, our footprints the first set of tracks. The theater was almost empty when we left, save for a teenager no older than seventeen halfheartedly sweeping popcorn off the floors. I wonder why our car is the only one in the lot before remembering that it’s 11pm on a Wednesday.

I take a deep breath and watch as my exhale turns to fog. “I just meant I’ve enjoyed our extra time together the last few months. And I know it won’t be this way forever.”

Gerri is silent for a moment. Her eyes are glued to the car. I silently curse myself for parking at the back of the lot. If we had parked in the first few rows, like Gerri wanted, we may not have had this conversation at all. I had said something about walking being good for your mental health as I drove further back, which earned me a side-eyed glare.

“I don’t think that’s what you meant, though. I don’t doubt that’s true. But that’s not what you said.”

Before I can open my mouth, Gerri keeps talking.

“I don’t think you understand how important this time off is for me, Char. It’s okay if you don’t. You don’t need to understand it to empathize with it.”

I involuntarily wince. I hear our therapist’s voice in hers. Monica, who we seek every other Monday. Monica, who keeps telling us (me) that we (I) need to improve our (my) communication. Monica, who nods and leans forward with curious compassion when Gerri speaks, and furrows her brow and cocks her head when I speak. Monica, who upped her rate last month and pulled me aside privately to tell me, not Gerri, this.

“It just hurts my feelings when you talk about me getting back to work. As if, like, I don’t think about that. I just wanted to have a nice date night with you, and not think about work. I don’t think bringing it up right now makes sense.”

My hand lands on the door to the driver’s side. I unlock the car and slide in, immediately hitting the defrost and the heat. Gerri starts messing with the knobs. She’s still talking.

“Taking time off is self-care. You know how important that is to my process. So when you say things like that, that ‘I wonder how much longer we’ll be able to do weeknight dates’,” she raises her fingers in air quotes and brings her voice up an octave to imitate me, “it’s just…it feels like you don’t get it. Like it’s all about the money for you.”

I sigh. “It’s not all about the money. Seriously. I just meant that we probably won’t be able to do this once you get back to work. You’ll be busy. I didn’t mean it to be about the money.”

“You know I can ask my parents to help us with rent.”

“It’s not about the money.”

“They think my time off is really important. Remember them saying that at Thanksgiving? They said they want to support me, us, however they can. I could ask them to help with February rent.”

“So, you don’t think you’ll go back this month?”

Gerri’s eyes widen and her mouth pops open. “Okay, so it is about the money?”

“I just asked a question!”

“Yeah, about the money.”

“Oh my god, no! It wasn’t about the money. It’s about when you’ll go back to work!” I notice my voice getting louder, and take a beat to catch my breath. In my mind, Monica nods approvingly at me. “The rent isn’t the problem. I can cover it.” Subconscious Monica frowns at me through this lie. “I’m just curious about when you’re going back.”

Silence hangs in the air for a few moments. Gerri still isn’t looking at me. I take a moment to carry my gaze over her profile, her cheekbones, her black hair, the lobes of her ears sticking out from under her hat. I consider sliding a hand across her face, turning her toward me, kissing her passionately. I miss her, but I quickly remember we aren’t in a movie. I drag my eyes back to the wheel and drop my hand onto the gear shift. I feel Gerri’s hand grab mine, holding it still.

“Can we just stop for a second? We should talk.”

“We can talk at home.”

“I just want to talk now.”

“Dude, it’s like 5 degrees out. I’ve got a quarter tank. I don’t want to waste gas idling. I don’t get paid again until next week. Let’s just go home and we can talk it out.”

“Char, I don’t think I’m going back to work anytime soon.”

I look at her again and frown.

“Okay, so not this month. Sometime next month?”

Gerri is looking at me now.

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I have a job to go back to.”

The air is warm and heavy around us. I glance at the heat knobs and consider adjusting them, but my hand is trapped under Gerri’s.

“What?”

“I don’t think I have a job to go back to.”

“Yeah, no, I heard you. But when you left in September, you said your boss approved the sabbatical for six months.” I count quickly in my head. “February would be month six.”

Gerri clears her throat and looks away.

Gerri worked as a journalist. She had only been with her magazine for a few years, but moved up quickly for her ability to capture subjects and stories in a way no one else could. Gerri became well known in the community and when a story dropped, she was often granted the first report, before other journalists even knew a story was out there. She was well loved by her team, remembered birthdays and anniversaries, and stayed out of catty drama. This, she told me, was how she finessed a six month leave from a company that usually asks new moms if they could work from home during their maternity leave.

Gerri didn’t exactly need a sabbatical. She wasn’t planning to Eat, Pray, Love her way to spiritual awakening. She wasn’t writing a memoir. And she certainly wasn’t engaging in any sort of skill or insight building behaviors that would lead her to come back refreshed. No, Gerri “needed” a sabbatical because it was that, or she would be fired. Gerri was at the top of her career, but it would never be enough, for her or her employer. She was overcome by a wave of writer’s block, or “creative paralysis”, as she called it. Too many ideas, and not enough at the same time. Gerri missed deadlines, asked for extensions, and then missed those.

It was after three days of her wearing the same sweatpants around the house that I insisted she see a doctor, a psychiatrist, and a therapist. Gerri, I concluded, was depressed. She was surprisingly open to all of these demands. Three weeks and several medical bills later, she came to me with three points: 1) She was, indeed, depressed, 2) She would like us to attend couples therapy (I later found out this was a suggestion from her mother, who frequently blamed me for all of the world’s problems) and 3) She would be taking a sabbatical. Gerri held my hand and ran her fingers over my knuckles as she told me how she spoke to her supervisor and they collaboratively decided that a six month unpaid sabbatical to “re-awaken her passion” and “ignite her imaginative fire” would be imperative to her success in the field. When I questioned the logistics of this, ranging from how the bills would get paid, and would her job be guaranteed when she came back, and who would be covering her stories, and wait, didn’t your boss deny your time off for my dad’s funeral, what do you mean they’re okay with you leaving for six months?, Gerri was largely dismissive. She smiled and planted kisses on my cheeks while saying “Thank you for helping me see this, Char. You’re my anchor. You keep me grounded. This will be so good for me, for us.”

The next month came in a blur. I assumed Gerri would need to tie up loose ends at the office, however she did not return to work, not even to gather a box of houseplants. She scheduled our first appointment with Monica and put my email down for the contact, citing a “tech detox to rewire my neurons”. Wanting to support her, I completed the associated intake paperwork and punched my credit card into the billing website. We began attending therapy, where Monica encouraged me not to push Gerri into unnecessary action during her intentional period of inaction, and praised Gerri for “radical self-care in a culture that prioritizes production over well-being”. Monica assigned us homework on Love Languages and healthy communication, and practicing how to listen to understand instead of to respond. After two additional months, when I brought up that I felt therapy wasn’t working, Monica asked if Gerri returning to work was the only indicator of “success”, or if I could accept that our goals as a couple may be different than my individual goals. We switched our sessions to every other week after we were late on our electric bill and had to re-evaluate our finances.

“February would be month six, Gerri.” I repeat myself slowly. The moments that pass feel increasingly heavy. The car is hot and Gerri’s hand is sweaty. The windows are starting to fog up. I feel itchy and uncomfortable under my coat. “Right?”

“Char, I didn’t take a sabbatical.”

My conscious mind registers these words and I half expect them to land like a meteor, exploding on contact and unleashing an avalanche of emotions. However, this doesn’t happen. Confusion outweighs any anger. I sit with her words for a moment and frown. They aren’t registering.

“What? What do you mean? You haven’t been to the office in five months. So, did you just quit?”

“I was fired, baby.”

Gerri only calls me “baby” when she needs to soften the blow. Monica would call it a “bid for connection” and curiously ask me why I struggle to attend to these efforts.

“What? Like, when? This week? Can they even fire you on a sabbatical? That doesn’t seem right. You know Casey, right? Casey Johns, Lucy’s husband? He just started working at a firm that does employment law. We can call him tonight–”

“Char, no. Not last week. In September.”

I frown harder. “After you took the sabbatical?”

Gerri sighs. She takes her hand off mine and I momentarily feel cooler as the air hits the dampness she left on my hand. She slides her hat off and puts her palms over her eyes, rubbing up and down.

“There was no sabbatical. Okay?”

“What?”

“Jesus,” she murmurs, rubbing her face harder. “There was no sabbatical. I got fired. In September. I lied to you. I missed a deadline and they fired me. No regard for all the deadlines I have made, mind you. No goodbye party. Just walked out the door. So I just wanted to buy myself some time off work. To reset after that. And I thought by February, I’d definitely have a new lead. Or someone reaching out to me about an opening somewhere, or something. And I’d get back to work somewhere else. And it would be fine. So, it basically would be a sabbatical. Just, not like an official one. And I guess I might need to extend it.”

The meteor lands.

“Gerri, are you fucking with me right now?”

She drops her hands from her face and turns to me. I expect to see shame or guilt. Instead, I see fury. Her jaw is tightened, her eyes wide, and her lips pressed into a firm line.

“Okay, you don’t need to raise your voice with me–”

“Dude, I think I’m allowed to be mad–”

“Do you know how much I hate it when you call me ‘Dude’? ‘Dude’? Like I’m your buddy?”

“Are you serious? Don’t try to change the subject!”

“And this is why I didn’t tell you, okay? Because you have really poor emotional regulation skills, Char!”

“My emotional regulation skills? Are you serious? Can you just talk to me like…like a human? Not like fucking Monica?”

“I’m not talking to you like Monica!”

The palms of my hands find the steering wheel and slam against it. It stings and radiates down through my wrists and forearms. “Gerri, what the fuck? What the fuck did you do? Do you know how much fucking stress you put me under?” I pause, as I see her fumbling with the zipper on her coat. She shrugs it off and begins fanning her neck with her hand. This gesture further angers me, although I can’t put words to why. Neither of us move to adjust the heat. “Do you know how shit our finances are, Gerri? We’re behind on, like, literally everything.”

“You said it wasn’t about the money.”

“Are you kidding me? Are you seriously going to make this my fault?”

“I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault–”

“It’s your fault! Oh my god. It’s your fault.”

“Wow, Char, thanks a lot. I’m just trying to be honest with you, here, you know–”

“You’re about six months late! You could’ve been honest with me in September! We could’ve figured it out. I could’ve helped you find a job–”

“That’s why I wasn’t honest! I didn’t want a job! I wanted a break! I bust my ass, and wanted to rest. It’s radical self-care, and I think you need to re-evaluate your relationship with productivity and capital–”

“Stop! Stop talking like Monica! Just stop!” I slam my hands over and over on the steering wheel. I hit the horn. “What about what I want, Gerri? What about that? I want to be able to afford to put gas in my car! I want to be able to take you to the movies and not have to check my account balance before I buy the tickets! I want to, I don’t fucking know, be able to pay rent without needing to run to your parents! I don’t really care that you don’t want to work! I don’t want to fucking work, but I do, because I love you and I want us to have a good life! So I put my shit aside, like every other adult, and I get my ass to the office five days a week. Maybe you could try being an adult for once in your fucking–”

Knock, knock, knock. Three quick taps hit the driver’s side window. Gerri and I both jump in our seats. I roll down the window without checking to see who is there. A blast of cold air floods the car.

“I need to lock the gate.” The teenage movie theater employee stands outside the window. He has his arms crossed over his chest and is visibly shivering. Behind him, a middle-aged woman driving a mini van cranes her neck forward to watch the interaction play out.

“The gate?”

“Yeah.” He points with one finger toward the other side of the lot, where we came in. I see the gate he is referencing. “We closed like 20 minutes ago. You have to leave now.”

“Right, yeah, sorry, sorry. We’ll be going.” I wait for him to step away from the car, but he does not. I see his eyes look over to Gerri, who has her head down. Her hair shades her face from his, and I am certain she is crying. I quickly grab the gear shift before the teen has a chance to ask if she’s okay. We crunch forward over the fresh snow. I look in my rearview mirror and see the teen get into the minivan. We turn left out of the lot, and they mercifully don’t follow.

Gerri and I drive home in silence. The ten minute drive feels like an eternity. I don’t roll the window back up, and cold air fills the car. It feels heavenly. Gerri reaches over at some point and turns the heat off. By the time I pull into the apartment parking lot, my fingers are starting to turn red and Gerri has shuffled back into her coat. I back into our designated spot and shift the car into park, turn the key in the ignition. The car hums briefly, then silence. Neither of us move for the door.

“We should talk about this in therapy,” Gerri says quietly.

I nod.

“I can call Monica tomorrow, move our appointment up,” she offers.

I nod again.

I think about how many hours we’ve spent in this car. How many pre and post therapy arguments have been contained by these doors and windows. I think of all the moments in those arguments where I felt confused, uncertain, and suspicious. I think of how I avoided pressing, and accepted dismissal and reassurance. How I brushed my own concerns under the floor mats, reminding myself that I was Gerri’s anchor. Maybe I liked that role. Being needed, depended on.

I think that maybe this is, in some ways, my fault.

I briefly wonder what Monica will say about this.

I realize it doesn’t matter.

I take a deep breath of cold air, and find that for the first time in months, I can breathe.