The Things We Wish Were True by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen Page A

fridge with the six-pack of beer inside, bought for just this occasion. Then with a sigh of surrender, he headed upstairs to change into his swim trunks.
    But he was taking the beer with him.

BRYTE
    She held Christopher’s hand as she led him over to the pool, barely listening to his chatter about the ducks on the lake and the clouds in the sky. Instead, she tried to watch Jencey without appearing to. Jencey’s girls were playing with another girl, all three running from the girl’s brother whenever he came near them. Jencey, seemingly oblivious to their shrieks, was reading a People magazine on a chaise lounge.
    She helped Christopher into the pool and glanced longingly in her old friend’s direction, looking away too late when Jencey unexpectedly looked up from her magazine. Busted, she raised her hand in greeting as if she’d meant to catch Jencey’s eye the whole time. “I thought that was you!” she said, her voice too loud and excited. As kids, she’d always been the awkward one, the tagalong just trying to match her steps to Jencey’s. It was funny how lightning fast she could fall back into her old, awkward ways. She wished some of her friends were around—friends who only knew her now—but the overcast day had kept them away.
    Jencey returned her wave and went back to reading her magazine as Bryte, disappointed, focused on her son and took her designated seat on the hot concrete, the heat radiating through her swimsuit. She talked to Christopher, cheered his continued attempts to submerge his face underwater, and did her best not to look back over at Jencey, who, finished with her magazine, had closed her eyes and appeared to be sleeping.
    Bored, Bryte’s mind wandered to the e-mail she’d received that morning from her former boss, the one marked “Urgent,” asking her to come in for a meeting regarding her return to work. Minutes later, according to the time stamp, she’d received another e-mail from a coworker begging her to come back.
     
    The place isn’t the same without you! We miss you! We NEED you!
     
    While it was nice to be wanted, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go back there. She wasn’t sure she could get excited about selling technical training to Fortune 500 companies again. And yet, returning to work would stop the second-child discussion in its tracks, at least for a while.
    “Ouch!” Jencey said as her backside made contact with the hot concrete, jarring Bryte from her internal debate.
    Bryte gave her a welcoming smile, glad for the distraction. “Hi,” she said.
    “I’d tell you that I used to have to do this when mine were little, but I mostly had help with this part of motherhood,” Jencey said, gesturing to the shallow end and to Christopher donned in water wings.
    “You were lucky,” Bryte said, even though she didn’t really feel that way. Tiring as it was, she wanted to experience every moment with her only child. Because he would be their only child, if only she could figure out how to make Everett understand that. Using a return to work as an excuse to put the debate off was sounding even more appealing.
    “Mom, when can Lilah and I have a sleepover?” Jencey’s oldest ran over to ask, breathless from running. Her name was Pilar. The youngest was Zara. As girls, Jencey and Bryte had dreamed up baby names. Neither Pilar nor Zara had, so far as Bryte could recall, ever been on Jencey’s list. But then again, Christopher hadn’t been on Bryte’s.
    “We can talk about it later,” Jencey said, her voice kind and patient in front of Bryte.
    “But, Mom, Lilah wants to.” Pilar was relentless, which was expected, seeing as who her mother was. But Pilar didn’t look like Jencey. Bryte guessed she looked like the father, whose name, Bryte knew, was Archer, Arch for short. This name so suited the man who would marry Jencey that Bryte had laughed when she read it on the wedding announcement tacked to her parents’ refrigerator. Bryte had been certain the