Caeli Widger - Mother of Invention

At dinner, she’d asked him about his passions, and he’d talked first about swimming and rock climbing, both of which he taught for a living, and then about food. How he’d gotten his master’s at Berkeley in sustainable nutrition and had always dreamed of opening a store that reflected his vision of locally sourced, package-free products. A store that created zero waste, left no trace, carried not a scrap of plastic or paper.

“Zero-Sum-Yum,” Tessa had said, off the top of her head.

“What’s that?” Peter leaned closer to her, across the table.

“Your store. You could call it Zero-Sum-Yum.”

His face broke into a grin. “That’s brilliant.”

“So what’s stopping you?”

He’d shrugged.

Later, when they’d become a couple, Tessa didn’t think twice about giving Peter the capital to open his store. She was in love with him, and she certainly had the money. She funded his business and, a year later, accepted the engagement ring (sapphire, passed down from his grandmother) that he presented during a weekend trip to Napa, his voice quavering as he dropped to one knee.

Tessa had never regretted saying yes to Peter’s proposal, but she wished she’d thought twice about funding his business. ZSY had closed after just fourteen months, after operating at a steady loss. The loss didn’t concern Tessa much. She knew it could take three or four years, five even, for a specialty brick-and-mortar retailer to turn a profit, and privately, she’d never really expected to see a return from ZSY. Her goal had been to provide Peter with fulfillment. A sense of purpose. Instead, he’d become more rudderless than ever.

“The store is failing,” he’d told Tessa over seafood tapas and sangria on Valencia Street, after ZSY’s accountant had delivered another quarter-year’s worth of abysmal numbers. “ I’m failing.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t about money. Not yet. It’s about seeing a passion through. It’s about putting your values into action. The numbers might be modest, but you’ve got repeat business. You’ve got a base of loyal customers. What we’ve got to do now is grow that base. Build the brand. Create name recognition. ZSY needs to become synonymous with delicious, conscionable food . Its mission needs to inspire consumer action.”

Peter dropped a shrimp tail onto his plate and stared at it. “Tessa, stop,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “ZSY is not going to make it. I’m in the store every day. I feel it.”

“Businesses don’t run on feel .”

“Fine. But I can’t live with blowing through your money this way.”

“ Our money,” Tessa corrected.

“Whatever. I still can’t live with it.”

Maybe you should try harder, she thought, but she could hear he’d made up his mind.

“Okay, so you close the store,” she said, as gently as possible. “Then what? Back to teaching?”

Peter stabbed a small, sharp fork between two halves of a mussel shell and shook his head. “Most swim coaches are in their twenties. I don’t want to be the old guy.”

“What, then?”

His eyes searched for hers in the dim light of the restaurant. He seemed to be summoning courage.

“I want to be a full-time father.”

His statement hung in the air like an unidentifiable scent.

“A father to whom?”

“Well.” Peter cleared his throat. “To our child, ostensibly.”

“Our child.”

“What?”

Tessa reached for her sangria and drained the last of it. “We’ve already been over this. We’re too old. The planet is overwhelmed. We’re not parental types.”

“But maybe we are. It’s not too late to find out.”

“It is,” said Tessa calmly. “We’re in our forties now. Way past peak fertility.”

“People do it in their forties all the time.”

“True,” Tessa said. “Just not me. Even if we could get pregnant immediately.”

“Why not?”

“Because I will fail,” said Tessa.

“You won’t fail. You’d be an amazing mother.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I’d be a scrambled, exhausted, guilty one.”

“And that would be okay. That’s how all mothers feel.”

“But they shouldn’t,” Tessa said. “Our standards as a culture keep sinking to new lows. It’s no longer a question of whether women can do it all. It’s just assumed that we will. It’s assumed that we can be great careerists and mothers and spouses and still magically keep the laundry in check. Which is not only impossible, it’s mass exploitation. It’s keeping women in a permanent state of fatigue and anxiety. I can’t be a part of it.”

“Hear me out,” he said. “What if I committed to doing all the parenting? The feeding and the night-waking and the pediatrician appointments. The diapers and the spit-up and the screaming. All of that will be up to me . You could literally do nothing but hold the baby when you felt like it. I will commit to this one hundred percent.” His voice grew husky with sincerity and emotion. The din in the restaurant seemed to be growing louder.

“Why? Why did you decide this was the answer?”

“Honestly? Because of you. I look at you and how much satisfaction you get from your work, and I’m jealous. I want that level of fulfillment, but I’m never going to have a career that I love the way you love yours. Look at how I ran my business into the ground. I’m just a different type of person.”

“You didn’t run ZSY into the ground. The natural foods market is tough.”

“Still. I need something else. Something more challenging and mysterious. Something bigger. Otherwise, I’m going to be in limbo until I die.”

“Peter.” Tessa could see the disappointment claiming his face as she spoke his name, assuming rejection. This triggered a deflating sensation in her own body, like air leaking from a tire. “I… I wish I could give you this. There’s nothing I want more than for you to be happy.”

“But?”

“But your logic is flawed. It’s endearing, but it’s idealistic. A mother cannot extricate herself from the parenting process. It’s impossible.”

“It’s possible, Tessa. You don’t even have to breastfeed. I’ll use milk banks and wear a prosthetic.”

She almost laughed.

“Don’t laugh,” said Peter. “Isn’t this right up your alley? Practically straight out of Pushing Through ?

A server materialized at their table. “Dessert?” asked the young man brightly. “Pistachio flan, perhaps?”

Neither of them looked up.

“I’m promising you, Tessa. If you’ll give birth, I’ll do the rest. One hundred percent. We’ll be a triumph of modern parenting. You can write your next book about it while I’m at the playground with the baby. Think of the title possibilities.” He paused, thinking. “The Hands-Off Mother: Maternity, Revisited.”

Tessa couldn’t help smiling. “Not bad.”

“Fathering the Storm,” Peter went on. “Trading Places, the Sequel.”

“Have you been thinking of these?”

“Maybe.” He clasped his hands together and leaned them on the table. “But seriously, Tessa. If you would be open to reconsidering a baby—just one —I would take full responsibility. I would work my ass off without a single complaint.”

“Do I come across as hopelessly unmaternal?”

“Of course not. I just know your priorities.”

Tessa felt a dovetailing in her mind, her aversion to childbearing suddenly cleaving into the logic of Peter’s argument, reshaping her original stance— absolutely not —into something new. This was one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him: his ability to surprise her with his thoughts. She’d had no idea he’d been thinking about stay-at-home parenting and surrogate breastfeeding. She found this oddly touching. Whether or not it could actually work, whether such an unconventional arrangement could abate the devouring effect children had on their mothers’ lives, well. Tessa wasn’t sure. But the fact that Peter had proposed such alternatives with so much earnestness, the clean line of his jaw tense with conviction as he spoke, made her love him more than ever.