Making Room

Jessica stared around the table, trying to decide whether anyone else had fully grasped what had just happened. Elaine had suggested they all move in together. Not someday. Not as a vague fantasy. As an actual solution. The words still seemed to hang in the air above the dining table, almost visible, and she didn't quite know where to put them.

Everyone else certainly seemed to.

Michelle's eyes sparkled with excitement. Zara looked seconds away from sketching floor plans on a napkin. Even Roy, overwhelmed as he clearly was, hadn't dismissed the idea outright. Surprise, certainly. Confusion. But not rejection.

Only Jessica remained frozen. Not because she didn't want it. Quite the opposite, and that was precisely the problem. If everyone stood up right now, walked out the front door, found a realtor, and started looking for a house big enough for all of them...

Jessica would go with them. There wouldn't even be a debate. She loved Roy. She loved him enough that the idea of waking up beside him every morning seemed less like a fantasy than the way life ought to be. Dinner every evening. Coffee together before work. Falling asleep listening to him read a book or watching terrible television together.

Ordinary life.

Wonderfully ordinary life.

She wanted it.

Very badly.

Which was exactly why another thought arrived only moments later.

Ava.

Jessica's stomach tightened. Her daughter had only recently turned eighteen. For months she'd been quietly preparing herself for the inevitable. Empty nest syndrome. The strange silence that would eventually settle over the house once Ava decided she was ready for her own apartment, her own life, her own future. That was the natural order of things.

Parents stayed.

Children left.

Except...

What if the opposite happened? What if Jessica was the one who packed boxes? The image came to her imagination uninvited. Ava standing in the front hallway, watching movers carry furniture out while Jessica explained that she'd fallen in love and was moving into a new home with her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend and his three other girlfriends. Not that it mattered one bit that she would be sharing Roy with these amazing women. Jessica still wanted it. And she hated how difficult it would be to attain.

A tiny voice somewhere deep inside whispered a single word, rubbing salt in the wound of her desires.

Burden.

Jessica stiffened. No. Absolutely not. Ava was not a burden. She was her daughter! The child she'd raised, protected, and celebrated. The young woman who'd somehow grown into someone bright, independent and wonderfully stubborn. Ava was a blessing. The best thing that had ever happened to her.

Well...

The best thing until Roy had come along.

She wanted to deny it, to fight against it, but there was no pretending that there wasn't a seed of truth in the word. For the first time in her life as a mother, Jessica could feel the strong pull of a desire larger than her love for Ava. She could also feel the tension between those two loves, and the terrible certainty that one side was definitely stronger than the other.

Not even Ava could keep her from wanting Roy.

Guilt followed so quickly it almost made her wince. What kind of mother even thought like that?

Jessica had spent years balancing careers, court dates, school concerts, parent-teacher interviews and late-night illnesses. She had always known which responsibility came first. This wasn't a scheduling conflict. It was a conflict of identity. And as much as she wanted to cleanly jump into living with her boyfriend, Jessica wasn't ready to untangle it.

Roy's face looked like it was going through a large mix of emotions. The poor man was probably feeling as though Elaine had proposed relocating everyone to the moon. He was a good man, but having his life change so quickly, have all of his girlfriends under one roof all at once, would be a lot for anyone to handle. A part of her wanted to take his hand and lead him into the other room, give him space, sit with him quietly while he sorted things out. Another part of her wanted to throw herself onto her knees in front of him and beg him to take her in.

Across the table, conversation continued without her.

"Mister Man's wonderful to live with," Michelle said, smiling dreamily.

"You've only lived with me a few days." Roy sighed. "You haven't had the chance to be driven nuts by me yet."

"I know," she said, sounding delighted by that fact. "A whole lifetime to spend together ahead of us! And you've already made every single day better."

Jessica couldn't stop a smile from forming on her own face. Young love always looked dramatic from the outside. The remarkable thing was that Michelle wasn't exaggerating. Jessica understood, and believed, every word.

Beside Michelle, Zara had entered what Jessica privately thought of as one of her happy information spirals.

"I've always wanted roommates," she said excitedly. "Not college roommates. Those don't count because everybody's broke and somebody always steals your yogurt. I mean proper roommates. People who intentionally like each other. We could cook together. Watch movies. Divide chores. Buy one of those giant whiteboards where everyone writes grocery lists. Maybe colour-code it! Oh! We could rotate who picks movie night. We'll do movie nights, right?"

Laughter circled the table. Even Elaine looked positively radiant.

"I simply don't see the downside," she admitted. "Every woman here loves Roy. Every woman here wants what's best for him. We already enjoy each other's company." The gym teacher looked around the table with quiet certainty. "How often does life hand you a family already assembled?"

Jessica wished the question hadn't touched so directly on the tension she was feeling. Because that was exactly what tonight felt like. Not strangers. Not rivals.

Family.

An impossible family that somehow made perfect, terrible sense.

"But where would we even go?" Jessica asked quietly, almost to herself.

"My house could work," Elaine answered first. "Although it would be snug."

"Snug is a nice word for cramped," Roy muttered. "I know your place. It is wonderful, but there are quite a few of us..."

"I was trying to be optimistic." Elaine smiled.

"My apartment!" Zara announced.

Everyone turned toward her.

"It's small," she admitted immediately. "Very, very small. We'd have to get creative. Maybe bunk beds."

Roy blinked.

"Bunk beds?"

"They're efficient!"

Jessica snorted into her wine.

"And fun," Zara continued enthusiastically. "Like summer camp."

A beat.

"...Except significantly sexier."

Michelle nearly choked on her drink. Roy buried his face in one hand.

"I don't really care where we live," Michelle said once the laughter settled. Her fingers slipped into Roy's almost absentmindedly. "My home's wherever Mister Man is."

Jessica watched their joined hands. Such a simple gesture. Such an easy gesture. The urge to reach across the table and take Roy's other hand surfaced so naturally that it startled her.

Not yet. She needed to think. Sleep on it. Talk to Ava. Think some more. Make lists. She was a lawyer! Lawyers didn't make life-altering decisions over roast chicken.

"My place..."

The words escaped before she'd consciously decided to speak. Four faces turned toward her. Jessica heard herself continue.

"My house is big," she continued, feeling Roy's eyes on her. What was she doing? This was too soon! Too much! Although, she told herself, now that she'd started, it would be worse to stop. Besides, didn't this get her what she wanted? Could it give her the best of both worlds? "It has more than enough bedrooms. It could fit all of us."

Silence. Her pulse quickened.

"As long as..." Jessica swallowed. "...as long as nobody minds that Ava lives there too."

Roy whispered something under his breath.

"Oh my God."

"I can't imagine anyone minding Ava," Elaine said, her expression softening. "She sounds lovely. In fact, I'd love to meet her."

Michelle nodded.

"So would I."

"Oh absolutely," Zara added. "She has fifty percent of your DNA. Statistically she's almost guaranteed to be awesome."

Jessica felt relieved. For the first time since Elaine had proposed the impossible, Jessica allowed herself to truly picture it. A breakfast table. Five women, one of them her daughter, and Roy. The image was too perfect, like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Instead...

It felt like home.