Author’s Note: This story is adapted excerpts from my upcoming novel Pause, about a woman’s sometimes painful, often humorous midlife journey.

Lindsey rolls down the window and takes some deep breaths as she turns off the country road into her parents’ drive—a long stretch through a field of tall ripening grasses and darting goldfinches. At the end of it, the artificial pond and waterfall, green watered lawns, trimmed flowerbeds, and what she calls the Friedan Folly—the ostentatious house her parents built for their retirement.

The two-story, three-bedroom oak and tiled “dream house” has become an oversized mausoleum for mother Opal to rattle around in like a dried pea. Coerced into moving from the house in town she loved, now she’s isolated out in the county with her failing strength and vision, unable to drive and depending on visits from her daughters. Meanwhile, Lindsey’s father Arlen roars around in his huge diesel pickup truck, wheeling and dealing with his cronies, or gone on fishing and hunting trips.

Lindsey suspects he made a deal with the devil to stay so energetic at eighty-five. When she was younger, she’d blithely assumed she could choose what she’d inherit: her father’s toughness and adventurous vigor; her mother’s songs and gentle spirit. Now as the days come down to her (Joni Mitchell on her inner playlist), she has to face the flip side of these traits: Dad’s restless self-absorption and hair-trigger anger; Mom’s singing voice turned to a fussy whine of suffering.

Lindsey suddenly puts on the brakes. Partway down the dirt drive, she shuts off the motor, closes her eyes, and takes another deep breath. She gets out and walks into the hayfield. Moving slowly, holding out her arms to feel the scratchy stems, she lets the fringy tops slide through her fingers. Childhood habit kicks in, and she breaks off a stem, strips out the tender inner shoot, tastes the sweet greenness. Chewing on the bobbing stem, she returns to the Subaru, pulls out the audiobook reader she’s bought for Mom, and heads to the house.

“Linny!” Opal blinks through her thick lenses, then beams. She struggles to rise from the oversized lounger where she’s propped up with back and neck cushions, heating pad, afghan, and napping shapes of striped cat and spotted terrier.

“Don’t get up, Mom.” Lindsey sets down the box and hurries over to perch on the arm of the lounger, leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek. She fluffs the thinning gray strands her mother still has permed into a pouf that now reveals a lot of scalp. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, I decided to add another half pill at night of the Remeron. I just couldn’t get to sleep worrying about Eric and the baby.”

“Mom, did you talk to Dr. Nichols about that?” Opal loves to tinker with her meds, which sets off Lindsey’s alarm bells. Last time, she overdosed herself by upping her antidepressant.

“These young doctors, they just don’t understand how I suffer!” Opal looks indignant, and Lindsey makes a mental note to call Dr. Nichols. She’s the new GP, really sharp and specializing in geriatric patients. The family doesn’t want Opal changing docs again.

“Mom, remember what your counselor said. It’s best if you just pray for the grandkids, try not to worry so much about them.” The latest on her sister Joanie’s oldest is he’s lost his job after falling back into the heroin habit, and his now-ex-girlfriend’s in jail for stealing to support hers. How Joanie is coping with custody of their toddler, who has developmental problems, Lindsey has no idea.

“Here, Mom.” She resets, puts on a smile. “I brought you something, I want you to try it out.” She steps over to the box and opens the flaps, sets aside the audiobooks she’s checked out of the library, then pulls out the compact player.

She wants to plug it in and demonstrate with the earphones while she’s caught Mom in position, let her see this could work, since she refused to try the magnifying reading lamp with the large-type books she can’t read any more: “It’s too bulky, it won’t fit by the lounger. I’ve got my little table there with my pills and everything.”

“Okay.” Linsey turns back to Opal, ready to plug it in.

But by this time her mother’s already struggling upright, plucking at the afghan with helpless little movements, fumbling with the button that releases the extended leg rest. “I’ve got to get up and get lunch ready. Your dad will be in from the shop in a minute.”

“Wait, it won’t take long…”

Too late. The window of opportunity creaks shut as Opal pulls herself to the edge of the lounger, grimacing and rubbing her back. Spike the cat and Bingo the terrier stir and protest the disruption. Opal grunts and bobs forward in a false start at launching herself to her feet. Lindsey drops the player on the cushions and takes her mother’s thin shoulders, gently eases her up onto her feet.

She sways for a second, knit pants and matching top with appliqued roses hanging loose on her shrinking frame. She finds her balance and shuffles toward the kitchen on the other side of the breakfast counter.

Lindsey plugs in the audio player, sets it temporarily on her mother’s side table, where there’s plenty of room once she eases aside the water jug and tray holding all the prescription bottles. She inserts a book CD, slips on the headphones, and fast-forwards to the first chapter of an Agatha Christie novel.

“Okay.” She follows Opal around the counter to the sink, where she’s holding a kettle under the faucet, hands shaking. “I can do that, Mom.” She takes the kettle, fills it, starts to set it on a burner on the stove.

“Wait!” Opal plucks up a tea towel, clutches Lindsey’s arm, and wipes a couple of drops off the bottom of the kettle before she’ll allow it to be set on the burner.

Lindsey refrains from rolling her eyes, the old teenage response, and lets Opal direct the lunch preparations, lets her explain for the hundredth time the right way to set out the plates, how to use the can opener and which container to put the fluorescent orange preserved peaches in, the exact thickness the American cheese must be sliced “or Arlen will growl.”

“Who’s the goddamn idiot blocking the driveway?”

Having announced his presence, Lindsey’s dad slams the door. Still a handsome man with his deeply tanned face and most of his formerly-black, wavy hair, he stomps over in work boots and coveralls to give her a rough hug. “Where the hell you been? Figured you must’ve moved off to Oregon again.” From Arlen, this is a big display of affection.

“What about you? The last couple times I was here, I figured you’d moved to Canada.” Lindsey plays along, doing the “good ol’ gal” back at him. “You score any fish?”

“Big waste of time. Humpies weren’t running yet, goddamn river all screwed up. Tree-huggers!” He turns to Opal. “Where the hell’s my sandwich? I told you I’ve got to get to town this afternoon.”

Opal’s hand tremor is worse as she hastily picks up the spatula, checks the white-bread cheese sandwich toasting in the buttered pan. She utters a little exclamation, flips the sandwich, reaches to turn down the heat. Black charring streaks the bread.

Lindsey finds herself moving quickly over to hide the sight from her dad, figures they can scrape off the bit of burned bread. But Arlen’s already spotted it.

“Goddamn son of a bitch! Jesus Christ, you’re worthless! All you do is sit there popping pills all day, can’t you manage one little thing for me?” He strides over, jostling Lindsey, and grabs the pan off the stove. He jerks around with it, face flushing, thrusts it clattering and hissing into the wet sink, as Lindsey pulls her mother aside, feels her trembling.

Something snaps inside Lindsey, her spine straightening in protest of that hunched-in posture of her mother’s. She guides Opal back to the lounger, tells her to just sit a minute, then she strides back over to her fuming father, who’s ripping into the fridge and throwing out packets of bread and cheese, slamming condiments onto the counter, swearing in a nonstop rant.

“Stop it!” Lindsey plants herself in front of him as he turns.

He stops short in surprise, then glares at her. “Get the hell out of my way.”

“Not unless you stop swearing.” Lindsey has no idea where this is coming from, or going.

He scowls, takes a step closer, fists clenching as he uses his height to force her to look up.

“Don’t.” Lindsey fights her own urge to back off, cringe.

Arlen still glowers, but he’s shifted somehow, not trying to loom over her now. They stare at each other for a minute, punctuated by some heavy breathing. Then he shakes his head, turns away, stomps down the hall into the bathroom. Bingo, yapping, runs after him.

On the lounger, Opal is crumpled over, a trembling hand patting Spike’s striped fur. Tears are sliding from under her glasses, catching in the soft wrinkles of her cheeks.

“Mom.” Lindsey sits down and holds her, rocking. She blows out a long breath as she realizes it’s the way Opal used to comfort her when she was little.

The back door slams, and a minute later Arlen’s truck rumbles into life, starts to roar off down the drive. Lindsey remembers her Subaru then, blocking the way, and braces herself for a crash. Instead, a blaring horn. She just sits there, patting her mother’s back.

Dear Diary:

Survived another Mom & Dad visit. Is it a good or bad sign that I’m finally starting to understand Opal’s slippery slope? This is how it goes:

You hunker down with Nick’s yelling, the tension and vigilance, locked in a nightmare but thinking you’re going to wake up any day now. You’re strong, you’re not like Opal. And you remember the good parts, years and dreams invested in this marriage, in loving him, and could you have been that wrong? It’s not so bad, really. There is chemistry still there, he’s a handsome man, you can’t deny the charisma, and though the sex isn’t tender or really making love, it’s reliable. You’ve become adept at supplying the missing emotional foreplay, taking responsibility like a good girl for your own orgasm. At least he’s there, in bed, even warms it up for your cold feet. And you shudder at the thought of being single—not to mention the horrors of Dating!—in your fifties. You’d be going in one fell swoop from the envied Married Woman to the least-desirable social unit imaginable—crone female, divorced and menopausal.

It was the “egg incident,” as Lindsey has labeled the memory, that started her seriously wondering about her husband Nick’s mental health. Over the years with him, it had come to seem normal to tiptoe around his anger-triggers, the same way as a child she’d learned to watch for the signs of a Dad explosion, keep herself braced for getting grabbed by the neck or whacked on. But with Nick, she’d thought she’d finally found a perfect match (the opposite of far-Right rageaholic Arlen)—liberal, creative, dedicated to his environmental work. Though with Nick, too, it was better not to question too much, not push for connection he wasn’t willing to offer. Finally, that day—when she found herself literally walking on eggshells—she had to face the music.

It was a Sunday morning, and Lindsey had planned a surprise. When they’d first started living together, they’d enjoyed making pumpkin waffles, eating them in bed and licking any maple syrup drips off each other. So this weekend she’d made sure they were stocked up on all the ingredients, had pulled the waffle iron out of the back of the cabinet the day before to dust it off.

“Come on, I need some help in the kitchen!” She dragged him protesting away from his newspapers, and the head of steam he was building over “the gutless EPA trying to screw us over again with lower standards.” She had all the ingredients laid out, ready, the waffle iron plugged in and heating up.

“I got a new bottle of real maple syrup.” She waggled it at him, raising an eyebrow.

He hesitated, then grinned. “All right. I guess I get to help with the…cleanup?”

She laughed, relieved. “If you treat the cook right, maybe.”

He snorted and pulled a knife from the wooden block, started slicing a lemon for their tea. “No way, I’m the head chef around here. Whose recipe is it, anyway?”

She shrugged. “You got a point.”

“Okay, I’ll whip the egg whites and you can heat up the syrup, mash the pumpkin.”

“Done. I bought canned, didn’t want you smelling the pumpkin cooking and ruin the surprise.”

He paused, holding the knife. A little frown. “It’s better with fresh.”

“This is organic, I’ve used it in pies before.”

He sighed and turned to the egg carton lying on the counter, flipping the lid open with the tip of the long knife. Lindsey hoped the eggs had reached room temperature by now.

“Where did you get these?”

“What?” Lindsey, pulling the can opener out of a drawer, peered around Nick and realized it was the Styrofoam carton he was staring at. “Oh. I didn’t have time to go to the co-op, so I had to pick some up at Thrifty Shop. I was surprised they actually have a little organic section now.”

“But it’s Styrofoam packaging. Lin, you know how bad that is for the ecosystem.”

“Nick, I know. It was just this once. And I think we’re doing our part—I mean, I rode my bike over there, don’t I get points for that?”

He still had the frown lines creasing his forehead. “I just don’t get it, Lin. It’s not that hard to establish new shopping habits, the co-op even does most of the research to find ‘green’ producers. For one thing, we can recycle our old cardboard cartons and buy the bulk eggs there.”

“I’ve been doing that.” She spread her hands. “Nick, if you want to do the shopping, that’s fine with me.”

“Oh, that’s just great!” He swung around, the knife still gripped in his hand, and she had to take a quick step back to avoid it.

“Nick, be careful.” He tended not to be aware of the usual body-space considerations. Like the way he’d let a branch snap back at her on hiking trails, so she’d learned to give him plenty of room.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m just asking you to get with the program, Lin! Don’t you think I have enough stress with the new job? I’m paying the bills, so I figured you’d be happy to carry the household end.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it and made herself take a deep breath. “Nick, it’s not like I’m a housewife with nothing else to do. I’ve got a job, too, even if it is only part-time. I had to take what I could get after you went for the transfer here.”

“Wait a minute. You were the one who wanted to move back to Fairview so you could be closer to your family. So I took the transfer, even though I inherited a real mess up here.”

Lindsey blinked. All she could do was stare in disbelief. It had been “the bureaucratic bullshit” and “jerk administrators” at Nick’s previous posting at the environmental watchdog agency that had driven his blood pressure through the ceiling, triggered his insomnia. She’d given up her job and the beach cottage she’d loved, so they could get a fresh start.

This was his second transfer. Lindsey was beginning to wonder if “impossible working conditions” were really the problem.

She took another deep breath. “Nick, you’re working hard, and it’s for important causes. I just want some credit for all I do, too. It’s not like I’m sitting around. I’ve put in most of the labor getting this house in shape, and I take care of almost all the upkeep. I mow the lawn, weed the garden, put out the recycle bins even when it’s your turn, plus doing the housework. I’ve been trying to help you, I know you’re stressed over the job, but can’t we just lighten up today, let this go? Maybe go for a bike ride, have some fun?”

He turned abruptly back to the counter and thrust the knife clattering into the sink, scowling down at the egg carton.

“Nick, please.” She took a step closer to touch his arm.

He jerked like she’d stung him, then swung sharply around, and his elbow rammed hard into her sternum, between her breasts.

Lindsey fell back, jolted. “Nick! Watch it. That hurt.” She rubbed the tender spot.

“Come on, I barely brushed you. Don’t blindside me when I’m trying to cook.”

“What? You weren’t—”

“Damn it! Don’t tell me what I’m doing!” His face had gone red, that look he’d get like it was ready to explode. “Fuck this shit!” He grabbed the egg carton and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall by the door and burst open in a spattering yellow mess. He strode toward the door.

“Nick, wait. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Lindsey tried to catch his arm, slow him down so she could explain what she’d meant. They could talk it out.

He whirled around, ripped her hand free, shoved her away from him. She slipped in the mess, stumbled back over crunching eggshells, and then her feet slid out from under her and she landed on her butt in the slimy goop. She sat stunned as he grabbed his keys and slammed out the door. The car revved, loud, and roared off down the road.

She sat, ears ringing. What had she said? All she could hear was the echo of her own voice, saying, “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry sorry sorry.

“Linny! Watch out!” Opal clutches the armrest on the passenger side as Lindsey pulls out from the clinic lot with half a block of clear road.

“It’s all right, Mom.” She has to raise her voice for Opal now. Her mother’s gotten so frail and tremulous, how did it happen? Was it gradual, and Lindsey just didn’t notice until suddenly she’s this birdlike gray-haired old lady whose bones might snap if you give her a real hug? She’s afraid to be alone, and Dad at eighty-five is still barreling along oblivious to anyone else’s needs. What is it this time? Off on a fishing trip, and they can’t let Mom drive.

“No wonder I was feeling such pain, Doctor says it’s my arthritis. He upped my Ibuprofen by 500 milligrams.” Opal’s smiling, pleased with the attention.

Lindsey bites her lip, trying not to be exasperated with the way her mom, a former nurse, still worships “Doctor” and lives for these visits when she can trot out her lists of minutely calibrated symptoms, confer about dosages.

“I told Doctor he needs to get a decent office nurse. These new gals, and they even have men now, they’re just incompetent. They don’t go through the kind of training we had. Why, during the war we were practically running the ward and studying for exams, and we’d never leave a patient sitting there without…”

Lindsey nods and makes the proper agreeable noises. She’s heard these stories so many times she could recite them verbatim, Opal’s voice receding to a background drone as she navigates town traffic and heads onto the county roads, dark clouds lowering into an early twilight.

She comes out of autopilot with a start as Opal grips the door frame and cries out, “You’re going too fast! It’s hard to spot the driveway.”

“Mom, it’s okay.” I’ve only made this drive a few hundred times. “I’m going the speed limit.” She slows for the turn.

Down the long oak-lined drive through the hay field and into the big empty house where yapping Bingo awaits. Lindsey gets Opal settled in with the terrier and dinner and her new meds. She prays Mom hasn’t bought herself another gun after Fran and Joanie confiscated the pistol she was keeping in her bedside drawer, ready to fend off burglars and rapists she was sure lurked behind every tree. But then she’d always tried to scare Lindsey into ladylike safe behavior with tales of pirate slavers and sexual predators.

“So when’s Dad coming back from his fishing trip?”

“Two more days. I’m paying Skip to come out and sleep here while Arlen’s gone.”

Lindsey bites her lip again and wonders when her youngest nephew is going to get a steady job, cut back on the beer. Maybe she better call and remind him to give Opal a buzz before he heads over, so he doesn’t get met at the door with a shot of mace to the face.

She blows out a breath. “You’re so isolated out here in the county, Mom, and Dad’s gone all the time. Why don’t you think about one of those assisted-living condos in town? We could visit more often. You’d make new friends.”

“You know Arlen would never give up his shop and the garden.”

“Then leave him here! All he does is yell at you all the time, anyway.” The second they’re out, Lindsey regrets the words.

“Don’t you start that again!” Opal pulls her crocheted afghan tighter around her shoulders. “That’s just Arlen. I don’t want to be alone. He’s not so bad, he doesn’t drink, and he’s a good provider.”

Lindsey closes her eyes, a hot flash igniting at the base of her spine, flames roaring up into her face as sweat breaks out. Blackness, red sparks sweeping over her.

She was six years old again, pain flaring over her bare backside and legs after Dad broke the stick beating on her for daring to correct him when he screamed at her about leaving the hose running and it wasn’t even her that did it. She was trying not to cry as her mom dabbed liniment on the bruises.

“Mom, please! Please take us away! I hate him! Why is he always so mean?”

“Shush, now, they’re only spankings. He doesn’t mean those things he says, he just gets upset when the bosses give him a hard time. And don’t you go bad-mouthing your dad to people. He works hard, he doesn’t drink. He’s a good provider.”

Lindsey, swaying now, eyes-closed in her parents’ overheated, echoing empty home, swallows and takes a deep breath. It’s way past too late to talk to Opal about her life, her choices. How does she hold onto her pieces of identity—the former nurse in charge of a ward, shouted down and mocked viciously by her husband, disassembled bit by bit over the years, until she’s given all her strength away?

Lindsey gives Opal a careful hug, eyes still prickling. How did Linny learn at six to seal off the tears, and now at fifty-two any little thing just sets her off like that faucet she can’t shut? She rips off her sweater and fans herself with her T-shirt as another wave of the nauseating hot flash blazes through her along with a surge of helpless love for her mother. She remembers Mom young and vital and pretty, always singing.

Lindsey hurries to the bathroom to splash her face with cold water, presses a towel against her eyes. She can’t help replaying a flight into her own bathroom, barricading herself behind the locked door as Nick stormed through the house breaking furniture and she huddled with her face in her hands.

Taking a deep breath now, she raises her face and sees herself in the mirror becoming her mother.

Dear Diary:

Shall we take inventory?

Minus 1 gold wedding band. Plus 1 free woman! (Closing on 53, redefining “ma’am” and “power flashes.”)

Possessions: 1 Self. 2 Best Cats in the World (and forever owned by). Freelance gigs consulting and writing environmental articles, zero job security, unlimited work potential. 1 charming 1920s bungalow with 30-year mortgage and in need of new windows, trim, and roof. 1 garden now being reclaimed from weeds.

Green eyes (wide open); brown sun-streaked hair (silver wisdom strands at the temples); face framed with laugh lines and gravity.

1 recently-renewed passport. 1 pair new wings.