Amber never thought she would have children. A dog, perhaps, that came with a girl she dated. A cat, more likely. In those days of late mornings and later evenings, when possibilities dragged on like warm beer, she saw friends hitch up with moms and shook her head of well-sculpted hair, laughed, and hit the gym.
Children? No. She was not the motherly type.
Or, rather, she wasn’t seven years ago, before a long-haired, long-limbed brunette named Mallory caught her eye and stole her heart. Mallory was allergic to cats and eager for kids, and Amber (blind, swooning) would have given her anything. Mallory, a smart siren not easily caught, dragged Amber from her tidy condo and plunked her down in a house with a yard. Before Amber registered what was happening, she had traded her Skidoo for a stroller.
As Amber looks at the bathroom mirror coated with toothpaste spittle, she thinks about that woman she was, the carefree gal who danced with all the chicks in the room and was still up at dawn to run ten miles in subzero temperatures. She remembers the freedom of those single days, the time, the clean floors, the sex, the glory. She looks at the young elite runners and skiers now, in their short shorts and high-tech gear, and they don’t even see her. She’s invisible to them. Her current coworkers don’t know the medals she’s won, the podiums she’s graced. She’s just another mom out for a jog.
“Mommy!” A little girl with wild curly hair slams into Amber, knocking her slightly off balance and jerking her from her stupor. The broken hippopotamus toy found on one of their walks and the homemade cape reappear on the bathroom counter before Amber, along with long brown hairs, a half-rinsed Hello Kitty toothbrush, three fairy cups, and a crumpled washcloth. Amber’s hair gel squats among Mallory’s lotions and beauty products, like a stump in a field of fireweed. The toilet isn’t flushed and a mild stink wafts to her nose.
“You be the bad queen,” her daughter says, handing her a paper crown and a butterfly eye mask. “I’ll be the good queen and Mama will be my child.”
Shaking off the memory of her single self, Amber slips on the mask and crown. She raises her hands, her fingers curled like claws. She laughs her best evil queen laugh. “Muwahaha!”
Her daughter squeals with joy and points her plastic wand at Amber, blocking a curse and casting a spell of her own. “You can’t get my baby, Bad Queen!”
The pretend curse strikes Amber. “Aaaaaaaahhhhh!” she wails dramatically, crumpling to the ground.
The good queen dashes off to protect her “baby,” who is doing dishes in the kitchen. Amber gets up off the floor with more groans than she’d like and tries to remember what she was doing in the bathroom in the first place. She has no idea.
She starts to wipe the counter but catches her reflection in the mirror. Paper hearts attached to pipe cleaners pop out from the pink crown. Who would have thought that someone could get her to don pink? Or an outfit made entirely of fleece? Her waist and hips have gained at least twenty pounds in the last five years. It is barely 8:30 on a Saturday morning and she’s been up for two hours. The sun won’t be up for another two.
Who is this woman staring back at her? Who is this person who knows all the songs in Frozen and can find Piggie and Gerald books in the library in three swift steps? Whose trophies collect dust in a corner? Who thinks a hot date is collapsing on the couch in front of a movie? What happened to the stud who got a phone number every time she stepped off the dance floor?
The house is too quiet. Amber holds her breath and cocks her head to the side, as alert as a fox. Her heart quickens. She opens her mouth to call out “Everyone all right?” when peels of laughter erupt from the kitchen. Amber breathes out a sigh of relief and listens to the magic in their giggles, magic not found anywhere else, not on the trail or at the bar.
“She has awoken!” Her daughter shouts from the hallway, sounding so much like Mallory that Amber nearly bursts with love.
Amber looks back at the mirror, at herself as she is right now, a thirty-seven-year-old woman who will not win any races this season or set any records. Instead, she will get more colds than she’d like to count. She will take her daughter to preschool, and then go to work, cook dinner, convince her daughter to go potty, read stories, sleep too little, and repeat. And repeat. She will get sex once a month (if lucky). She will forget to comb her hair some mornings. She will not fit into her favorite pair of pants.
But she still has her strong chin, her biceps, her drive to be the best.
“Mommy, stop staring at the mirror and come play with me.”
Amber grins. She doesn’t have to win races or collect numbers to be worthy. She’s married (legally!) to the sexiest woman she’s ever met and mom to the sweetest, silliest kid. She doesn’t miss the lonely nights or the empty days she filled with beer and workouts, aching with a void she could never satisfy.
“You just try to get away from me, Good Queen!” Amber growls in her bad queen voice, which sounds remarkably similar to her pirate voice.
The good queen shrieks and darts away.
Amber grabs the broken hippopotamus toy off the bathroom counter. “You can’t stop me! I have the Hippo of Power!”