"What do you want?" Sarah asked. She'd been unusually quiet, letting me say my piece with minimal interruptions.
"I want Clint," I said immediately. "I want to live out there with him, but I don't know if I want to only do that. A housewife, me?"
"Look, our jobs aren't going to save the world or make anybody rich," she said bluntly.
I winced.
“I think it’s important,” I said.
“That’s not what I said. It’s pretty vital that someone does this job, but let’s be real here, it’s not vital that that person is you. You’re good at it, but the skills aren’t that unusual.”
“Ouch, Sarah,” I said. “Way to make me feel good about myself.”
“Hey, I’m not here for that. You and I, we’re cogs in the government machine. That’s okay, the government machine needs a lot of cogs and tries to do the right things,” she said. “You’re not the only cog that could inspect ranches, though, with a little shaping. This is getting away from me, you totally know what I mean, right?”
I reached out and stole a green grape off of her plate.
“You’re not saying that any schmuck off the street could do my job, you’re saying that any shmuck with organizational skills and the right knowledge could do my job. Not an unlimited number of replacements, but always some,” I said.
She popped another grape into her mouth and nodded.
“You’re right,” I said. “My position is important, but I’m not critical. The earth will keep on spinning if I stay at home with babies instead.”
“Yeah,” she said, “But if you don’t want to, it would suck way too much.”
“So, what are you telling me?” I asked. “Plan to keep my job? Plan to leave it and have a ton of babies?”
Sarah laughed out loud.
“I’m telling you that you haven’t even known this guy for six months. You need to talk to him. You need to ask him all of these questions. Can he afford to support a wife who is a stay-at-home mother? Would he only want to marry you if you were one? Would he be okay if you two only had one kid? Does he even want to marry you? You don’t know the answer to nearly enough of these questions,” she said.
“Ugh, you’re right,” I said.
I stole another grape.
"I suppose this means that I have to have an actual conversation with him about this like an adult," I said.
"Yep," she said, drawing the word out.
"With feelings," I said.
"Yep," she said, making it even longer.
"And personal questions about money and stuff," I said.
"Yep," Sarah said. This time she drew out the word so long that when she smacked the 'p,' Katie pulled herself off of Sarah's chest and started to cry a little.
I jumped in my chair, but Sarah only smiled down at her baby and tucked her clothing back together, pulling her infant daughter up onto her other shoulder, where a burp cloth waited, and patting her back.
"It's time for a nap," she explained. "Want to come see?"
We went up to her little nursery, and Sarah rocked and sang to the baby in the dark little room as Katie's cries stopped and her little arms started to stretch as she yawned.
When her eyes fluttered shut and stayed closed for a few seconds, my friend gently set the baby down in her crib and we both held our breath.
Katie only grumbled in her sleep and shifted on the mattress, and Sarah nodded at me. We both slipped out of the room and padded down the carpeted stairs.
"Where's that husband of yours, by the way?" I asked.