bed and stared at herself in the full length mirror on their bedroom door. The nightgown was not flattering but then again, neither was her figure. She was almost forty years old and letting it go. The last few months with Martin being out of work and the pressure of getting their son to and from daycare while juggling a less-than-ideal work schedule and Martin's endless array of interviews that seemed to go nowhere had taken its toll on every physical and emotional part of her. If he said anything about moving back to England today she was pretty sure she'd lose it.
Deciding that she was done degrading herself in front of the mirror, she slipped out of the bedroom and rounded the corner into the bathroom. Abby followed the same rituals as most people in the morning. She had a pee and then brushed her teeth while the water ran hot in the shower and the bathroom steamed up. Then she shed her unflattering nightgown and stepped under the glorious hot water.
When she had finished in the shower, she felt better. She always felt better after a shower. She was ready to face the day. She would be ready to face the day for exactly twelve minutes. Humming to herself, Abby ran the blow dryer over her hair. She never dried it fully because she didn't like the way it felt after being completely heat dried. The dryer just kind of sped up the natural process. She couldn't have commented on its effect on the health of her hair one way or the other. She also didn't notice any tremendous difference in the way it looked. Letting it dry naturally just suited her. It just felt better.
Finishing up, Abby wrapped a towel around her body and left the bathroom. She almost fell onto herself as she avoided tripping over her two (almost three) year old son. He was standing in the dark hallway, only the bathroom light, partially blocked by her frame illuminating him at all. Sammy looked pale.
"Are you all right?" she asked him.
He opened his mouth to answer in the way that two year olds will answer and threw up instead.
It was the start of a very bad day.
***
ABBY was supposed to open the gym at 5:45, which meant she was due to be there at about 5:30. There was always someone waiting for her when she got there and she always let whoever it was in to work out while she sorted out the morning ledgers. This morning she didn't arrive until three minutes before six and people were upset.
Sammy was running a fever of 100.3 which isn't particularly dangerous in a two year old but they still couldn't send him to day care. When she'd told Martin, he'd been unhappy. What got her was that he wasn't even concerned for Sammy. What concerned him most was that he would have the baby for the day and have to haul him over to the doctor's office. He had a job interview with Best Buy in the afternoon. He was certain he was going to be offered the job because he absolutely did not want it. But he would have to take it if it was available because he had nothing else and they were pushing the limits of their savings.
They'd argued a bit, which made it a typical morning. Then he'd apologized, which made it very atypical. As she'd left the apartment, Abby gave him a kiss and a hug and then squeezed him in a place that made a promise for the evening. At least when he'd closed the door he'd been smiling.
The good feelings generated by that encounter had lasted seven minutes. The train was delayed and she'd gotten to her stop at 5:43. She managed to make her regular fifteen minute walk to work in fourteen minutes and called it a victory. She was greeted by a mosaic of angry faces and muttered complaints.
She didn't care for any of it.
It wasn't in her nature to explain herself to anyone, especially a group of fat bastards who thought they were doing themselves good by getting in a half hour of treadmill every morning before work. So she weathered their complaints, opened up the gym, and got everything going as quickly