My drunk husband at the company holiday party decided to auction me off before I’d even arrived. “Who wants to spend a night with my frump and listen to her squawk? Starting bid, five bucks.” But when I walked into the ballroom, the real show began. Eight years ago, I was a completely different person. I was twenty-two. I was a voice major at the Eastwood Conservatory of Music. The whole world felt like a stage, and I was sure I was destined to shine on it. My professors told me I had a rare timbre, rich, warm, with astonishing depth. I sang in the conservatory’s theater, competed in vocal competitions, and dreamed of the grand stage. In the evenings, I’d stand before the mirror, imagining myself taking a bow to the thundering applause of a packed house. I met Greg at a concert our conservatory held for its sponsors. He was a junior manager at a firm that had given us a small grant. After my performance, he came up to introduce himself, saying he’d never heard anything more beautiful. I blossomed under the compliment. He was three years older, confident, ambitious, always talking about his career plans and the successful business he would one day build. I was flattered by the attention of an older man with such serious goals. We dated for six months. Greg took me to concerts, bought me recordings of famous sopranos, and told me I was more talented than all of them. He promised that when he made enough money, he would pay for me to attend a summer fellowship in Italy, where the real vocal masters trained. I believed every word. My plan was to graduate, get into a top-tier graduate program, and start my career. Everything seemed so clear, so right. And then I got pregnant. It wasn’t planned. It just happened. I remember sitting on the edge of the bathtub holding the test with its two pink lines, not knowing whether to cry or celebrate. On one hand, a baby. On the other, my final year of conservatory, my graduation recital just three months away, all my plans for grad school. Greg was thrilled. He said it was time to start a family, that we would manage. His mother, Sharon, however, had a very different reaction. I remember our first serious conversation, the three of us in her kitchen. She poured coffee, pushed a plate of store-bought cookies toward me, and asked point-blank what my plans were.
“Sharon, I want to finish my degree,” I answered. “I still have five months before the baby is due. I can take all my finals, and after the baby is born, I’ll take a year off and go back.”
Sharon looked at me as if I’d suggested flying to the moon.
“A sabbatical with a newborn, Anna? Honey, what are you thinking? A normal woman in your position should be with her child, not running off to some recitals.”
“Mom’s right,” Greg chimed in. “Look, we’re starting a family. That’s more important than all your performances. Your career can wait.”
“But I’m so close to my diploma.”
“A diploma from a music conservatory?” Sharon actually laughed. “And what will you do with it? Sing at weddings? You’re better off focusing on your family. My Greg is building a career. He needs a reliable wife, a homemaker, the mother of his children, not some girl dreaming of a stage.”
I remember sitting at their table, sipping my cooling coffee, and feeling everything inside me clench. But Greg looked at me with such hope, telling me he loved me, that we’d make it together, that I could always go back to singing when the child was a little older. He promised to support my dream. Just later, when things settled down. I took a leave of absence in my third trimester. I gave birth to Leo late that spring. He was so small, so helpless, crying through the night, demanding constant attention. I was sleep-deprived, barely finding time to brush my hair. Conversations about returning to the conservatory grew shorter and more reluctant.
“Anna, honey, look at yourself,” Sharon would say when she came to visit. “You have dark circles under your eyes. Your hair’s a mess. What school? You need to learn how to handle a baby first.”
And Greg started coming home from work tired and irritable.
“Can’t you at least keep the house in order? I’m working my tail off all day, and I come home to this mess, and the baby is screaming from morning till night.”
“He’s just a baby,” I’d say, trying to defend myself. “This is normal.”
“Maybe you just don’t know how to handle him. My mom says I was a quiet baby at his age.”
Gradually, everything good between us began to fade. The compliments stopped, replaced by criticism. I’d gained the normal twenty pounds that almost every new mother does, but Greg would look at me with disapproval.
“You should really get back in shape. You’ve let yourself go.”
“I have a newborn. I’m nursing. It’s temporary.”
“Temporary? It’s been six months. Other women are back in their jeans in a month.”
Money became a constant source of arguments. Greg’s salary barely covered the rent on our small one-bedroom apartment in a dreary suburb, groceries, and baby supplies. I suggested I get a job, even part-time, but he flatly refused.
“Where would you go with an infant? No. You stay home. In a couple of years, when Leo’s older, we’ll see.”
“But we’re barely making ends meet.”
“That’s because you don’t know how to budget. My mom raised three kids on this kind of money.”
I tried to save, buying the cheapest groceries, wearing my old clothes until they had holes, never buying anything new for myself. Everything went to Leo and food. But Greg’s reproaches continued. One day, I tried to sing. Leo was about a year old, asleep after his lunch. I quietly hummed an aria from La Traviata, one I had once performed for an exam. My voice felt unfamiliar after such a long silence, my vocal cords weak, but the melody flowed on its own, and for a few minutes, I felt like myself again. Greg came home from work early and caught me.
“What’s all that yelling?” he asked sharply. “You’ll wake the baby.”
“I’m not yelling. I’m singing quietly.”
