"Michael Joseph Smith, stop running around the house!" I yell as I struggle up the basement stairs carrying a basket of my son's clean laundry. Here I am, 39 years old with bachelor's degrees in theatre and business and a masters in technical theatre, and I spend my days cleaning up after my 15-year-old son, 12-year-old daughter, and my 42-year-old husband. I got married at 20, right out of college, and made it through grad school before I got pregnant. My husband was old fashioned and decided he wanted me to stay home. Granted, I'm living a pretty good life. I have a nice house, a nice car, not a lot of debt, a husband who's still around, and kids who don't get into any unusual amounts of trouble. But the thing is, I never thought my life would be like this. I never wanted this. I was a theatre major for crying out loud! I figured I'd be in a studio apartment pulling late nights and living in sin for the rest of my life which would be seriously shortened by massive amounts of coffee. Now I'm here.

"Angela! Come help me please!" My daughter sets down her book and comes over. "Angela, can you please put these clothes in your brothers bedroom? I need to check on dinner."

"Sure, mom."

"By the way, Angela, what were you reading?"

"Nothing. Just… a romance novel."

"Have you done your homework?" I chide.

"Most of it. I still have some math to do."

"Well, do that after you put those clothes in Mike's room. You know you're not supposed to play until your homework is done."

"I know, mom. I'm sorry. I'll get right on it." Angela went off with the basket of clothes and I walked over to the window seat where she had been and picked up the book. Much Ado about Nothing. I winced inwardly. This beautiful girl was so much like me. I was asking for Shakespeare for Christmas when I was in elementary school too. The only difference was, my parents let me read it. Sean, my husband, feels that theatre is inappropriate for our children and doesn't want them to even read Shakespeare. I have to hide my copy of Twelfth Night under the mattress like Mike hides his dirty magazines. That's why Angela told me she was reading a romance novel. Sean doesn't have a problem with those.

I put the book in her backpack, making sure to mark the page. I catch a glimpse of her books, Advanced Algebra, Organic Chemistry for Beginners, and The University Wits, among other books. No, that's not typical 7th grader material. Angela is brilliant girl and her school basically begged us to let her skip 6th and 7th grade, so she's in 9th now. Mike, on the other hand, is another story. He's obsessive about girls, doesn't pay attention to school even though he's very smart, and spends his time hanging out with his friends. I walk into the kitchen and check on the pork chops for dinner. I start on the vegetables and making the rice. Sean likes dinner to be ready about 30 minutes after he gets home from his job as an insurance salesman. He should be back soon.

"Mike, did you get the mail?"

"Not yet mom," comes the shout from upstairs.

"Well, do it now, please."

"All right, already. Jeez, calm down." Before I can respond he's pounding down the stairs and is out the door. I sigh and pour myself a drink. No, not alcohol. Sean won't let me drink it. I have some orange juice. I sit down, sipping my juice for a minute or so until Mike comes back with the mail.

"Here you go, mom," he says as he tosses it on the table before taking the stairs two at a time. I hear his bedroom door slam and his music turn back on. He likes the volume to be deafening. He keeps the room dark and plastered with posters of his favorite bands. He and Angela are so different it's funny. She likes light in her room and has pastel walls with pink, flowered sheets. It's always neat and she cleans it herself, so I don't know where she keeps her stash of "dirty" books. Mike's room is my job to clean, or so Sean tells me, so I know where he keeps everything. Thankfully I've never found anything worse than some fuzzy pizza and Playboys.

I flip through the mail mindlessly. Mostly bills or junk of course, a couple of things I might be interested in, Sean's Fisherman's Digest, and a letter for Angela.

"Oh my goodness! The rice!" The pot of rice is starting to boil over. I run over to the stove and manage to save most of it. I check on the rest of dinner and decide to serve some sliced apples as well, to make sure the meal is balanced. I hear a car outside and check the clock. The traffic must have been really easy today; Sean doesn't normally get home this early. Maybe it isn't Sean, I think to myself as I hear whoever it is knock on the door. I wipe my hands on my apron and go to open the door.

"May I help you?" I ask as I find a slightly overweight woman with black hair, wearing sunglasses, a skirt, and a tank top.

"Yes, does Cassie Randolph live here?"

"That's my maiden name. I'm Cassie Smith now. Do I know you?" I think I recognize this woman, but I just can't place her. She pulls her sunglasses off and looks me in the eye. She has the most beautiful brown eyes I've ever seen and that is when I realize who it is. I collapse against the doorframe and manage to whisper, "Jennifer!".

"Hey baby." She holds me by the arm until I get steady on my feet, but her touch always made me weak in the knees, so it really only makes it harder.

"Jennifer," I whisper again. "What? How? Huh?"

She laughs at my confusion and simply says, "You gonna keep me out here all day?" I move aside and she walks in. Shutting the door, I follow her into my house, which, for some reason, I'm embarrassed to have her see. She belongs to another life, another Cassie, and yet, she seems so right in this life too. It's my life that seems so wrong with her. Does that make any sense? "Well, well, well. Nice place you got here."

"Thanks. My husband sells insurance." My husband sells insurance? God, she stills affects me the same way, making me say the stupidest stuff.

"Husband?" She turns and looks at me. "You have a husband? Let me guess, you have kids too. And you're a stay at mom." I could tell she found the entire scenario too funny and she was saying the most impossible things to try and make me laugh.

"Yes," I whisper, ashamed.

The smile fades from her face and she whispers, "Shit. Sweetheart, what happened to you?" She takes me in her arms and holds me. God, she feels so good. And smells… oh man. Cigarettes. I have the weirdest nose on Earth. I love the smell of cigarettes and the smell of hers always makes me horny. Pavlov's dogs thing, I guess. Anyway, here am I, melting in my former lover's arms, and my husband walks in. I didn't even hear him pull up. I jump back, like I've been doing something wrong.

"Sean! You're home!"

"Yes, I am. Like I do every day." He's confused. He doesn't know, about her and me or about her at all. "Do we have a guest tonight?"

"Uh, yes. This is Jennifer. She was my… um, my…. I knew her in college. She just showed up. Um, Mike and Angela are upstairs. Mike got detention again for talking back to Mrs. Fagnel, you might want to talk to him about that and we're having pork chops for dinner."

"Sounds good. Thanks." He gave Jen another curious look, kissed me on the cheek, and headed upstairs to change. I sank onto a chair with my hand on my forehead.

"Oh my god, Jen, what's going on?"

"Cassie, is everything okay?"

"What do you think?" I whisper. "I have two children, both of whom I love dearly, but only one of whom I like, I have a husband, I'm living this life, and then you show up and bring all your memories with you and all the old feelings and all I want to do is…"

"All you want to do is what?" She knows, she can tell, she always knew me better than anyone. But I'm married, I'm PTA mom of the year, I'm, I'm, I'm…

"I'm still completely in love with you." It feels like the statement was dragged from me and I feel so weak after saying it that I can barely hold my head up. "I still want you more than anything in the world." She pulls me into her arms and we still fit together perfectly. She can feel it too. But why is she here? To hurt me again? I pull back, the pain of being left written on my face.

"I'm sorry, Cassie. I was scared, I didn't want to hurt you…"

"So you left me? Good way to not hurt me."

"Cassie, you treated me better than anyone I had ever dated. You loved me, wanted to spend the rest of your life with me, make all of my dreams come true, and I was fucking scared."

"But those are good things," I growl. "I was completely sincere, I never lied to you, I screwed up once, once Jennifer, and we got over that. You left for me Jags; I still loved you and wanted you. I went through years of my parents treating me like a leper and you were the only thing that made it okay. Then, the day after I put that engagement ring on your finger, I wake up to an empty bed. Explain to me how I deserved that."

A tear rolls down her cheek, but she doesn't let herself weep. "You didn't."

"Damn right I didn't. I swore off women because of that, Jen. So now, I'm sleeping with a guy and I don't even like guys. I have two children, but I wanted to have a child with you and I'm living this upper middle class life that I despise. I can't blame you for that, because it was my choices that made this happen, but damn it, I still want you and if you asked me to leave with you right now, I would. I love you, Jen." I fall back into her arms and cry as she holds me and pets my hair, planting light kisses on my head.

"Cassie? Leave with me."

I look into her eyes and see that she's serious. "I want to take Angela."

"Okay, if that's what you want," she says.

"Sean!" I yell.

"What?" I hear from upstairs.

"Come down here please. I need to talk to you." Some of the most frightening words on Earth. But he comes down and I point to a chair.

"Sean? I want a divorce." He sits there, I don't think he believes that I'm serious. I probably wouldn't either. Nothing has been going wrong in our marriage; there's been no warning. Just the things that I kept from him about my past.

"What?" he asks.

"I want a divorce. You can everything. I just want Angela."

"I… I don't understand."

"Sean, there's some things that I never told you about me. I'm a lesbian. I've been a lesbian for longer than you've known me, but I got hurt, very badly, shortly before we met and I swore off women. I figured it would never come into play again, so I didn't see the need to tell you. But Jen here… Jen walked back into my life today and she wants me back. And I want to be back with her. So now, even if I didn't leave with her, it wouldn't be fair to you or me or her, because that's what I would want. So, I'm going to leave you and all I want is a divorce and Angela." He stares at me and then says something I would never have expected.

"Oh thank god."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, that helps me because when we first got married you would wince every time you saw my penis and I thought it was because of me. Now I realize that it's just because you don't like penis. And besides, I'm in love with someone else too."

"What?"

"Yea, Sally, the lady I work with? I've been screwing her since January." I sit there and stare at him until I realize that this is a good thing. He would divorce me without a problem.

"Okay then. Since you were screwing around on me, I want the minivan too."

"Fine, I'll keep everything else?"

"Except for my personal bank account and my personal things, yep. Keep it all." I turn to Jen. "You okay princess?"

She smiles at me and says, "I haven't been called princess in a very long time. I'm perfect."

"Good." I smile at her. "I'm going to go upstairs and talk to the kids." I go up the stairs, feeling the floor pounding from Mike's music. I know I'll miss my son, I truly do love him, I always will, but he'll be better off with his father than me. I knock on Angela's door.

"Come in," she says. I walk in and she is sitting on her bed surrounded by a calculator, a textbook, notebook, and pencils. "Oh hi mom. See, I'm doing my math homework."

"I see. How about you put it down for a minute?" I sit on her desk chair next to the bed. She sets aside the books and turns to me.

"What's up mom? Did I do something wrong?"

"No, sweetie. You haven't done anything wrong. But I need to talk to you about something."

"Okay."

"Your father and I are getting a divorce." She sits there and stares at me. I can't tell what she's thinking, if she hates me or what. "Angela?"

"Can I live with you?" I exhale and smile.

"I was hoping you want to. I know you're probably confused, but if I can answer any questions for you…"

"Why?"

"He and I are both in love with other people. He's… been seeing someone he works with and I… well, I have some other things to tell you." I took a deep breath and looked Angela in the eyes. "Honey, I'm a lesbian. Your father never knew. When I was in college, I met this wonderful woman, Jennifer, and we fell in love. I proposed and the next day, she left me. I was so hurt I swore off women and then today, Jennifer came back. And she and I are going to live together. So if you came and lived with me, you'd be living with her too."

She just stares at me. "You're a lesbian? But you can't be. You're my mother."

"I know it's hard, but it's true and I still want you to come and live with us. You'd be able to get involved with theatre, read all the Shakespeare you want. I love you, Angela, I want you with me."

She looks down at the bed and then back at me. "I want to meet her first. But I think I would rather live with you still."

"Okay. She's downstairs. If you want to, you can go ahead and talk to her, I'm going to talk to Mike." I walk across the hall and pound on Mike's door until he turns the music down and opens it.

"Yeah mom?" he asks.

"Can I come in?"

"Sure. Have I done something wrong?"

"No, I just need to talk to you." I am about to sit on the bed, but decide standing would be cleaner.

"What's up?"

"Your father and I are getting a divorce. He's in love with someone else and so am I."

"No way. I thought you guys were happy."

"Sometimes things can stay hidden for a very long time, but when they come to the surface, they can't be ignored."

"Huh?" he said. Gotta love the teenage boy's vocabulary, I think.

"Mike, the main reason your father and I are getting a divorce is because I'm a lesbian. A girl that I was in love with before your father wants me back and I want to be with her, so we're getting divorced."

"No way. You're a fucking dyke?" he says in astonishment.

"Watch your language, young man," I snap, going into mom mode.

"So who am I going live with? Do I have move?"

"You'll be living with your father, we both thought that would be best. He's keeping the house, so I assume you won't have to move, but that's up to him. Angela is going to be living with me and Jennifer."

"Dude, no more annoying little sister?"

"You'll still see each other, of course, just like you'll still see me and she'll still see your father, but you won't be living together, no."

"Sweet. I can't wait to tell the guys. When are you leaving?"

"Are you so anxious to have me go?"

"No, mom, I love you, but the dweeby little sister can scram," he says.

"All right, come give me a hug."

"Awww, mom, do I have to?" he complains.

"Yes, you have to. I just love to torture you," I say in my best Dracula voice. He gives me a hug and I tell him, "Dinner's in five minutes." I head back downstairs and meet Angela on the stairs.

"Mom, she's super cool. She said she'd let me get a cat! Can I, mom?" Angela's face is glowing from the smile that she so rarely wears, the one that says she is really happy. Just the sight makes me smile too.

"Of course. I love cats; it's your dad who doesn't. Dinner's in five minutes."

"Okay, I just want to do a little more math work."

"Okay, see you downstairs." I kiss her on the cheek and continue downstairs. I find the kitchen table already set and Sean gone.

"He said he wanted to get something from the car," Jen says when she sees me looking around. I smile and slide into her embrace.

"Everything's working out, Jen. It's like, a miracle." She kisses me and I sigh happily. "God, talk about dreams coming true."

"I know," she says. "And the best part of it is my dream is you." We kiss again before everyone starts coming into the kitchen for dinner. It's a little awkward, but we make it through dinner and the next day. Who knows, maybe we'll make it through the first year and then the rest of our lives this way too. Happy, everyone being as they're supposed to be. My daughter in college as a theatre major, dating a wonderful boy. My son studying to be a businessman, playing in a band in his spare time. Sean with Sally and their baby Max. And me. With my beloved Jennifer, sitting on a porch swing watching the moon rise.