Friday passed without news from the recruiter.
So did Monday.
By Tuesday morning, I had checked my email enough times to know the order of every message in my inbox.
I knew which notifications were advertisements.
I knew which were automated acknowledgments.
I knew the difference between a message that required action and one that merely confirmed someone had received my application.
I also knew how quickly hope could turn into embarrassment when I let myself expect too much.
Whenever a new message appeared, I opened it immediately.
Most of the time, it was nothing.
I began to hate the sound of my email notification.
I turned it off.
For an hour, that helped.
Then I found myself opening the inbox manually, as if the absence of a sound meant I might be missing something important.
My wife noticed.
"You've checked that three times since breakfast."
"Have I?"
"Four, if you count the time you opened it while I was talking."
I closed the laptop.
"I'm trying not to."
"I know."
She sat beside me at the table.
"How about you spend the next hour doing something that doesn't involve waiting?"
"I have applications to finish."
"Then finish them. But don't spend the whole hour looking for an answer to the ones you've already sent."
I knew she was right.
I also knew how hard it was to follow that advice.
The applications were work I could do.
Waiting was not.
I returned to the job listings and found two positions that matched my experience.
One was with a smaller company that handled scheduling for local businesses.
The other was an administrative role with a longer commute.
Neither was perfect.
Both were possibilities.
I read the requirements carefully and adjusted my résumé for each.
Then I submitted them.
I didn't feel hopeful in the same way I had after the phone screening.
Instead, I felt tired.
That was an honest feeling, and I let myself have it.
At lunchtime, I walked to a nearby shop and bought groceries we needed.
I compared prices more carefully than I used to.
I put one item back after checking the total on my phone.
The cashier didn't notice.
Or if she did, she didn't say anything.
On the way home, I carried the bags in both hands and thought about how quickly a paycheck could become invisible.
When money arrived regularly, it was easy to think of it as something that would always arrive again.
You paid the bills.
You bought groceries.
You replaced the things that broke.
You didn't spend every transaction wondering how many weeks of security remained.
Now I did.
At home, I put the groceries away and sat at the kitchen table.
The bills were still there, though my wife had paid what we could pay that week.
The photograph remained beside them.
I turned it toward me.
My daughters looked happy in the picture.
They had no idea how often I'd been studying their faces lately, trying to remind myself that my life was larger than the job I'd lost.
I put the photograph down.
Then I opened the laptop and searched again.
The woman called later that afternoon.
"How's your week going?" she asked.
"Quietly."
"That doesn't sound very encouraging."
I laughed once.
"I'm applying for jobs. Waiting to hear back from people."
"Have you heard anything from the screening?"
"Not yet."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault."
"I know. I just wish I had something more useful to say."
I leaned back in my chair.
"You don't have to fix it."
She was quiet.
"I suppose I'm still trying to make sense of what happened," she said.
I looked at the photograph.
"What part?"
"The part where you lost your job because you stopped to help me."
I hadn't expected her to say it so directly.
"I've been trying to make sense of it, too."
"Does it make you angry?"
I considered answering quickly.
Instead, I took a moment.
"Sometimes. I get angry about the way Gavin handled it. I get scared about money. I worry about how long this is going to take."
"That makes sense."
"But when I think about the actual moment on the road, I don't wish I'd driven past."
The words felt different now.
They were no longer something I was saying to defend myself.
They were simply true.
The woman breathed out softly.
"Thank you for telling me."
"You don't need to thank me for that."
"Maybe not. But I wanted to."
We didn't stay on the subject much longer.
She asked whether I was taking care of myself.
I told her my wife had been making sure I ate proper meals.
"Good," she said.
Then we said goodbye.
I placed the phone on the table and sat quietly.
I had been afraid that, if I admitted how angry and frightened I felt, it would somehow cancel out the fact that I didn't regret stopping.
It didn't.
I could be upset about losing my job and still believe I had made the right choice in the moment.
Those feelings could exist together.
I didn't need to choose one and pretend the other wasn't there.
That evening, my wife and I went through the household budget again.
We checked the next month's payments and discussed which expenses could wait.
There were things we'd have to postpone.
A few things we'd have to do without.
Neither of us enjoyed the conversation, but it was easier than pretending we didn't need to have it.
When we finished, my wife gathered the papers into a folder.
"We'll review it again next week," she said.
"All right."
"You don't have to keep staring at it tonight."
I glanced at the folder.
"I know."
She smiled.
"You're getting better at saying that."
I laughed.
"I'm not sure I'm getting better at believing it."
"That's probably the harder part."
She was right.
After the girls went to bed, I checked my email one last time.
There was no answer from the recruiter.
I closed the laptop.
Then I went to the living room and sat beside my wife.
We watched a television program neither of us paid much attention to.
At some point, she rested her head against my shoulder.
I stayed still so I wouldn't disturb her.
I thought about the morning I'd lost my job.
For days, I'd replayed Gavin's face and the finality of his voice.
I'd imagined all the things I could have said differently.
I could have explained the emergency sooner.
I could have asked for a few more minutes.
I could have called the office from the roadside.
Maybe some of those things would have changed the outcome.
Maybe none of them would have.
I would never know.
But I did know what had happened before I reached the office.
I'd seen someone in danger.
I'd stopped.
I'd tried to help.
I couldn't rewrite that part of the morning, and I no longer wanted to.
The consequences were real.
So was the choice.
The next morning, I made another list.
Not a list of everything that could go wrong.
Just three things I could do that day.
Submit two applications.
Call back a recruiter whose message I'd missed.
Take the girls to the park if the weather held.
I wrote them on a sheet of paper and placed it beside the laptop.
Then I got to work.
I sent the applications.
I returned the call.
The recruiter explained that the position had already been filled but said another opening might become available later in the month.
I thanked him and wrote down the company's name.
It wasn't the answer I'd wanted.
But it was an answer, and I moved on.
In the afternoon, I took the girls to the park.
They ran ahead while I followed along the path.
My younger daughter stopped to show me a small stone she'd found.
She held it up as if it were something precious.
"Look at this one."
I examined it.
"It's a good stone."
"Can I keep it?"
"Of course."
She put it in her pocket and ran back toward her sister.
I watched them play.
For the first time in days, I wasn't thinking about the inbox.
I was thinking about the sound of their laughter and the way the sunlight fell across the path.
I didn't know when I'd find another job.
I didn't know whether the recruiter from Thursday would call.
I didn't know what would happen next.
But I knew I couldn't spend every day waiting for certainty before allowing myself to live it.
When we got home, I put the stone on the windowsill after my daughter decided her pocket was too full.
Then I opened the laptop again.
The work was still there.
So was the uncertainty.
I sat down and began another application.
Click here to continue reading: PART 12: I Began to Separate the Man Who Had Fired Me From the Person I Still Wanted to Be, Even Though the Future Had Given Me No Reason to Feel Secure Yet
I Thought Being a Good Man Meant Doing the Right Thing, Until My Boss Made Me Choose Between My Job and a Stranger
Part 11 of 15
