Saturday morning began with pancake batter on the counter and my younger daughter insisting that the first pancake was supposed to be hers.
"You said we could make them."
"I did."
"So that one's mine."
I looked at the pan.
The pancake was uneven, with one edge thinner than the other.
"You're welcome to it."
She grinned and reached for her plate.
My older daughter complained that her sister had claimed the biggest one before the rest were cooked.
My wife laughed from the other side of the kitchen.
For a few minutes, the conversation was about nothing more important than breakfast.
I needed that.
I'd spent so many mornings at the kitchen table with my laptop open that the room had started to feel like an office I couldn't leave.
The applications were still waiting.
The bills were still waiting.
But Saturday morning belonged to my family.
I poured another round of batter into the pan and listened to the girls argue about whether chocolate chips belonged in pancakes.
My wife caught my eye.
"You're smiling."
"Am I not allowed?"
"Of course you are."
She slid a plate toward me.
"I just haven't seen you do it much this week."
I looked down at my breakfast.
"I guess I've been distracted."
"You've been worried."
There was no point denying it.
"I have."
She sat beside me while the girls carried their plates into the living room.
"We'll keep working through it," she said.
"I know."
"And you don't have to be cheerful every minute to make this easier for us."
I looked at her.
Sometimes I thought my family needed me to be confident because I was the one who had lost the job.
I thought I had to hide the fear, keep my voice steady, and act as if every unanswered application was simply another step in a sensible plan.
But my wife had never asked me to pretend.
She wanted me to keep going.
That was different.
After breakfast, I washed the dishes while she helped the girls get ready to spend part of the afternoon with her.
I planned to use the quiet hours to look for more work.
Before they left, my younger daughter came back into the kitchen.
"Are you going to be here when we get home?"
"Yes."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
She accepted that and ran out to join her sister.
I watched them climb into the car.
Then I returned to the table.
The pancake pan was cooling on the stove.
A few crumbs remained beside the fruit bowl.
I wiped them away before opening the laptop.
There were several new listings.
I read each one carefully, resisting the urge to apply simply because it existed.
Some required experience I didn't have.
Others offered salaries that would make our financial situation even tighter.
I saved the ones that looked promising and started with the best match.
The application asked for a summary of my previous responsibilities.
I wrote about coordinating projects, communicating with clients, and keeping work moving when schedules changed.
For the first time in days, I didn't feel compelled to explain my dismissal in my own head while I typed.
I could describe what I knew how to do without bringing Gavin into every sentence.
That was a small change.
It mattered.
I submitted the application and opened another.
Around noon, I received an email from a company I'd contacted earlier in the week.
I opened it quickly.
They thanked me for my interest but had decided to proceed with other candidates.
I stared at the message.
It was polite.
It was ordinary.
It didn't say I was incapable of doing the work.
It didn't mention my previous employer.
It didn't say anything about the roadside or the presentation I'd missed.
It was simply a rejection.
Still, my chest tightened.
I leaned back and closed my eyes.
For a moment, I was back in Gavin's office, listening to him tell me that I had put the agency's most important opportunity at risk.
I could hear the controlled impatience in his voice.
I remembered how quickly he had reached his conclusion.
I had let that conversation follow me into every application since.
Each time I sent my résumé to someone new, I was afraid they would see what Gavin had seen.
A man who couldn't be trusted to arrive when he was needed.
I looked at the rejection email again.
Then I closed it.
I couldn't control whether a company wanted to hire me.
I could control whether I allowed every rejection to become another version of the same morning.
I opened my notebook and wrote down the date of the response.
Then I moved to the next application.
It wasn't courage in any dramatic sense.
It was simply refusing to let one email decide how the rest of the afternoon would go.
Later, I took a break and made myself lunch.
I ate at the kitchen table, away from the laptop.
While I was cleaning up, the woman called.
"Hi, Christopher."
"Hi. How are you?"
"I'm doing well. How about you?"
"I'm all right."
The answer came more easily than it had before.
She asked whether I had heard anything from the company where I'd completed the screening.
"Not yet."
"I'm sorry."
"I've had a few responses from other places. Nothing positive so far."
I heard her draw a quiet breath.
"That must be frustrating."
"It is."
I didn't add that I had spent the morning feeling as though I was being judged all over again.
She didn't ask me to pretend I was fine.
Instead, she said, "I hope something comes through soon."
"So do I."
We spoke about ordinary things for a few minutes.
She told me she was gradually returning to her routine.
I told her the girls had insisted on pancakes that morning.
She laughed when I explained the argument over the first one.
"At least they know what they want."
"They certainly do."
The conversation was easy in a way our first conversation hadn't been.
Neither of us seemed to be searching for the right words to explain what had happened.
Before we hung up, she asked me to give my family her best.
I said I would.
Afterward, I put my phone down and returned to the kitchen.
I thought about how much of my attention had been consumed by the consequences of stopping.
I'd worried about the job, the money, the questions people might ask, and the possibility that future employers would see my dismissal as a warning.
But the woman was recovering.
My family was carrying on.
I was still looking for work.
Life had not become easy, but it had continued.
That afternoon, I received no other news.
I spent the remaining hours reviewing applications and organizing my notes.
When my wife and the girls returned, I closed the laptop before they came through the door.
My older daughter had a story to tell about something that happened while they were out.
My younger daughter interrupted twice to correct details that weren't especially important.
I listened to both of them.
At dinner, my wife asked whether anything had changed with the job search.
I told her about the rejection.
She put down her fork.
"I'm sorry."
"It's all right."
"Are you sure?"
I considered that.
"I'm disappointed. But I'm not going to spend the whole evening thinking about it."
She gave me a small smile.
"That sounds healthy."
"Don't make it sound too impressive. I'm still learning."
She laughed.
After dinner, I helped the girls prepare for the coming school week.
We checked their bags and made sure their homework was finished.
I signed a school form that had been sitting on the counter for two days.
Then I helped my younger daughter find the pencil she'd been certain she had lost forever.
It was under the couch.
She looked at me as though I'd performed a miracle.
"How did you know?"
"I looked."
She nodded, satisfied with that explanation.
Later, after both girls were in bed, I sat with my wife on the couch.
The house was quiet.
I told her I was beginning to feel less trapped by what had happened at work.
"Less trapped how?" she asked.
"I still think about it. I still get angry. But I'm starting to understand that Gavin's decision doesn't have to become the way I see myself."
My wife rested her hands on her knees.
"That's good."
"I spent years trying to be dependable. One morning went wrong, and suddenly I felt like all those years meant nothing."
"They meant something before he fired you," she said. "They still mean something now."
I looked at her.
"I know."
"And if a company doesn't hire you, that doesn't erase them either."
I nodded slowly.
It was easier to understand those words when someone else said them.
It was harder to remember them when I was alone with the laptop.
But I was beginning to see the difference between being rejected for a position and being rejected as a person.
Those things were not the same.
I had spent weeks treating them as if they were.
That night, I placed the notebook beside the computer and wrote down the applications I wanted to finish on Monday.
Then I closed it.
I didn't know what the coming week would bring.
I didn't have a job offer waiting in my inbox.
I didn't have a new plan that guaranteed everything would be all right.
But I had made it through the day without allowing every setback to take something else from me.
For now, that was enough.
Click here to continue reading: PART 14: I Finally Stopped Rehearsing the Argument I Never Got to Finish With Gavin, and Began to Understand That Moving Forward Did Not Mean Pretending He Had Treated Me Fairly
I Thought Being a Good Man Meant Doing the Right Thing, Until My Boss Made Me Choose Between My Job and a Stranger
Part 13 of 15
