19. Amie
nineteen
Amie
I pull a card from my wallet and tap it against the reader, only realising after the third payment attempt that it’s a Starbucks gift card and not my bank card. God, I haven’t been this fried since Maisy was a newborn. The baby brain was like nothing I’d ever known—but my baby is three going on thirteen now, so I can’t really use her as an excuse anymore.
The only excuse I have today is jet lag. It hasn’t hit me this hard for a long time, but when I try and fail repeatedly to shove the card back in its slot in my wallet, I sigh and press the heel of my hand to my eyes.
You never truly get used to being jet lagged. You just learn to manage it. You learn to adjust your routine as you go, sleeping when you’re tired and eating when you’re hungry—just like being a baby again. You learn not to make any plans on landing day, because by the time you get home after a fourteen hour flight, you’re just about ready to drop where you stand.
You learn that sometimes, your little girl will have to entertain herself, watch an extra hour of TV, stay with a babysitter for a little longer so you can recover enough to take care of her again. You come to accept that you’ll miss out not just on the time when you’re away, but the time you spend sleeping at home, too .
I drive home on autopilot. Maisy is at the zoo with Paloma today, so when I stumble through the door, I yank my laundry from my suitcase, toss it in the machine and head immediately for a shower. I do the absolute minimum to rinse the aircraft off my skin, wrap myself in a fluffy robe and fall into bed without even drying my hair.
By the time I wake up, it’s early evening; darkness has swallowed the afternoon and I can hear Paloma and Maisy having a Disney Princess dance party in the living room. I think I hear Ruth’s voice, too. I slip out of my robe and into some leggings and an oversized grey sweatshirt with TEXAS emblazoned across the chest, scrub away the fuzzy feeling from my teeth with two squeezes of toothpaste, and pad down the stairs. I got home shortly before nine this morning, so I’ve slept for almost ten hours. I feel like I could easily sleep for another twelve, but my arms ache to hold my daughter—even just for a few minutes before bedtime.
I peer around the living room door, careful not to make any noise. Maisy is standing on the sofa, both hands in Ruth’s, dancing with wiggling hips and swinging arms. She spots me before Paloma or Ruth do, and the dance party comes to an abrupt end when she leaps off the sofa and screeches “ Mama! I missed you!”
I drop to my knees and open my arms, sweeping my daughter into a tight embrace as she reaches me. Eyes closed, squeezed tight against tears, I exhale tension and breathe in the comfort of her little girl smell: strawberry shampoo, vanilla cupcakes, and Paloma’s magnolia perfume. I bury my face in her hair and hold her close, savouring the way she wraps her arms around my head and threads her little hands into my bed-ruffled curls.
“You did lots of sleep, Mama,” she says, patting my hair softly. “Aunty Roo, what that word? ”
“Jet lagged, sweet thing,” Ruth says. She’s tidying crayons and dinosaurs whilst Paloma clears away the remnants of their macaroni cheese dinner.
“Are you jellagged, Mama?”
A small laugh bursts through my smile and I press a kiss to Maisy’s forehead.
“I am a bit,” I tell her. “But I’ll be okay.”
Standing up, I scoop her into my arms and settle her on my hip. She rests her head against mine and yawns.
“It’s nearly bedtime for you, Maisy Mouse,” I say. “Daddy will be calling soon. Why don’t you go and pick out some pyjamas and I’ll be up in a minute?”
I set her on her feet and she thunders up the stairs to her bedroom. Paloma and Ruth are waiting for me at the door.
“Thanks, guys,” I say, hugging them both in turn. “I’m so sorry, I never meant to sleep so long. I must’ve slept right through my alarm.”
“Don’t apologise,” Paloma insists, pulling us all into a group hug. “You obviously needed it, and you know I love getting to spend the day with my Mae-Mae.”
“Still,” I say, guiltily. “You shouldn’t have had to have her all day. You should have woken me.”
“Stop apologising!” Roo exclaims. “We love her, and we love you, and we take care of each other. You needed us and we were here. And we’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Tears prick at my eyes and I tighten my embrace.
“I love you girls,” I say into Ruth’s hair. “You’re the best.”
“We know,” Paloma says cheekily. “Now go, put Maisy to bed and get ready for Daddy Cam. Love you, A. ”
Paloma opens the door and shoos Ruth out, before following and closing it with a click behind her. I turn the key in the lock and drag my weary body up the stairs and into Maisy’s room, where Maisy is sat on the edge of her bed, swinging her feet, with a pair of yellow bumble bee pyjamas slung across her lap.
“Buzzy bees?” I ask, and she nods happily. She’s just crawling under the covers when my phone rings, and I immediately switch the video call to my tablet to give Maisy a better look at Cam.
“How’s my two favourite girls?” I hear Cam ask as I lower the blind and draw the curtains. Then I slide into bed with Maisy, hugging her close. Two favourite girls. Despite the bone-deep exhaustion, a little spark flickers low in my belly, unfurling and spreading warmth from my core throughout all four limbs.
“Mama is—um—jellagged,” Maisy announces, looking very pleased with herself for remembering the word.
“She’s jet lagged, huh?” Cam replies. “That’s no fun.”
I see his eyes flicker from Maisy to me and back again.
“Are you ladies ready for tonight’s story?” he asks, and Maisy cheers out loud, waving her arms and legs and narrowly avoiding hitting me in the face. Cam chuckles and launches into a retelling of one of Maisy’s favourite books, and she listens with rapt attention until the very end, when her face splits in a yawn and her eyes begin to droop.
“Night night, Daddy,” she whispers to the tablet. “I sleep now. Love you.”
“I love you, Maisy Girl,” he says back. “Have big dreams, sweetheart.”
Maisy’s snoring softly before the words are even out of Cam’s mouth. I’m almost asleep too, but I manage to roll myself out of Maisy’s bed and grab the tablet, stopping only to flick her bedroom light off before heading straight to my own bedroom.
“Jet lag, huh?” I hear Cam’s voice. Shit, I had already forgotten we were still on the call. I hold the tablet up to my face and squint at it, forcing a tired smile.
“Yeah, this one hit me like a truck,” I complain. “I filled up my car and tried to pay with a Starbucks card earlier, and then I slept for ten hours. I’m still exhausted.”
“Oh, baby,” he says. Baby . I may not be, but the butterflies in my belly certainly are awake, swooping down to throb between my legs. “Jet lag’s a bitch at the best of times but yours sounds pretty awful today. Go get some more sleep, okay? Text me tomorrow.”
I offer a tight smile and finger wave and then jab a finger at the screen, trying four times before I manage to hit the right button to end the call. I don’t even change out of my leggings and sweatshirt before crawling back into bed and falling asleep with the light on.
It’s still dark outside when I wake again, fully dressed. It’s four in the morning, and I’ve slept for most of the last nineteen hours.
I head for the shower, bare feet slapping noisily against the tiled floor, and I take my time to do everything I didn’t do yesterday, like double-cleanse, and use my favourite curl products. Dressed in leggings and another oversized sweater—this one with a green elephant on the front, I pad down the stairs in a pair of fuzzy socks and head straight to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and start on the first of several loads of laundry. I find myself yawning as I stir my drink, as though I haven’t just slept for the better part of an entire day.
But that’s what jet lag does. I adore my job, and if everything goes right, it’s easy. But there’s no denying it can be hard work; long days, longer nights, lonely hotel rooms away from home for nights on end. Never being able to cook a real meal, always eating out or existing only on pre-packaged, ready to eat junk food. And then there's the jet lag: the brain fog, the jelly limbs, the all-encompassing bone-deep exhaustion that just doesn’t shift, no matter how long you sleep.
And you miss stuff when you’re busy sleeping. The first time Maisy said mama , I was asleep, exhausted after jumping back into work after maternity leave with a trip to South Africa. I cried for two weeks, sick to my stomach with guilt and desperately sad that I’d missed it—and her—because I’d been sleeping.
I’ve missed parties and weddings, cancelled plans with my friends because although they’d been planned around my work schedule, I’d been too exhausted to make it. Instead, on most of those occasions, I sat at home, alone.
I pull my phone from my pocket.
Amie
Sorry for flaking on you last night. Don’t know why this trip hit so hard.
Almost immediately, my phone buzzes, and I turn it over, expecting to see a reply to my message. Instead, I see a video call request, Cam’s profile photo lighting up my screen. It’s a candid shot of him with Maisy and I can’t help but smile as I answer.
“Hey, she lives!” He jokes in greeting.
“Yeah, God, I have no idea… just kicked my ass, I guess.”
“Sometimes it happens,” he says. “I’m sure it just builds and builds. I can bounce back and forth between Phoenix and Miami for a month and be fine, and then I’ll fly one more transcon and it’ll just knock me out for a couple days. And that’s only a couple hours’ difference.”
I hum in agreement.
“How’s Maisy? Was she with your mom yesterday?”
“No, Paloma kept her for the day,” I say. The night before last, while I’d been in Hong Kong, Cam and I had conference-called Paloma to say goodnight to Maisy. “They went to the zoo, and at some point, Roo joined them. I woke up to find the three of them having a rave in my living room. I’m pretty sure Lo was about to break out the glow sticks and glitter hair spray.”
Cam laughs, a deep rumble from his belly.
“That girl is a law unto herself,” he says. “I take it Maisy adores her.”
“She does,” I confirm. “With wild, reckless abandon.”
“Sounds like our Maisy Girl,” he says with another chuckle. His eyes are soft, love evident in every inch of his expression. I don’t take it for granted for a second. I know things could’ve turned out so differently. He could’ve been uninterested in Maisy, he could’ve been angry with me. He could’ve broken her heart. But the fact that he didn’t, and the way he loves her takes me right back to that night, to the warmth in my belly and the tug in my chest when his green eyes locked with mine.
Before we hang up, we talk some more, firming up our plans for me and Maisy to fly out to Phoenix for Thanksgiving. As I stuff my phone in the pocket of my sweatshirt and carry my empty mug to the sink, a thought pops unbidden into my head.
Last night… he called me baby .