7. Shut up
CHAPTER 7
Shut up
I jolt awake.
Mace.
Springing out of the bed, I race to the door connecting our rooms and rush back to check his crib. One look at him, and a rush of air escapes my lips. We moved his crib here because I have grown obsessed with listening to his heartbeat. Cradling him in my arms, I perch on the bed and watch my little one. His lips pucker. He stretches his arms and makes a cute sound only babies can make. My baby. His eyes open, and I sway softly to assure him he’s okay.
Blues the same colour as his father’s stare up at me. He blinks, and my heart does a flip. It doesn’t hurt to look into his blues, but it hurts to have a physical reminder of my heartbreak. It’s kind of fucked up. He left with my heart, but Mace is piecing me back.
“Mama. Mama is here,” I mutter when Mace continues staring.
Amelia was right. He’s a boy, a very tiny boy, who I watch over like my life depends on it because the doctor said his chances are low. My other hand brushes the mess of dark blonde curls on his head. He gurgles and erupts in a fit of laughter. I laugh. He has my whole heart.
The door creaks open. Amelia’s head pokes in, and she smiles. Mace makes everyone smile.
“Are you hungry?” I coo, relaxing on the headboard.
Mace parts his lips to show off his gums. I’m taking that as a yes. I pull up my shirt to reveal my full breasts. Because Mace was a bit premature, I had a slow start with milk production. None of that exclusive breastfeeding for me. The mattress sinks with Amelia’s weight. She lies on her stomach, elbows propped on the bed as she watches me try to feed her godson.
I push my nipple into Mace’s mouth like the nurses taught me. He latches onto it with his toothless gum. I wince. Beware of these little ones. They have no teeth, but they cause lots of damage.
“What?” I ask Amelia, who is smiling. She shrugs. “Seriously, what?”
“You two look cute.”
A tear leaks from the corner of my eye. I wipe it before Amelia notices, and if she does, she doesn’t say it. It wasn’t always this easy. Watching him in a tube was the hardest. Hearing he might not make it was harder. And then, when he was okay, the milk wouldn’t come out.
Fatigue, stress, and other discomfort from having a preemie might be the cause, as the doctors and nurses said. But on some days, it felt like I was an awful mother. Some people won’t ask. They see you holding a feeding bottle to your newborn lips and automatically assume you’re a horrible person who doesn’t want saggy breasts, so you put your child through that. As if I had a choice. Why would it matter how he gets his nutrients as long as he is well and healthy?
Mace lets go of my nipple with a sigh. Milk coats his lips like lipgloss and Amelia stretches a napkin for me to wipe it. His eyes soon close, and I place him on the bed between me and Amelia. Seconds later, my head lowers to his chest, and my ear presses to his heart. I hear it.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
He’s okay. He’s here. He won’t leave.
“So…” Amelia begins. I mimic her position, elbows on the bed and palms tucked under my jaw. When she’s like this, I know I won’t like whatever exits her mouth. She traces a line on Mace’s cheek. Looking away from him, she whispers, “Are we really not going to tell him?”
The familiar anger builds and twists inside me. He was not there when it was important. He doesn’t need to be here now. The man is living his best life. Why burden him with this news?
“Are we really going to keep talking about this? Why won’t you drop it, Amelia?”
She slides a pillow under her head. Her hair pools on it like a halo, and I’m tempted to mess it up so she can forget this topic. If he cared, he would have checked in. I move closer to Mace to listen to his heart. She sighs. What? This is only the tenth or twentieth time in two minutes.
“I don’t think it’s fair,” she mumbles.
“Then you should stop thinking.”
Amelia snorts with laughter. I crack a tiny smile, and she reaches over to tickle me.
“You’re allowed to laugh, Cathie. No one will hold it against you,” she says. Yeah, right. A sigh drags out of our lips. I stare at the white walls. “You’ve not left your room in weeks.”
I ignore her like I always do when she, Dad, Taylor, and Rose bring it up. They think I’m traumatised by Mace’s birth. That it affected me. They don’t know the half of it. They don’t know what it feels like to be unable to touch your child, help him, or offer him comfort. They don’t know what it feels like to watch your baby from an incubator. They don’t know shit.
“It’s not good for you,” she drones on. I groan into the back of my palms. “Cathie.”
“Excuse you. I went to get groceries.”
“That was me,” she corrects.
My hands lower. I search my brain for the most recent memory of me leaving the house. “I went out to buy his baby formula.”
“That was still me,” she whispers.
“So what?” I whisper-yell. Her mouth opens. I get out of bed with Mace, hugging him to my chest. He calms me, and I love holding my baby. “You’re tired of being his godmother, huh?”
Amelia sits up. “Of course not. I’m tired of watching you hide in here like the world is against you.”
“Oh, yeah?” I reply, my sarcasm strong enough to kill a cat. “Well, deal with it.”
“Cathie.” Amelia storms over and pries Mace from me. I follow her to his crib. She sets him down and tries to drag me to the bed. I let her lead me some distance away from him. We stop at the foot of the bed, my lips pinched. “I worry, okay? We all worry. You’re not living.”
“I’m alive, aren’t I?”
“That’s not what I mean. You’re not living. You’re simply existing. And we are worried.”
“You shouldn’t be,” I tell my friend. My chest rises and falls with my growing temper. Every bad emotion rolls over me, and I press a finger to my temple. Amelia tries to speak, and I snap. “Fucking shut up already, for God’s sake. Just shut up and stop telling me what to do.”
Instead of stepping back like I hoped, she closes in on me. “We are just worried.”
Tears fill her eyes, but I swipe at my cheeks. I’m crying. Why? Why is she crying?
“Don’t be worried. I’m fine, Amelia Greene.”
“You’re not fine, Cathie. Look at you,” Amelia mumbles. Her fingers press under my eyes, dragging across the prominent eye bags. “You are hardly sleeping. You have tons of alarms on your phone. There’s an alarm for every five, ten minutes? That’s not living, Catherine.”
The weight on my chest dips to my feet. I shut my eyes, beg myself to take a deep breath, and forget everything she’s saying, but pressure builds and builds in my chest. The alarms are to remind me to listen to his heartbeat. Why can’t she try to understand? I didn’t hold him for weeks.
“You are not the one who had to…” I stop myself, swatting her hands off my face. But the pressure continues building. It’s like invisible hands closing around my neck, and I can’t take it anymore, so I detonate. “Mace could have died. My son could have died, Amelia Greene.”
“But he didn’t. It’s been three months, Cathie. He’s here. His doctor says he’s doing fine.”
One minute, I’m standing in front of her, poking her chest with my finger. The next minute, I’m on the bed with her, and she’s hugging me, lending me her strength. I’m tired. I’m tired of being scared. I’m tired of being worried. What if I sleep for too long, and then he’s gone? Or he chokes on stuff? Or he has SIDS? What will happen to me? I cannot live without him.
“Amelia,” I say into my best friend’s shoulder. Her arms tighten around me. It doesn’t feel like home anymore. Hasn’t in months. Her tears soak my shirt, and mine wets her dress. The fight leaves me. In its wake is an exhaustion I don’t know how to handle. “I’m scared, okay? And I’m so drained, too. And I don’t want to go out. Please, let me stay here with Mace.”
Amelia pulls back to stare at me. She wipes the tears trailing down my cheeks. “You don’t really need to go out. Just take a walk. Walk down the street. Go to the park. That’s okay.”
“Who will watch him?” I whisper.
“I’m his godmother, remember?” Amelia says. She is a great godmother. The one who runs all the errands, keeps the house clean, and makes sure I have something to eat. “You need it.”
“I’m not a very good mother, am I?”
“You’re exceptional,” she replies. She pinches my cheeks, stretching them until I’m smiling. “I just want you to be okay, Cathie. Me. Rose. Taylor. Your dad. You have shut them out.”
“I didn’t shut them out,” I reply. “I speak to them often. And I spoke to Dad yesterday.”
“What did you say to him?”
My head throbs as I try to remember the events of yesterday. Dad was here to check in, that I know. Amelia chuckles at my silence. Maybe I’m distracted, but I didn’t shut anyone out.
“Does it really matter what I said to him?”
Amelia shakes her head. “Not really.”
Thoughts swarm my head, and I drag myself to the mirror. The eye bags have become part of my identity. My cheeks are sunken, eyes are red-rimmed and tired. I look older than nineteen. I miss sleep. I don’t remember what it’s like to sleep uninterrupted for five hours. It won’t matter if they remove the alarm. My inner body clock has adjusted. I must listen to his heart.
“What are you thinking?” Amelia whispers.
“Nothing. I don’t know. Wondering what it must feel like to sleep without worrying.”
Her sad smile is like a foot on my chest. I return to the bed and sniff my armpit. I don’t smell. My room is neat. That’s the only thing I’m good at. My hygiene. His too. I need my baby to be okay.
“Maybe you should try to get some rest,” she says. “You need to sleep, Cathie.”
“But if I’m asleep, I can’t listen to his heart.”
“I’m here, Cathie,” Amelia offers. My eyelids droop. She pushes me to the bed and pulls the cover over my chest. The weeks of exhaustion are catching up on me. My body is tired, but my mind fights to stay awake. “I’ll listen on your behalf, okay? Get some sleep. You need it.”
Her fingers run through my scalp. I close my eyes and open them moments later.
“I know just what you need,” Amelia murmurs. Rushing out of the room, she returns with her phone. I’m too weak to ask questions or protest, so I keep mute. “He sang this last month.”
A sound filters into the room. The calmness of the song, combined with her fingers stroking my scalp, has my eyes shutting. A familiar voice whispers the lyrics. Him. Mr Dissick. The voice is so raw, so him. I burrow my head into the pillow, and my body succumbs to him.