Chapter 20 Liz
ONE WEEK OLD
While Liz finished nursing the baby, who would only latch after she tried to coax him into it for at least twenty minutes, Preston opened the door for Cara, Madison, and Freya, who came flooding into the baby’s room, their arms laden with gift bags.
“Oh my gosh,” Cara whisper-screamed.
“Lizzzzzz,” Madison said, putting her hand over her heart as she looked at Liz and baby Charlie.
“Nice tits,” Freya said.
Preston listened to the women gush over Charlie and fuss over Liz, telling her how great she looked.
Only she didn’t. Liz hadn’t slept more than two hours at a time before she was woken by her human alarm clock, and she’d developed such huge, dark circles under her eyes that she looked like a raccoon.
The breasts that Freya had complimented were 50 percent larger than usual, but they were also engorged with cement—throbbing and hard as rocks.
Liz had definitely maybe remembered to brush her teeth that morning, but the last time she had put a comb through her hair was anyone’s guess.
Maybe since the hospital. Liz had stayed for four days while she was monitored and given a magnesium drip for the preeclampsia.
Then she was discharged into the wild without any nurses to administer pain meds or help her execute a swaddle.
Liz had thought pregnancy was a gauntlet, but it turned out that postpartum was a civil war.
“Do you girls need anything?” Preston asked. Sleep. Sanity. No mirrors anywhere.
Liz shook her head. “No. Thanks, though.”
“Then I’ll let you ladies do your thing,” Preston said, and went off to the kitchen, where he had set up a temporary desk while he was on paternity leave.
Though Preston would take the six weeks contractually available, there wasn’t a world in which he wouldn’t work.
He would simply tend to business from home instead of reporting to the office and call it paternity leave.
After the past three days listening to him boisterously roll calls and thank colleagues and clients for the Dodgers onesies and baby Nikes they had sent over, Liz had encouraged Preston to go back to the office, telling him that she and the baby would be fine and he didn’t need to play out the entirety of his paternity leave at home, but Preston resisted. He wanted to be there.
“We come bearing gifts,” Freya said. “But I come with the good stuff.” She grinned and took a white box out of a shopping bag—Sugarfish’s signature Trust Me omakase to go—and then, with the other hand, lifted a bottle of white wine above her head like it was Simba in The Lion King. “Sushi and booze, baby.”
“Bless you,” Liz said.
“It was my first meal after I pushed out the twins,” Madison said, sitting down on the bed next to Liz so she could get a better view of the baby.
Liz and Preston hadn’t had time to move the queen-sized bed out of the room, completing the conversion from guest room to baby’s room before their son’s early arrival.
Now, though, Liz had been sleeping there to shorten her commute to the crib.
Charlie could sense the second Liz had fallen asleep and would start wailing like one of those tornado alarms in Kansas, instantly snapping her out of it.
Freya plucked a salmon roll from the Sugarfish container and held it up to Liz’s mouth so she could eat it even though her arms were full of baby. Liz moaned in pleasure.
“Thank you,” she said.
“We’re so glad you’re okay,” Cara said. “That was really scary.”
“Don’t worry about your shower,” Madison said. “I knew it was scheduled too close to your due date! We’ll change it to a sip and see when you’re ready.”
Liz thought she’d never be ready for an event with a name like that, but she nodded agreeably, too tired and hungry to get into it. Freya held up a crab roll and Liz opened her mouth like a baby bird, then swallowed it in three delicious bites.
“How’s he sleeping?” Cara asked, looking at Charlie’s little face.
“Great. For two minutes at a time,” Liz said. “Am I going to be this tired forever?”
“No,” Cara said at the same time Madison said, “Yes.”
Freya shrugged. “I have three nannies.”
“I remember feeling like your baby is never going to sleep through the night and you’re going to be this zombie cow who’s changing diapers and nursing and burping your baby forever, but it does change,” Cara said. “And then you actually miss this time.”
“Cara’s right,” Madison said. “I’m always tired, but I have twins, so don’t listen to me.”
They all looked down at Charlie, who was nestled in Liz’s arms, sleeping peacefully for once.
Like an angel who wanted to cast doubt on his mother’s claims that he fought the activity at all costs.
The Hatch sound machine was on and a humidifier hummed in the corner; the smell of baby lotion clung to the air, while a sheep mobile from RH Baby she couldn’t start a relationship with a stranger at this point just because they had the same large hands and defined chin.
Charlie started fussing and Madison passed him back to Liz.
As her friends tried to talk over his shrieks, Liz felt satisfaction in the proof that she hadn’t exaggerated.
Her baby wasn’t the angel they’d witnessed so far; he was…
this. Freya unsubtly looked at her watch while Liz tried and failed to get Charlie to latch and her baby resisted all the tips that Cara and Madison offered.
Finally, Freya said, “Maybe he needs privacy,” and shot a look at Cara and Madison, who got the hint.
“Call us if you need anything,” Cara said.
“Like booze,” Freya said, and Liz thought, Yes.
Charlie continued complaining after they left, and then Preston appeared in the doorway, an expression on his face that Liz had never seen before. He looked at her for several long, loaded minutes. Liz didn’t know what was coming, but she felt herself holding her breath.