19. Heidi
HEIDI
Five weeks after Ivy's birth, exhaustion makes my hands clumsy enough that I drop a clean bottle on my kitchen floor.
It rolls beneath the table. The sound wakes Ivy, who begins crying from her basket before I can bend to retrieve it.
“I've got it,” Beau says.
“I can pick up a bottle.”
“I know.”
His answer contains no argument. He retrieves it, carries it to the sink, and washes his hands before lifting Ivy.
I stand in the middle of my kitchen unable to remember what I was doing before the bottle fell.
“When did she eat?” he asks.
“One twenty. Both sides. She'll take the bottle if she's still hungry.”
“Go upstairs.”
I look at him.
“That sounded like an order,” he says. “Please go upstairs if you want to sleep. I can manage.”
I want to test him with questions. Which blanket. How warm. How many ounces. Instead, I hand him the cloth from my shoulder.
“Call me if she won't settle.”
“I will.”
The stairs feel impossibly long. At the top, I hear him tell Ivy that both of her parents have strong opinions about clean bottles.
I smile before I can stop myself.
I wake in a panic.
For one confused second, the quiet means something is wrong. I sit up too fast, listening for Ivy.
Then Beau's voice carries faintly through the floor. He is describing the garden to her. Apparently my mother's fourth bench has become a serious planning failure.
I lie back against the pillow.
He has not called because he does not need rescuing. Ivy is not crying. The house has continued while I slept.
Every muscle releases at once. I cover my face and cry into my pillow, not because anything hurts, but because for two hours I stopped holding the whole day in my head.
Beau tells me Ivy dislikes the right shoulder after feeding and prefers the window when she is wakeful.
I look toward the kitchen. “Tea?”
His eyes come back to mine. “Do you mean stay?”
“It is a common drink.”
“I remember. I didn't know whether you meant...”
“Neither do I.”
Ivy sleeps against his chest. His hand covers most of her back.
I picture the three of us at my table. For one dangerous moment, the picture extends into dinner, then evening, then Beau beside me when Ivy wakes.
Loneliness is capable of drawing an entire future from one cup.
“No,” I say. “Not tonight.”
He nods at once.
The disappointment in his face remains his. He does not put it into his voice and ask me to carry it.
I do want him. I also need the boundary to remain real.
“Go tonight,” I say.
He kisses Ivy's forehead, gives her to me, and leaves. I stand at the door wishing he had stayed, then understand that leaving when required is part of why I wanted him to.
After he goes, Mom asks why I sent him away.
“Because I asked for scheduled visits.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
I carry Ivy to the window Beau showed her. “If I change every boundary when I miss him, neither of us will know whether he earned anything or waited until I was lonely.”
My mother does not tell me to be harder. She says wanting him is information, not an instruction. I write that sentence in the notebook where I track Ivy's feeds, then resent reducing my marriage to the margin beside wet diapers.
The next visit, Beau arrives on time and brings no gift. He knows which shoulder Ivy prefers. Warmth moves through my stomach before grief follows it.
I sit across the room with a cup cooling between my hands.
Beau walks Ivy slowly from the window to the fireplace. He tells her what each object is, including several she cannot possibly see from where he holds her. When she fusses, he does not speed up or change position three times. He waits.
Her head settles beneath his chin.
“You learned,” I say.
He looks over. “She taught me.”
“Painfully?”
“She is a demanding critic.”
I smile into the cup.
This is not the fatherhood I pictured during pregnancy. It is late and supervised and surrounded by rules. It is also real. Ivy knows his voice now. She turns toward him when he enters.
I let myself be glad about that without deciding what it means for me.