Chapter Five
Willa
“Well, I hated that,” I told Adelaide as I clipped her car seat into its cradle.
She hadn’t exactly enjoyed it, either, no matter how many times she was oohed and aahed over.
“But I only have one more of these to deal with. You have lots of check-ups in your future. I know,” I agreed when she whimpered. “Oh, you have big feelings about it.”
With a little sigh, I gave up my hopes of being able to get moving and climbed in the back seat with her, locking the doors, then freeing her from her car seat and pressing her to my chest, hoping a feeding would keep her calm enough that I could run an errand or two.
Now that I was out, I wasn’t sure why I’d been putting it off. It felt good. Normal. I felt more like a human being again, the invasive exam aside.
Sure, an argument could be made for the fact that Adelaide was a…
demanding baby. Long trips out with her would likely be overwhelming for her, stressful for me, and mildly annoying to anyone around who had to listen to her scream.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t head out for an occasional cup of (decaf, ugh) coffee.
Or grab some essentials instead of ordering them.
Hell, even just drive around and listen to music.
“Right? We don’t have to be complete shut-ins, do we?”
Suddenly, I could see ourselves a few months from now when I wasn’t as worried about germs and her immunity, when it was a little warmer out, and we could get all pretty and go out shopping or for brunches, to walk around the local park to look at the koi ponds, or the farm to look at all the animals.
When I first learned I was going at this parenting thing solo, I’d worried that my world would constrict, would force my whole life to revolve around my house.
Looking back, that was just the depression and anxiety working hand-in-hand to make me think that the life I loved was over.
It wasn’t.
It had just gained a little sidekick to be there with me.
There were plenty of moms who still went out, had a social life, and traveled, just with their kid in tow. Which, I decided, was even more amazing because you got to see all these new things through their fresh eyes.
“I’m going to give you the world, baby girl,” I told her as I shifted her up onto my shoulder to burp her. “We just have to learn to navigate this all together, right?”
Milk-drunk, I managed to get Adelaide back into her carrier and strapped in. She didn’t even stir when I closed the doors and turned the car over.
From there, I placed two orders for pick-up, then drove for a few blissful moments, just soaking up the town I loved so much, soaking up the memories associated with all the places.
Including the coffee shop my cousins and I frequented, where I parked on the corner and called.
“She’s Bean Around,” the woman answered.
“Hey, Jazzy, it’s Willa. I placed an order on the app. Is there any chance you can run it out to me?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“If you have a precious little baby I can make stupid faces at.”
“I do.”
“Then I will be right out.”
“Thanks, Jazz.”
That was another perk of a town you’d lived in all your life, with places you’d gone to often enough to be known. People went above and beyond for you.
A couple of minutes later, Jazzy burst out the door with her tanned skin and lilac hair.
I’d only ordered two coffees.
But she’d brought a pastry box out with her too.
“Don’t worry,” she said as she hopped in the backseat. “I’m not going to touch her. This is a ‘look only’ visit.”
She passed the coffees and box up to me before leaning over to look in the car seat. “Oh, Willa. She’s a little angel.”
“Isn’t she?”
“Totally. I bet she’s going to look just like you. So how are you doing, Mama?”
“I’m… adjusting,” I said, half turning to look back at her.
“That’s the best you can do, right? I remember those days. So tired that everything around you is blurry and you don’t remember what month, let alone day, it is, and you’re eating crap and you’re unwashed and you have no clean clothes because you’ve leaked through everything…”
“That has been my life,” I agreed.
“It’s good that you’re getting out. Even for just a few minutes. And I’m hoping you’re letting that giant family of yours take care of you too.”
“I am. I mean, I’m pretty sure half of them would move in with me if I let them, but—”
“But you want to learn to navigate this new normal too.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re doing great, Mama. Treat yourself to the treats in the bag. Okay. I’m out. I’ll hip-check the door so she doesn’t freak out.”
With that, Jazzy was gone, and I had coffee and treats to bring home with us.
The new dumpster had arrived at the crack of dawn this morning, waking Adelaide out of a dead sleep and getting our morning started early.
But as I pulled into the driveway, I saw random pieces of drywall sticking out of the top.
Owen had shown up after we’d left and had gotten right to work, it seemed.
His van was still parked up near the garage, and there was no logical reason for the way a weird fluttery sensation moved across my chest at its presence.
I grabbed Adelaide’s carrier and set the pastry box on her legs. “You’re gonna have to forgive me for this,” I told her as she slept away. I picked up the tray of coffee then made my way to the door.
Inside, there was some slight banging coming from upstairs, but Adelaide stayed quiet as I brought her into the living room, turned her fan on, and placed her in the playard to finish her nap.
With that, I took the coffees with me upstairs.
“Hey, buddy,” I greeted Tuna, who was asleep in the hallway but woke up with a wagging tail as soon as he heard my voice. “Let me go say hi to your dad—oh, hey,” I said when Owen stepped into my bedroom.
I’d never really understood the appeal many women had for a man who was dirty from work. Greasy mechanics, dirt-covered farmers. That kind of thing had never appealed to me as someone who tended to like myself and my environment tidy.
But Owen’s dark wash jeans and navy-colored henley were both covered in drywall dust. There was even a little clinging to the ends of his hair.
And I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen someone so attractive.
“Hey,” he said, giving me a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes.
“I, uh, brought you a coffee,” I told him, holding out the cup. “She’s Bean Around is the best. I mean, Deja Brew is good too if you don’t want to deal with the lines. But I know someone,” I added. “I got a ‘coffee regular’ vibe from you,” I told him.
It was a weird thing to have a knack for, but I could almost always get someone’s coffee order right.
Maybe that came from being such a coffee lover myself.
Or being around so many fellow coffee lovers.
But I knew my latte girls from my cold brew girls.
And my black drip guys from my interesting coffee guys.
Everything about Owen said he liked normal, everyday kind of things. Like coffee with just a little milk and sugar to make it more enjoyable.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “Thank you.”
“How’s it going?”
“I got the noisiest work done while you were out. Might be a little banging, but it shouldn’t carry too much.”
“Can I see?”
“Of course,” Owen said, moving into the bathroom so I could look from the doorway.
The shower was stripped down to the beams and subfloor.
“Oh, God. Do I want to ask?”
Because that subfloor… it looked wet. Very wet.
Owen sucked in a deep breath and slowly let it out through his nose. “Yeah… about that…”
“Oh, my favorite words when it comes to this house,” I said with a humorless laugh. “Is that from the pipe?”
“It’s… soggy enough for me to think that you had a slow leak through the shower floor for a while. The burst pipe didn’t help, but this was likely a long-running problem.”
“Of course it was. How close was I to falling through this floor when I showered?”
“Getting close. It’s a good thing you wanted to gut the place.The thing is…
you can’t just dry out a subfloor like you can the walls.
I have to cut the damaged parts out and replace them.
Thankfully, the joists are all in good shape.
We are just going to need more drying time and then a repair before I can get to the waterproofing part. ”
“It doesn’t sound too catastrophic.”
“It’s not. Just a couple more days of work. I know you probably want your house back, but—”
“No, I’m not worried about that. At least I know with you doing it that this will be done right. I’m just sorry if this is eating into your schedule. I know you’re busy.”
“I always have time. How’d your outing go?”
“Pretty well, actually. It felt good to get out of pajamas for a day.”
That had his gaze sweeping over me.
I’d gone with a simple outfit, knowing I’d be stripping down at the doctor’s office. So I was just in a loose, lightweight T-shirt material navy romper that made it easy to both take off and nurse.
I resisted the urge to pull the cardigan I had on over it closed, to cover up.
I had been in survival mode too much to give my new body much thought until right then. But I was suddenly very aware of my much heavier breasts, the way my belly was still squishy.
But I was thinking about it then. How my nursing bra kept things mostly contained but didn’t exactly provide the same kind of lifting and separating that my normal ones would have. How the material of the romper was probably a little clingy around my tummy.
It shouldn’t matter.
I didn’t want to be someone who was vain, especially right after giving birth.
But logic told me it likely had less to do about a few body changes and more to do with my complicated feelings about my sense of self-worth when it came to men after what happened with Adelaide’s father. If you could call him that.
A man’s opinion of me should have been low on my priority list, but some scars stayed tender. And sometimes you couldn’t help running a finger over them to feel the ache.
Owen’s face gave little away, though. Except for the way his gaze lingered just a second longer than was appropriate on my chest before making its way back to my face.
“I dunno. The pajamas had a certain kind of charm,” he said, shooting me an unexpectedly charming smile.
“It’s been a whole new world of clothing, that’s for sure.”
“Do you miss it? The power suits and heels?”
“Huh. I hadn’t really thought about it. I think I miss the confidence boost I felt when dressing that way. Though I don’t even know if any of it would fit now.”
“You haven’t changed that much,” he said, shaking his head.
It was embarrassing how much I needed to hear that.
It was hard for any woman, let alone one who’d gone through pregnancy, not to hyper-fixate on small changes in their body.
I’d been guilty of it even at my most fit and confident: Wasn’t this a little looser when I bought it?
Did my triceps always look so jiggly? Is that the start of some cellulite?
We were programmed from such a young age to criticize and hate the parts of us that didn’t stay the exact same as they were when we were teenagers.
So I guess I should have been prepared for how critical I would become of my postpartum body. I guess I’d been too hung up on my shock, the grief, the planning, and the research to give my body too much thought.
And while there were changes to it, I was looking at myself through a critical lens. Owen, an outsider, was looking with much kinder eyes.
“Aside from the eye bags and spit-up stains, you mean?” I joked just to avoid the way water threatened to flood my eyes at the throwaway compliment.
“The sleep will come eventually. And the spit-up stains will be gone before you know it. But so will the newborn phase.”
“Yeah, I’m trying not to wish for it to pass and stay in the moment. The often exhausting, overwhelming moment. I don’t think I’ve run a vacuum in like ten days. We’re not even going to talk about a mop.”
“No one is coming here to judge your house. They’re here to see you and the baby. And if they are here to judge your house, to hell with them. That’s their issue, not yours.” Owen shrugged.
He wasn’t wrong.
And my family was not judgmental.
The problem wasn’t external. It was my own expectations of myself.
I’d always prided myself on having a clean house.
I had a weekly cleaning schedule. I was borderline obsessive about my mirrors and windows.
Walking into a neat home felt like immediate stress reduction after a long day of work.
I could just change into leisurewear, light some candles, play some music, and cook a relaxing dinner without worrying about dishes in the sink or the dust bunnies in the corners.
All that was pre-baby, though.
“If it bothers you, they make robot vacuums and mops now. Same result. No effort.”
“How have I not thought about that?”
“Probably the whole keeping another helpless human being alive thing.”
“That must be it,” I agreed, giving him a smile as Adelaide started to grumble.
“I’ll let you get back to her. I’ll be upstairs doing some work. Give me a holler if Tuna gets annoying.”
“Tuna? Annoying? Not you, right, buddy?” I crooned at the dog whose tail was doing more sweeping of my floor than it had seen in ages.
With that, Owen got back to work.
I took Adelaide to the couch to feed her, with Tuna watching over us very closely.
As I did that, I grabbed my phone and ordered myself a robot vacuum/mop combo.
And it felt like a giant weight had been lifted from my shoulders.