9. Liv
Chapter nine
Liv
The laptop starts sliding off my chest.
I catch it with one hand before it hits the floor. The screen is still on. One tab is a Pack ’n Play. The other is a visual guide to supporting an infant’s head.
I stare at both of them.
I am on PTO.
From the nursery, nothing. Iris is still asleep.
I check my phone.
4:47 PM.
The couch armrest has left a crease along the side of my jaw. I intended to close my eyes for twenty minutes; I have clearly been asleep for hours.
My phone lights up again.
Eleven unread messages from women who still think I am leaving for Spain with three linen dresses and a color-coded restaurant list.
I turn the phone face-down.
The laptop waits.
The Pack ’n Play dimensions chart fills the screen, because apparently my vacation now requires measuring the space between Josh’s couch and the side table. Beside the trackpad, a yellow sticky note from my legal pad holds a list in my handwriting.
Pack ’n Play.Stroller.3–6 month onesies.Formula backup.
I look at the list and check the delivery window.
From the nursery, Iris makes a small waking sound.
***
I have been on the floor for an hour.
Maybe more.
I started on the couch, but Iris made one soft sound from the blanket and I moved down beside her like she had filed an emergency motion.
Now she is on her back, under the arch studying one dangling cloud.
My phone is in my hand.
Josh’s thread is open.
At 1:30, I sent him the update.
4 oz.1 PM.Down at 2.
Three hours and no reply. Logically, I shouldn’t expect him to reply. He is in surgery or post-surgery or between cases, and surgeons do not text from the OR.
Despite knowing this, I checked the thread thirty minutes after sending it, then an hour later. I force myself to shove the phone into my back pocket.
Iris kicks her heel against the blanket, slowly working her sock down to her toes. I reach over and pull it back up.
Yesterday, getting it on her foot felt like trying to dress a moving water balloon.
Today, I manage to hook it over her heel on the first try.
Small improvement.
I started a text to Josh.
I just ordered the Pack-N-Play and the stroller. We are going to have to move something out of the nursery so it fits comfortably.
I had been thinking about how tight the nursery was last night with two adults, when I noticed the we sitting in the middle of that sentence.
I deleted it.
Then I drafted another.
Iris finally figured out how to go down for a nap. We might actually get some sleep tonight.
There it is again.
We.
Like it had not been gone for seven years.
I deleted that too.
Iris makes the sound she makes before deciding how she feels about something.
“Don’t,” I say.
She does not appear deterred.
---
The group chat runs back to 9 AM.
Sam texted first.
“CAR IS CONFIRMED. You better be in your travel clothes and NOT reorganizing your packing cubes.”
Followed by a photo. Black marker on white cardboard, slightly crooked. LIV + SANGRIA. Made in her own kitchen. Photographed against her own refrigerator.
“FOR WHEN YOU LAND,” she wrote below it.
Made with my own two hands. You’re welcome.
I didn’t respond.
Priya
Liv. WHY IS YOUR LOCATION NOT MOVING.
Something came up
I finally type.
The delete it.
Too thin.
I try again.
Family emergency — not mine. I’ll explain later.
Whose family???
Samantha sends immediately.
I don’t answer that.
Nadia’s message is worse because it is gentler.
“Hey. Are you okay?”
Working on it
I send. Which is technically not a lie, and which tells Nadia everything, which is why she sends back thirty seconds later:
Is this about Josh?
Why would she ask that?
I look at Iris.
I look at the laptop.
I look at the yellow sticky note with stroller underlined twice.
I’ll call and explain when I can.
Which answers a different question than the one she asked.
Samantha sends another photo of the sign. Same crooked letters. She has added a large red question mark in the margin. She is completely beside herself and trying very hard not to push, which is more alarming than if she weren’t trying.
Nadia
You can just say yes, you know. We’ll still be here when you get ready to spill.
I read that one twice and set the phone face-down on the coffee table. The photo of the sign is the last thing I see before the screen goes dark.
LIV + SANGRIA.
Only I am not at the airport.
I am on Josh’s rug with a baby sock in my lap and formula backup arriving between six and eight.
Iris reaches for my phone immediately.
“That’s mine,” I tell her.
She gives me a look of profound skepticism.
“You don’t have a phone plan,” I clarify.
She is unpersuaded, but the giraffe has reappeared in her other hand and she turns her attention back to it. I count this as a win.
***
I am sitting cross-legged on the rug, with Iris propped in my lap, her back resting against my stomach. My brass pen is sitting on the blanket right next to my knee. I must have dropped it there earlier, between the second feeding and my third attempt to answer Priya’s barrage of questions.
Iris has been staring at the pen for fifteen minutes.
The gold barrel catches every bit of light in the room, which means, naturally, she wants it more than the plush giraffe or the soft book.
Without warning, her little hand shoots out and closes around it.
I reach for it. She pulls back, and giggles.
it's the sound of something working out better than expected.
The engraving catches the light when she tilts it.
For closing arguments.
Josh gave it to me the morning I passed the bar.
I have carried it into every deposition since. Every hard room. Every table where I needed my hands to look steadier than they felt.
Iris tips it toward her mouth.
“Absolutely not.” I pull the knit giraffe from the corner of the blanket and hold it in front of her.
"Let's trade."
Iris looks at the giraffe.
Then at the pen.
Then at me.
The brass pen drops onto my thigh. She grabs the giraffe by the neck and shoves one ear into her mouth.
“Excellent negotiation,” I say.
The engraving on the pen catches the light again.
For closing arguments.
My hand settles lightly over Iris’s belly. She leans back into me as I watch the afternoon light on Josh’s walls go from white to gold.
I have used that pen to win arguments.
Today, I used it to write down bottle times.
***
The sound of keys jingling in the hallway breaks the quiet.
I know the rhythm before the lock turns.
One scrape. One pause. The heavy click of the deadbolt. I have been waiting to hear it for three hours. The door opens. Josh steps inside in blue scrubs, his bag on one shoulder, his hair pressed flat on one side like he has run his hand through it too many times.
Iris is still tucked against my stomach, the giraffe trapped in both fists. My brass pen rests beside my knee. The laptop glows on the couch behind us.
All the evidence is out.
Josh does not move.
For one second, I see the room the way he must see it. Me on his rug. Iris against me. My work abandoned behind us. The day spread across his apartment in burp cloths and sticky notes and one gold pen I forgot to put away.
His eyes find Iris. Then they come to me.
I should give him the update. I should tell him four ounces, one nap, no fever, two socks lost and recovered. Instead, I sit there with my hand on Iris’s belly and feel the stupid, quiet relief of him being home.
Home.
Where I wanted him.
The tension instantly drops out of his shoulders. He closes his eyes for a second, sets his bag down and sits on the floor. "Hi," he says softly.
He folds himself down onto the blanket beside me, back against the couch, his shoulder three inches from mine. He settles, elbows on his knees, and looks at Iris.
Iris extends the giraffe toward him. He takes it. Examines it with appropriate gravity. Returns it. Iris accepts this as correct and turns back to her own business.
Josh doesn’t look at me. I don’t look at him. His hand moves. He picks up the brass pen from beside my knee. Turns it once. I watch him find the engraving.
“For closing arguments,” he says.
He turns his head. I turn mine.
I don’t know when a few inches became two.