35. Parenthood Redux Too Long #2
My mind flashes through flashes of my life like a choppy montage. Liam’s arms around my neck at drop-off. Reid’s text about his presentation. Bills on the counter. The ring on my finger. My name in the subject line of a new email.
Part of me lifts straight up at the idea.
Lead. Raise. Visibility. I’ve worked hard.
I’ve sacrificed sleep and time and parts of myself I didn’t know were optional.
To be recognized like this feels… validating.
Like the version of me that exists outside of wife and mom is finally getting a spotlight.
Another part of me calculates the cost. Later nights. More mental load. More nights where I’m half on my phone while Reid is on his. More mornings where I rush Liam out the door because I’m thinking about a feature rollout instead of his show-and-tell.
“I appreciate the offer,” I say slowly. “I really do. I just… I’ll need to look at what that means for Liam and for my schedule and…”
“And your life,” Eric says, nodding. “I get it. Take the week. Think it through. If you have questions about what it would look like day-to-day, we can talk.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thank you. Really.”
When I step back out onto the floor, everything looks the same. Desks. Monitors. The hum of keyboards and conversation. But something in my chest has shifted. Bigger role. Bigger future. Bigger strain. My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from Mom.
Mom: Your uncle’s results came in. Call me when you get a chance.
Another responsibility sliding onto the pile, waiting to be picked up. I stand there for a second, caught between my inbox, my phone, the preschool down the road, the campus miles away where my husband is building his own future.
For a moment, I feel like I’m standing in the center of a life that’s spinning a little too fast, trying to stretch myself in every direction at once. Balance, I think. This was supposed to be about balance. Right now, all I can feel is the wobble. The shift happens slowly, then all at once.
It starts with the tantrums. Not the normal two-year-old meltdowns we already survived, but the new, sharp ones—the kind that come out of nowhere and hit like a small storm.
Liam throws himself onto the hallway rug one morning because the zipper on his jacket “looked wrong.” The next day he bursts into tears because his cereal is “too circle.” I try to be patient.
I really do. But patience runs thinner this year.
Reid and I talk about it on FaceTime that night while Liam watches a cartoon beside me.
“He’s overwhelmed,” Reid says. “He’s learning a lot at once.”
“I know,” I say. “But he’s refusing naps, refusing bedtime, refusing half the things that used to comfort him.”
Reid smiles like he’s trying to be reassuring. “Maybe ease up on the schedule a little? If he needs flexibility?—”
“He needs consistency,” I say. “He acts out more when his routine shifts.”
Reid pauses, just long enough for tension to slip into the space. “Or maybe he’s reacting to stress because you’re stressed.”
My jaw tightens. “I’m not creating the tantrums.”
“I didn’t say you were,” he replies. “I’m saying maybe we should both try approaching it with more softness.”
Softness. I rub the bridge of my nose, suddenly tired in a very specific way.
“Reid, you aren’t here for the full picture. I’m handling nights, mornings, daycare drops, dinner, bath, all of it. I can’t improvise every day. He needs structure.”
Reid’s expression shifts—hurt, defensive, tired. All of it at once. “I know I’m not there. I know you’re carrying the heavy load. But don’t act like I don’t know my own kid.”
The comment hits harder than I expect. I sit back against the couch, the screen lighting his face, the distance between us wider than miles.
“We’re not going to solve this tonight,” I say.
“No,” he replies quietly. “But we can try talking instead of shutting down.”
That stings too, because he’s not wrong. But he’s also not fully right. The call ends without a fight, but definitely without peace.By the end of the week, the tension slips into everything.
I pick Liam up from daycare, and he refuses to leave his cubby area. I kneel beside him, trying to coax him into putting on his shoes. He shoves the sneaker away and curls into himself. His teacher gives me the look—sympathy mixed with the unspoken “good luck.”
At home, he cries through dinner because he wanted a blue cup instead of a green one. When I change it, he cries because the blue cup wasn’t the right blue. By the time I get him into pajamas, my nerves feel scraped raw. I call Reid after Liam finally settles.
He answers on the third ring, hair wet from a shower, shoulders tense. “Hey.”
“Rough night,” I say. “He had another meltdown.”
Reid exhales slowly. “You sound done.”
“I am done,” I say. “I’m trying, but he’s fighting everything.”
He nods. “Maybe he misses me.”
The comment lands like a pressure point. “I’m sure he does. But missing you doesn’t magically dictate bedtime.”
Reid flinches. “I didn’t say it did.”
“But that’s what you’re implying.” My voice is low, tired, sharper than I mean it to be.
He rubs his forehead. “I don’t know what to say anymore. Every time we talk about parenting, it feels like I’m the outsider.”
“You’re not an outsider,” I say. “But you’re not here daily either. That’s not your fault, but it’s the reality.”
He sighs. “I hate that reality.”
“I do too,” I say softly.
For a second, neither of us speaks. The quiet isn’t gentle.
“Maybe I should come home this weekend,” he finally says. “We need to reset.”
“You have exams,” I remind him.
“I’ll study at home.”
“You always say that.”
He doesn’t argue. He just nods, jaw tight. “Then maybe I’ll come because my family needs me.”
That part softens me a little. Not enough to erase the fatigue clawing at my chest, but enough to let some warmth in.
“Okay,” I say. “Come home.”
“Okay,” he echoes.
But beneath the agreement, there’s friction neither of us knows how to smooth out yet. By the time Saturday arrives, the apartment feels tense before Reid even walks in. Or maybe it’s me. I try to clean the living room while Liam crawls into my lap every five minutes asking if “Dada is here yet.”
When the knock finally comes, Liam sprints to the door. Reid scoops him up immediately, burying his face in Liam’s hair. The moment is tender and real. It tugs something in my chest. But when Reid lifts his head to smile at me, there’s strain behind it.
I step forward anyway, wrapping my arms around his waist, holding him longer than I planned. He holds me back, solid and warm, but our breaths don’t sync the way they used to. Something feels shifted.
“Hi,” he murmurs into my hair.
“Hi,” I say.
For the rest of the day, we try. We really do. We take Liam to the park. We get ice cream. We sit on the living room floor building block towers. But the parenting differences creep in everywhere—small comments, little disagreements, different instincts.
“Let him climb the ladder himself,” Reid says, hovering behind Liam at the playground.
“He’s tired, he’ll slip,” I say.
“He needs to try.”
“He needs help.”
We don’t argue. Not openly. But the edges grow sharper. Later, Liam dumps an entire bucket of toys onto the carpet. I ask him to clean up; Reid tells him it’s fine and kneels to help him build a train track.
“He needs to learn responsibility,” I say.
“He’s three,” Reid says.
“He can still pick up.”
Reid pauses mid-movement. “Can we not do this now?”
I fold my arms. “When then?”
He doesn’t answer.
By evening, the air feels tight enough to snap. Liam finally goes down for bed after fighting sleep for forty minutes. I walk into the kitchen, shoulders sagging, while Reid stands by the counter with a glass of water.
“You’re upset,” he says.
“So are you,” I reply.
He nods once. “I just wish we could stop assuming the worst of each other.”
“I’m not assuming the worst. I’m exhausted, Reid. You come home a few days a month, and I appreciate that. I do. But you can’t swoop in and rewrite routines without seeing the whole picture.”
His jaw clenches. “And you can’t freeze everything into rules because it makes you feel in control.”
My breath stops for a moment. “I’m not doing that.”
“You are,” he says quietly. “And maybe I am too. I don’t know. I just feel like… whatever I do lately isn’t enough.”
That lands differently—heavy, honest.
“I don’t want you to feel that way,” I say.
“And I don’t want you drowning,” he says.
We stand there, both raw, both unsure how to bridge the gap tonight. The silence grows until it turns fragile.
He sets his water down slowly. “I didn’t come home to fight.”
“I know,” I whisper. “Me neither.”
But we’re still standing here, tired and bruised from things we don’t have the energy to name yet. And underneath everything—love, frustration, obligation, fear—I want him. Not as a distraction. As the person I married. As the person I’m scared of losing piece by piece to stress and distance.
He steps closer. “Ames.”
My breath unsteadies. Something shifts. Something gives.
And the path toward the end section—toward the emotional, physical collision that follows—opens right there.
Reid closes the bedroom door behind us with a quiet click that feels louder than it should.
The house is finally still—Liam down early after an exhausting day, dishes drying in a rack I didn’t have the energy to put away, the living room lamp still glowing because neither of us bothered turning it off.
Reid stands there for a moment, hand still on the doorknob, breathing like he’s trying to steady something inside himself.
I’m standing near the window, arms crossed without realizing it, my shoulders tight from hours of tension that built and built until it had nowhere left to go.
He looks at me the way he always does when he’s trying to read what he’s walked into.
Tonight, I don’t know what I’m giving him back.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he says quietly.
“We both said things,” I answer. It’s true, but it doesn’t soften anything.