Chapter Nine
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I paused in the bedroom doorway to watch Holden sleeping on Roman’s chest. They had the same demure snore, sandpaper on a floorboard.
I stood in the doorway savoring this chorus, the sight of their chests moving together, waves at low tide.
The moment was abruptly cut short when I remembered Dr. Brooke’s warnings about co-sleeping, sudden death, suffocation, SIDS, overheating.
Danger Zone. The sleepy father who dozes off, then wakes to find his infant blue.
Two boys, beautiful, napping, only one wakes up.
Dr. Brooke warned that even if nothing catastrophic happened, your child would never grow up to be an independent adult.
Would allowing Holden to nap on his dad’s chest mean that he’d be sleeping on our sofa posting on Reddit and playing Halo in his boxer shorts into his thirties? I couldn’t risk it.
“Queenie,” I corrected him. I didn’t even have to open my eyes to know. “Your wallet’s on the kitchen island,” I said. “She’s gotten so old. It was sad. I couldn’t really get through.”
I had the sudden urge to grab on to his pant leg.
Even when I was a girl, I was terrible at making people stay.
My dad. Daisy. Even the basset hound we inherited from the neighbors.
I never felt strong enough to stand in the way of the world’s gravitational pull.
If you want to chase the neighbor’s bichon frise into a ditch, who am I to stop you?
But I couldn’t keep anything inside anymore.
“Don’t go,” I said, trying not to cry. “Not yet.”
“We’ve got an all-hands with Asia. But tell me all about your trip tonight?”
Tonight? By tonight, my brain would be calcified, back into mommy-and-me mode.
I will have forgotten entirely how to have an adult conversation.
Roman opened the door and left. A swell of construction dust blew open my “Daisy” file.
I went to the bathroom to pee, to clean up the blood that flows every night.
Nothing to worry about, they always say.
But it felt thicker that day, more gelatinous.
A color dark like port wine. I started to worry.
I searched for my phone to ask the internet.
Wait, Dr. Weatherstone told me to never ask the internet.
I started to text Sue, then I stopped. How to tell my mother-in-law about blood clots in a text? Holden started to wail.
I walked to the nursery to pick him up. He had brown pajamas and a white beanie on that made him look like a tiny Viking.
I gave him a bottle and started to pack for the day.
I try to strap him to my chest in the Omni Breeze Dream Carrier, but he’s too squirmy for any of its four ergonomic, lumbar-supported, breathable positions and it gets tangled.
It looks like I’m wearing a straitjacket.
I put Holden in the Yoyo. Finally, I had a lead.
I glanced at my finger—a yellow diamond ring the size of Jupiter, evidence that the trip to Texas mattered.
Queenie hadn’t delivered a breakthrough, but she’d given me a newfound determination.
Holden and I wouldn’t have another day drifting aimlessly around the city.
We had a mission. “We’re going to find Daisy.
Aren’t we, little koala? Yes. Yes, we are. ”
Holden babbles, smacking his palms together. “What’s that? You think I’m crazy?” He looks at me, a whiff of gas. “Well, that is your opinion, little man.”
—
The Juju Bean moms have lives almost identical to my own, all stuck in the postpartum sludge. And yet, I cannot help my visceral aversion to talking to them.
Audrey, an alpha mom, lives in the redbrick tower directly across from ours and is very up on the Juju Bean scene.
She used to do strategy for a famous chef who got #MeToo’d and now she consults part time from home.
The first time I met Audrey, she cornered me near the mailboxes and cocked her head at the Dunkin’ bag at the bottom of my stroller.
“Hey, I noticed you eat mass-produced gluten. And you’re still breastfeeding?”
“No. I actually bake them myself with all organic ingredients in my convection oven. I just put them in this bag.”
Audrey looked confused. “Oh.”
She had soft laugh lines and oversize aviator glasses hanging on a vintage Orioles T-shirt that her baby nipped at. “Stop that, Sloany. Stop it.” Sloane did not stop.
The next time we ran into each other, Audrey told me she had a high-risk pregnancy. “I got pregnant at forty,” she said. “With my own egg, before you ask—”
I felt bile building. I wanted to yell, “Who cares?” I am still wearing ice diapers and bleed when I pee. I am an animal that was split down the middle and sewn back together. Audrey placed Sloane back in her UppaBaby Vista V3, “where luxury meets comfort.”
What was wrong with me? Maybe if I gave Audrey a chance, if we went to get pinot grigio and spicy Brussels sprouts, I’d end up liking her, but neither of us has the time to do that, so I dislike her, because it’s easier and I am exhausted.
Then there was the other issue with befriending Audrey.
If we ever really became close, I’d have to tell her that sometimes, during late-night feedings, her husband, Stu (or Stuart?), stares out of the window of his office, into my baby’s room, as I pump.
Ever since a spate of break-ins, the yard between our buildings is lit with floodlights, so even though it’s the middle of the night, Stu gets a full-frontal view.
Every time I talk to Audrey, I get tongue-tied.
How to tell her that her husband has seen my nipples?
That morning, Audrey posted that a bunch of the Juju Bean moms were planning an IRL meetup for Yoga she lets us go.
—
By the time I power walk six blocks to yoga, I am a mess.
The other parents, in pre-baby athleisure, sit in lotus pose, their babies squirming on mats in the sunny studio with the redbrick walls.
The instructor enters and paces barefoot.
“Take a deep breath in. Whether you entered the space feeling serene, peaceful, composed…” she says.
Her eyes scan all the other moms. Then her eyes land on me and she gives a tiny smile.
“Or you rushed here, frazzled, stressed, burned-out…”