Chapter Twenty-Five
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It takes me an hour to get dressed for work.
The blouses won’t button over my boobs. The pants won’t get over my hips.
But even if everything fit, even if I had my pre-baby body and could pull on all of that Madewell and Club Monaco, I stare into this abyss of navy and khaki workwear and I feel like I am looking at a monument to my old life.
I give my overstuffed closet of clothes a big bear hug and lift all of it out en masse off the rack.
I throw it all into Glad bags, disposing of my old wardrobe, my old life, as if it were hazardous waste.
I spot a book that Penelope gave me when I was pregnant.
Orgasmic Birth: Your Guide to a Safe, Satisfying, and Pleasurable Birth Experience. I throw it in with the clothes.
Holden is asleep in his MamaRoo swing. I work fast and frenzied, disposing of things that I cannot have in my apartment for even a second longer.
When he wakes up, I strap him to my chest and drop all of my clothes and maybe the dumbest book ever published downstairs in the bin.
I am sweating and out of breath when I finish.
The construction workers next door look at me like a cautionary tale between drywall runs.
I sit on the floor and guzzle the cherry-red Gatorade forgotten in the back of the fridge.
Once I’ve caught my breath, I realize I now have nothing to wear to work. I find a stray pair of Adidas track pants. I open the living room closet, which Roman uses. I pick out one of his blue dress shirts, the ones he gets on special, three for seventy-five dollars.
I am exhausted and we haven’t even left the house.
I race around gathering everything Holden will need for his day and put him in the Yoyo.
We walk to the Union Square subway station and I teeter down the stairs holding the stroller sideways, trying not to trip.
The man behind me tries to pass, grunting loudly.
We both miss the train. He shakes his head at me. I mouth, “Sorry.” Why was I sorry?
Lately, it seemed like I couldn’t go anywhere without an altercation, an opera of emotions that triggered the worst in humanity and always ended in tragedy.
Or, in our case, having to wait fifteen minutes for the next train.
By the time we get to 527 Park, I notice that Holden is missing a shoe—and they were expensive, the leather Jacadi moccasins Penelope gave him. Why did babies even need shoes?
When I get upstairs to the condo, Daisy is standing on the stairs, finishing up the morning call-and-response.
(“Are you committed to breaking this societal chain with me? To not being a victim?”) She winks when she sees us, wrapping up as the women stand, reciting, “To everything I’ve lost, thank you for setting me free.
” I feel like I’ve already lived a full day and am late for another full day, but Daisy’s movements are so slow and sleepy, as if she has nowhere in the world to be.
She signals with a finger and Bianca appears, handing me a Guatemalan blend pour-over in a Yeti flask.
Daisy takes Holden out of the Yoyo and puts her cheek against his.
“Hiiiiiiii. It’s a big day. We’re going to have an epic day together, aren’t we?! Fairy tales and sonnets will be written about this day, little koala!”
Could she get her own animal name for my son? Another paper cut as I watch them, gearing up to spend my day in a cubicle while they have a day to inspire sonnets.
“Uh, yeah. You know about the Hytone cream, if he gets the rash?”
“Em, chill. It’s all logged into the system downstairs.”
The system? What system? Before I can ask, Daisy flags down Viktor, who is wearing medical scrubs and hooking up a row of moms, relaxing on leather lounges, to IV drips.
Brit’s eyes are rolled back in her head, she is so relaxed.
“Y’all, this is like a little ray of sunshine goin’ right up into my veins. ”
I pull Daisy into a hallway. “Um, what’s all that?”
“IV therapy. Hydration, immunity, weight loss, stress, detox. You should try one after work sometime. It is heavenly.”
“Are you sure that’s, uh, a good idea?”
“Em, it’s vitamins. Your aura is real off today. Look, I get it. You’re stressed, it’s understandable. But maybe make time for an antioxidant infusion?”
“I can’t.”
“A B12 shot, then?”
“You know what? I’m good.”
“It will give you energy for your day,” Daisy says, walking back into the great room and smiling at Viktor, who walks to a tray with a spread of prefilled injection pens—Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy.
“I don’t really want to give my energy to this job…” But Viktor is already dabbing my arm with an alcohol swab. “There ya go.” I feel the vitamins enter my veins, blood rushing through my body. Daisy always knows what I need.
I take Holden back. He has slimmed out lately, his legs seemingly an inch longer and leaner every day.
I squeeze him so hard, he spits up. I wipe it away with my palm and squeeze my face to his.
“Noses. Noses.” I say this and he knows that means that we put the tips of our noses together until it looks like we have one eye.
“Cyclops. Cyclops…” I say this into his one knowing eye and he chuckles.
We are connected. We are the only person in our galaxy.
When I finally detach my nose from his, Daisy takes him.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine. I’ll bring him downstairs and get him settled. Adieu.” She air-kisses me.
“I’ll be back by six…maybe earlier.”
I get into the elevator and watch Daisy walk away with Holden.
I remind myself that this is the deal, and it is the best deal in town, free childcare with someone who loves us like her own family, luxury accommodations, wooden toys, a unicorn bounce house, a Little Prince mural.
My ears pop as I ride the elevator down eighty-seven flights.
My stomach sinks, the distance between me and my baby growing…
growing…growing. I am falling, and he is there, upstairs, having an epic day without me.
—
It is past ten when I finally get to the office.
Everything is exactly as I’d left it. Stacks of receipts, a scrunchie I thought I lost, an IBM desktop computer, a coffee mug still stained with the outline of my ChapStick.
Holden arrived a couple of weeks early and I hadn’t had time to clean out my desk.
I was afraid to open the drawer, worried half a Halal Guys shawarma might be in there.
Veronica comes by my desk carrying stacks of file folders.
“Welcome back,” she says with an undercurrent of disapproval.
An undercurrent of You’ve been off for six months and you get in at TEN?
Veronica is the office’s senior grant coordinator.
She has a master’s in social work. Her makeup doesn’t work under this lighting.
She does not have children, but I imagine that when she sees me taking six months off and getting in at ten, she thinks the game is rigged against childless women, who live in Jersey City and take the PATH train and transfer to the subway at Thirty-Third Street and still manage to get into the office by nine.
Veronica is not wrong. If I can take six months for my baby, why can’t she take six months to read sexy dragon novels at a time-share in Jamaica?
The game is rigged against Veronica, against all of us.
Veronica sometimes talked about a niece in Staten Island who she never gets to see because of her “idiot sister-in-law,” but for the most part, I assume she has no interest in my child.
But still, she asks to see a picture of Holden.
I know this is one of those obligatory middle-manager things to do, but I still appreciate it.
I go overboard and hand her my cell phone with an entire stream of baby pictures, not realizing that this is probably a microaggression.
“He is precious.” Veronica keeps scrolling, probably calculating how long she has to pretend to care before she drops a pile of backlogged grant applications on my desk.
She hands my phone back. “You look like twins in this one.” I try to see which photo she’s talking about, but Roman texts (“Burritos tonight??”), and my thumb moves.
It’s just a series of selfies of Holden and Daisy.
Veronica hands me a couple of files. “So, NIAID, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is looking for funding for scientific research related to making people healthy…” Veronica’s mouth is moving, but in my mind her words slur, as if I’m hearing them over the subway intercom.
My old life speaking to me from a distant, glitchy place.
It is all coming back. Each week, Veronica dispenses our assignments with the verve of a game-show host. “This grant needs to explain how Wurtzel Educational Systems would acquire software to optimize best practices in teaching reading skills to seniors.” And…
“The Youth Development Grant is one of the most competitive and sought-after CDBGs, so write a proposal that captures its essence.”
“I’ll take door number two, Veronica.”
She hands me several stacks of grants, with sticky notes indicating when each letter is due.
I had to get the first draft to Veronica.
The second draft went to Phil, the executive director of operations.
I don’t mean to brag, but I was the best writer they had.
Most of my colleagues only lasted eight months, a year, maybe, before they moved back to their hometowns or got a job at one of the nonprofits that they’d gotten to know through grant writing.
I had no desire to work at a nonprofit or move back home.
I was a writer. Or, at least, I used to be.