Mia began squirming against me, announcing the end of her nap and this conversation. That was fine—I had a lot to think about.
Chapter3
Corgi Love
Grace
Every fiber of my being ached. I’d thought I was being so smart, scheduling my first week back from maternity leave to be a shorter one. Get in, get out, have a weekend to recoup, then another short week due to the Christmas holiday. I hadn’t counted on some of our part-time folks being out sick and my being needed for story hour. I’d also forgotten we had a holiday open house scheduled for the community on Sunday. So yeah, I’dthoughtI was being smart, but in reality, I was dragging. So dang tired, and the walk home had been a bleary one.
Despite the cold, I loved the fact that we lived close enough for me to walk to work. Even with a light covering of snow on the ground, the crisp air attempted to pull me out of this exhaustion. The bare trees were sentries lining the road as I dug my hands deeper in the pockets of my parka, quickening my steps as I made my way down the rapidly darkening street.
The Ryan Library was just off the downtown area of Highland Falls where many of the oldest homes in town had been built. Aidan and I had purchased our house two years after moving here once out of college. When I landed the job as library director in Highland, he got a job with the sheriff’s department since he couldn’t find a local position using his degree in communications. We’d rented for two years while we saved up for a down payment while conversely bleeding money to pay off our student loans, much like young adults everywhere. Luckily, we were both focused and agreed to hunker down and save as much as we could, living like hermits. Eating out, traveling, buying anything “fun”—all were extravagances we couldn’t afford.
Fast-forward two years, and we had a small nest egg with dwindling loans. As luck would have it, a bungalow had come on the market. For certain, it needed work, which meant we could afford it. We got it, and the house became our new focus with small projects we could tackle on our own or, once Aidan became friends with Jake and Sully, with their added help. Now it was my dream home with a farmhouse vibe, just right for our small family and Baxter the wonder corgi.
My heart rate used to pick up the closer I got to home. I was anxious to see Aidan, to spend time with my best friend, to soak in the comfort I felt in my skin when we were together. Years into this relationship, looking back, it felt like we were babies when it all began. Aidan knew me better than anyone, or at least he used to.
The guilt I had in not confiding where my mind had been for the past few months or, heck, the past year, was tremendous. But there was a large part of me that felt like a failure. Would Aidan judge me if I shared? Two years ago, I would have said no. Now? In all honesty, I judged myself. Motherhood looked so easy on other people. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t adapt like Maggie or anyone else?
As I reached our porch, I admired the holiday feel. Aidan had strung some white lights along the evergreen swag above the trim and on the two smaller evergreens I’d put on either side of our black front door. Home. While I wasn’t feeling myself, I did feel like I’d reached my safe haven.
“I’m home,” I called as I stepped into the house.
“Back here.”
Leaning to one side, I tugged off one tall boot before doing the same to the other. I wiggled my toes in relief and then looked at the staircase in front of me where Baxter, our sweet pup, was bouncing down the steps, butt wagging.
He reached the bottom and leaned his little body against my legs, getting his glitter, aka corgi hair, all over my knee-high socks.
“Hey, puppers,” I cooed, leaning down to rub my hand over his back. “Let’s go find Dad and Mia.”
Baxter’s ears perked up, and he trotted down the short hall to the open kitchen and family room space that lined the back of our home, rubbing his body against the wall the whole way there. I shook my head, noting the streaks of dirt on the wall from the repeated action, but then stopped at the end of the hall, taking in the beautiful sight in front of us.
Aidan and Mia were in the kitchen with Mia strapped into the sling. She was alert though, her head poking out with an adorable Santa hat that I hadn’t seen before. Mia was cooing as Aidan swayed around the open space, singing along to some song that I could hear coming from the speaker on the counter. Noah Kahan, if I wasn’t mistaken. Hmm. “Call Your Mom” was a pretty emotional one, but I could get behind the sentiment.
Watching Aidan swing around our kitchen with Mia hit my emotions more than I’d been prepared for. I saw the man I loved, had loved for so many years, and he was killing it as a dad. He was so natural with her; I was jealous, and I hated that.
I leaned my hip against the wall to watch, love filling me up inside as I worked to push away the green-eyed monster. Aidan swayed with a hand on Mia’s little tush, his eyes closed as he moved through the space around the island, singing to her. Mia’s eyes were locked on his, entranced.
While I saw him as the man he was, I also saw the nineteen-year-old boy I’d bumped into at the graduate library so many years ago. I’d been melting down as I tried to get a paper written while I was sicker than a dog. Aidan had seen the tears of a complete stranger and immediately stepped in to help me, offering solutions that snapped me out of my spiral, something he clearly hadn’t needed to do. But that was Aidan—if he could help, even a stranger, he would. It’s why he was good at his job. Not much rattled him, his heart was pure, and he operated on a level of low stress that I envied with everything in me.
I looked beyond them to the view of our backyard. The sun had long set and it was dark. A few more months and five p.m. wouldn’t look like midnight, but for now… The winter days were long. The windows became mirrors at this time of day, and I caught Aidan’s gaze in the glass.
“Hey, babe, we missed you today,” he said to me in the window’s reflection, shooting me a wink.
I shook my head at the man, who exuded the confidence I wished I could resurrect as I moved to greet him and Mia with a kiss.
“Did you have a good day?” I asked, pulling Mia out and cradling her to me, tugging the Santa hat off and laying it on the counter. Mia cooed as I breathed her scent deep, soaking in the solid feeling of my baby in my arms.
The irony of motherhood was that I missed her all day long like a limb had been severed from my bodyandI had zero desire to stay home even if we had been able to swing it. I hadn’t realized how much I missed work until I went back, and even as tired as I was, it was as if my brain was lit up with new ideas after flatlining for months. How was it that I could love this child more than my life while also absolutely needing to work outside the home? The guilt of it ate me up inside. Thank God we’d found a terrific in-home daycare for her to start at next month after Aidan’s leave was over. Praying to the gods above that it would help ease some of it.
Aidan turned to the Crock-Pot on the counter, grabbing a potato masher he often used to quickly shred chicken after cooking it all day. He looked in my direction as he lifted the lid. “I’ll answer that after you make a choice—tacos or burrito bowls?”
“Do we have avocados for guac?”
He raised a brow in my direction. “Am I my mother’s son?”
“Cilantro rice?”
