“As it should be,” Mom agreed. “What about you and Alison?”
I sighed. “I don’t know, Mom. We don’t talk about the future. I guess it feels like just getting through each day is a victory.” I paused. “I want to tell her how I feel, that I want to be with her forever. But I’m afraid if I did that now, she’d fall asleep before I got out all the words. And she hasn’t said anything to me about her own feelings. Not one word.”
“But you just said that neither have you,” my mother pointed out. “Maybe she’s thinking the same thing. Mothering a newborn is terrifying and life-consuming, son. Asking Alison to try and interpret her feelings for you right now might be beyond her ability. Give her some time.” She paused. “But meanwhile, make sure you’re showing her how you feel. Don’t make her doubt it. This is a tender time for a woman. Good heavens, the only time I ever doubted your father’s love for me was within the first month after each of you kids were born. By the time your youngest sister was born, Dad expected it and was ready with flowers and assurances.”
“How should I do that?” I wondered. “I’m trying my best. I make sure she eats, and I offer to take the baby whenever I can so that she can shower and rest.”
“I can’t figure it all out for you, Noah.” Mom’s voice was crisp. “If I did, you wouldn’t learn.”
“This isn’t algebra, Mom. It’s my life. My future. The woman I love.”
“Then you better give it the proper attention, hadn’t you? Gotta go, sweetie. Kiss that baby for me until I can get down there to do it myself. Give Alison my best. And Noah . . .” If I wasn’t mistaken, mirth filled her voice. “Good luck.”
* * *
Alison
I lay in my bed, exhausted beyond the telling of it, surrounded by blessed silence . . . unable to sleep.
“Ugh!” I rolled over, trying to find a comfortable position. After being pregnant, I’d expected sleeping postpartum to be a breeze. I could lay on my back or my stomach . . .only I couldn’t because my enormous nursing boobs made stomach sleeping impossible. I ended up on my side anyway most of the time since I usually fell asleep breastfeeding the baby.
Noah had offered to take Evangeline so that I could nap—she’d kept me up the better part of the night—but my mind wouldn’t turn off. I couldn’t stop thinking, agonizing, worrying . . . about Noah, and me, and the future.
I hadn’t been sure what to expect once we’d come home from the hospital. In the days leading up to Evangeline’s birth, we’d been so close, so intimate. While we were in the hospital, we’d kept the closeness, bound together by the wonder of our daughter and the relief of her safe, healthy arrival.
But it felt as if the moment we’d crossed the threshold that first day home, everything had changed. For the first time, I really understood what being a co-parent with Noah would be like, if we never took things beyond that: it was all business, with little emotion and no personal interaction. It seemed like we were two people tasked with doing a job, focused only on getting through each day. We didn’t joke, we didn’t tease, and we didn’t do anything together anymore. We ate in shifts most days, and sleeping . . . well, that had been the harshest blow of all.
That first night we’d been home, I’d been lying in my bed, nursing Evangeline. I’d had just one small lamp lit for when Noah came to bed—he’d been downstairs cleaning up and loading the dishwasher. I had been half-asleep when I’d heard him climbing the steps. He’d come to the doorway of my bedroom—I was almost certain of that—and then moments later, I’d heard him in the bathroom before a door had closed.
And although I’d waited for a long time—wide awake by then—he had never come to bed. I realized in the morning that he’d slept in the guest room again.
If he had offered me some explanation about why—if he had said he hadn’t wanted to wake me or he’d been worried about disturbing the baby and me—then I would have told him not to worry. I would have said,Come back to our bed because I miss you and it’s lonely there by myself, even with the baby. I would have told him that even if we couldn’t cuddle or touch in the night, I still longed to know he was there, to smell his soap and aftershave, to whisper and laugh quietly before we drifted off to sleep.
But he didn’t. He just kept returning to the four-poster bed in the guest room night after night, as though those magical hours that we’d spent together before the baby’s birth had never happened.
Looking back on them, I wondered if I’d been a fool. Maybe I’d misread him. Maybe I’d pushed him into sex after I’d been the one to insist we should never cross that line again. Maybe he’d only done it because he felt sorry for me.
“No,” I whispered to myself. “I promised I’d never accuse him of that. He said he would never do anything out of pity for me.”
Still, his abandonment hurt. And the longer it went on, the more alone and isolated I felt. I loved my baby, and I was blissfully happy to be her mother, but selfishly, I wanted it all—I wanted her father, too. I needed him to love me. I needed him to be mine.
With a grunt of frustration, I kicked at the light blanket I’d pulled over my legs and reached for the baby monitor, wondering if Evangeline was asleep or giving Noah any problems. I slid the volume up and listened.
At first, I didn’t know what I was hearing, and then as I realized, a smile spread over my lips. Noah was singing to the baby, and his voice was good—as deep and nuanced as the man himself.
“Ooooooh oooooooh . . . baby, baby.” The speaker crackled a little as I held it to my ear, listening to Noah sing an old Smokey Robinson classic, belting out words about doing his woman wrong when his heart went out to play. He framed each line with tenderness and love, and tears sprang to my eyes.
He was such a good man. He was solid and strong and dependable, but more than that, he was intelligent, kind and funny. I’d never in my life laughed more than when I was with Noah. He made each day brighter, and damn him, he’d gone and made me fall in love with him when I’d promised myself that would never happen.
Who was I kidding? I’d fallen for him that first day in the hospital when, despite his pain and worry, he’d managed to joke around and to listen to me. I’d fallen deeper when he’d danced with me at Emma’s wedding and told me I was the strongest woman he’d ever known. With each touch, each steady gaze, each earnest word, this man had tempted me to surrender to love. He’d convinced me to trust. He’d made me want to believe again, to hope again.
And now that I loved him so completely, he was leaving me.
I was as sure of it as I was of my own name. Why else would he leave my bed? He was probably just waiting for me to bring it up, to assure him that I was capable of taking care of the baby by myself. He’d return to his beautiful, perfect home in Tampa, and there would be lawyers and negotiations and arrangements. I’d spend the rest of my life sharing my baby with her father, seeing him only when we met to pick up or drop off our daughter.
A sob ripped through my chest, and I buried my face in the pillow, wrapping my arms around myself to keep from falling apart. I shook with the agony of it, and silently, I railed against the injustices of life and love.
If I was going to get through this, I had to be the one to be strong. I couldn’t wait around for him to leave me—I had to give him permission to go, assure him that I was ready to be by myself. Again.
