Voss laughs. “Wow. You’re not ready to be a parent, huh?”
“No,” I agree.
“Noted. We’ll use protection.”
I look up at him, and he’s watching me with mirth shining in his eyes. Or maybe that’s the sunlight reflecting off his glasses.
“Little bitch,” I mutter, but I can’t keep the smile from my lips, no matter how much I try.
Voss puts the lid back on the tote and shoves it back onto the shelf in the closet. There’s a pile of clothes sitting on the dresser. I wonder what’s in the drawers if all Axl’s clothes are in totes in the closet.
He joins us again and wraps me in his arms from behind. His chin rests on my shoulders, his arms cradling Axl with me. I have a very strange, surreal feeling of domesticity.
“I don’t hate your baby,” I say ineloquently.
Voss chuckles. “Good.”
“I don’t want to change his diaper, though. Just putting that out there.”
“Noted.”
“Is it selfish to tell you I’d like some time alone with you?”
“No, believe me, I’m ready for some alone time too. Alone with you but alone with myself as well. I haven’t been out of Axl’s presence since he was born and… it’s fucking exhausting. Which is almost frightening because he’s not very needy right now. I can only imagine how that feeling is going to escalate over the next several months when he begins to sleep less, grow teeth, and demand to be entertained.”
“Yep, you really know how to sell the joys of having a kid.”
He laughs. “I wouldn’t trade his being here for anything, Brek. That doesn’t mean I want to become only his father. I need to find a balance where I regain my identity. It’s baffling how I feel I’ve already lost some of it and he’s barely a month old.”
That settles it. I’m not ready to be a parent. I’m just going to date one.
15
VOSS
Axl watches me.Maybe. He’s looking in my direction, though I can’t remember what the books said about how far he can see right now. I’m gently rocking his seat while rocking in my own.
We’re sitting in my office. His bouncy seat, or whatever the hell this little thing is, sits on my desk beside my three monitors. One hand gently bounces him in rhythm with my own bouncing. I’m not on the giant exercise ball, but the stool with the seat that isn’t secure, that’s also on a spring with no feet, forcing me to engage my core.
These stools are built for kids who need to work on their gross motor skills, whether because they’re delayed or recovering from an injury. They make them for adults as well. I found a lot of the unusual seating that I have in a physical therapy catalogue and asked Dr. Mark to order them for me.
I don’t need to work on my core. But the constant need to engage my core helps with my inability to sit still and concentrate. It means that a part of my brain is always engaged in keeping mybalance. It means that my movement has a pattern to keep my balance.
“What do you think?” I ask Axl. “You think this fuckhead should get the seal to die?”
I’ve been reading the things I find out loud. In the background is classical music. I read that music helps their cognitive development or some shit. But always talking to them helps them become engaged and teaches them vocabulary.
Not that I want his first words to be ‘die,’ but we’ll work on it.
Reading out loud is also helping my brain slow down a little as my mouth struggles to keep up with what I’ve read. Every time I read an article to Axl, I stumble a little less over the words I’m reading. Who knew reading out loud could be such a challenge?
“The thing about good and bad is that some people think it’s up for interpretation,” I explain to my son. “They think they can be evil if they say that their bible is against something in particular. They can condone cruelty if whatever they’re condemning is against their religion. In reality, good and bad aren’t gray areas. There are some things that immediately put you on the list of bad, but since I think you’re a little young to be taught about abuse, rape, trafficking, and shit, I’ll save that lesson. But it’s never too early to teach you to be kind to everyone and keep your opinion to yourself unless it’s asked for, right?”
I’m not sure who I’m asking. It’s not like there’s anyone else in the office. Besides, I’m his sole parent. That means it’s my job to decide what to teach him.
“I should be reading the ABCs to you, shouldn’t I?”
“I think you should read him that space book you loved as a kid,” Dad says. I twist on my stool to find him standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets. “Myro said he had that book memorized at six because you wanted him to keep reading it. You somehow knew when he was making up words, which drove him insane.”
