How did this happen? Hell if I know.
Before you leave the hospital with your newborn, they give you all sorts of advice on how to deal with the baby in the weeks to come. I vividly remember how angry and disgusted I was that there were people out there who would take these innocent, new beings and violently shake their tiny bodies just because they were crying too much.
DJ’s soft, meowing cries inspired only fierce protectiveness inside me. I was so excited to be a father.
When we started our new life as a family of three, I usually worked late, and Marissa stayed home for a long time after she gave birth, around two months, so she handled nights. I got to hold a clean, well-fed baby for a few half-hour intervals every day, and it was absolute bliss.
In contrast, the last two days have been hell. Junior just wouldn’t stop crying. And it wasn’t sad, mournful cries. He’d wail until becoming dark red in the face, and a few times I feared he might choke on his sobs.
Nothing helped. Rocking, shushing, singing, stroking his back, pacing with him in my arms, leaving him in the crib to cry it out, talking to him, giving him a bottle, giving him a bath, it was all in vain.
When I found myself assaulted by visions of flinging him against a wall, which I feared was one step away from actually doing it, I broke down and called Rachel for help.
She was the one who got him to calm down on that awful first morning. I don’t know how she did it. Some mom/nurse black magic, probably. It made me feel like shit, and yeah, I took it personally.
I didn't want Rachel to think that I was some stranger to my own fucking kid, so I tried explaining to her that DJ was like thisbecause Marissa always babied him too much, and she fucking snapped at me. Said that he was a baby and that this was what babies were like, that she’d had three of them, and that he was understandably having a hard time.
I didn’t appreciate the way she said it, like I was some idiot, so I resolved not to call her for help again, not with that attitude.
But Mom was no help. Daycare was closed until Monday. And Rebel… Rebel said it was too hard for her to interact with DJ; it reminded her too much of our baby. Which I could understand. Although I wish she’d think of me a bit.
I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I couldn’t go out to look for Marissa because we didn’t have the first clue where she was. Couldn’t help my own kid to stop crying. Wanted to cry myself whenever I imagined Marissa being cut up into tiny pieces by some freak somewhere.
Right now, my son's finally quiet. He’s with Rachel on the other end of the common room, and he seems content. I’m sitting on the same couch Marissa and I sat on three days ago, doodling in my sketchbook to relieve some of the tension in my body.
I don’t understand Junior. He’s dry, he’s fed, and he’s being held by his father. So why the fuck won’t he shut up? Does he not like me?
Does he understand his mom's gone? How much does a seven-month-old even know about the world and the passage of time? What’s the difference between being left at daycare every day for hours and what’s happening now?
Does he feel absence as keenly as adults do? Does he think about me when I’m gone? Did he miss me these last few months? Was he sad that I wasn’t home a lot?
How the fuck did we get here?
“Is that a new design?” Rebel asks as she lowers herself onto the couch next to me.
Her hair smells of cigarette smoke. I don’t look up from the sketch.
“Don’t know yet.”
“Remember when Daddy found your sketchbook and called you into his office? You thought he was gonna throw you out of the club for sure.”
I smile at the memory. “There were quite a few nude sketches of you in there; I had good reason to worry.”
She smacks me on the shoulder. “Instead, it was the beginning of a wonderful new career.”
I nod, my throat tight as it always is when I think of our late Prez. Gunner was a great man. He might not have been the best role model for his children or a faithful ol’ man to poor Shirley, but he was a visionary. He built this club from the ground up and dedicated his life to it.
Gunner saw things that weren’t obvious to the rest of us. Like when he found my doodles and arranged an apprenticeship for me at the studio where he got all his ink done. And then fronted me the money to open Inskpiration right before he died.
Sly likes to think that the drug transport deal he’s gotten for the Wolves is the shit, but now we’re just the cartel’s bitches. Rich slaves.
“I miss him,” Rebel says like she’s reading my mind, and I take her hand in mine.
She squeezes it gratefully. “Where’s DJ?”
“He’s with Rachel,” I say, and nod over to where they are.
Rachel’s looking at our joined hands and frowning. I quickly let go of Rebel’s hand, feeling sleazy all of a sudden.
