I stare at the yellow Post-it note, wasting thirty seconds that I do not have. Do I add a heart? Are two exclamation marks too much? Is my desperation showing?
I decide to leave it as is. Well, it’s not much of a decision because I hear Junior fussing through the baby monitor, and I run upstairs to get him before he wakes Dylan up.
“Hey, baby,” I step into his line of sight, and he gives me a delighted one-toothed smile.
He’s adorable, my son. He’s got my blue eyes and my black hair, for now at least.
Rachel says her kids were all born with dark hair, but all three are blond now. I imagine DJ as an older boy, with a little girl next to him.
“Do you think you would like having a little brother or sister?” I ask DJ, my heart fluttering at the idea. “You know that Mommyhas no siblings, and I can tell you, it’s pretty lonely living like that.”
“Let’s get you out of these PJs and into something nice for Ms. Samira, what do you say?”
At 6 a.m. sharp, the two of us are on our way to the Mom-mobile, which is what we call the Equinox Dylan got me as a push present. I smile at DJ, who’s buckled in his car seat next to me.
“So, listen, buddy, today when I pick you up from daycare, we need to go grocery shopping, alright? I know it’s not your favorite activity, but we need some fresh fruit and veggies, and Daddy’s yogurt is on sale this week, so we need to stock up.”
DJ gurgles, coos, and drools happily. I tell him about wanting to cut my hair, about the laundry that needs to be moved to the dryer in the afternoon, and before we know it, we’re at the daycare.
“I guess Mommy was super efficient this morning, huh? We have five minutes until they open.”
And like every morning, I unbuckle him from his seatbelt and hug him extra tight.
“You know I love you, right? And you know that I have to go to work, but I’ll be back before you know it.”
The guilt that was almost debilitating in those first days of separation is just a whisper now, but my steps are still heavy while I walk back to my car after saying goodbye to my boy.
Why am I like this? DJ doesn’t cry or seem too upset at drop-off. Am I projecting my own insecurities and codependence on him?
I know what my mother would say if she were alive. He needs to learn what the real world is like. No one is going to coddle you or hold your hand.
I turn the key in the ignition, but don’t start driving immediately. I look at the empty seat next to me.
I take several deep, deep breaths. The only time during my day when I have the luxury to reflect, to gather myself, to hear myself think, is while I’m driving to and from work. The route is so familiar that I let my mind wander over issues deeper than laundry.
What’s going on with Dylan? A voice inside my head whispers, and I have to admit to myself that I don’t know. We’ve grown apart since Junior’s birth, and part of it is that my focus has shifted completely to DJ.
Not that things are bad or toxic between us. We work opposing shifts, and life is hard with a baby when you don’t have family to help. It would be ridiculous to expect weekly date nights or weekends away together when you’re drowning in chores.
It’s just the season of life we’re in. This too shall pass, I tell myself as I park in front of the school, and I almost believe it.
*
“Something’s wrong with Dylan,” I tell Rachel a few weeks later, and I hate that my voice sounds like I’m about to cry.
She looks up from her knitting and gives me a long look over her glasses. I’m sitting on her couch with Junior asleep on it next to me as I furiously bounce my left leg up and down. I can tell by the way she glances at it that she wants nothing more than to grab it and stop it.
She sets down the scarf she’s working on. “Wrong how?”
“Lately, we see each other less than ever,” I say. “I mean, we’ve always worked opposite schedules, but he’d wake me up when he got home, or he’d sometimes wait for me to come home from work to at least kiss me goodbye.”
I try not to think about the quick, passionate sex that we’d usually end up having during those brief moments together. It would always leave us feeling reconnected and recharged.
It’s been more than a month since he touched me like that, and once I belatedly realized how long it’s been, it sent me into a whole different spiral of self-consciousness and, frankly, guilt.
“Nowadays, on workdays, I wake up and leave for work while he’s asleep, and when I get home, he’s already at work and doesn’t return until midnight at the earliest. Before DJ was born, I would wait up for him. Then, to avoid having to work on two hours of sleep, I’d fallen into a pattern of sleeping from 4 pm until midnight, just so we could spend some time together. But with DJ, that’s no longer an option, and it kind of hurts to see that once I stopped adapting to his schedule…”
I don’t finish, and I don’t think I have to.
