Rachel purses her lips. “What about the weekends?”
“On Sundays, we go to his mother’s. We all have lunch together and hang out for a while, and in the evenings, I usually catch up on cooking and chores. So that just leaves Saturdays as a day for us to do something as a family, just the three of us. However, over the last several Saturdays, Dylan has been away on club business or due to a work emergency… I just don’t know how to find time for us that’s not there.”
“The obvious solution is quitting that job of yours,” Rachel says. “Then you’ll have time.”
I’m slightly irritated that she’s using this conversation to reopen that old argument.
“Rach, I like working.”
She shoots me a look that tells me she remembers every tear I cried when I had to go back to work just eight weeks after Juniorwas born. I guiltily take his little hand in mine. Rachel notices the gesture, and I see her attitude deflate.
“I know that. I’m criticizing him, not you. He has all this money, and he never even offered to take care of you while DJ is so young.” She clears her throat, and not for the first time, I see how upset she is on my behalf.
The thing is, I’m not upset or unhappy. I know Rachel had left her job to stay at home when her children were young and had only recently started working as a full-time nurse again, but that was what worked for her and Truck. Every family is different, and Dylan has been nothing but wonderful to us.
“He and I had been seeing each other for, like, half a year when I discovered that I was pregnant,” I explain. “He never balked at the news or tried to make me get rid of it. He never questioned whether the baby was his; he was aware that we hadn't been diligent about protection at any point during that time. I’ve heard enough horror stories from other women to know what a big deal that is. He immediately made me his old lady, moved me into his home, and has been by my side ever since. So he has been taking care of me, Rach.” I pause before adding, “But recently, it’s like something’s changed between us. I don’t know. ”
“You keep saying that. Is there more to it than poor time management?” Rachel asks.
“It’s more of a gut feeling. He's been very… irritable lately,” I tell her. “He keeps finding fault with everything I do. Would it kill you to bring Junior to the clubhouse once in a while?” I imitate the way Dylan angrily says it. “The worst part is that I get the feeling that DJ irritates him, too. He makes these comments about him breastfeeding too much, being too much of a momma’s boy, or how Angie and Prez’s kid was crawling at his age, which is a total lie, by the way,” I hasten to defend my son.
“First of all, as a nurse, I completely understand not taking Junior to the clubhouse - it’s too loud for a baby, it’s full of cigarette smoke, and I don’t think some of the older guys have gotten all their vaccinations.” Rachel grimaces. “As for Angie and her magical baby… You don’t have to tell me about Angie,” Rachel says pointedly, and I almost burst out crying from the sweet relief of finally getting some validation. “If you told that woman you had a brain tumor, she’d say, That’s nothing, I have two.”
“Right?!” I say when I finish laughing.
Rachel often turns to humor when things are difficult or uncomfortable, and I love her for it, but the gnawing feeling in my stomach doesn’t allow me to enjoy the reprieve for too long. “I’m afraid he’s regretting having DJ and settling down.”
“Okay, let’s not immediately run to the worst-case scenario,” Rachel tells me like the wise, older friend she is. “Relationships ebb and flow, and maybe the two of you simply need to connect. Maybe a weekend away?”
I immediately scrunch up my nose, then shake my head at myself. “I’m horrible. I’m sitting here, complaining to you about the state of my relationship, about never having time alone with my partner, and yet… I don’t want to leave my baby for an entire weekend. He’s still too young for that. It’s bad enough that he’s been staying at daycare for 8 hours a day since he was only eight weeks old, and now I should leave him on the weekends, too?”
I start crying at the thought. It’s like I’ve been dancing on the edge of a breakdown for the duration of this conversation, and this was what finally pushed me over. Rachel comes over and sits next to me. I let her hug me, and I cry until there’s no more tears left.
“Does Slim know how you feel about this?” Rach asks, and I shake my head.
I wipe my nose with my sleeve. “We talked about it some when I first went back to work, but he was all like, he’ll survive, and it builds character. Besides, I can't ask him to make me a stay-at-home mom. We’re not even married. I don’t want him to think I’m one of those women who get pregnant on purpose so a man will be their meal ticket. I can pay my own way, and I always have.”
Rachel narrows her eyes at me but says nothing for a while.
“Look, Marissa,” she says finally. “If you don’t want to leave DJ for the weekend, then you have to find another way to reconnect that works for you two. I have the numbers of several wonderful and reliable babysitters if you need them. Anything else I want to say right now will not have the desired effect, and you will feel like I’m attacking you, so just… know that I’m here for you.”
“Thank you, Rach,” I tell her, and I mean it. I’m aware of the effort she’s making not to say more. “The problem is that I don’t know where to start.”
DJ starts stirring and soon wakes up. We both talk to him while I change him, and then he gropes at my chest, so I feed him while Rachel fixes us a snack.
“I have an idea,” Rachel says giddily as she sits back down in her spot across from me. “New Year’s.”
My mom-brain is too slow to get it. “What about New Year’s?”
“The party. At the clubhouse! You and Dylan should go. It’s one evening, you don’t have to spend the night if you don’t want to, but you always have a place at the clubhouse if you change your mind without the pressure of a reservation. An added bonus is that you know he loves having you at the clubhouse. Win-win.”
I take a moment to think about it. “I could ask Susan whether she’d be okay to watch DJ with a babysitter.”
“Has it gotten to the point that she can’t do it alone?” Rachel asks.
“Technically, she could care for him in the house, but since she can’t drive or even fit in a car to be driven, I want someone else there in case of an emergency.”
“Poor woman.”
