I sank into the chair next to his cot and closed my eyes as helatched on and the howling stopped. This was relentless. Fucking relentless.
And my husband was asleep.
It wasn’t his body that had to birth a whole human being. It wasn’t his body that had to nourish a whole human being. How was this fair? He got to enjoy the conception and then sit back and watch me swell, pop, and feed.
This was a woman’s lot in life, and it made me furious.
I picked up my phone and scrolled through Instagram. Goddammit, I had to stop talking about my kids. My algorithm was ruined with parenting reels.
A perky mother invited me to “see her morning routine!” This lunatic started her day at 5a.m., not because a kid woke her, but so she could do an hour-long workout, a four-step skincare routine, and write in her gratitude journal. All before making her kids gluten-free, sugar-free fruit muffins from scratch. I sent the reel to Jenny with a series of expletives.
Reggie finished and I put him on my shoulder and rocked him as I patted his back.
I needed to get a grip.
I shouldn’t let some narcissist who needed online validation get to me. I didn’t have a fucking gratitude journal—I had a kill list.
I didn’t sit quietly counting out the good in my life. I went out and ended the bad.
I had enough to worry about without succumbing to the nagging guilt that I wasn’t doing enough. Could we have killed more bad men these last couple of years if we were childless? Absolutely.
Could Bibi have, by now, grasped the basics of the French language if we hadn’t spent all our free time researching, finding, and eliminating targets? Potentially.
The relentless grind was further exacerbated by how both parenting and killing involved suffering through an unholy abundance of cleaning up other people’s bodily fluids.
Yesterday after pickup, I’d had a long chat with Bibi in the car about how she needed to find new artistic inspiration. I’d spokenin great detail about periods and had got her to look all over my body to show her, once again, that there wasn’t a single cut on it.
Bibi had stared at me and poked me a bit, then shrugged. “Okay.”
“So, no more pictures of me covered in red?”
“I like red.”
“Me too, baby. But just draw it on other things. Like in rainbows. Not all over me.”
“Okay.”
I had to hope that I’d got through to her.
Reggie was asleep on my shoulder. I staggered to my feet, gripping him close, and maneuvered him into his cot. I held my breath to see if he would stir. One big stretch, and he stayed sleeping. The gods were on my side tonight.
I tiptoed to his door and slipped out. A liter of coffee down in the kitchen, and I’d be ready to face the world.
Our house was a war zone. There was mess on top of mess. The ordered regime of clearing away toys at the end of the day was long gone. What was the point when they were just going to come out again tomorrow? Random solo puzzle pieces seemed to be scattered throughout the house. The other day, I’d even found one inside my bra.
The kitchen was the heart of the house. And it was sticky. Everywhere. Even after we wiped down surfaces, the layer of ick seemed to reappear within days.
I could’ve used the quiet hour downstairs solo to prepare for the day. Empty the dishwasher. Load the dishwasher. Take the washing out of the tumble dryer. Purée some carrots for Reggie’s lunch. Whip up some homemade chia-seed pancakes for Bibi. I could’ve done all of that. But I just lay slumped on the sofa with my coffee and scrolled the internet, adding some self-hate to my morning ritual.
Bibi skipped downstairs at 7:02 a.m., holding a large fluffy monkey. I brushed her hair as she munched through a bowl of Cheerios. The third time she asked for a refill, I told her she couldgo get the milk herself. All part of making sure she wasn’t turning into a spoiled brat.
I stretched and put my arms behind my head, and felt a clump of my hair that was matted together. I grimaced and patted it. Then I remembered a breakfast going awry at some point this week.
Honey.
In my hair.
I wasn’t sure how long it had been there. I had nothing to wash my hair for, so I rarely did. Our social life was as dead and buried as one of our victims.
