His mother Charlene began calling more often from Charlotte. Conversations that ran long and that he took in the other room. His sister Darcy flew up twice in three months, and both times they had discussions that stopped when I entered the kitchen.
Charlene had a talent for small cuts delivered in warm voices. “Adelene, you’re not one of those women who’ll just sit home after the baby comes, are you?” “Prescott needs a wife who supports his vision.” “Not someone who’s going to make it all about herself,” said over brunch very sweetly. Her hand on my arm.
I smiled and passed the syrup and told myself it was just stress. The Newton location was opening. He had investors to manage, of course, he was distracted. I had been telling myself variations of, of course, for months, by the time our son was born.
6 days after Bo arrived, after 31 hours of labor that ended in an emergency C-section, after three nights in the recovery ward with a drainage tube and a pain scale I’d learned to lie about, I was discharged from Bighamin Women’s. The attending nurse helped me into the wheelchair and pushed me to the hospital entrance. I was holding Bo, who was wrapped in the striped hospital blanket that had been his entire world since he arrived.
My husband was standing outside by the automatic doors with my car, the black Gwagon my father had given me when I turned 25, a gift I’d driven quietly for 3 years without making much of. He was looking at his phone. He didn’t look up when the nurse said, “Congratulations, new dad.” He didn’t reach for our son. He said, “Hey,” to me without making eye contact and then said he just needed to finish this text.
1 second I waited. Bo made a small sound in my arms. The October air was cold and I didn’t have a free hand to pull my coat tighter.
“Okay,” my husband said, pocketing his phone. “So, here’s the thing.”
That phrase, here’s the thing. I will hear it for the rest of my life.
“My mom and Darcy are flying in this afternoon. Their flight lands at Logan at 2. I told them I’d pick them up and we’d all go to Dovetail for dinner. That new tasting menu place on Newbury. I’ve had the reservation for 2 months. Impossible to get. You know how it is. So, I’m going to swing by and grab them and you can take the tea home, get settled, rest.”
He was already holding out a Charlie card.
“Already loaded,” he said, and some bills from his jacket pocket. He pressed them into my free hand without looking at what he was handing me. The coins were cold. “There’s stuff in the fridge. Should be enough for dinner.”
He kissed my forehead. Brisk. Efficient. The way you touch something on your way out the door. Then he turned and walked toward the parking garage.
I stood at the discharge entrance of Bighamin Women’s Hospital with my newborn son and $18.40 and I watched my own car disappear up the garage ramp.
The tea ride took 22 minutes. I counted because counting was the only thing I could do that didn’t require me to feel. Every time the train lurched, I tightened my arms around B and held my breath until the pull across my incision eased. An older woman across the aisle looked at me, at the baby, at whatever was on my face, and offered me her seat closer to the center of the car. I thanked her. I moved. I sat down and stared at the dark windows going underground and thought about the last 2 years in the compressed, rapid way you think about things when your body is in shock and your mind is still trying to catch up.