Everything Happened | vol. 152
After we moved here, I woke up every morning to Desi in our bed. I had no memory of him coming into the room. He silently climbed aboard in the pre-dawn hours and we must have sleep-jostled our bodies to accommodate him. The bed does not comfortably fit two adults, a maternity pillow the size of a third adult, a three-year-old, and a cat. I’d be in the middle, getting sharp elbows and knees from Desi, the whine of Nick’s CPAP machine in one ear, the wheezy breathing of my child in the other, the heat of all these creatures cooking me like a brick oven. It was not restful.
He doesn’t do it anymore. Maybe he feels more settled in this house, less afraid when he wakes up alone in his new room. I miss it now, of course. Having kids is enduring unfun times and then missing those times later. This is why crones descend on you at Target to point a gnarled finger at you, imploring you to cherish every moment with your baby. It’s not a cool thing to say to someone, but, like, I get it.
He came in our room this morning at a perfectly legal hour and woke me up, and because I hate waking up, I asked him if he wanted to snuggle in bed with me. “Maybe at bedtime. But the sun is up. We should eat breakfast.” Narc.
For a while, I wasn’t sure what to do about Charles. Charles’ car broke down one night on our street and he knocked on our door asking for a jump. Nick couldn’t jump his car (it turned out to be a busted starter) but ended up driving Charles and several family members home across the river. Charles can’t afford to fix his car, which was a terminal case even before the starter gave out. He’d finally gotten a job after a period of marginal employment. He walks two hours to work every day now that his car is shot. Sometimes he stops by to see if Nick will give him a ride home, which if you know Nick, he pretty much always will.
Charles rang once while Nick was away. It was a Saturday afternoon and my attempts at getting Desi to nap had failed. We were sitting in the dark together watching a Netflix cartoon and I was calling that nap-adjacent because I have no idea what I’m doing. I was in my underwear, which I am as often as possible, since I am pregnant and clothes are not made for this funhouse situation, even maternity clothes. The doorbell rang and Desi went and swung the front door wide open, something that is usually not possible because we deadbolt it to keep him from doing this exact thing, except that this time we hadn’t.
I stood up, in a panic, and moved to close the door, which only made my expansive flesh more visible to someone standing in the doorway. “Hold on,” I muttered, and bolted the door shut for a moment until I could find something to put on. I hoped that this would embarrass him and maybe he would just leave, but he didn’t. When I opened the door again, he asked if Nick was home. I said no (true). He asked if I knew when he’d be home. I said I didn’t know (mostly true) and that I was sorry (mostly true). I am all about lending Charles the occasional helping hand, but if someone in our household is giving, let’s face it, strange men rides in the car, it is going to be Nick.
The next time he came around when Nick wasn’t home, Desi was sleeping upstairs, and I flattened myself onto the couch and chose to believe he couldn’t see me through the large pane of glass in our front door. I was in my underwear again. He knocked and rang the doorbell more times than felt polite.
When he finally gave up, and I could slither over to where my phone was, I fired off a series of spicy texts to Nick. I don’t feel safe with him just coming around unexpectedly!! I am going to be tits out with a newborn in this room all the time soon and I can’t be managing this relationship or whatever it is!!! Nick and I acknowledged there was nothing concrete to be done. I didn’t want Nick to tell him to never bother us again, I didn’t want Nick to offer Charles his number for perhaps limited home visits but increased access. I just wanted my general annoyance to be known. Sometimes a situation is not ideal and there is no strategy, no solution. It took me many years of marriage or partnership or whatever to accept that into my heart. There are things that don’t get fixed and you can either be alone in that truth or together in that truth.
Nick validated my feeling unsafe and told me that Charles was getting a truck soon. This actually made me feel better. Do you want to know something about Charles? His mom died a few weeks ago and the funeral home wouldn’t bury her because she wasn’t finished paying off his dad’s funeral from earlier this summer. The last time Nick drove him home, or really to his brother’s house, he tried to get Nick to accept a bushel of crabs as thanks. Nick declined (we don’t eat them) but I was touched. “That,” my friend Ellie said, “is the most Eastern Shore thing I have ever heard.”
For the first time in ages, I don’t have a project. This past year, it was the Nick’s job search, then the impending move, and selling the house, and trying to get pregnant, and finding me a job in the new place. A “project” in this case means psychic bandwidth and not activity. It’s the sampler of worry I cross-stitch in my mind. It goes should should should should should should should should.
When I was pregnant with Desi, the pregnancy itself was a project, and maternity leave was a project, and my body was a project, all with desired outcomes. I might have outwardly claimed otherwise, but I don’t know how you can extrude yourself through the die of parenthood as a true blank slate. You’re you and you want things.
Like most three-year-olds, Desi loves rules but is selective about following them. He also makes up rules and tries to enforce them. It bothers him when we wear shirts unbuttoned or jackets unzipped or when my necklace clasp has worked itself around to the front. “We gotta button dis up,” he’ll say, clucking at me like I’m the child, pulling at the my shirt plackets as though he has the dexterity to button a button himself. “Mama, zip up your jacket!” he’ll scold me. “I can’t zip the jacket because my belly is too big,” I tell him. “I’m just gonna wear it open.”
This might have sent him into anguish and despair a few weeks ago, ditto absentmindedly flushing the toilet for him, or forgetting and opening the front gate latch instead of letting him do it, or not letting him punch in the door code at daycare. Lately, he has been less labile. More reasonable. “So it doesn’t fit? So you can’t zip it? So you aren’t gonna zip it? So maybe when the baby comes out, your belly can get small and you can zip it?” It is my hope.
yr mate,
Evie
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