“What’s up, bud?” I ask her tightly, trying to breathe through the pain.
She leans in, her big, ice-blue eyes meeting mine. “Daniel Tiger is gonna meet his baby now. Like I met my Theo baby.”
I smooth her dark wavy hair back from her face. It’s wild, thanks to the wrestling match we just had. The one I had to put an abrupt stop to because my stomach started cramping.
“Okay, Linnie, I’m watching.”
Sighing, she sets her chin on top of my head, her hands idly tapping my shoulders. “Are Mommy and Daddy okay?” she whispers.
My heart clenches along with my stomach, but I do my best to ignore the latter, pushing off the ground, sitting on the sofa, and tugging Linnie onto my lap. “Linnie, what do you mean?”
“Last night, they were both making ouchy noises,” she says. She sniffles. Wipes her nose. Very much like her mother, Linnie’s a crier. A big feeler. An empath.
I frown. “Ouchy noises?”
Linnie shuts her eyes, scrunches her face, and wails, “Ohhhhhh! Ohhhhhh! Like that.”
Heat hits my cheeks. Sweet Lord.
Those noises.
It’s really not something I want to think about, but I have some vague recollection from when I used to nerd out on the old med-school texts Dad kept at the house, that it’s around a month after birth that you can safely resume sexual activity.
Theo was born five weeks ago today.
Which explains the “ouchy” noises Freya and Aiden were making, as well as Aiden’s frantic text this evening along the lines of, “Can you please take Linnie for an overnight? We’re desperate for a break.”
I thought this meant like an actually just have one child to contend with break, a nap when the baby naps break, or hell, a just not answer questions every hour the firstborn is awake break, not a sexcapade break.
I thought kids murdered your sex life, yet here I am on babysitting duty during my longest no-sex-streak in years, with a next-door neighbor I’d love nothing more than to bang into next week, who’s decidedly avoiding me—as he should—while the parents of two kids under four are getting it on.
Life is cruel.
“Uncle Ollie?” Linnie whispers, sniffling again.
I’m brought back to the moment with a pinch of guilt. I should be reassuring her, not having a pity party for myself. Kissing her temple, I rub her back.
“I think Mommy and Daddy are fine, Linnea. Sometimes when adults are…in bed…they just kinda…groan and stretch?”
Linnie wrinkles her nose. “Hmm. But they were in the shower. I heard the water and, like, thumps. Daddy says no gymnastics in the shower ’cause I could get hurt. Sounds like they got hurt. They shouldn’t do it either.”
I bite my lip, trying so hard not to laugh. “Fair enough.”
Sighing, she slumps against me. My stomach spasms, and it takes everything in me to bite back my own “ouchy noise,” so I don’t upset Linnie any more than she already is.
Why, why did I eat all that brie?
I’m lactose intolerant, which I realized years ago after a dare gone wrong with Viggo, involving the consumption of more cheese cubes than I care to admit. I know better. But I love cheese so much. I take a dairy digestive aid pill with the lactase enzyme, which helps when having, say, a slice of pizza, or a few bites of cheese.
Not half a damn pound of it.
I knew I was going to pay. I was prepared to. I just wasn’t expecting to get a frantic text from Aiden, begging me to take Linnie.
My parents are on a romantic getaway in Napa. Viggo’s God knows where, but his phone isn’t even ringing, and the rest of my siblings are either in different states or traveling with their teams.
Which left me. The guy who can’t say no and who’s about to crap his pants after gorging on brie.
My stomach clenches again, the pain so sharp, I hiss out a breath. Covertly, I slip my phone from my pocket while stroking Linnie’s hair with my other hand. She’s stuck her thumb in her mouth, her head heavy against my chest as she watches Daniel Tiger. I can tell she’s not tired yet, but she’s starting to mellow out.
If it were her bedtime, I’d be set. I’d tuck her into the guest room that I turned into a safe space for her to sleep—a queen-sized bed pushed up against the wall with a mesh safety gate on the other side so she doesn’t roll off the mattress, a nightlight, soothing mint-green walls and thick, butter-yellow weighted curtains to block out light so she’s not woken up by the sunrise—then I’d go pay on the toilet for my dairy hubris and collapse into bed afterward.
But it’s not her bedtime yet. Not for another two hours. Which means I desperately need reinforcements.
Where the hell are you? I text Viggo. This time, the text shows as “delivered,” meaning his phone is finally on.
He and I have mutually agreed upon phone tracking, so I look him up, then swear under my breath. He’s two hours away, in Escondido again.
Jesus, he texts back. What did I miss? I have seventeen missed calls and five voicemails from you.
I have Linnie, I type. I took her spur of the moment because Aiden wants to boink Freya, little did I know, and I ate a ton of cheese before I knew I was going to be watching her.
Oh God, he texts. That poor child. She’s going to be scarred. Also, never again refer to what Aiden does to our sister as boinking. In fact, just never refer to it.
You’re not the boss of me, I write. So have you left Escondido? When can you get here?
Ashbury has a flat tire, he writes back.
I roll my eyes. The dork named his beat-up car after his favorite scarred duke from his endless historical-romance reading.
But you have a neighbor, he continues, next door, who you could ask for help. That’s what coworker neighbors are for: a cup of sugar, carpooling, watching your niece while you shit your brains out…
I clench my teeth. You’ve done enough interfering on that front. I made it very clear I want you to stop, Viggo.
Oh, I remember, he texts. I’m still having nightmares about a bedful of fake tarantulas. You’re sick, you know that?
You, I type, exhaling harshly as I breathe through another stomach spasm, need to mind your own damn business. I’d hoped a bedful of fake spiders might get it through your thick skull to keep your nose out of my love life, but here we are.
Fine, stubborn sibling. I can get there in a couple hours if you really really need me.
I glare at my phone. Don’t bother. I’ll figure something out. NO THANKS TO YOU.
After chucking my phone at the sofa, I scrub my face. I’m not texting Gavin for help. Linnie and I will be fine. Haven’t I been humiliated enough? He’s shut me down, moved on from what happened. He doesn’t care about what we did that night in the kitchen or why I brought it to a halt. He doesn’t care about me.
And I don’t need yet another person I’m drawn to making me feel inadequate and discardable. He’s over it. So I am, too.
Well, I’m trying to be.
Involving him in my personal life, asking him for help, is not happening.
I breathe through my nose as another spasm wracks my stomach. I’m not going to last much longer. In fact, I’m not going to last at all.
Gently, I lift Linnea off my lap and set her on the couch. I dash into her room for the baby monitor, then back, plugging it in, angling it on the entertainment center’s shelf so I can see her.
“Be right back, okay? Linnie? I have to use the bathroom. I have the baby monitor here so you can talk to me and I’ll hear you.”
“’Kay,” she says, her voice mellow, her eyes glued to the TV. I tuck a blanket around her and scooch her to the end of the sofa so her head is on its arm, visible in the monitor, then sprint to the bathroom down the hall with the other half of the baby monitor.
And then I pay dearly for eating my feelings.
I should feel better, but I don’t. Sometimes it’s as simple as a bathroom trip, but this time, the residual muscle spasms in my stomach make it so I can’t even stand straight. Hunched over, I join Linnea on the couch again, rubbing her back as I draw up my knees against a sharp cramp in my gut.
“I’m hungry, Uncle Ollie,” Linnie says.
I groan, both at the thought of food and the thought of getting up to make it for her. “Want to raid your snack cabinet?” I ask her weakly.
She frowns. “I want dinner, Uncle Ollie.”
Man, she’s right. I peer up at the clock, then down at my phone, wracking my brain. I could order food, but everything will take at least half an hour to get here, and when Linnea tells you she’s hungry, she’s hungry. She’s not going to happily eat snacks and wait through yet another Daniel Tiger episode for her dinner.
I have to think. I need someone who can make Linnea a dinner she’ll eat while I curl up in the fetal position on the sofa, and I need them fast.
In short, I need a miracle.