Then the baby itself. Crying, helpless, vulnerable, its devices and carriers and toys filling up your once pristine home. The sleepless nights. The fall in favor as the father’s attention shifted to his baby. Once, you were his porn-star, spoiled sex kitten wife . . . now, you were whining for him to please take the baby so you could get a nap.
There was no way she’d become a slave to a tiny baby, exhausted and obsessed and boring as hell. She didn’t want anyone to be more important to her than her own darn self. So each month, she sighed and got teary-eyed and said, “Not yet, honey. Oh, heck, what if I can’t have a baby? Will you still love me?”
“Babe! Of course I will!”
She pretended to sag with gratitude. “Oh, thank heavens, because I love you so much, Dennis. As for the baby, I guess the universe wants us to focus on each other.” That shut him up for a while.
Her days were spent fussing around the apartment (a cleaning lady came twice a week). She did the cooking, always something delicious, knowing that a man liked his woman to be domestic . . . at least, Dennis’s type did. The bed was made to perfection each day, and she had an icy cold martini for him ten minutes after he walked through the door. She went to spin class and yoga and the gym religiously, and on weekends, she and Dennis would take a run in Central Park and see a play (on Broadway!) or go out for dinner at places that prided themselves on tiny portions and Michelin stars.
Life was so good.
Did she love him? Sort of. He was perfect for her purposes. He was . . . well, he was fine. He was good in bed and had given her an Amex Black card. She couldn’t ask for more. Even if he did divorce her down the line, she owned half of this apartment. She’d always have something in the bank.
As for friends, Melissa had drinks and coffee here and there with women from spin class or yoga, but she knew her job was Dennis . . . and that women had a sixth sense about other women. Her past couldn’t get out, obviously, so she kept things friendly and shallow. She got a mani-pedi every week, waxes and facials and highlights and massages. She took a flower-arranging class and signed her and Dennis up for a couples cooking class. They joined a coed volleyball league, and Dennis crowed with delight when she spiked a ball for a point. (Thanks, Kansas Wesleyan!) She was careful to miss a few shots, pouting adorably and letting him encourage her.
One weekend, Dennis had his fraternity brothers over before they left for a fishing trip in Montana. They stayed in to watch a baseball game, and she fawned over the four men, bringing them homemade chicken wings and seven-layer dip and chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. She refilled their bourbons, dropping a kiss on her husband’s cheek, then made herself absent so “you boys can have your time together.”
But she eavesdropped on them, that’s for sure.
“My God, you’re living the dream, Den,” Jim (or John) said. “She cooks, too.” Uproarious laughter followed, and Melissa smiled, content. Men loved her. They always had.
She was living the dream, too. She had everything. Life was perfect.
Until her sister called.
CHAPTER 5
Lillie
What no one tells you is that there will be a last time you ever carry your child. A last time you tuck them in. A last time they run into your arms off the school bus.
All through his infancy, Dylan was attached to me, almost literally. I nursed him, and he was fussy, so I carried him almost constantly, patting his back, humming to him, breathing in his delicious baby scent. He didn’t walk till he was fourteen months old, and I loved that, because I got to carry him that much longer. I took him for hikes in a backpack, his little knees hitting my ribs. I carried him on my shoulders, him clinging to fistfuls of my hair. I loved every minute.
He was an affectionate boy full of drooly kisses and cuddles. He was generous with his hugs, from Paul at the post office to Christine, our librarian. And especially with me. Every night when I read him bedtime stories, his sweet little head would rest against my shoulder, and he’d idly stroke my arm, smelling like Dove soap and baby shampoo.
Driving in the car was like a tranquilizer dart for Dylan . . . even bumping down our long dirt road wouldn’t wake him up, and I’d park the car, get out and unbuckle him, then lift his sweaty little body into my arms to carry him inside and just sit on the couch with him in my arms, heart against heart.
And then one day, he no longer needed that. The bedtime stories stopped when he was about ten and wanted to read to himself. The last time I attempted to carry him from the car, he woke up and said, “It’s okay, Mom. I’m awake.” He never needed that again.
Had someone told me “This is the last time you’ll get to carry your son,” I would have paid more attention. I would have held him as long as I could.
They don’t tell you that your son will stop kissing you with sweet innocence, and those smooches will be replaced with an obligatory peck. They don’t tell you that he won’t want a piggyback ride ever again. That you can’t hold his hand anymore. That those goofy, physical games of chasing and tickling and mock wrestling will end one day. Permanently.
All those natural, easy, physical gestures of love stop when your son hits puberty and is abruptly aware of his body . . . and yours. He doesn’t want to hug you the same way, finding your physicality perhaps a little . . . icky . . . that realization that Mom has boobs, that Mom’s stomach is soft, that Mom and Dad have sex, that Mom gets her period.
The snuggles stop. This child, the deepest love of your life, won’t ever stroke your arm again. You’ll never get to lie in bed next to him for a bedtime chat, those little talks he used to beg for. No more tuck-ins. No more comforting after a bad dream. The physical distance between the two of you is vast . . . it’s not just that he’ll only come so close for the briefest second, but also the simple fact that he isn’t that little boy anymore. He’s a young man, a fully grown male with feet that smell like death and razor stubble on his once petal-soft cheeks.
Dylan was a wonderful son, don’t get me wrong. I loved that he talked to me, dropped a kiss on my head every morning and before he went upstairs for the night. I thrilled at the chance to be useful . . . to fold his laundry once in a while, to pick up the right protein powder for his shakes.
But I was in mourning just the same.
The minutes rushed and slid precariously toward that dreaded day in August. But the truth was, he’d been leaving me for years. They don’t tell you that. They don’t tell you that this person—this person you grew inside your body, this person you pushed into the world with superhuman strength and joy, this infant you nursed, the toddler who proclaimed you his best friend, who drew you pictures and picked you dandelions, who leaned against you and fell asleep on you and threw up on you and needed you to bathe him and hold him on the potty and brush his teeth . . . that this person would go away, and in his place would be a young man who didn’t tell you about his life, who did his own laundry, who didn’t ask you to read his papers anymore. Who just didn’t need you anymore.
All because you did a good job. All because your entire life for the past eighteen years was to make him an adult who was independent and kind and self-sufficient, and goddamn it, you did it, and what were you left with?
His absence.
Of course I was proud of my son. Of course I wanted him to be a man, not a snowflake who needed his mommy to get through the day. The clashing mix of pride and sorrow, when you want so much to be able to go back in time for so many reasons, to when you were sure of your life because this child was your life. If there was one thing I had never doubted in my life, it was that I was a good mother, all the way through.
But God, I missed my boy.