We both laughed. Tom and Kate did leave their girls with us and go away for a weekend. And I did buy Charmin Ultra Soft. But there’s so much to do every day, so many things that have to get taken care of, that it’s easier when there’s a routine, when you don’t have to think. Even using that smidgen of extra brainpower to choose a toilet paper brand can turn things from “manageable” to “overwhelming.”
But Kate got me thinking: Sometimes my life with Darren did feel stale. And stale can lead to something worse if it goes unchecked.
lxvi
That winter, a few months after Liam turned two, our whole family got sick. It was the kind of horrible cold that had Violet out of kindergarten for a week. She was listless and clingy and my heart just about broke every time that she coughed, a deep rattle in her tiny chest. Your heart would’ve broken, too, Gabe. She was so sad and pathetic. Annie wouldn’t leave her side. Darren wasn’t feeling well either, and on top of that a deal he was handling at work wasn’t going as smoothly as he’d expected, so he was short-tempered—with the kids and with me.
After four days of that, Violet and I were curled up together on the couch with Annie watching Sparkle On! and Liam was on the floor with his favorite wooden trains. Darren was pacing the apartment holding some company’s financial report in his hands, reading while he walked. During his third or fourth circle into the living room he said to me, “Liam’s nose is running.”
“There are Boogie Wipes on the kitchen table,” I told him.
He stopped walking and looked at me. “I’m working,” he said. “You’re their mom.”
“Excuse me?” I said, as Violet rubbed her own drippy nose against my sweater.
“I’m working,” he said again.
I stared at him. Sometimes he came out with these things that made me think: Is this really the person I married? Not often, but it happened. It was usually about childcare, about my role in the family as a wife and a mother.
Without another word, I got up off the couch, lifting Violet with me, got the Boogie Wipes from the kitchen, and wiped Liam’s nose.
Later that night, I woke up to the sound of Liam crying. We’d just switched him from a crib to a bed, but he still hadn’t figured out that he could get out of it by himself in the middle of the night. I looked over at Darren. He was half awake too.
“Liam’s crying,” he said, his eyes barely open.
“I hear him.” My head felt like it was filled with cotton.
“You’re going?”
It wasn’t really a question. “Mm-hm,” I said, getting out of bed.
When I got to Liam’s room, Violet was standing in the door frame. “He woke me up, Mommy,” she said, following me inside.
“Me too,” I told her, as I lifted him out of his bed. “Why don’t you go back to sleep?”
“Can I stay?” she asked.
I was too tired to argue. “Okay,” I said, then turned to Liam. “What’s wrong, baby?”
Upright, in my arms, Liam’s cries turned to a whimper. I wiped his face, which was covered in snot. “Too hot,” he said, his breath still shuddering.
I put my lips against his forehead, the way I had with Darren so many Christmases ago. But I was sick too, and my lips weren’t reliable. I took his temperature. 101.4. I sighed.
“Okay, buddy,” I said. “You don’t like this part, but it’ll make you feel better.”
While Violet watched, I syringed Tylenol into the back of Liam’s mouth and then stuck his sippy cup between his lips. He was too sick or too tired to put up much of a fight. He swallowed, then coughed. “I know, baby,” I said. “Being sick is no fun.”
“Sick is no fun,” he echoed, his lower lip trembling a little.
Violet coughed, covering her mouth with her elbow, like she’d learned at kindergarten.
They looked as miserable as I felt. “How about we all sleep together tonight?”
She nodded and climbed into Liam’s bed. I slid in next to Violet and propped Liam’s head on my shoulder, hoping the elevation would help him breathe.
“Love you, Mommy,” he said, as his eyes closed.
“I love you too,” Violet said, as she snuggled against my other side.
“I love you both,” I told them, “to the stars and back.”
And I thought about you, then, Gabe. I hadn’t in a while, but lying there I remembered the day, not quite a year before, that we baked cookies and you fixed my washing machine. I remembered the feeling of what could have been. And I wondered how you would have reacted to two sick kids. Would you have gotten out of bed and told me to sleep while you comforted a crying child? Would you have wanted them in bed with both of us, a family of runny noses and fevers? You wouldn’t have expected that it would all fall on me, that I’d be the one wiping faces and syringing Tylenol. I know that for sure.
That night, with my babies in my arms, I dreamed about you in Darren’s place. We were making waffles for Violet and Liam. You were wearing that ridiculous crown. We were all in matching Christmas pajamas.
When I woke, I chalked it up to a fever dream. But, really, it was much more than that.
lxvii