Page 60 of Rome
“Mommy!” I managed to swing out my arm to stop his momentum before he ran into her.
“Easy, bud. Be gentle with Mommy for a few days, OK?”
Abby immediately leaned over to pull him into a huge hug.
“I missed you so much, sweetie,” she told him, brushing his unruly hair away from his face. Ethan’s attention was snagged by his sister, who was sound asleep in her baby carrier. I carefully set it down on the coffee table as Sinner picked up the bowls and carried them into the kitchen.
“Go with Pops and wash your hands,” I told him. “Then you can come back in here and hold your sister.”
Sinner left a couple of hours later, after cleaning up the breakfast dishes and taking his own turn holding the baby for a good long while. I’d heard him murmuring to her that her Great-Grandma Frankie would have loved to have had another little girl in the family. My cousin Hailey had been the only girl born in the family since Aunt BeBe, until now.
Amelia had been scheduled to work at the hospital today, so she didn’t get to our place until late in the evening, as I was trying to get Ethan ready for bed. We’d had a full day. Abby’s parents had stopped by for a little while, as had Jag and Molly when she got done with school for the day. King had brought dinner for us, and spent the whole time holding Everly, much of that time with Ethan perched on his other knee. I’d been fielding calls from Lucky and Trick all day, along with texts from just about every brother in the club. Cowboy had even dropped by for a few minutes, with flowers for Abby, a pink, frilly dress for Ev, and a new LEGO set for E.
By the time I got back downstairs, Abby was nowhere to be found.
“She’s taking a shower,” Amelia said, as she sat at the kitchen island eating some of the leftover lasagna that King had brought. Everly was asleep in her baby carrier, which Lia had plopped down right on the middle of the island. “She looked exhausted, and I could tell she was sore. She’s going to go straight to bed when she’s done. She asked us to bring Everly to her whenever she wakes up to feed.”
That set the tone for the next several days. I skipped Church on Sunday, and left Abby and Everly alone long enough to have an individual session with Kim on Monday. On Tuesday, I had to return to work. Since Amelia was scheduled to work that day, Sinner came over to help Abby. She insisted he didn’t need to stay all day, but I knew they both really enjoyed the company.
I had two more one-on-one sessions with Kim that week, and Abby did a phone-in session with her Friday afternoon. I had no fuckin’ idea what they’d talked about, but Abby barely acknowledged me Friday night. I knew we needed to talk, desperately, but I also knew Abby’s hormones were still all over the place, so I figured we should wait a few more days. Deep down, I was also too damned chickenshit to rock the boat. Abby was letting me stay at the house – on the couch – but still, I was there.
I spent most of the day Saturday at Guardian Ink. I wanted to be at home with my wife and kids, but I was trying to give Abby space. She was so fucking tense, like a bow string ready to snap. I was getting pretty damned worried about her.
She was like a ghost whenever I was home. I’d get glimpses of her here and there, mostly her leaving a room as soon as I entered it. I was amazed, and fucking grateful, that Ethan hadn’t picked up on her mood, or mine. Having his brand-new baby sister there to distract him helped.
I was getting frustrated that we hadn’t made any progress, even though Kim had warned me against doing that. “She has to heal on her timeline, Rome, and all we can do is help her through it. Putting pressure on her – especially with post-childbirth hormones that she’s likely dealing with – won’t make things better and will likely have the opposite effect.”
By the time I left for Church Sunday morning, I was fucking ashamed to admit it, but it was almost a relief to get away from the constant tension. I felt like we were living at the edge of a volcano, with occasional rumbles to remind us that it could blow at any minute.
Chapter 18
Abby
I sighed heavily, hating the feeling of relief that flooded me as I heard Caleb’s Tahoe pulling out of the driveway. I couldn’t believe that it had come to this – that I was so on edge in my husband’s presence that it was actually easier to breathe when he wasn’t here.
I had talked to Kim about it during our phone session on Friday. I’d shared with her that I was struggling to even look at Caleb, let alone have any kind of meaningful conversation with him about our problems. I knew that my post-partum hormones weren’t helping the situation. I always felt like I was on the verge of tears or a tantrum, and I was afraid that my stress was starting to affect my breastfeeding. I’d noticed that Everly had been getting a little fussy during feeds for the last day or so.
I’d decided that if it wasn’t better by tomorrow, I would call her pediatrician’s office. She’d been fine at her one-week checkup on Thursday, and had only lost one ounce since birth, which was better than average for a newborn’s first week. Amelia had driven me because I couldn’t stand to be in such close quarters with Caleb. He’d met us there, then gone in to work afterward.
Amelia left to meet her roommate, Laura, for lunch. They planned to go shopping after, and I was glad she was taking a break from my drama. My sister had been my rock since Caleb blew our world apart, but I could see the toll it had taken on her, too. She had upended her entire life to move in temporarily to look after me and Ethan, and now Everly. I could never repay her for it.
I tried various relaxation techniques as the morning wore on, but I could feel my stress levels rising as it got closer to the time that Caleb usually got home from Church. He’d told us that he was going to stay for lunch, which he had skipped for the last couple of weeks. After Church, the Morgan men typically gathered for lunch together, with Caleb normally getting home around two.
At one-thirty, I settled down into the rocking chair in Everly’s nursery to feed her. I thought maybe some time in a quiet space, without the noise from the Minions movie that Ethan was watching, would help me relax enough for her to nurse properly.
Caleb and Jagger had painted the nursery a couple of months ago and spent an afternoon putting the new crib together. Ethan had supervised, and all three of them had been covered in splatters of Frosted Rose by the end of the day. The paint color looked very pretty against the white crib, dresser, changing table, and rocking chair, but not so pretty in my son’s hair.
Caleb had drawn sweet peas, a lovely flowering plant, on one wall, since he’d started calling our little bump by that name as soon as we’d discovered we were expecting a little girl. He had also written her name in flowing script over the crib. It really was a beautiful space.
I ran my finger down the side of Everly’s face, marveling at how soft and smooth her skin felt. After she’d gotten her fill, I burped her, changed her diaper, and laid her down in the crib for a nap. I switched the baby monitor on and carried it with me as I went downstairs to join Ethan. I glanced at the time, a little surprised that it was almost two-fifteen. I sat down on the couch next to him and he curled up against my side. I wrapped my arm around him and kissed the top of his head, and we sat that way for the next hour until the movie ended.
I’d been aware of each passing minute, the relief I’d felt at Caleb’s absence morphing into anxiety now that he wasn’t home yet. I wondered what he was doing and who he was with. I worried that he was drinking, and then I wondered if I would spend the rest of my life like that.Wondering and worrying.I really couldn’t imagine living like this for the rest of my life. Actually, I could imagine it, but I didn’t want to. It seemed unbearable.
Caleb got home a little after four. I had just gone into the kitchen to check on the roast I’d put in the crock pot this morning, and my hand froze on the lid when I heard the door open. I quickly replaced the lid and set the meat thermometer down on the countertop when he walked into the kitchen.
“Smells great in here, baby girl.”
I closed my eyes at the sound of his voice, and grimaced at the forced cheerfulness I could hear there. I’d turned slightly and saw him hanging his cut up by the back door. I hadn’t seen him with it since the day I told him how I felt about his road name, and I wondered if the fact he was wearing it now meant that he’d gotten his new name patch. I couldn’t bring myself to look at it to check for myself just in case I was wrong.
