Page 32 of Something Like Shelter

It was nice.

Maybe that was part of why I was so reluctant to admit how much I liked having Owen around.

He didn’t know me very well as the woman I’d been before Adelaide. He hadn’t met me in a boardroom with my hair perfectly styled and my calendar packed down to the minute. He mostly knew me as the woman who sometimes answered the door in pajamas with spit-up on her shoulder.

And somehow, I didn’t feel like I needed to impress him.

I could be tired around Owen. Frazzled. Barefoot. Burping a baby while he talked to me about bathroom tile.

He looked at me as the woman I was. Not the one I used to be.

That mattered more than I wanted to admit.

And it was probably important if I was going to be going back to work eventually.

I’d already not only needed to handle Dave, but also work on two other clients when they refused to work with anyone else.

I’d resented it in the moment. I was entitled to my time off with my baby without work stress. But a part of me had enjoyed it, maybe even craved it. Something to think about other than sleep schedules and preschools (yes, this early, if you wanted to get into one of the good ones), and when it would be okay to slow down and cut out nursing. The list of baby things to obsess about was endless. It was nice to have other things to think about again. Even just here and there.

Though I was actively trying in my waking hours not to think about Owen in any kind of sexual or romantic way. Sleep was out of my control. But I could consciously refuse to think about him when I was awake.

“I feel like she is bigger each time I visit. Even when it’s only a few days,” Gracie said, jiggling a fussy Adelaide in the living room.

“I only notice it when I look at pictures,” I admitted. “Days are impossibly long. But the time is also somehow flying. It’s like postpartum has its own sense of time. I don’t know how to explain it. But I guess you’ll find out eventually. You know, Adelaide would love a cousin to grow up with.”

“Adelaide has a hundred cousins to grow up with already. We’ll get there. It’s definitely in our plans. But things are still new. We want to enjoy just us for a bit.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely the way it should go.”

“Shoot. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Stop. Stop. I didn’t take it the wrong way. I just agree. Time building a solid foundation is the smart way to go about this. I wouldn’t trade my time with Adelaide for anything, but I imagine it would have been a lot easier with a loving partner to pick up some of the slack. So do what you’re doing. Cultivate that. Then babies.”

“You could let us all help more.”

“I know,” I agreed. “But things are good now. She actually slept for four and a half hours last night. All together. I feel like a new person. And it’s only going to keep getting better. Barring no regression. Sorry. I have to get this,” I said when I saw my boss’s name on my phone screen.

Another client who just wouldn’t work with anyone else, I imagined.

But no.

It was worse.

Much worse.

“We talked about this, Nick,” I said, pacing the kitchen, my hand running through my hair, likely making it greasier by the moment.

Because what the hell?

How could he spring something like this on me so quickly after having a baby? I couldn’t be seen at some fancy event. In a tight dress.

“We talked about you not being at work.” Also known as maternity leave. “We did not discuss you leaving us high and dry at mandatory after-hours work events.”

It had honestly just skipped my mind. With everything else I’d been worried about, I’d forgotten to be worried about the stupid annual client appreciation gala.

“It is a work-adjacent event,” I insisted.

“Imagine how bad it would reflect on you and the company for your clients to look for you and not see you. Not think you appreciate them and their business.”