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Whenever I try to open up the conversation to something else, she gives me a weary expression and a sigh that warns me to give up before I’ve even begun. “I told you already, Dmitri: I need space. I’m just here to make sure you know how to take care of Mischa for the next few hours.”
Then she disappears, usually with Bee at her back. It’s infuriating: I’m relegated to glorified babysitter, while Bee gets to share the most intimate parts of Wren’s life. Not that she hasn’t been a useful mole during this emotional cold war, but still—I shouldn’t need a mole in the first place.
In the absence of progress, I’ve decided to put all my energy into making amends in the hopes that one day, she’ll forgive me. Not an easy thing to pull off when she refuses to be in the same room with me for more than a few minutes.
Which is why I find myself here, skulking around the kitchen in the lower penthouse at one in the morning, stocking up the cupboards with all of Wren’s favorite snacks and foods. I make sure each room has a stainless steel bottle filled with ice-cold water, just the way Wren likes it.
And of course—the notes.
A few months ago, I would’ve recoiled in disgust at the thought of it. Now, I don’t give a fuck. What’s the point of dignity when you don’t even have your wife to share it with?
So fuck it, I’ll grovel. One handwritten note at a time.
I’m pinning up the last scrap of paper when Bee walks into the kitchen in a fluffy blue bathrobe with her hair piled up in a bun at the top of her head.
“Oi, Romeo—still littering the kitchen, are we?”
“It’s not littering if she reads them,” I growl as I finish taping it up and step back to check my handiwork. “She does read them, yes?”
“She reads them,” Bee admits. “I just don’t know what she does with them afterwards.”
“You haven’t seen them in the trash?”
Bee’s jaw drops theatrically. “Do you really think I’m in the habit of rooting around in the trash like a raccoon?”
I roll my eyes. “Forget I asked.”
“Consider it forgotten.” She grins and claps her hands abruptly enough to startle me. “Guess what? The little master said his first word today!”
My expression flatlines. “Don’t fuck with me.”
“What?” she protests. “He did! He said my name. Bee. Amazing, huh?”
“He’s a couple of days old. The only thing he was trying to convey was indigestion. For fuck’s sake, the whole point of you being here is so you can give me real information.”
She shrugs. “Just trying to lighten the mood. And I thought the whole point of me being here was to be a shoulder for Wren to lean on.”
“That, too.”
“You’re too tightly wound about this, Dmitri,” Bee advises with her stern tutor’s expression on. “Seriously, she?—”
Her lecture stops short as the baby monitor on the kitchen island hums to life. It activates any time Mischa moves, and he usually only moves just before he wakes up, so I leap into action. “Time for my son to eat.”
Which has also become code for “papa time.” Wren and I agreed that I would take the 1:00 A.M. feed so that she could get extra sleep during the night. I whisper to him the whole time as he suckles at the bottle. I promise him futures, tell him about the world, make my amends.
If only his mother would give me the same kind of chance to make amends with her.
“I’ll go get the little tyke so you can finish your love notes.” She winks at me and sashays out of the kitchen.
I finish my last note and place it on the kitchen island where I know Wren has her breakfast every morning. Then I grab a labeled package of Wren’s milk from the freezer and heat it up before transferring it to Mischa’s bottle.
Bee’s already in the living room when I get there, Mischa mewling hungrily in her arms.
I whip off my shirt and take him expertly with one arm. Then I settle him against my naked chest and ease the bottle into his mouth. It takes some coaxing before he accepts it—not that I can blame him. I’d prefer Wren over this fake, plastic bullshit, too.
Bee lowers herself down to the floor at the foot of my chair and turns to take in the view of Chicago through the window. “It’s weird, don’t you think?” she muses to herself. “I wanted so much to avoid being a mother—and here I am, desperate to babysit that little guy whenever I can. Wonders never cease.”
Smiling cryptically, she reaches up to stroke her fingertips through his downy hair. It’s dark brown like mine, but he’s got his mama’s eyes. A deep, unbroken green. Bee says that Wren’s convinced they’ll turn brown eventually.
