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I keep see-sawing between extreme excitement and extreme nerves, neither of which help me sleep any better. So I end up in my newest happy place: the nursery.
Dmitri’s working late, so I’m on my own tonight. His absence is bothering me more than I would have thought.
Somehow, subtle as can be, he’s managed to work his way back into my heart. I sit down on the swing that he gifted me, the first gesture in the new paradigm shift between us, and I marvel at how inevitable it all feels between us.
Maybe fighting it was just stubborn pride on my part. Because the truth is, how could I not consider the possibility of giving my son a real family? How could I not give my baby two parents who love each other… maybe?
I mean, the love part is a certainty on my side. I’ve scraped and clawed to deny it, but I’ve lost that battle fair and square.
With Dmitri, of course, nothing is quite so clear.
I grip the ivy-circled rope and swing gently back and forth while I admire everything that Dmitri has created here. Two of the walls are painted, one in blue and the other in a soft, jungly green. The remaining wall has been papered over with a forest watercolor print. Through the thin trees, I see running water, fat squirrels, the outline of deer drinking from the stream.
At first, I thought it would clash with the view on the opposite side of the room, but I’ve changed my mind. Now, I think it works together—the idea of forest quiet in combination with big city hustle and bustle. Makes you feel like you can have both things at the same time.
Not that that’s a metaphor or anything.
The furniture is mostly handmade. Carvings along the arms of the rocking chair, little frolicking rabbits chasing each other up the backrest and down the posts. Woven carpets are thick and lush underfoot.
I go wandering around, touching this, stroking that, mostly because that’s what makes it all feel real. When I can see the things my baby will love, when I can feel them and smell them, I start to believe that all this is actually happening.
I pause at the clothes chest. It’s eerily similar to the one Rose and I picked out together on one of our many trips through the city’s baby boutiques. An old steamer trunk, huge and thick, lined with brass. I run a finger along the edge of the lock, then push the lid up.
A scent rises to greet me. Something uniquely baby-ish. Lavender and powder and a third thing that doesn’t quite have a name.
I hold my breath as I reach down and pluck the top garment off the stack. It’s neatly folded, but as I bring it up to my nose, it falls loose and releases more of that scent.
I bury my face in it. Out of absolutely freaking nowhere, tears spring to my eyes. How many times did Rose do this, I wonder? Stand in the middle of an empty nursery and dream of a future she wanted so badly?
“Something wrong?”
“Ahh!” I whirl around to find Dmitri leaning against the far wall. “I didn’t even hear you come in.”
“That’s because you were a little preoccupied with sniffing that romper like an addict.”
Snorting, I roll my eyes and put the romper away. The lid goes closed and a puff of air whooshes out, almost like it’s sighing at me in disappointment. “It just smells a little… off, somehow. Rose’s clothes smelled different.”
“And… that’s a bad thing?”
I shrug. “It’s not good or bad. I just… I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it, really.”
He pushes himself off the wall and saunters toward me. The closer he gets, the more his smell joins the mix. Icy and minty and musky and fierce. “What did you do with those clothes?”
“They’re in a storage unit a few blocks from my old apartment,” I admit. “I couldn’t bear to throw them out or give them away.” I turn and walk away from him for reasons I don’t fully understand. His smell added on top of the baby clothes’ is too much, I think. I busy myself fussing with trinkets on the floating shelves. “It feels so unfair. That I should get to experience all this and she didn’t.”
“You feel guilty,” he observes. It’s not a question.
“I feel a lot of things.” Just then, I hear a slight thud from the upstairs penthouse. “My Lord, when are they gonna finish up there?”
“Soon, hopefully. It’s taking longer than I expected.”
“What exactly are you changing?”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
I’m glad to hear that. There are moments when my mind runs away from me and I start thinking up all sorts of conspiracy theories. I’ve even started dreaming in conspiracy theories. Just the other night, I fell asleep to the thudding upstairs and woke up sweating a few hours later after a particularly vivid dream that involved walking into the upstairs penthouse and finding Rose locked up in one of the rooms, thrashing chains against the floor again and again.
I shake my head to dispel the stupid thoughts. It’s just construction sounds. Normal sounds. Rose isn’t up there.
