“Yeah, Meredith,” Jamie chimed in, sensing opportunity.
She snorted. “Jamie, I don’t care if you want to look at T&A all day. Truly. Just keep it away from him.” She took a deep breath and let it out. Together, Jamie and his mother had the power to make her feel cornered. And feeling cornered made her angry. She wanted to run, but she needed to have her say first. “Really, all I want is for you to be there for him. And that means being with him when I can’t — and making that time count.”
Jamie walked around his mother to get in her face before she could clear the living room. “Mered, when I’ve been offshore for almost a month, I don’t want to babysit all day,” he groused.
Her anger turned to rage.
“It’s not babysitting! It’s parenting!” The single-pane windows of the living room rattled with her shout, and Oscar started to cry.
“See what you’ve done,” Leona scolded, reaching for him.
“No.” Meredith backed to the front door, pulling Oscar with her. “We’re going for a walk. We both need it.” She had to pitch her voice above Oscar’s wails, and now that he was completely wound up, he wriggled and kicked in her arms. She managed to hike him up on her hip with one hand and open the front door with the other. She grabbed the stroller by the handle and nearly kicked it down the steps.
Closing the door behind her and standing on the stoop, Meredith clutched her baby to her as he fought her comfort. Her chest felt like a balled fist.
“I’m sorry for yelling, Oscar,” she whispered into his ear.
His skin was hot with his wailing, and his tears soaked her neck. Meredith closed her eyes, feeling like a failure and wishing desperately to be a better mother. A better person.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” she asked, trying to speak calmly as he pounded his head against her.
“Noooooo!”
Meredith bounced her knees and swayed gently, all the while tempted to bang her own head against the wall. She never yelled in front of Oscar. Jamie did that, and she hated him for it, but she’d always kept calm while her son was around.
Above all else, what she wanted for Oscar was for him to feel safe and loved. How could he feel safe if his parents were always fighting? And would he know he was loved if she and Jamie shared nothing but misery?
“Do you want to go back inside?” she offered, rubbing his small back and patting his diapered behind.
“N-no,” he hiccupped, squeezing her now and linking his tiny arms around her neck.
Meredith’s heart eased at the gesture. He needed her completely. He needed her to be safe and strong and stable.
Oscar didn’t need her to love Jamie or for Jamie to love her, but he did need to feel protected and secure. Those needs came first, and they precluded anything more intimate.
And if she wanted to give her son more than that at some point — if she wanted him to grow up in a household where love was all he knew — she had to lock down the basics for him first.
Which meant she couldn’t think about herself. Not now. Maybe not for years. And she couldn’t lose her job.
Putting anything else she wanted on hold was her only option.
“Let’s just move the stroller out to the street, okay, Oscar?” He said nothing in reply, but cried steadily. Still, he wasn’t fighting her anymore, so Meredith hoped he was past the worst of it.
She pushed the stroller down the front walk, steering with her hip as she carried him.
Her night with Gray had hovered around her all day. Sometimes like a shield. At others like a cloud. In her classes, concentrating on the lectures was almost impossible. She kept remembering the pull she felt under her ribs when Gray kissed her. The urge to touch him, to open to him had been as innate as the need to breathe.
What rattled her even more was the power of Gray’s desire. The demand of his kiss. The hunger she could feel in his arms and hands. Each time she thought of it, her stomach would dip as though she were falling.
And maybe she was falling, but she needed to catch herself.
“Can I put you in the stroller now?” she asked Oscar. She’d reached the corner and turned up Curtis Street, and her growing boy felt heavy in her arms. “There’s a doggy going for a walk by the stop sign. You’ll be able to see him better if you’re sitting in your stroller.”
“Doggy?” Oscar sniffled and craned his head around, twisting his little body in her arms. At this cue, Meredith moved him to the seat of the stroller and tucked his legs under its plastic frame as he tried to see around her.
At the end of the street, a round rat terrier trotted on leash just ahead of his family. A mother, a father, and a double-wide stroller brought up the rear.
“Doggy!” Oscar shouted down the street.
