I shrug a shoulder, my attention still focused on the time. It looks like we’re going to have to go straight to dinner. I make a mental note to call the hotel for a late check-in. “The pretzels from the plane are holding me over. I can wait.”
“You need some water? Or candy?”
I smile at him. “I could use some water.”
His gaze aligns with mine, studying the line we’re at the back of that’s currently at a standstill with only one attendant at the front. “I’ll be right back.”
I watch him scurry off to the nearest newsstand, quickly bypassing the racks of refrigerator magnets and postcards that read SEATTLE in big block letters, and beeline to the refreshments.
This trip is a little spontaneous after months and months of Sylvia requesting a visit. Phone calls, text messages, all filled with a string of guilt trips and “I’m so lonely here” and “Don’t you want to see your godchild?” It’s like we switched places. I moved to Sylvia’s hometown—after a similar request made by her from opposite sides of the country a near lifetime ago—only for her to move to the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
After Tommy was offered a transfer and a significant raise, it made sense for them to make the move. But then things started to happen at lightning speed. Tommy secured a two-story townhome south of Seattle. They started bringing incardboard box after cardboard box—filling each to the brim and securing them with an aggressive rip of packing tape—and I swear I barely blinked before the teachers at Joss Elementary were throwing a baby shower slash farewell party. And now, just four months after having baby Katy, James suggested we use his airline miles for a weekend getaway. And since it’s driving distance to my mom, we decided to kill two birds with one stone.
While everything around us seems to breeze past, James and I are anything but. Like a spinning globe and we’re the solid base nailed to the ground. At times, it feels safe, secure. Other times, I feel…lost. Left behind. Wanting to chase after whatever high everyone seems to be living life off of. I know it’s the grief holding me back, but…I don’t want to move on. People keep telling me I need to. Move on, that is. But I know that also means I have tomove on. That means I have to live life as if I never lost my baby. As if James and I weren’t about to become parents. How can I do that? What kind of person does that make me?
James returns with a water bottle and a packet of Starburst in one hand. I’ve moved about five steps forward. “It looks like we won’t have time to check in.”
I nod. “Figured. I can call the hotel for a late check-in.”
He smiles at me, taking my hand in his. I take the water, not bothering to take a sip quite yet, but placing it in my oversized tote bag instead.
“You good?”
I lean into his chest. “Mm-hmm.”
“Babies can’t, like, walk at four months, right?” His question comes with a cheeky smirk and a playful squeeze of my hip.
“No,” I answer through a laugh.
“Okay,” he says. “Just curious.”
“You have a niece,” I remind him. “She wasn’t walking around the house in her onesies at four months old, right?”
“I honestly never really paid attention.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I tease. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” he answers with a shrug. “I just thought I should know a little more about babies and certain…milestones.”
“I guess.” Baby milestones. I didn’t think we’d be talking about the topic like this, with careful pauses and cautious body language, but here we are.
We don’t talk much about what happened. Just on occasion when the it comes up. Like when Tommy called us to update us about Sylvia’s delivery. Or when it’s time to visit my doctor to refill my monthly birth control prescription and we start to consider how long I’ll be on the daily meds. We don’t really talk about it mainly because it should be past us by now. We should be over it. We should be looking to the future. But I don’t know if we are. I don’t know ifIam. Maybe one of the nails at the base of that globe is lodged. No crowbar is strong enough to pop it out, and it’s holding me back so I can never move on.
We manage to get our rental car and head to Sylvia and Tommy’s with our luggage shoved into the trunk. I call the hotel while James finds a parking spot on the busy street about a block over. Though we don’t admit to each other, there’s a tackiness to our steps. They’re stuck to the ground a little longer with each tread, making us drag and hesitate for some reason. I brush it off—the nerves and the anxiety—with a quiet exhale. When we reach their stoop, our fingers linked together, we take a quiet pause we inadvertently decided upon. Right before James presses the doorbell.
“Kenny!” The door swings open and ecstatic hands pull me into a tight embrace, and I can’t even remember why we needed a moment. Those jitters melt away immediately. “I missed you so much!”
“I missed you too,” I cry, gripping Sylvia’s face in my hands. I pull away from her only to take her in. Motherhood looksamazing on her. Her hair’s shorter like she warned me over the phone. Apparently one of the downsides to the post-partum phase was hair loss like some weird rite of passage, and a new style was needed to accommodate this change. She’s wearing a heather gray crewneck sweater paired with some leggings, and she looks so at home here. Like she’s slipped into this role with such ease.
Tommy rounds the corner, a small bundle of blankets balled into a protective cocoon in his arms, and his face lights up at the sight of us.
“Hey!” Tommy calls. “Come inside!”
“Yes,” Sylvia adds. “Sorry, I’m making you guys stand out there like some door-to-door solicitors.”
James’s hand presses against my back, a gentle nudge and a little push of encouragement. We step inside, and it smells like warm food and scented candles. Though the mess from the living room has trailed into the other parts of their home, it doesn’t appear overly cluttered or messy. It looks lived in. Like they used their lives, the ins and outs of their day-to-day, to decorate it. The shoes stacked in the shoe rack acting like a decorative statue and the pile of toys and soft plush animals a focal piece in their living room.
Tommy moves carefully to a small cream-colored bassinet and gingerly sets the baby down. She doesn’t even stir, and a part of me wishes she would. Just so I can get a better look at her. But with the way Tommy tiptoes away, I’m sure he’d prefer the complete opposite.
