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I’M CRACKING NOW
PRESENT
How do you explain to the babies that you birthed that you have no fucking clue what you’re doing? And that, for the first time in such a long time, you’re putting yourself first. Even before their feelings and desires.
Being selfish costs, and the price is steep.
You pay in tears and lonely nights; you pay in uncertainty and trepidation.
Four eyes—two brown and two hazel—stare at me, waiting for me to speak. Little eyes that have been looking to me from the moment they first opened.
“Things are going to change,” I try to start, and I notice Jilly’s chin start to tremble. “But change isn’t always a bad thing.” I rush out the last part.
I’m barely holding it together, but I’ll fake it for them. I’d do anything for them and maybe one day they’ll see it for themselves. That I have to give up their perfect life so I can have the strength to continue my own.
“Isn’t Daddy gonna be lonely?” Jillian asks and I blink several times to keep my own tears in check.
This is the first conversation he and I haven’t tackled together. To be fair, we haven’t been doing too many things together anymore. Not since I told him it’s time to live separately.
“You’ll still see Daddy,” I answer in earnest, nodding my head as my gaze flits between the two of them. “That will never change.”
“What if you decide you don’t want us like you decided you don’t want Daddy anymore?”
Penny’s question stops me short, and I stare at her with my mouth agape and my eyes wide. She’s looking down at her hands that rest just on top of her crossed legs, her feet tucked under.
“Wh—who…where did you get the idea that I wouldn’t want you?” I stammer and stumble over my words, trying in vain to steer the conversation in the least traumatizing manner.
She shrugs and I yearn to pull her in my arms and reassure her that I’ll always want her. But something in the way her shoulders slump forward make me pause.
“Did someone tell you this at school?” She nods, her dark locks sliding forward and hiding her face, but not before I see a tear slide down her cheek. “I will always love Daddy because he’s your Daddy. But I willalwayslove you two because you’re mine. I will never not want you.”
My voice is shaky by the end, and I can’t help but reach out and pull them both toward me. I feel them shake against me as they cry and I can’t help the tears that fall from my eyes as I squeeze them against my chest, missing the days where they were safe inside of me.
“Daddy and I are still going to love you the same. We’re just going to love you separately now,” I whisper as I hold them tightly. We sit there for a long time, just crying and holding each other.
Jilly falls asleep in my lap as I stroke Penny’s hair and the room is still as the sun dims, casting an orange light through the blinds.
I’ve made plenty of poor decisions in my life, but is this one of them? Was marrying Peter in the first place wrong? Was deciding to go for the safe choice one that I was going to regret for the rest of my life?
“What are you thinking about?” Penny asks, turning her head to look up at me.
A tear tracks down my cheek and I swipe it away with the back of my hand.
“I worry that I’m not doing the right thing for you,” I confess, looking up at the photo of all four of us from two Christmases ago staring back at me. It took hours to get the girls ready and minutes for them to mess their hair up, playing in the snow while I’d gotten ready. And, as usual, Peter reigned us all in for the one decent shot. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, and I could still see the rosiness in their cheeks from the cold, but that was us.
Imperfect.
I glance down at Penelope to find her sleeping as well. For a few minutes, I sit on my bed with them, enjoying the weight of their sleeping bodies on me. Then, when I think it’s safe, I pull myself away and sneak away into my office down the hall.
And I call the only person I can stand to talk to right now.
“Hey,” my baby sister’s voice says and immediately, more tears fall.
“God, I feel like a piece of shit for ruining their lives,” I sputter after a moment of silence that she takes in stride.
“You aren’t ruining their lives. You’re saving your own.”
Although she can’t see me, I nod, trying to imprint her words in my brain.
