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She pursed her lips, her tears finally spilling over. Whirling away from me, she threw herself at the mess in the sink to work off some of her frustration. I watched her scrub a plate, stop, take a deep breath, and then scrub at her eye with the back of her hand. Her skin was flushed from shouting, but I could still see how pale she looked, and the bags under her eyes.
“What is your plan for next year? What are you going to do?”
“I need to find somewhere else to live. And I need another job. When they can go to daycare I’ll go back to school, or maybe… get a full-time job. I don’t know.”
“Daycare is expensive,” I said. “By the time you pay for it, your whole paycheck will be gone.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have another choice. I could go home to my parents but…” her eyes flashed and she snapped her mouth shut.
But all she’d ever wanted was freedom from her parents.
And I took that from her.
The babies wailed louder.
“They want each other,” she said, hurrying over to me. She took the other child from the crib and helped position them in my arms so I could hold both. They grasped at each other’s hands and their cries diminished, though they didn’t dissipate completely. She patted their bottoms.
“I need to change them,” she mumbled.
“You need to take a shower, and then climb into bed for a few hours,” I said, holding the two of them firm against my chest.
“No, Drew, they’re wet, I—”
“I’ll change them. You go take a shower, put on something comfortable, and go to bed. You need a nap.”
She finally looked away from the boys and met my gaze. Her expression seemed guarded, like she didn’t quite want to believe a nap was in her future.
“Go on. We have work to do when you wake up.”
She nodded, dropped her head, and headed for the bathroom.
I headed over to the sorry excuse for a couch that separated the sleeping area from the eating area and set the boys down. After cleaning them up, I lay back on the couch and placed them against my chest, holding them firmly in place with my hands. I felt like they’d slip out of my grasp at any moment.
I thought back to the days when I used to watch my own mother sing to my little brother, and how it would calm him before he went to sleep.
The ABBA record stopped spinning. A quiet, scratching static filled the room. The boys started crying again, but I started humming whatever songs I could think of to keep them occupied.
After a few minutes, they quieted and fell asleep.
I was almost asleep myself when Maria came out of the bathroom. She was wrapped in a light blue towel that had a hole in it, and she crouched by one of the piles of laundry to find something to wear. She chose a pair of sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt, and threw them on right there in front of me, not caring in the least if I saw her. Her legs looked thin and less plump than before, and her arms and back were toned. Her breasts were heavy and huge, and I tried not to ogle them.
I am never having sex again. Not until I’m married. This is ridiculous.
She climbed into bed and stared at me lying on the couch for a few minutes, her eyes glued to the boys on my chest.
“They’re asleep,” she whispered.
“Your turn.”
“They never sleep from four to nine.”
“Kansas and The Grateful Dead will do that to you.”
Her mouth quirked. “They like your voice.”
I made a noncommittal sound.
It was bizarre, holding these little things. They were tiny humans, alive, breathing, screaming, because of me. Me and her, we made these. They were ours.
