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I put my hand on hers. “And now?”
She grimaced. “I don’t know. We’re so… disconnected. I honestly don’t know if it’s just run its course, or if we should try harder to make it work. Maybe get some relationship counseling. But is that way too heavy, after only four years? If we need that already, is that telling me something?”
I shrugged. “I really don’t know, hon. I have very limited experience with relationships, as you know. A couple of flings in college, and then Caleb.”
We both wrinkled our noses at the mention of Maddy’s father, and said, “Ew, Caleb, yuck!”, which was a thing we did. It had helped me through the breakup, joking about how awful he was.
Maddy giggled and I grimaced. “We’ll have to stop doing that soon,” I said. “Otherwise, Maddy’s first words will be, ‘Ew, Caleb, yuck!’, probably right in front of him!”
Clare smiled at Maddy, opened a cloth picture book for her and began to turn the pages. “I guess it’s different for you because you’ve already got the Madster,” she said. “There’s not that same sense of time pressure because you’ve got a beautiful daughter already. And you’re younger than me. I don’t want to hit thirty without a relationship, because I want to have kids by thirty-five.”
“It’s hard,” was all I could say. My mind was whirring. “I hadn’t thought beyond having Maddy and bringing her up through the early years by myself,” I told Clare. “I hadn’t even wondered what things would look like beyond that. Heck, I didn’t think I’d even sleep with anyone until after she was at school. But now…”
Clare cupped her coffee mug in both hands and leaned forward over the table. “But now there’s Alex.”
I shivered with pleasure at the memory of his body on mine. He’d been out when I’d woken up that morning – he’d already gone training. So, we hadn’t seen one another since I slipped out of his bed in the middle of the night.
“Is there Alex now?” Clare asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want there to be Alex now?”
I stroked Maddy’s hair and all the complications of me and Alex flooded back into my head. “I don’t know that either.”
* * *
Alex wasn’t there when I got back to the apartment, and I was thrilled when Maddy followed her record sleep the night before with an equally good nap. Baby monitor in hand, I made myself an herbal tea in the kitchen and thought about grabbing some sleep myself. Goodness knows, I could have done with it after my late night.
I sat down at the table for a moment, just to catch my breath. I’d had a busy morning, taking Maddy to the playpark after meeting Clare, then to her toddler music group, then home for her lunch, playing with her, reading to her, changing her again and settling her down for a nap.
I realized I hadn’t eaten anything myself since the brownie and fixed a quick turkey sandwich – Alex had all kinds of healthy foods and personal chef-prepared meals in the apartment. These were delivered by courier and were based on a strict meal plan from his nutritionist. The cookies I ate last night must have been Kayla’s. I reminded myself to replace the packet next time I went out to the grocery store.
I sat down and my mind started to wander over the details of the night before, and over all the thoughts and questions my talk with Clare had brought up in my head. I almost got sucked into sitting there thinking about relationships, but then what Alex had said during our evening out came back to me. About my new business plans. When we’d almost fallen out badly but had managed to pull things back at the last minute. He’d been right - I had to be determined if I wanted to make my online magazine work. I had to focus and give every minute I could spare to it, even if I was exhausted. If I wanted to make my dream a reality – for me, and for Maddy – I had to get after it.
Feeling energized and no longer interested in sleeping, I went to get my laptop and folder. As no one was home, I settled down at the kitchen table, pulled out my notes and got to work. Luckily for me there were no builders to supervise. There had been a delay on the kitchen countertops arriving from Italy, and so the workmen had gone off to another job until the countertops got here. For the next couple of hours, it was just me, Maddy’s gentle breathing over the baby monitor, and my thoughts, plans and ideas – and it was heaven.
To start with, I worked on research for a couple of the lead articles for my first issue. One was on vintage wallpaper and wall art, with inspired ideas for using luscious botanical prints to lend grandeur to small spaces. The other showcased retro-inspired color schemes. For that one, I pulled a load of images into my Pinterest and sorted them into three different boards – bold hues, pastels, and earthy tones. Then I looked into creating revenue by featuring ads in the magazine, or whether it was better to stay ad-free and ask readers to subscribe, and I learned about running Facebook ads. By the time I heard Maddy wake, I pretty much felt like I could rule the world.
Alex arrived back soon afterwards, with Kayla in tow. I was in the kitchen again with Maddy in her highchair, giving her a snack and singing about a rocket ship. I cursed the fact that I hadn’t thought to check how I looked, and I gave him an awkward smile as they both walked into the room.
“Hey, guys,” I said. “I didn’t know you’d be back today, Kayla. Sorry, was I supposed to be on duty?”
“No, no,” said Alex quickly. “It was a last-minute change of plans, so that Kayla could come here and practice her cello.”
“And so I could hang out with Maddy,” said Kayla, her eyes flicking up to mine, questioning.
“Of course,” I said. “She’s just about done with her snack if you want to go and chill together.”
“Cool!” Kayla smiled at me widely and then made herself look miserable again and hid behind her hair. “I mean, you know, whatever. And no one says ‘chill together’ anymore, if they ever did.”
Alex and I raised our eyebrows at one another at that, but he didn’t comment.
Kayla’s smile returned as she lifted Maddy from the highchair and hugged her close, though. “Come on, Mads, let’s go do Itsy Bitsy Spider!”
Alex and I watched them go and then looked at one another and burst into smiles. “Wow, maybe this is going to work out after all,” he said.
“Maybe it is,” I said.
