Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
I knew this because in the early hours of the morning, when Mabel had decided she absolutely was no longer sleeping in her bassinet and would only settle on my chest, I kept myself awake by scrolling those sites and accounts.
And maybe I’d driven myself a little crazy.
Although our lives were anything but peaceful right then, we had enjoyed privacy in Jupiter that was almost unbelievable. I didn’t know if it was the magic of small-town people or sheer dumb luck, but not one reporter had come sniffing.
I was aware that we could not hide forever. And although he was amazing, Kane’s life had not stopped in the same way mine had. His body, hormones and brain chemistry hadn’t been permanently altered. He was still Kane ‘The Devil’ Rhodes, but now he was also Kane ‘The Dad’ Rhodes. And the former would be hungering for the things that kept him sane.
After mulling over all of that for some time, I looked around the room, thinking wistfully about a gleaming stainless-steel kitchen, fresh ingredients, music playing over the speakers and unlimited time to cook.
“I’m not wishing this away,” I said to my mother while patting Mabel’s booty. “But is there going to be a time, any time when I can do more than hold a baby, change a baby, feed a baby, put a baby to sleep and then figure out a way to get a moment to myself?”
It felt selfish and wrong asking these questions, shame flooding through me over it. But part of me felt suffocated in the demands of motherhood and desperately needed to know how my mother had survived it. To know that there was an end.
“In the beginning, all you want is a moment to yourself,” Mom said, folding a onesie. “Then slowly, you get them. Snatches, here and there. Not enough to do much more than shower, eat, change clothes, brush your hair. Soon, sooner than you think, you’ll have more moments to yourself, more moments to do things than just tend to basic needs. And then after that, much sooner than you think, you’ll have endless moments to yourself, when your girl is out there in the world without you, and you’d give anything imaginable, you’d give away all those moments to yourself, for a second of this.” She gestured to the baby on my chest. “Though it doesn’t seem like it now, it’ll happen.”
I opened my mouth then closed it, trying to formulate something to say. My brain was slowly eating itself.
Mabel began whining as she woke, writhing atop me, her little face screwing together in distress.
At the first sound of her wail, Kane’s footfalls sounded in the hall.
“I got you, baby,” he murmured, taking her from me before I could blink, kissing my head. “I’ll take her for a walk, get her some air.”
I wanted to argue. Her cries seemed to communicate that I was continuing to fail. Yet I was determined to get through this. To be the perfect mother, despite my sister assuring me such creatures didn’t exist.
Despite this, I got up with him, helping him get her settled in her bassinet in the stroller, my mother coming in to tuck a blanket over her since she was convinced that Mabel was always cold. I rolled my eyes but let her, knowing Kane would whip the blanket off if Mabel looked so much as balmy.
“Love you, Chef,” Kane murmured.
My mother and I watched Kane walk out the door then down the drive with the stroller. I might’ve watched them until they were nothing but a speck in the distance if it wasn’t for my mother talking.
“Honey, most men, in the newborn phase, need a good jar of harden the fuck up. Women are born with it. Men usually have to buy it.”
I cocked my head in the direction of my mother, my jaw hanging open in shock. My mother did not curse. She said ‘sugar’ instead of shit and routinely chastised me for cursing—as an adult.
“He does not have to buy it.” She pointed to Kane. She rubbed her chin while looking out the window, as if searching for the right thing to say.
I was not ready for the bomb that my mother dropped next.
“Your father, he left for about six months after you were born.”
My head whirled from where I’d been watching the empty driveway in a daze. “Left?” I gasped. “What does that mean?”
“The first few weeks are tough,” she said instead of answering the question. “As you well know. Tough is much too kind a word for it. They’re hell. Your whole world is turned upside down. You don’t sleep. You have a wound the size of a dinner plate inside you. Your hormones are haywire. And that’s just you. You feel all this and have to take care of a baby. Men struggle with this transition. The changes in you, their life and the lack of attention that they get.”