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)
“You must hate me,” I said.
“Hate you?” Maisie repeated, still rocking. “You’re my sister. I’ve hated you plenty,” she teased.
I rolled my eyes. “For not being there. When Hank and Wyatt were born.”
Her grin left her face. “You were there. You sent gifts. Great gifts.”
“Yeah, I spent as much money as I could to cover up the shame of my absence,” I admitted, watching her with Mabel. “I didn’t drop everything to come to you, cook for you, clean for you, be there for you. I sent gifts.”
I screwed up my nose, horrified with myself.
“Great gifts,” Maisie corrected. “That bougee baby carrier was worth its weight in gold. It was the only place Hank napped for the first five months of his life and saved me from being shunned in a dark nursery for contact naps. Absolutely no back pain from all of that carrying, despite him being a big boy. And when he did finally make it to his crib, you got the eco-friendly, nontoxic one plus the breathable mattress.”
“Don’t do that,” I pleaded. “Don’t try to make me feel better.” It was making me feel worse, much worse, her efforts to quell my regret.
“I wasn’t there,” I said firmly.
“No, you weren’t.” She reached out to hold my hand, her other stabilizing Mabel on her chest. “And I don’t hate you for it. Not even a bit. I know you wanted to be there. But I also know that you weren’t ready to be there. And simply, you weren’t a mother. You were only you. Avery Hart. Chef.”
Mabel started to whimper, her cries decidedly hangry.
Reflexively, I began unbuttoning my shirt, my breasts already tingling from the sounds of her weeping.
Maisie shifted Mabel to me, not even blinking at my bare breasts. I never thought I’d be showing my nipples to my sister and mother so often, but there we were.
When Mabel was latched, Maisie moved around the room, tidying things.
We sat in silence, our conversation on hold until she finished cleaning and came to sit beside me. She watched Mabel feed for a handful of seconds, her face compassionate.
“Your life was calculated chaos,” she said. “Regimented rush. You were constantly on a schedule, often doing multiple things at once, always thinking three tasks ahead, never taking a moment to breathe. And motherhood is like that. But there is no calculated chaos, no regime. It is a free-for-all shitshow.” She grinned. As if this was funny. “You inhale your meals, you hurry through showers, bathroom breaks and basic hygiene routines. You rush sex. If you even have enough energy to have it. And some people, some mothers, can sink into that, can thrive off it. Most do not. Because your cortisol is constantly peaking, you’re constantly in fight-or-flight mode. And sometimes, babies like Mabel come along.” She looked down to my daughter with absolute unconditional love. I had that for my nephews, but I’d buried it, hadn’t let myself feel it, let alone show it. “They give you no choice but to stop, be in the moment. They make you sit there, with their weight on your body, their hand in yours, and there is no more rushing. There is only surrender. You breathe. You read. You think. You watch their face, examine their perfect features. Honey, you think it’s a curse, but Mabel is giving you the gift no one on earth, except maybe that man of yours, can give. Peace. You just have to embrace it.”
“Embrace it,” I parroted, looking down at Mabel’s head.
“It’s a process,” Maisie said. “And we’ll be back.”
“Promise?” I looked up at her. “I know I haven’t said it, I know I don’t deserve to say this, but I need you.”
She put her hand on my thigh. “We need you too, Avery Hart. And we’re not going anywhere.”
KANE
I was struggling.
Fuck, was I struggling.
Luckily, I was managing to hide it because the last thing I needed was Avery to see it. She needed to focus on two things: herself and our baby. I could see it, eating at her, the need to be perfect, to do it ‘right’ all while her brain and her hormones were waging a battle against her.
It hurt me, physically hurt me to see Avery struggling and not being able to do a fucking thing about it.
The one thing I could do was not pile on more or complain. She had it so much fucking worse than me. She slept less because she was up feeding constantly and didn’t wake me. Another source of guilt… I managed to sleep through some of Mabel’s wake ups because I was so fucking exhausted. Avery had told me many times that there was no point in me being awake too when I couldn’t ‘do’ anything.
I disagreed. I could change the diapers, reswaddle, resettle Mabel. I could make Avery’s life just a little bit easier.