I Love us All
One day last fall, Lon'qu went to pick the newspaper while Robin in the kitchen made train noises as she spoon-fed applesauce to their baby boy. A part of him didn't want to admit it, but he lingered a few moments out in the briskness of morning - as if simply taking in the sun-bathed glory of their new neighborhood - because parenthood seemed to be doing a number on him.
There were times that he went to bed at night and almost said something when Robin gave him his goodnight kiss. He felt compelled to ask her, Do you still like yourself, when you look at yourself in the mirror?
But that was probably a strange question. And what would Robin make of it? She was a mother. He could say this without inflection or doubt. And while he had felt too proud to walk around with Robin during the late stages of her pregnancy with his palm on the small of her back, letting everyone know that she was huge because of him, and he still secretly got a kick out of saying my wife or my family, he couldn't help the feeling like parenthood wasn't quite what he'd expected.
He had no problem with the train noises, or the mess of spit-out food on the tabletop during meals, or waking up late in the middle of the dark by Robin's elbow to his rib cage and her telling him that it was his turn for the fifteenth time in a row. He had expected those things. Especially the elbow to the side part, because he knew how lazy his wife could be.
(And there it is again; his wife.)
But he could not help comparing his situation to an occasion in which he'd taken Robin out to a park in their old town - back when they'd just begun dating - and he wanted to buy her a flower from a woman with a cart. Robin was in love with the daffodils the woman offered, but they were obscenely expensive, so Robin asked why and the woman said that it was a forced bloom.
And that's how he felt.
A forced bloom.
Painful, he thought at the time, not really thinking it but rather just hearing the word in the back of his head, like a whisper or a rustle. He still got her the flower and she kissed him extra sweet, but later that day he wondered why he did it. Why couldn't he have bought her something that hadn't been forced. The flower had been worth it, the kiss even more - although she probably would have done it flower or no -, but he still wondered.
That same day last fall Robin did notice that her husband took a few extra seconds to return to the kitchen. They'd been together so long that she could tell these sort of things. A terrible part of her thought that one day, when he was old enough, she would tell Morgan that that's not the sort of thing you want to do to your wife.
You don't want to make your wife think being out in the cold is something you'd have a few more seconds of instead of time with your family. Especially not if it already feels like the earth is splitting apart between you when you kiss and the taste of held-in words makes it sour. If that ever happens, take a leap, grab them and don't let go.
That's what she thought she'd tell Morgan (when he was old enough). Whoever you love, buy them flowers because they'll remember that overpriced daffodil so long ago. And when you don't do things like that again they'll wonder why.
And that's not a good question to be plagued by - Why?
And don't just kiss them when you feel you have to. It's OK if you forget in the mornings. It's understandable, if you have a baby for example. Babies will leave you exhausted, and you might even forget your own name for a moment. Maybe you'll forget your baby's name. It's alright. It's normal. Don't beat yourself about it.
She would tell Morgan all these things, because she wished there was somebody who told her.
When she was alone in the house and heard her baby crying upstairs and she didn't feel like going up the steps, she just left him. But then she felt disgusting and just sobbed at the bottom of the stairs, pulling her hair and letting the two voices in her head fight it out.
That's your baby up there who needs you, don't you care? Shut up, I'm tired. I feel like I haven't slept in decades. Well that's so strange because isn't Lon'qu who always gets up at night? Well I'm here most of the day, he's the one that gets a break when he goes out to work. I bet he'd be the same if I went instead of him. You don't know that. You don't know that.
And then she crawled her way up, literally. And by the time she got there Morgan was already calm again.
It's OK, she wished somebody would tell her. This is what we wanted. This is all normal, and we're doing good. You made such a good dinner, just what I needed. I remembered that book you said you were interested in. I got it for you. You look so pretty. Like when we met.
I love you. I mean it. I love us all.
I just found out a friend of mine (young and with a baby) got divorced and well, I feel for them. And trying to imagine what it must have been like to grow apart in a marriage, I came up with this. Dunno if I'll add more, but I want to. I really do.