Taking a sip of her ice water Emily surveyed the crowd of people out on the lawn and in the pool. The sheer volume of people visiting them was getting out of hand. She was surprised Callie was sleeping as soundly as she was given all the noise and people moving around.
Her Aunt Sarah had been the first person to show up, arriving in DC the same day Callie was born. Then Aaron's mom showed up, with three of his nieces in tow. Since Callie had come early, if Lucia was going to come up before school was back in session for the girls, they would be coming too. Waiting a few weeks for her to visit hadn't seemed like a problem to Emily, but it was that moment when Emily realized just how much of a Momma's boy Aaron was; she didn't think he could have said no to her if he'd wanted to. And Emily did have to admit that Rosa, Sofia, and Tricia were very sweet girls, and that it was nice to have Callie's cousins around.
Then, this weekend Aaron's sister, Amy, was coming up to collect her kids. And it seemed Aaron's family always traveled with an entourage of some sort because she had with her their nephew Sam, and a teenage girl Katrina who Emily still had not quite figured out how she was related to Aaron, just that she was some kind of cousin. And on top of that at least one of her cousins seemed to be dropping in at any given time. How it was possible for someone living in Boston to be 'dropping in' in DC was beyond Emily's capacity to understand, but yesterday her cousins Marie and Nicole had basically just materialized. Once you added to that their friends in the area who could legitimately claim to just be dropping by, the house that just last month had seemed unfathomably huge felt like it was bursting at the seams.
Some days she felt truly blessed that she and Aaron had so many people in their lives that wanted to visit and share this time with them. But those days were starting to get outnumbered by days where she just wanted everyone to leave her alone. It was impossible to even be a mother with 500 different contradicting opinions flying at her. And her body felt like public property at this point. It was hard enough getting used to another living being depending on her body, and all the changes that had come with pregnancy and birth, without being what was in her opinion manhandled by relatives that she was constantly having to remind herself were well meaning. She tried to remember the terrifying loneliness she felt after David walked out on her and be thankful that she was about as far from that feeling as possible. But she couldn't help but think wistfully of the idea of even having an hour alone.
At least at the end of this weekend they would be back down to just Sarah and Lucia as semi permanent guests. And Sarah would need to be back in Boston in a week when the school year started, and Emily felt at that point it would be easy enough to get Lucia back down to Texas. She felt terrible but she had a mental calendar counting down the days until she would have some space. The only thing keeping her from snapping and sending everyone packing immediately was the deep longing she had for family. This is what she had wanted growing up, and she was going to do everything in her power to give Callie a big close knit family.
Plus she could get used to watching Aaron with his family. It was so interesting to her seeing this different side of him. He was smiling in a way she didn't think she had ever seen and he just looked so happy and almost carefree. And he was so good with the little kids. She'd been transfixed earlier watching him take care of Tricia's scraped knee, and scolding Sam who had pushed her over. Seeing a glimpse of the kind of father he was going to be five, ten years from now made her so happy. And added some confidence that she had made the right decision in letting him into their lives after all. Now he was splashing around in the pool with them like an overgrown kid himself. This was the kind of moment where Emily actually loved having their family here.
She sighed as she found herself thinking again that today would be perfect if she could have her mother here. Before she'd had Callie her grief over her Mom had abated to a dull pang that for the most part she could ignore, but now it was back in full force, coloring every aspect of her life. The grief felt so fresh again it was almost as if she had just died weeks ago, not close to two years ago. The smallest reminders of her Mom made Emily cry these days, and having Sarah around didn't help. She looked too similar to Emily's Mom and they shared quite a few of the same mannerisms and sayings. Sometimes she would forget herself and catch a glimpse of Sarah out of the corner of her eye, and just for the briefest second she would think it was her Mom.
She was getting more and more desperate to know what motherhood had been like for her Mom. She'd spent hours practically interrogating Sarah hoping that she would remember some anecdote or story her Mom had shared about her early days as a mother. But they always ended up at the same place, long distance calls were expensive back then, and when they did talk it was mostly complaining about their husbands and their mother. Hearing 'but I know she loved you and being a mom more than anything' for the hundredth time didn't do anything to quell the deep desire in her. And it wasn't what she wanted to hear anyway. She didn't want to hear that she had been a perfect baby, and that her Mom had loved every second of motherhood. She wanted to hear about how much of a pain in the ass she'd been and that her Mom might have even considered trading her away for a glass of wine and a night to herself a few times.
Although at this point she would settle for one lousy factoid. She'd never realized how little she and her Mom must have talked about her baby years, but what she knew boiled down to her Mom had been in labor for 37 hours, she was bottle fed, and she'd been an early talker. She regretted not asking her more when she'd had the chance, but when her Mom was sick babies had been just about the last thing on her mind.
Over the last few days an unhelpful little voice in the back of her head had started reminding that she could call her Dad. Deadbeat or not, he had been living with them for the first seven years of Emily's life, and she would think he could at least tell her a little bit about that time. Or he could make something up and she honestly wouldn't know the difference. But she didn't know if he would even pick up the phone, and she couldn't stand the thought of being let down by her father again. And she knew if he did she wouldn't be able to resist asking about his other kids. And she knew there was no answer he could give her to that question that would leave her feeling any better.
Just thinking about them had tears welling up in her eyes, so she got up to head inside before the full waterworks started. She tried to move quickly without looking too conspicuous because the last thing she wanted to do was talk about why when everyone else was so happy she was constantly on the verge of tears or in a full meltdown.