She rolls over, and opens her eyes. She looks around the room. She sees the dirty socks on the floor, and instantly remembers where she is. How had he convinced her that his apartment would be the better temporary choice? How had they agreed to sleep in the same bed?
He lies the opposite side of the bed. He lays on his back, with a sleeping baby on his chest. She props her head up on her palm. She watches as his chest rises and falls. She carefully rolls in the opposite direction, and grabs the camera off the bedside stand. She makes sure to turn the flash off, and then snaps a picture. She returns the camera to its resting spot, and climbs out of bed.
She walks around to the other side. She stares at a pair of eyes. Heavy lids blink at her.
"Are you awake?" she questions softly.
The little girl yawns in response.
"Good morning," she smiles at the baby. She gently removes the baby from Tony's chest. She stares at the sheepish baby, as she holds her in her arms. She turns, to leave the bedroom. She feels a fingers digging into the back of her pant leg.
"Let go!" she insists.
"Go back to sleep. It's my turn," he argues.
"Maybe, so, but I'm already up," she says walking towards the door.
"Zi..."
"You can have the diaper change," she offers.
"Let me do this," he stops her in the doorway.
She concedes, placing the baby in his arms. She slinks off to the bathroom, for a shower, sulking. When she gets out of the shower, she finds Tony changing the baby's diaper.
"Are you almost ready to go?" he questions as he dresses the baby.
"Go where?"
"We have an appointment with the realtor."
"The realtor? Tony..."
"Do you really want to spend another night in this apartment, in my bed?"
"Not particularly, you snore."
"Then we need to find a bigger place."
"Why did he think that we could handle this? I mean he left us a child."
"Maybe he knew something that we didn't."
"Maybe," she agrees.
"So what do you think, does she look presentable enough to go out?"
"She's a baby."
"Is what she's wearing ok?"
"For what?'
"With you?"
"Yes, it's fine. Why wouldn't it be?"
"Because I can't seem to do anything right."
"I am... I'm sorry."
"Zi?"
"Yes?"
"Does this freak you out?"
"What?"
"That we have to raise a child together?"
"This is not what I had in mind."
"What do you mean?"
"This is not how I envisioned becoming a parent."
"Parent... why does that sound like a dirty word right now?"
"Because now it applies to us. We are someone's parents."
"Together."
She nods, "Yes, that is scary."
"You think that we're going to screw her up?"
"Probably. I mean we aren't exactly normal people."
"No."
"And this is not a conventional..."
"When have either of us been conventional?"
"How are we going to do this? I mean we haven't really talked about it."
"We did. We are going to have to find a bigger place, and sort things out from there."
"But neither of us wants to talk about this, so how are we going to do that?"
"We do it now."
"Do what now?"
"Talk about it."
"You are willing to talk about it, now?"
"Yes."
"We are partners," she starts off.
"Yes."
"We work together every single day. Raising a child together, that complicates things."
"Yes, I agree."
"So how do we keep this from affecting our professional relationship?"
"I don't think that we can. It isn't like we are going to be able to go to work, and turn this off. You can't turn it off. Her name is going to pop up in conversation. I think that we need to face the fact that things are going to change."
"Are you really willing to change, as much as you are going to have to?"
"What do you mean, Zi?"
"Even after we get settled, I don't think that it is a good idea for you to parade a bunch of women..."
He cuts her off, "You would be jealous."
"We have always made our choices based on what we want, but now we have a child to think of."
"We're going to have to adapt," he agrees.
"There are a lot of things that we need to do before we go back to work."
"Tony it isn't just about that. It is about the changes we are going to have to make to."
"What changes are you referring to, specifically?"
"You don't think that raising a child together is going to change our relationship."
"I guess I hadn't really thought about it."
"Well you should."
"We have to find a place, and a nanny, and coordinate schedules, and..."
She cuts him off, "How?"
"We're both new to this. We are both going to make mistakes."
"How do we make it work?"
He smiles, "The same way we always do. A little give, and take."