Chapter 2 - the first night home)
Eli came home on a Thursday.
I remember that because Thursday had once been our date night.
Mason mentioned it before we even left the hospital.
"First Thursday as a family," he said.
He looked happy.
So did I.
I was exhausted in a way I had never known a body could be exhausted, but I was happy.
Eli slept for most of the drive.
When we pulled into the driveway, Linda's car was already there.
I turned to Mason.
"Why is your mom here?"
He did not look at me.
"She wanted to set up dinner."
"I thought we agreed tonight would just be us."
"Anna, she cooked."
That was how Linda entered our first night as parents.
Not as a guest.
As a person whose effort had created a debt.
She had made lasagna.
She had cleaned the kitchen.
She had reorganized the pantry.
She had moved several things in the nursery because, according to her, the layout made no sense.
I stood in the doorway holding my newborn while she explained where she had put my nursing supplies.
"You moved these?"
"They were cluttering the dresser."
"I need them near the chair."
"You'll trip over everything when you're tired."
"I want them near the chair."
Linda gave me a patient smile.
The kind adults give difficult children.
"Fine."
Mason appeared behind me.
"Can we not do this now?"
I looked at him.
"Do what?"
"Pick fights over nothing."
I had been home twenty minutes.
I said nothing.
That night Eli woke six times.
The first two, Mason sat up with me.
The third, he pulled a pillow over his head.
The fourth, he went to the guest room.
The fifth, he sent me a text from down the hall.
Can you feed him somewhere else?
I read it twice.
I was already in the nursery.
At breakfast, Mason looked terrible.
"I got maybe three hours," he said.
I looked at him.
I had slept forty minutes at a time while healing from childbirth.
I wanted to say it.
Instead I poured coffee.
That became our pattern.
Mason suffered loudly.
I suffered quietly.
When Eli cried, Mason sighed.
When Eli needed feeding, Mason checked the clock.
When I asked Mason to hold him so I could shower, he did it, but he always asked, "How long will you be?"
Linda started visiting every day.
Then one afternoon she arrived with a suitcase.
"My plumbing is being repaired," she said.
I looked at Mason.
He nodded.
"Just a few days."
It was eleven days before I discovered there was nothing wrong with Linda's plumbing.
I found out because Rachel saw Linda at a neighborhood gardening meeting and asked about the repairs.
Linda stared at her.
"What repairs?"
Rachel called me immediately.
I confronted Mason that evening.
He was standing at the sink.
"You lied to me."
He kept rinsing a plate.
"About what?"
"Your mother's house."
He stopped.
"It was easier."
"Easier than asking me?"
"You would have said no."
"Then the answer was no."
His jaw tightened.
Behind me, Linda entered the kitchen.
"I don't appreciate being discussed like I'm some burden."
I turned.
"This is my house."
Linda laughed softly.
"Technically it's both your house."
"I didn't say it wasn't."
"Then perhaps Mason gets a say in who stays."
The strange thing about living with two people who constantly moved the argument was that eventually you became too tired to chase it.
If I complained about the lie, they discussed hospitality.
If I complained about privacy, they discussed family.
If I complained about being overwhelmed, they discussed gratitude.
By the end of every argument, I was defending a position I had never taken.
I stopped trying.
That should have made things peaceful.
Instead, Mason became worse.
One morning I was feeding Eli on the couch when Mason stood in front of us.
"We haven't talked in days."
"We're talking now."
"You know what I mean."
I looked down at Eli.
"Mason, I'm feeding him."
"Exactly."
Something in his voice made me look up.
He was staring at our son.
Not with love.
Not even with annoyance.
With resentment.
The expression disappeared almost immediately.
He sat beside me.
"I'm sorry."
I said nothing.
"I miss you."
"I'm right here."
"No, you're not."
He touched my knee.
"You're somewhere else all the time."
I almost laughed.
I had not left the house in four days.
Instead, I said, "He's three weeks old."
"I know how old he is."
"Then what do you want me to do?"
"I want my wife back."
Linda walked through the room carrying laundry.
She heard him.
She smiled.
"Every new mother has to learn balance."
I stared at her.
Balance.
The word made something angry rise in me.
I handed Eli carefully to Mason.
"Fine. Hold your son."
His arms stiffened.
"I was about to leave."
"Where?"
"The gym."
"You just said you wanted me back."
He stood.
"Why do you have to twist everything?"
He placed Eli back in my arms before I had fully adjusted.
I caught him against my chest.
Fear flashed through me.
"Be careful."
Mason's face hardened.
"Don't tell me how to hold my own child."
Then he walked out.
Linda watched him leave.
"You know, Anna, pushing him away won't help."
I looked at her.
"He almost dropped him."
"He didn't."
That sentence would return to me later.
Not what could have happened.
Not why Mason had been careless.
Only the technical outcome.
He didn't.
It was the same logic Linda used the night she threw Eli.
He landed on blankets.
In that house, harm only counted if it became irreversible.
Three days later, I woke at two in the morning and found Mason standing over the bassinet.
Eli was crying.
Mason was not touching him.
He was simply staring down.
I sat up.
"What are you doing?"
Mason looked at me.
His voice was strangely flat.
"How long are we supposed to live like this?"
May you like
I thought he meant the sleeplessness.
I was wrong.
