Lou didn’t visit Chase once in the hospital, a fact I didn’t bother to confront her with because I knew all she would say was, “You know I don’t do hospitals.” I was too distracted and exhausted to be enraged about it anyway, until the day we finally brought Chase home and I worked out the math. He had been alive for three full weeks and had yet to meet his grandmother, who lived not ten miles away. The anger was all-consuming. Maybe it was a lifetime’s worth. I railed and raged for days, and then I was out for a walk with Chase, taking advantage of the fact that the temperatures had climbed into the fifties, and I almost let him fall out of his stroller. He was so small. I didn’t have him buckled in right, and when I hit a bump, he flopped loose and almost slid to the ground. I frantically swiveled my head around to see if anyone had witnessed what a terrible, inept mother I was. It felt like hours before my heart stopped hammering. It occurred to me right there on the sidewalk that being a mother meant I would fail a little every day, and this was the first of many mistakes I would make even as I vowed to do my best, to keep him safe and protect him. Hopefully, I wouldn’t fail as spectacularly as Lou did, but for the first time in my life I was willing to sympathize. As soon as I got home, before I could change my mind, I texted her a picture of Chase and told her we were both excited to see her, that we wanted her to come to the house to visit.
Since then Lou’s been better, coming over every few days, even spending the night once, making me a frozen Stouffer’s pizza while I breastfed Chase at two in the morning. She ate frosting with her fingers out of a tub of Betty Crocker and ranted about the new bar she worked at.
“The drinks are fourteen dollars and the damn snobs still only tip a dollar for two drinks, even though each cocktail is like a meal with the cut up cilantro and the egg whites and the smashed up fruit.”
Chase clamped down on my raw nipple and I yelped.
“This is impossible.”
Lou came over and stuffed a pillow under my elbow so I could reposition the baby’s mouth.
“You think this is hard. Try having one of these when you’re seventeen and living alone over a garage. And you had the colic, so you screamed and screamed nonstop. I didn’t sleep for a year. And look what you did to my boobs?” Lou cupped her sagging breasts and then took a swig from her whiskey.
“I didn’t know you breastfed,” I said.
“I sure as hell did. You sapped me dry. Now I’ve got a couple of sun-dried tomatoes. I did a lot of things you don’t give me credit for.”
I never think about seventeen-year-old Lou with a tiny, crying baby, both of us helpless. She probably made the same promises to newborn me that I make to Chase, intense vows I offer up in the dark. Lou loved me as much as she could, as fiercely as I love my own son. It seemed easier to forgive my mother than to hold on to the anger that’s lived inside me like blood and bone since I was a little girl.
“You did your best, Lou. It’s all good, Lou,” I said to my mother… and meant it.
Then I rubbed my hand around the pink edge of Chase’s tiny ear and added a silent wish that he would one day forgive me for all the ways I’ll inevitably screw him up.
Now Chase tries to focus on Riley, then he loses interest and intently works his mouth into strange shapes as if he’s trying to figure out what a person possibly does with a mouth. Riley is a natural with him. She should be a mother. She should know this joy. It’s my greatest wish for my friend.
“Does it make you want one?” I ask.
“A whiskey?” Riley jokes, before she seriously considers my question. “You mean a baby? I don’t know. Maybe someday, when I’m not so busy.”
I don’t want to tell Riley that such a day will never come. Riley will never not be busy. A baby is something you have to make time for. I can sense it—our lives going in different directions. We’ve shared so much, I wanted us to share this too, as childish as that is. Since we were little, I had a stupid fantasy that Riley and I would have babies at the same time, and those little girls would grow up to be best friends, like something out of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Now I worry it may never happen for her and that my friend is too busy, closed off, and might always be alone. The pity that sweeps through me then borders on mean.
But also a fear too, that this is the most important thing in my life and Riley won’t understand what I’m going through. All the things she won’t care about and will have to pretend to be interested in—sleep training, Chase’s first teeth, the specific agony of breastfeeding, how I hate it but never want to give it up.
But I see the way she looks at Chase now and I know it will be okay. She loves my baby, I can tell, and that’s all that matters. No, what really matters is this baby wouldn’t even be here without her. I can give her her money back, but it will still be a debt I can never repay.
I get up to get the check, in my wallet on the counter. When I turnaround, Riley has a look on her face, that I have to tell you something look, and my stomach plummets.
Chapter Seventeen RILEY
Jen slips back into her chair, a slip of paper in her hand. “What?”
“What do you mean, what?”
“You have a look on your face like you’re about to tell me something awful. Is something wrong with Shaun? Your mom?”
“No. It’s nothing bad. It’s just news.” It’s strange recounting my life to Jenny like this, in person, sitting at a table, when she used to just know things about me because I would text her everything as it happened. And even though she’s still the first person I want to tell when something good or happy happens, that’s not where we are right now. I’m still not sure whether we’ll ever get back to that exact place.
“Did you hear about the anchor job?”
“Actually, I did.” Jen isn’t the only one who has big news.
“Annnnndd? Come on, don’t keep me waiting. I saw they announced Candace’s retirement.”
“I got it!” I can feel my mouth form itself into a grin big enough for the billboard I’ll be on soon.
Jenny squeals and hugs me before I can get the rest out—the catch.
“Well, it’s not permanent though. Quinn and I are going to trade off. Scotty’s testing us out… or pitting us against each other. We’ll see.” I rein in my big cheese and my excitement. It’s still too early to celebrate. But I’m closer, closer than ever. And I know exactly why; so does Jen. It sits there between us, the reason for my rather swift promotion: covering the shooting was my big break. It put me on the national stage, just as I hoped it would. I’ve heard from a few network and cable news execs, feelers to keep in touch, invites to lunch or coffee the next time I’m in New York or Atlanta.
“That wasn’t what I was going to tell you though… it’s something else.” In my pause, I see Jen brace herself. I hurry up and blurt it out lest she think this is another big scary talk we need to have.
“I saw Corey! I may still be in love with Corey.” Now I brace myself for her reaction. Part of me doesn’t know how I feel about something until I know how Jenny feels—it’s always been like that. She doesn’t squeal and hug me this time. She looks confused, maybe even a little worried.