Something Had to Give (48 page)

By the time Brandon’s first birthday came around, I was just a month away from giving birth to my baby girl. My family came into town for the party and Mommy had offered to stay in Tennessee with me so I wouldn’t be home alone when I went into labor. I graciously accepted her offer, ecstatic to have some adult company there with me. Brandon’s party was at Chucky Cheese with several of the kids from his daycare as well as Jason’s family despite the circumstances. His mother called me often to see how I was doing and to check on Brandon. I let her come by and visit a few times and it was always so awkward that she would not stay long. It would take everything in me not to tell her how sorry I thought her son was and she was always careful not to bring him up. I knew she was probably visiting so that she could let Jason know how we were holding up so I was always careful not to show how down and out I was. I was nervous how the two sides would interact and even more nervous that Jason would show up. We had no contact since I had gotten back from Charlotte and I was pretty uncertain how I would handle seeing him for the first time. Our son’s first birthday party was not the time to find out. Luckily, we did not have to find out since Jason did not show up and the party went smoothly.

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It was such a blessing having mommy there with me. While I was at work during the day she cleaned and organized like a mad woman. Coming home in the evenings to the smell of dinner already cooked reminded me of the days when I was a kid and expected dinner to be ready. Having her there to cook as an adult truly showed me how much of a blessing it was and how much I had taken it for granted. In the evenings she would allow me to put my swollen feet up and relax while bathing Brandon and getting him ready for bed. At night, it was nice to have someone there with me to watch a movie or crazy reality show with. Most of the time we didn’t pay the TV any attention. Instead, we spent the time chatting about any random thing that came to mind. It was a nice distraction to not be there with an idle mind worrying. Just as Daddy had done a few weeks prior, Mommy had come through for me in a big way.

As we approached Valentine’s Day, I found it hard to stay upbeat and hide my sadness. I couldn’t remember the last time, I had really cared whether I had a valentine or not. For some reason, as it got closer I couldn’t stop dwelling on how messed up things were between Jason and me. At work, everyone was so happy as the house was being decorated in pink and red hearts. That afternoon during our party, one of the members handed me a handmade valentine and that was enough to send me over the edge. It was an incredibly sweet gesture and I held it together long enough to hug and thank him. I ended up having to leave early so that I wouldn’t ruin all the fun everyone was having. I dreaded going home and having to put on a happy face for Brandon and Mommy, but I didn’t want to be out in public around all the happy couples either. What I really wanted was to go home, hand off Brandon to Mommy and hide under the covers until the day was over. Mommy had other plans though. It was if she knew before I even got home, that I needed a “pick me up.” She was dressed and ready to go when we got home, with plans to take us out to eat hibachi. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to make a quick dinner at home, but it hit me that she was also without her valentine and needed this dinner just as much as I did.

We made it to Kanki restaurant just in time to beat the crowd. We were seated with another family that instantly took a liking to Brandon. Mommy instantly became best friends with the mother and I struck up conversation with the daughter, who was a few years younger than me, but friendly nonetheless. My stomach dropped when she told me that she was an undergraduate student at UTC, hoping to get into the Industrial Psychology Master’s program. I had a ton of advice to give her about the program, but trying to form the words to tell her brought up so many painful memories. Instead, I smiled and listened as she detailed her future career plans. Once we moved on to another conversation, we all talked, laugh, and enjoyed the show being put on by the chef. We exchanged numbers with the family we met and while I knew it would be nice to have a friend in town, I was unsure if I would actually call her. Mommy was thrilled however to have met someone with a similar interest who was also home during the day.

That night, I settled into bed thankful that Mommy was around on what seemed like what was going to be a tough day for me. As I closed my eyes, I suddenly I felt a pop and gush of water. Within thirty minutes, I was in a hospital bed with Brandon asleep on the couch in the room and Mommy busy making calls to the family. I had two nurses poking and prodding on me to start an IV and hooking me up to monitors. It was an experience I was familiar with, but it still made me anxious and I wanted so badly for Jason to be there with me holding my hand. Mommy had offered to call and tell him that I was in labor and I agreed knowing that there was a good chance that he would not respond. After she sent him the text, I had to stop myself from asking if he responded. I told myself that I had to stop asking questions I didn’t really want the answers to. I had to concentrate on bringing the baby into the world safely. After taking several deep breaths, I laid back and set my focus on the delivery. Even without thinking about Jason, it felt impossible to relax. I was nervous for the contractions to start. I didn’t want to be in pain and I was even more scared to get an epidural. I wasn’t ready.

Luckily for me, things went so fast that I really didn’t have a lot of time to panic about contractions and pain. The IV meds caused my labor to progress very quickly. By the time I felt like the pain was too much for me to handle, it was once again too late for an epidural and time to push. I had been pretty out of it from the medication, so I was surprised when it was time to push to see Jason and his mom in the room along with Mommy. As we waited on the doctor to get to my room, I could only stare at him thinking that I should be pissed at him and hurling insults. Instead I was flat out happy that he had cared enough to come. We locked eyes for a minute and I gave him a half smile hoping to get one or anything in return. He quickly diverted his eyes away though, which I chalked up to him probably being embarrassed about how he had been acting. The doctor arrived with the nurse right on her heels and I instantly felt a huge rush of adrenaline. I was ready to push.

“Are you dad?” The doctor asked Jason.

“As far as I know.” His response caught us all off guard, especially since he said it with a straight face showing that he was not joking.

“Well, I guess we are going to find out real soon. Why don’t you get on this side and hold her hand as she pushes?” The doctor was trying her best to lighten the mood.

“I’m good right here. I’ll let her mom hold her hand.” He was so cold and stoic with his response. It was obvious he didn’t want to be there, so I was confused as to why he showed up. The only thing that was clear to me was that he definitely was not acting like that because he was embarrassed; he flat out hated me.

My daughter, Amelia, was born at 11:50pm just before Valentine’s Day was over. She came out the perfect mixture of Jason and I, much to both our unspoken relief. Jason looked her over and smiled as his mom coddled her, but adamantly refused to hold her. By the time I was moved to my recovery room, he was gone. All the commotion had woken Brandon up and though Mommy didn’t want to leave me there, she had no choice but to leave to take him home. That left me alone with Jason’s mom, who was nervously lingering around. I knew she had to be exhausted, but she stayed pacing back and forth rambling. I figured she felt obligated to stay since Jason had left, and I did not want her there out of pity.

“I know you have to be exhausted. Why don’t you go get some sleep and come back later on?” I also was exhausted and my efforts to tune her out were not working. I was suggesting she leave in the nicest way possible, even though I wanted to yell at her, “SHUT UP AND GET OUT.”

“Well I hate for you to be here alone. I can ask the nurse for a blanket and pillow and sleep here on the couch.” She was not catching my hint that I wanted her to leave, which annoyed me to no end.

“No way will that couch be comfortable. We will be fine. Go get some rest.”

Either she caught the hint or realized that sleeping on that couch was going to do a number on her back. I had to admit that I was nervous being there alone with Amelia, but relieved at the same time, that she was gone. I stayed up long enough to hear from Mommy that they had gotten in okay and that Brandon had gone back down. Amelia had fallen to sleep in my arms and as I stared at her in all her perfection, I couldn’t help but snap picture after picture. I hated that Jason wasn’t there to share in the moment. Knowing he wasn’t going to respond, I sent him most of the pictures I took to his phone. As I laid Amelia in her bassinet, I started to put my phone on the charger before settling into bed. Something made me change my mind and I held on to it clinging to a thread of hope that I would get a response. When Amelia woke me for her next feed, I told myself I wasn’t going to check my phone, but who was I kidding? My willpower lasted all of 5 minutes before I checked my phone. I had two missed texts from Shanna and that was it.

By the time, I was discharged, Shanna and Daddy had arrived in town. I was putting on a happy face for them, but I felt like the post-partum blues were starting to hit me. To top things off, I had not seen or heard from Jason. When his mom had called to check on us, I flat out asked if Jason had any intentions of coming back to the hospital. She covered for him with a BS story about him being tired from working long hours. I was so taken aback at her saying he was tired, when I had just had a baby that I couldn’t even respond. As quickly as I could, I got her off the phone to keep from spazzing on her and did not answer any more of her phone calls. As I was being wheeled out to the car, it hit me that I was going home to be a mom to a son that was barely one years old and a new born. Even with my family around, the thought of it seemed to be too much to handle. Every five minutes I had someone asking me if I was okay and I wanted to tell everyone to go away and let me breathe. At the same time, I wanted to dead bolt them inside my apartment and never let them leave. Breathe Cheryl. Breathe.

Adjusting at home was just was hard as I imagined to be. Brandon turned into a totally different child ranging from being extraordinarily needy to a total wild child. When Mommy would take him to daycare during the day, I felt like I had exactly 5 minutes to sit and rest my eyes before Amelia started her daylong fussiness. It was such a blessing to have Mommy there helping me, but I also had to accept that she couldn’t stay in Tennessee with me forever. Daily I stressed over how I was going to handle it alone, which did not help my mood, which seemed to fluctuate multiple times a day. On the really hard days, I would call Jason and leave a voicemail with Amelia screaming in the background hoping he would get the hint that I needed help. I never would get a call back from him, but like clockwork, his mom would call and leave a voicemail offering to come over and help. Each time it happened it would infuriate me that he would send her to do what he should be doing and even more that she would go along with it. Yet, I continued to call him in a vicious cycle that did nothing but cause sadness and anger.

Amelia was just over a month old, when I was able to figure out a feeding schedule that worked wonders in keeping her from screaming all day. Brandon seemed to be mellowing out and things were slowly getting easier. We began the talks of Mommy making her departure. Though I knew the day would eventually come, it was still scary. It was hard on Mommy too. She pushed hard for me to come back home to Charlotte with her and I considered it daily. It was what made the most sense since it was obvious Jason stepping up to the plate didn’t seem like it was going to happen. I couldn’t think of a single advantage of me staying in Tennessee, so as it got closer to the time Mommy was to leave I began to make plans. Any free time I had, I was applying for jobs and looking for sub-leasers for my apartment. Daily I obsessively checked my email for a response for a job, only to be disappointed each time. Mommy had assured me a million times that I didn’t have to worry about finding a job right away and that I could stay at home with her and Daddy as long as I needed. Still, I wanted to keep looking and show them that I wasn’t a freeloader. I wanted to be able to provide for my children and me.

I was able to sub-lease my apartment pretty quickly to two college students, who desperately wanted to move out of the dorms. I wasn’t expecting for it to happen so soon, but it gave me the push I needed to move forward with my move to Charlotte. Mommy was set to leave a week before me, while I wrapped up everything in Tennessee. It wasn’t going to be long without her around to help, but it still made me nervous. A few days before Mommy was to leave, we put the kids to bed and were packing up some boxes when there was a knock at the door. My intention was to ignore it since I rarely got visitors, but whoever it was kept knocking.

“Why don’t they just go away?”

“Just see who it is Cheryl. It’s probably just someone selling something.”

“If I haven’t answered, wouldn’t that give them a clue that I wasn’t interested?” I was annoyed as I stormed over to the door. I jerked it open ready to tell whoever it was to kick rocks when I got a huge surprise.

“Hello and good evening ma’am. I have this cute little toddler for sale. Are you interested?” It was Shanna and Ingrid. They had come down to help out since Mommy was leaving. I was so happy that I started crying.

Having Shanna there was the perfect medicine for the stress and range of emotions I had been feeling since giving birth. I didn’t want to take anything away from the time Mommy was here, but my time with Shanna brought a whole new level of relief. During the day we enjoyed finding activities for Brandon and Ingrid and watching them bond. In the evenings, we laughed and gossiped like we were back in middle school. Nothing was close to being perfect for me, but it felt good to feel content for the moment. The day before we were set to leave, that changed. The movers were loading up the truck as Shanna and I did our best to keep the kids entertained and out of their way. The door was propped open for the movers to come in and out, while we laughed at the kids dancing from the music on Shanna’s phone. I was surprised when I heard someone knocking, but figured the door had accidently been closed. As I turned the corner, my smile quickly faded as I saw a Sheriff at the door.