Chapters

She could not wait to leave home. At nearly nineteen, she could not stand being told what to do by her parents, who were well-meaning, but who nagged incessantly and were, quite frankly, out of touch with the real world. She boarded a red-eye flight, bound for her brand-new life, and watched through the window as the lights of the city faded to black. In the morning, everything would be different. In the morning, the next chapter of her life would begin.

She loved college life. She ate take-out pizza at least twice a week and joined an improv comedy troupe. She stayed up until the AM hours and went on dates and studied and learned about the world and how it worked. She conquered the public transport system and spent hours in the library.

Then she fell in love.

He was the most handsome boy in her Economics 101 class. He had wavy, almost-black hair, piercing blue eyes and always a little stubble on his square jaw. He was just the right combination of nerdy and funny.

They went to the movies and shared a large bucket of popcorn. They went bowling, even though they were both terrible at it. They laid on a picnic blanket outside the dorm and looked for constellations.

Every time he spoke, it made her smile. Every time he touched her, she shivered with anticipation. Every time he looked at her, she felt deeply loved.

Her 21^st birthday present was a guitar serenade proposal and a sapphire engagement ring. Her parents thought she was too young.

And while a small part of her did feel that getting married was ushering out the era of young adulthood a little too quickly, a larger part was happy to see the sun set on awkward blind dates, squabbles with roommates about the thermostat, and going to college dances that she hated just because everyone else was doing it. Getting married meant no more searching for “the one,” it meant cuddling for warmth on the couch, it meant staying in and watching a movie and going to bed at ten. Maybe that meant she was growing old too fast, but if that was what the horizon brought, she was happy to run toward it.

The first year of marriage was hard, but it wasn’t the hardest, like some people say. They sometimes fought over whose turn it was to empty the dishwasher and whose turn it was to vacuum the living room. She sometimes lit cinnamon-scented candles and made special dinners for him, and she sometimes put his dirty socks on his pillow if he left them on the bathroom floor. They celebrated their first Christmas with homemade presents and a rotisserie chicken. On weekends they slept in and made crepes with whipped cream and didn’t leave the house, unless they wanted to.

The second year, when she got pregnant, may have been the hardest. For the first five months she stopped eating, since everything she ingested, she vomited. That also meant she stopped cooking, and she got mad when he cooked, because he cooked link sausages, of all things, and it made the tiny one-bedroom apartment smell like a cheap, greasy diner. She slept twelve hours a night and still felt exhausted. Zits gathered in groups on her formerly smooth face, like sweaty teenagers at a standing-room-only concert of the hottest indie band.

Every time he spoke, it made her cry. Every time he touched her, she cringed. Every time he looked at her, she felt fatter.

Then she gained a little energy back, and starting eating three grapefruit dinners because “baby wants it.” Her stomach grew into a little basketball shape under her shirt. That was nice while it lasted. Then the basketball became a beach ball and she could no longer shave her legs or tie her own shoes and she discovered what heartburn was and the ache in her lower back became a non-stop throbbing which stabbed downward, sometimes, into the back of her thighs.

Even though it felt like the baby would grow and grow and monopolize her torso forever, the day did come when the throbbing in her back turned into consistent spasms of contracting pain, which came every four minutes but lasted four lifetimes, and he squeezed her hips and massaged her back with a tennis ball and was relieved when she finally decided she would get an epidural, after all, even though she was disappointed that she might be missing out on something.

But when newborn Bailey was finally laid on her chest, covered in grayish slime and still, quite literally, attached to her via the umbilical cord, the sun rose, and it was bright and hot and glorious. She fell in love for the second time, and every time Bailey cooed, she cooed back, and every time Bailey moved it was adorable, and every time Bailey looked into her eyes, she felt the indescribable feeling of being inexorably connected to another being forever, in short, she felt the powerful weight and immense awe of Motherhood.

Bailey nursed every few hours for months, and it felt like her nipples were being twisted off by a pair of needle-nose pliers. Bailey spit up milk all over the front of her shirt most days. Bailey smiled first at him, but took her first steps toward her.

Bailey grew from a baby into a toddler. Bailey cut her own hair with the craft scissors, more than once. Bailey learned to speak with an absolutely delightful lisp and then grew into a preschooler, who learned to read early.

She sewed Bailey a dragon costume for Halloween. She took her to story time at the library and pushed her on the swings on warm spring mornings.

And then the day came when Bailey became a kid, and she held Bailey’s hand while they stood in the school lobby on the first day of kindergarten, and she tried, and failed, to communicate how much she loved Bailey, and she tried to give Bailey enough kisses to last all seven hours until they reunited. Then she drove home and cried a little, and wondered what Bailey was doing right now.

School was the start of a new era, of schedules and packed lunches and homework and accountability for another human in a new way she’d never known before. It was strange, at first, but she got used to it. Bailey liked the teachers, and the independence, and the friends.

She started painting again, and playing piano in the middle of the day, sometimes. She became a room mother and baked one hundred sugar cookies for the school Christmas party. And the house was cleaner.

Bailey became a preteen, and started playing soccer and violin and talking back. Bailey failed a math test for the first time and got grounded for lying about it.

She really liked some of Bailey’s friends, and really didn’t like others. She spent a lot of time in the car, ferrying Bailey to and from her various engagements, listening to the latest trendy music against her will.

Bailey became a teenager, and all of the sudden she had to deal with crushes and clique-related drama. Sweet Bailey, who used to lisp for an hour about the intricate strategy behind a well-played game of Minecraft, now rarely spoke to her. Bailey sometimes slammed the door of her room and even, one terrible day, shouted, “I hate you!” at her. But he put a stop to that kind of language.

He said it was just a phase. She spent more time with him, and that was a plus. Sometimes they sat together and watched an episode of Seinfeld and went to bed at ten, even though Bailey was still awake.

Then, all too quickly, Bailey was suddenly a young adult herself, and was packing her bags for college.

She was playing it cool. She told her friends she was excited to see Bailey spread her wings! But inside, she was panicking.

He joked it was time to cut the cord and hugged her from behind. She seethed. Every time he spoke it made her angry. Every time he touched her, she felt a stab of frustration. Every time he looked at her, she felt misunderstood.

It was as if Bailey’s whole life had been one long, very busy and exhausting day, and yet she hadn’t managed to squeeze everything she needed to into the waking hours. Did Bailey even know how to prepare any food, other than cereal? Would Bailey put away her blow drier and apologize when she offended people? Would she know to buy the textbooks used and sell them back at the end of the term? The time ticked by faster and faster, and all of the sudden, he was loading the last suitcase into the trunk of Bailey’s car and Bailey was fidgeting with the keys, obviously anxious to get on the road.

She hugged her daughter, and tried again to put into words how much she loved her, even though she knew it wasn’t sinking in, because she’d never understood herself how much her mom had loved her, until Bailey was born. So instead, she muttered strange, disjointed reminders, like, “Don’t forget to floss your teeth, every night, even if you get home late,” and, “you don’t have to kiss a boy you don’t like, even if he takes you to dinner and pays for the whole thing, remember that,” and “you’ll probably need to change the oil on the car before you drive home for Christmas.” Bailey nodded impatiently, and he pulled her gently back.

As the car backed out of the driveway, Bailey wiggling her fingers in a little wave through the windshield, she stumbled forward a few steps. “Goodbye! I love you!” she wailed, and like she had on the first day of kindergarten, she hoped that she’d packed enough kisses into their eighteen years together to last four months until Bailey came back home for Christmas break.

When the car pulled onto the road, the world went dark for her. She was no longer needed, but here she was, still existing. She felt a grief, like a loss, even though nothing had gone wrong. She’d raised Bailey to adulthood, and Bailey had left the house to seek out her own life, which was exactly what was supposed to happen. So why did she feel such tremendous longing and pain?

She ate some leftovers and took a bath and went to bed. He gave her the space she needed.

The next morning, she woke up without an alarm. She walked to the window and saw the first glimmers of sunrise in the distance, and wondered for a moment what Bailey was doing—probably still sleeping. She felt a peace she hadn’t expected, and realized she had nothing planned for the day. She thought she might paint, and play piano, and go on a hike, and eat leftovers for dinner, again, and watch a whole movie in bed with him before falling asleep at ten. But first, she climbed back into bed and wrapped her arms around him. She kissed his scruffy face.

“The day is ours,” she said, and it was true. They lay together in bed as the sun drenched their comforter in soft, pale-yellow light. 

Every time he spoke, she giggled. Every time he touched her, she sighed with contentment. Every time he looked at her, she felt known.

This wasn’t the end, after all. It was just the start of yet another chapter in her life.