Page 87 of Gifted & Talented

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Lest you think I’ve forgiven the Wrens entirely, I don’t know. I don’t think life works that way. Certainly giving me a large sum of money is helpful. Consider that as a modellable tactic if you have people in your life with which to make amends.

It’s not like forgiveness is some single-use act, like swiping a credit card. I think it’s more like a policy. I agree to letting bygones be bygones on a routine basis in order to enjoy some communal peace. Not unconditionally! Fool me twice and all of that. Forgive but never forget, as Lola would say, usually as a threat.

I do think it will be a daily exercise, the whole dismissing my impulse to be one of them, the desire to slip effortlessly into their world. But as I get older, I achieve a pretty sublime form of clarity in which I accept myself, and no longer fear that my borders are permeable to the approval of others. As time goes on, I am less and less susceptible to the expectations of those outside myself, and as a result, the person I am can be more gently cherished.

This, again, is not the same thing as happiness. It’s closer to setting down a burden that I have spent my whole life piling atop my back—what am I worth, who will love me? These are questions I don’t need the answer to every second of every day (for at least five beautiful minutes, I am now allowed to know, with perfect certainty, who I am and why I’m worthy) for which I think the definition is closest to rest.

Again, not technically happiness—that’s a high ask.

But I won’t lie to you. It is pretty fucking great.

Crossing the Richmond bridge is a nightmare, of course it is. Friday traffic is enough to dissolve the boundaries of madness. By the time I make it home, I’ve already missed Monster’s dinner, which leaves me feeling like a terrible mother, because what was I doing that was so important? What am I ever doing that’s more important? Do you know where your children are right now ? It’s not enough to simply leave enrichment in the child’s enclosure. Read more books to them, for fuck’s sake!

You see how exhausting it is, existing? Why I chose to add another member to my personal survival policy is a mystery, will always be a mystery—sometimes I think about where I would be if I could do whatever I want, and the answer is almost never what I’m doing.

But then again, sometimes it is.

I walk into the house just before seven and it smells like adobo, like garlic rice. The exoskeleton of a mango hedgehog is sitting limp on a plastic cutting board, the dishes soaking in the sink.

“No man will ever date you with your mother in the house,” Mom said when I asked her to move in with me, after Ben left.

“Good,” I believe is what I said. Ben doesn’t know how to make adobo and he buys mango pre-sliced from Demeter. Which admittedly, I do, too. Luxury is a pre-sliced mango.

Everything feels quiet. After you have a child, you develop what I call The Fear—that is, The Fear of waking a sleeping baby. Not everyone has this, I’ve noticed. Some people have babies that sleep a lot, or at all, so not everyone has stormed topless to the front door screaming at the delivery man with a kitchen knife about how the baby just got to sleep, do you think I care about the mail’s arrival? It’s a fucking shampoo I bought on subscription that comes automatically every six weeks, a total grift, I need to cancel it, I certainly don’t need to run to the door!

Anyway, the point is that a switch in me turned on and it’ll never turn off, so I tiptoe into Monster’s room, where he almost never actually sleeps. Usually I rock him in the chair for what is sometimes hours before I put him down, but inevitably, he ends up in bed with me.

I peak inside and Monster has his head on my mom’s shoulder while she rocks. She smiles tiredly at me. I move to leave, but Monster is awake—of course he is. He perks up the moment I walk into the room, as if this whole time he’s just been dicking around.

“AaaaAAAAH,” he says, which isn’t Mama. But spiritually, I get the point.

“Where’s Ben?” I ask, since it is, after all, Ben’s time.

“Oh, something came up, he said he’d be back in a couple of hours to stay the night here. I thought you were going to be gone longer,” says Mom, as Monster wriggles out of her lap and sprints over to me. He’s wearing animal pajamas. He only knows one animal sound, the monkey. Every time he does it I feel like I’m going to pass out from bliss.

“I was, but—” Monster tackles me and I nearly get taken out. “Oof.” He grabs my hands and starts using them as, like, I don’t know. Stairway railings. “Okay, okay—”

He climbs up the length of my body until I’m holding him. He stares at me for a second and then takes my face between his hands and pulls my cheeks so I’m smiling like the Joker. Then he tucks his arms in and puts his head on my shoulder.

“I’ll go when he’s asleep,” I say to my mom. “I’m not in a hurry.”

Or maybe I won’t go at all, I think as Monster burrows into me. Snuggly baby. Sweet boy. I feel carnivorous with love, like I could swallow him whole. Who cares if I miss it, whatever I’m afraid to miss? Life or whatever.

Mom gives my shoulder a squeeze and tries for a kiss from Monster. He pushes her face away. She leaves and I move to sit in the chair, but Monster wants to hold something while he rocks. I try guess what it might be. Doggy? Ball? Teddy bear? Book? Sometimes it’s a sheet of stickers and once, notably, it was a half-eaten strawberry. It turns out he wants to hold a plastic Adirondack chair we bought because he liked the color and it was the first time he’d ever said blue (“aboo”). I wrangle him into the rocking chair with the other chair clutched in his hands. It’s impossible. I rock for ten minutes with a bright blue Adirondack in my face. I call it a Daddy Rondack, which I think is funny. Currently, though, nothing is funny. Nothing will ever be funny again. This is my life, staring down the horrors, thinking about how Meredith had sex on a trail during an apocalypse but I’m here, forever stuck in this rocking chair, putting my cursed child to sleep. He drifts off and so I remove the chair from his hands. He rouses, mewls for me to put the chair somewhere he can look at while we rock. Fine. I sing him the pop-punk of my anarchist youth and he puts a hand over my mouth, shushing me. He yawns widely. Here it comes, sweet release. It’s been half an hour. He can’t find a comfortable position. Every minute or so he rolls over, begins playing with my nose. He pulls on my earrings. I tell him to go to sleep right now or so help me I’ll lose my fucking mind. He whimpers. I feel terrible. I am a terrible mother. I am succumbing to madness. I want to throw myself into the void and never come out. He holds me tightly, so tight you have to wonder how anyone can take this much comfort from another person, how you can ever feel so safe. God, I’m a traitor. He thinks nothing bad will ever happen to him but it will. Oh god! I want to die. I am exhausted. I brought him into this horrible world where people will disappoint him. He doesn’t know yet how, sometimes, when you want to make dinner for someone, everything will go wrong and you will have to serve it anyway and they’ll say it’s good to be polite and you’ll know they’re just lying to make you feel better. He doesn’t even know about bigotry yet. My sweet precious baby! He flips around, and again, and again. Go to sleep!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I roar. He pets my face. I am wearier than any human has ever been. Love is exhausting.

His breathing grows steady. He curls into me and I miss him so powerfully I almost bite his cheeks to wake him up. He’s so funny. He’s so sweet. I know he’s a future man and there are hazards to these impulses, but it is physically difficult not to try to give the world to him. I realize that I can set him in his bed now, and he’ll wake up later. I should be here when he wakes up. I should stay here. Why do I ever go anywhere that isn’t right here?

I shift to bring him to bed. He moves as if he’s going to wake up and I curse the whole goddamn universe.

He goes back to sleep. Thank god. Can you imagine!

Meredith texts me. Pizza will be here in thirty minutes.

Look at his perfect face. My Monster. I feel physical pain again, but I drag myself out of his bed, inhumanly quiet. The best way to do it is to slip out from the end of the mattress that’s closest to the door, to avoid any creaks in the floor. Then you have to push the door toward the hinges. It’s a whole thing. You wouldn’t believe the lightness of my footfall these days. For the briefest second, I think about texting Ben, because he knows this part of my experience, he shares The Fear with me. It’s amazing how close you can feel to another person. It’s also amazing how that closeness can disappear, and still you go on.

I pause in the threshold of Monster’s room, taking a last hungry glimpse of him before I go. I do this every night, even if I’m not going anywhere, which usually I’m not. I watch a little bad TV or read a book. I think for an hour about what it means to be alive, or I stare at the wall and contemplate whether I’ll ever not feel tired again. Everything changes. Everything changes. Nothing is ever the same (affectionate). Nothing is ever the same (threat).

I feel it then. A convulsion of tiredness and longing. The heart-crush of it. It’s not a state of being but a collection of moments, all strung up like fairy lights over a sleeping child’s face.

Happiness.

Then I close the door and text Meredith to tell her I’m on my way.