Page 17 of I’m Fine Save Me (The Spiral Duet #1)

Chapter eleven

Cooper

Two Years Later

F or the last year I’ve been working at a job that I thought was going to be the answer to everything. Great benefits, good pay, and I didn’t think I’d be as affected by it as everyone warned me I would. Even Tegan said she thought I might have too much heart to work at the local animal shelter.

I never saw what she saw.

I grew up with my parents raising rabbits and when they were big enough, they became stew. I know that all pets are different, but I was never one to emotionally attach myself to animals…

Before Tegan came back into my life, I was never one to emotionally attach myself to anyone or anything. My daughter became the second attachment that gives me every reason to breathe, smile, cry, and every other emotion that makes my chest tight.

Now, a year into the job and I’ve been promoted to be a road officer. I’m the scary villain in a Disney cartoon that catches strays and takes them to the pound. Never in my life did I think watching a cartoon movie with my daughter would make me feel guilty about my nine-to-five.

I can deal with it though.

Tegan still hasn’t taken on a full time job even though she graduated from her Associate’s program.

I think my insistence that I can provide for them has finally driven her to go back for her Bachelor’s degree, but she’s waiting until Hannah starts Pre-K.

It’ll just be easier for her to do school work when Little Bit isn’t needing every second of her attention.

She gets a few hours to herself every week when Hannah goes to daycare, but even I know that’s not enough for Tegan to finish a Paralegal degree.

At least it isn’t enough for my wife to be able to meet her own standards for herself.

The problem with the daycare isn’t only that it’s expensive, it's that the teachers and staff have started agreeing with Tegan’s worries about Hannah.

I don’t know enough about kids to understand what worries my wife so much; but she is adamant that Hannah isn’t meeting regular growth milestones.

Our daughter has barely started talking and she’s four years old now.

She says “Hey” and “Ma-Ma” and “Da-da-da” but that’s about as far as the understandable gibberish goes.

The kid is brilliant though because Tegan started teaching her sign language when she was barely two.

While she still points at things she wants instead of signing them, she knows the signs for more things than I can remember.

I’ve been trying to learn alongside her but I can’t always retain what Tegan has taught me.

I know when my daughter wants her chocolate milk and when she’s looking for her favorite blanket.

I also know when she wants nothing more than to sit with “Deddy” and watch a movie until those little eyes can’t stay open any longer.

If I didn’t love my wife so much, I think my entire soul would belong to that little girl. I think she’s perfect, she’s just doing things in her own time.

When I talked to my parents about the things that concerned Tegan, they both told me it was nothing to worry about.

I was slow to start talking and had fits or tantrums. They said it was because I wasn’t getting my way.

I was a lot more stubborn when receiving a few lashes from my dad’s belt than my siblings, but I was also the only boy.

So they were sure that’s why I was so different from my sisters.

Tegan isn’t so sure that it’s normal for a toddler to act out so harshly because she doesn’t like the shirt she’s wearing.

Hannah can’t say it, but the way that child rips at her clothes sometimes, you would think it was full of fire ants.

I trust my wife’s intuition. I was terrified to be a father, but I always knew she was going to be an amazing mother.

If she thinks there is something worth looking into, I’m just grateful I have a job with benefits so we can at least afford to assuage her concerns. I’ll just work overtime so I can go to the psychologist’s appointment with them.

I won’t be letting Tegan handle that alone.

At least if I work the extra hours, I don’t have to worry about making them up later.

I can handle more hours with the animals and the guilt.

I can handle the extra responsibilities they’re starting to give me.

I have training next week to start being the “back room” guy after hours a few days each week.

The last one quit because he couldn’t handle the task of making room in the shelter. I’m not sure how well I’ll handle it, but I’m the only one they’ve asked to train for it. I won’t tell them no. I can’t tell them no.

I need this job. I need to be able to keep providing for my girls.

I’ll be able to put the work days behind me when I go home and see their smiles.

I’ll be able to forget sad canine eyes when my little girl falls asleep with her thumb in her mouth.

Her head against my chest with her teddy bear hugged tightly in the crook of her arm will chase away the demons of the day.

I can endure all of it for the two ladies who own my heart and soul.

Tegan

I love my daughter. I love my daughter. I love my daughter.

It’s the mantra in my head while Hannah wails for the second hour straight because she doesn’t want to eat what I’ve put on her high chair tray.

One thing my daughter loves is chicken nuggets.

I know, not exactly healthy, but I make them from scratch and freeze them in bulk amounts so she isn’t eating the processed stuff.

This is the start of a fresh batch that hasn’t been frozen yet.

I didn’t change the recipe. All I did was buy a cheaper cut of chicken, but they taste the same. Even Cooper tested it on his lunch break while she was still napping. They are exactly the same.

Days like today are when I regret ever exposing my child to the word “no”. She’s been screaming it at different octaves since she took her first bite. These fits have been happening more and more as we’ve explored trying new foods, but they’re especially bad when I put her in new clothes.

I have no idea what to do with myself, and at this point I’m sure Cooper thinks I’m a complete basket case by the time he gets home. I’m ready to pull my hair out, but everyone tells me to let her cry it out. She’ll eventually give up.

No. She really won’t.

Finally, after the second hour of audible torture, I cave and make the child a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The little demon grins at me with every bite and kicks her little feet like she didn’t just spend the last two hours trying to kill me with the pitch of her screams alone.

“Hannah Grace Michaels…” I sigh out her full name while scrubbing my hands over my face.

The tiny beast hums a little sound of toddler tyrant amusement.

“Anything evil in you, you get from your father.” As if she can understand me, she giggles and continues nibbling away at her sandwich while I clean up the kitchen.

The teachers at her daycare keep throwing around the word “Autism” like it’s a four letter slur that explains everything they consider wrong with my little girl.

I don’t like it.

I feel myself bristle against it every time a different person says it. When I took her to see her pediatrician for her four year check up, I brought up the concerns of her teachers. To my shock and horror, the pediatrician agreed that it was worth getting her evaluated.

I’ve spent the last week waiting for the doctor to call and refer us to a psychologist. I’ve also spent a lot of that time disappearing down into one rabbit hole after another of possible causes.

My sister in law was no help at all. She asked me about my pregnancy, what I ate, what I drank, what I did…

and by the end of that conversation, I just knew it was all my fault.

If Hannah is Autistic, then it’s something I had to have done while I was pregnant.

Cooper’s job is getting to him, so I’m not adding this to his plate. I definitely don’t want him blaming me on top of me blaming myself.

He’s been more distant than usual. He comes home, gets cleaned up, has dinner, and we settle in with Hannah until it’s her bedtime.

He’s an amazing father and watching him with her makes my long days better.

Even days like today when I’ve undergone torture via toddler screams. She falls asleep cuddled up against his chest like his embrace is the safest place in the world.

It makes me fall even more in love with him.

It’s when he puts her to bed that he disappears into himself.

I ask about work and he would rather not talk about it.

He says he doesn’t want to bring work home, but he rarely asks me about my day anymore either.

The only reason he even knows about the autism situation is because I panicked.

I called him at work the first time they told me something was wrong with Hannah.

I can only do so much, but I’ll be damned if I fail either of them. I won’t fail Cooper as his wife, and I won’t fail Hannah as her mother.

Once she has eaten and is cleaned up, I set Hannah down in the living room and lock the baby gate so she can’t wander to anywhere she doesn’t belong. With her settled with her wood puzzles and Baby Einstein, I log into one of my forums to write a few posts.

I still like to get lost in my fictional worlds. I’ll never have the capacity to actually write a book. I like to feed off of the energy of other character creators instead. It’s just fun to do now that I’m not looking for a person on the other side of the character.

Jackson showed me that isn’t exactly possible… but I do wish I had someone I could really talk to about everything I’m feeling.

I don’t have any mom friends. While Dani just found out she’s pregnant, she hasn’t gotten to this point of insanity yet. None of my friends have had kids.

It seems Cooper and I really jumped the gun on that front.

My mom… Well, Hannah could be a baby serial killer and my mother would come to pick her up. She’d tell her I was being crazy for not offering to hide the bodies for her.

I wish I could unload it on Cooper, but he seems so lost right now. I need him to open up to me. So I’ll keep asking him to talk and hope that one day he finally does.

Maybe once he offloads all his burdens, he’ll be able to let me do the same and we’ll both work together to lighten the load for one another.

Until then, I’ll write about a fictional character overcoming something far worse than these trivial little challenges of motherhood. I’ll be fine.