Page 114 of A Major Puck Up

This again? I sigh as I push to a stand. “It’s my job to wake up with her. You have to be up early with the team. Go sleep in the bed. I got this.”

“No.” His voice is clipped, his face a hard mask that doesn’t even resemble the man I once knew.

“Are you upset with me?”

His glare hardens further, if that’s possible. “I’m nothing with you. I thought I was clear about that. You work for me.”

The words are sharpened, thrown with the intent to maim. To draw blood. To hurt.

And they land perfectly, flaying me open, making it difficult to breathe. When his expression remains angry, the pain intensifies, like he’s pushing the knife in deeper. Unable to take his wrath for even a second longer, I spin on my heel and head for the bedroom door, slamming it shut and pressing my back to it. A breath later, Vivi is crying and Gavin is muttering a not so quiet fuck.

Fuck is right.

Now not only do I not feel like I’m enough, but I feel worthless too.

This is so not working.

My plan for the next ten days is to avoid Gavin as best as I can. Fortunately, when we arrive at the next hotel, there are two bedrooms in the suite. Despite my protests, he brings Vivi’s playpen into his room, making it clear that he’s going to fight me on her sleeping near him every night.

The next morning, hoping to gauge how our day will go, I ask how she slept. He merely glares at me. Without knowing, though, it’s hard to be tuned into when she needs a nap or to determine whether she’s eating enough to satisfy her.

So I resort to a little stalking. I noticed at home that he had a few parenting books on the counter that were suspiciously gone when we were leaving the apartment to head to the team plane. I wait until Gavin leaves for the arena and then tiptoe into his room, my eyes darting in every direction like I’m in a James Bond film.

Though my body aches to lie on his pillow and soak in the scent of him, my mind is wise enough to know I have little time and that would only derail any progress I’ve made on the be strong front.

For Vivi and for Gavin, I need to not be a lovesick twenty-four-year-old girl. I need to be a woman on a mission. And I am. Gavin didn’t make it hard either. The books are stacked on the nightstand, a pen pushing the top of one up, letting me know precisely what he was reading last night. When I open the book and see blue underlines throughout the page and his messy writing in the margins, my heart breaks.

The section relates to an infant’s memory and how using bright objects could help stimulate their brain.

At four months, infants can remember an image of an object for a week. They can remember photographs of faces for two weeks. Your baby will be able to remember objects or faces for longer periods of time as they grow older.

His notes: Ask doc how much a baby will remember at six months. Does she remember her mother? Will she know she was abandoned? What signs should I watch out for? How can I make sure she knows she’s loved?

Tears stream down my face. While I’ve been focused on how Gavin treats me, he’s focused on this. As he should be.

I go through each one of the notes in the margins of his books, promising myself that I’ll spend the day researching the answers. Then I do a crazy thing, and I leave a response to a few of the less heart-wrenching questions.

Is she getting enough tummy time? He wrote on the next page.

In blue writing, I reply. She doesn’t love it, but if I lay flat on my belly and sing to her, we can normally get fifteen minutes done.

I hold my breath practically all night, worrying that I overstepped and he’ll walk into my room and fire me on the spot. But the next morning, he watches me for a long moment as he’s saying goodbye to Vivi, and then, if I’m not mistaken, he almost smiles.

I practically run into his room as soon as he leaves and search for the page in question.

There is no response to my note, but on the next page it says: Vivi slept through the night for the first time.

The grin that takes over my face is completely irrational. Like the man wrote me a love letter in those nine words.

It can barely be considered progress, but over the next few days, we exchange notes back and forth in the margins of his books. It gives me the tiniest bit of hope that he doesn’t hate having me as Vivi’s nanny anymore.

During our last stop—in LA—it’s hard not to soak in the perfect weather, even if I am ready to head back to Boston and get back into a routine. Vivi and I are sitting outside. She’s in her stroller, gnawing on a teething toy while I once again play on my phone, working on my latest song.

“Oh, Vivi girl, what rhymes with pick?”

“Dick!” Sara sings as she saunters up, wearing a big smile. When she spots Vivi, though, her face goes red. “Oh shit. Don’t tell Gavin I said that.” She cups her mouth and winces. “Shit, not shit. I meant duck.”

I giggle. “Don’t tell duck you said that?”

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