Page 125 of More Than Words

My pulse started to pound when she arched her back and let out a pained squeal. Glancing at the seats around us, I saw several people had turned, watching as my daughter’s whimpers turned into angry cries.

Trying every tactic I’d been taught in the hospital, I rubbed her back, offered her a pacifier, bounced her in my arms, but nothing worked as I watched her little face turn red. Listening to her broke my heart.

As tears welled in my eyes, a hand settled on my shoulder, Hutch leaning around my seat from behind me. “Let me take her. Switch me seats.”

Shaking my head, I tried to sway her from side to side, patting her back.

Hutch stood, holding his hand out while he waited next to my seat in the aisle. “I wasn’t asking. I can take her. You sit with Adrian.”

“But...” Finley’s screams didn’t show any signs of stopping, and after an arched eyebrow from my boyfriend’s twin, I knew we needed to try something.

Standing, I stepped out into the aisle, reluctantly laying my daughter in his arms after he’d taken my seat. He cooed at her, and I watched helplessly as she hiccupped, her cries quieting as she grasped one of his large fingers in her fist. “Go sit, I’ve got her.”

Hesitating, I watched him effortlessly work to calm her cries, his soft voice talking to her. I was thankful he could get her settled, but it just made me feel guilty. Made me feel more like a failure at motherhood.

“Babe, come sit.” Adrian extended his hand toward me, pulling me into the aisle seat, and wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “She’s fine. Let him sit with her. If she gets upset again, you can switch back.”

“I can’t even keep her from crying.”

He sighed at my quiet admission, pulling me into his chest and leaning down to whisper into my ear. “Just rest, please. You’re doing the best you can. Let the baby whisperer do his thing and let me hold you.”

The sun had set as we crossed the Midwest, the dark night sky visible past Adrian’s shoulder through the tiny oval window. Listening to his heartbeat, I let my eyes close. Hutch’s whispers to our daughter shifted into the low dulcet sounds of a children’s song I couldn’t quite place, and I let myself drift as the quiet sounds of the airplane carried us back home.

ADRIAN

Boston

Things were far from easy as we settled into our lives back in Boston. Sloane had let me continue to work remotely three days a week, and although she protested me babying her, I think Isobel was relieved she had someone else at home to help during the day.

Finley had grown, filling out her once tiny little chicken legs and finally looking more like a healthy infant and less like a tiny preemie. She was still small, but she was thriving.

She just didn’t fuckin’ sleep. Which was wearing on both of us.

I tried to get up as much as possible during the night, often stealing the baby monitor from Isobel’s nightstand after she’d fallen asleep, but there were still nights when neither of us seemed to calm her down.

The pediatrician insisted it was normal—that some babies simply had colicky tendencies—but as we reached the point where we’d be able to take her to the office daycare; I feared she wouldn’t be ready to go.

It’d been four months since she was born, and I was also worried that Isobel would never come out of the funk she’d been in. Sloane had convinced her to take the entire 12 weeks of maternity leave before she started transitioning back to her regular hours, but Isobel was struggling with guilt that her job was pulling too much of the focus from Finley.

As the days wore on, and neither of us had solid sleep at night, we both struggled to find a routine that worked.

The days I went to the office, she was up with me at dawn, even if Finley had finally fallen asleep. By the time I returned at night with dinner, she’d be surrounded by papers on the couch, usually with Finley passed out on her chest, clearly working on days she wasn’t supposed to be.

I had to cajole her into the shower more often than not, and she absolutely refused to try to go places on the weekend where she thought Finley would be exposed to too many people.

When we’d first gotten home, I understood it, because we were still on the tail end of flu season, and she was medically vulnerable. But now we were well into spring, and she rarely left the apartment. We were supposed to move into a new townhouse a few blocks from her current apartment in three weeks, and while my apartment was a sea of neatly stacked boxes, she hadn’t gotten far with packing.

Dr. Reeves had broached the subject of seeing a counselor to talk to Isobel about her fears regarding being a new parent and balancing her time as a working mom, but she brushed it off, throwing away the business card when she thought I wasn’t looking.

I tried to take on as much as I could, but she wouldn’t let me, and I felt helpless as I watched her spiral.

But I was thankful for rare days like today. Finley had sporadically been sleeping longer at night, and last night was one of those nights. Isobel had gotten seven hours of uninterrupted sleep, and I’d made her breakfast after we’d showered. The little line between her eyebrows had softened as we went through a seemingly normal weekend routine together. Finley had been in a good mood when she’d woken up, and I hoped we were finally working toward more peaceful nights.

She was lying between us on the bed, milk drunk and content, kicking her little legs into the air as she played with my hands.

Isobel was leaning against the headboard, her laptop perched on her knees while she sifted through the backlog of work emails. I’d tried to get her to stop thinking about work during the weekends, but she worried her projects were going to fall through the cracks while she was only working part-time.

I was tired of fighting her, so I didn’t argue, knowing it gave her the feeling of control that was missing when it came to her daily life right now.

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