Page 154 of Things We Burn

Mabel started to whimper, her cries decidedly hangry.

Reflexively, I began unbuttoning my shirt, my breasts already tingling from the sounds of her weeping.

Maisie shifted Mabel to me, not even blinking at my bare breasts. I never thought I’d be showing my nipples to my sister and mother so often, but there we were.

When Mabel was latched, Maisie moved around the room, tidying things.

We sat in silence, our conversation on hold until she finished cleaning and came to sit beside me. She watched Mabel feed for a handful of seconds, her face compassionate.

“Your life was calculated chaos,” she said. “Regimented rush. You were constantly on a schedule, often doing multiple things at once, always thinking three tasks ahead, never taking a moment to breathe. And motherhood is like that. But there is no calculated chaos, no regime. It is a free-for-all shitshow.” She grinned. As if this was funny. “You inhale your meals, you hurry through showers, bathroom breaks and basic hygiene routines. You rush sex. If you even have enough energy to have it. And some people, some mothers, can sink into that, can thrive off it. Most do not. Because your cortisol is constantly peaking, you’re constantly in fight-or-flight mode. And sometimes, babies like Mabel come along.” She looked down to my daughter with absolute unconditional love. I had that for my nephews, but I’d buried it, hadn’t let myself feel it, let alone show it. “They give you no choice but to stop, be in the moment. They make you sit there, with their weight on your body, their hand in yours, andthere is no more rushing. There is only surrender. You breathe. You read. You think. You watch their face, examine their perfect features. Honey, you think it’s a curse, but Mabel is giving you the gift no one on earth, except maybe that man of yours, can give. Peace. You just have to embrace it.”

“Embrace it,” I parroted, looking down at Mabel’s head.

“It’s a process,” Maisie said. “And we’ll be back.”

“Promise?” I looked up at her. “I know I haven’t said it, I know I don’t deserve to say this, but I need you.”

She put her hand on my thigh. “We need you too, Avery Hart. And we’re not going anywhere.”

KANE

I was struggling.

Fuck, was I struggling.

Luckily, I was managing to hide it because the last thing I needed was Avery to see it. She needed to focus on two things: herself and our baby. I could see it, eating at her, the need to be perfect, to do it ‘right’ all while her brain and her hormones were waging a battle against her.

It hurt me, physically hurt me to see Avery struggling and not being able to do a fucking thing about it.

The one thing I could do was not pile on more or complain. She had it so much fucking worse than me. She slept less because she was up feeding constantly and didn’t wake me. Another source of guilt… I managed to sleep through some of Mabel’s wake ups because I was so fucking exhausted. Avery had told me many times that there was no point in me being awake too when I couldn’t ‘do’ anything.

I disagreed. I could change the diapers, reswaddle, resettle Mabel. I could make Avery’s life just a little bit easier.

And I could pull myself together.

I thought I’d been through it all, thought I was tough. I played the tough guy pretty fucking well, but being a father? Yeah, that made a man of me.

Leaving the house, even with Judith and Maisie there, felt like a betrayal because I didn’t want to leave Mabel and Avery. Worse, I felt guilty as fuck because a small and fucking selfish part of me was thankful for the break, to be able to get on my bike and ride past the ocean and just fucking breathe.

Horrible. Selfish.

I wouldn’t take them away, not for the fucking world. But I’d give myself less of a fucked-up childhood so I knew how to step up for them.

I had no father figures beyond variations of stepfathers who came in and out of my life, ranging from apathetic to sadistic. A mother who stayed in the picture long enough to fuck me up royally. Not to mention the other abuse.

I hadn’t told my mother about her granddaughter yet. We weren’t close like that. Especially after seeing Judith, the perfect grandmother. My mother wouldn’t be that. She’d find a way to make it about herself, she’d find a way to make me take care of her. And I didn’t need that. Avery didn’t need that.

I’d considered myself evolved—I’d gone to therapy, accepted my trauma, whatever the fuck. But if parenting had taught me anything, it had showed me all the ways I still needed to parent myself.

And I had to. Fucking had to. Not just because I planned on being there for every moment of Mabel’s life, and Avery’s too. But I planned on Mabel adoring me, never questioning my love for her or her mother.

I had to pull myself together.

“It’s Kane ‘The Dad’ Rhodes!” a voice exclaimed, making me jump.

I’d been sitting on my bike, helmet in my lap, staring into space. Who knew for how long. I was supposed to be out on a pastry run, not fucking wallowing in self-pity.

I glanced to where Kip was sauntering out of the bakery, coffee in hand. I’d seen him and his business partner Rowan a handful of times around town, mostly at the bakery since their wives owned it, and they made it their business to be near their wives, something I’d come to understand about them.

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