Page 103 of Books and Hookups

Her hair was pulled up into a loose bun on the top of her head, wispy curls popping out around her face. She wore the hospital’s gown, white with a print of ugly flowers on it. She’d wanted to change into her oversized, faded black T-shirt and loose pajama pants, but the nurses had made her try to feed the baby, and it was easier to do it with the hospital gown that tied at the front.

The breastfeeding had sounded frustrating, with lots of discussion about latching on and letting down and a fuck-ton of terms I didn’t understand. Standing outside her room in the hall and listening to her voice getting wearier and more irritated, I’d felt useless. And I hated it.

Now, even as she slept, Lucie’s forehead was furrowed. I wished I could do something to take away her pain.

I also wished I could give her the space she wanted and not watch her sleep like a creeper—she’d really hate it if she knew—but I couldn’t stand the idea of leaving her and our baby here alone.

So I eased myself into the chair by the side of her bed and gazed at her, my gorgeous, exhausted goddess. I wondered if she regretted any of it now: our hookup or deciding to keep the baby. Or when we’d briefly felt like we could be a family.

Probably.

I didn’t regret a thing. Except the part where I’d tried to force her into my vision of what an ideal family looked like. I should’ve known, having grown up in an odd-shaped family myself, that it didn’t matter if the parents lived together or even if there were two parents. As long as there was love, everything would be okay.

And with that hopeful thought, I drifted off to sleep.

37

Good Mothers Don't Show Their Asses

Author’s note: When I decided to write this book, I thought it would be my legacy. But what I’ve discovered after talking with all these inspiring women is that we don’t have a singular legacy. The best of us leave behind a hole that can’t be filled, or even many small holes that someday, someone encounters and thinks, Oh, that’s whatshedid.

I hope when you read this book, you recognize someone’s lasting impact on you. I know I did.

- Lucie Knox

LUCIE

When I woke up, everything hurt. The bruise on my back where they’d given me the epidural. The searing sting on my vagina where they’d stitched me up. A dull ache in my abdomen. Even my teeth hurt from when I’d clenched during each contraction.

But it was over.

When I glanced to the side of the bed, panic flashed through me. The baby was gone. Her bassinet was missing too. They must have taken her to the nursery. She couldn’t go far since her little bracelet had a sensor that would set off an alarm if she left the maternity floor.

A sigh from the other side of the bed made me turn my head. Danny was draped across the vinyl armchair in a position that made my neck hurt in sympathy.

He’d stayed beside me all night.

My memories were muddled because of the pain my brain was already trying to forget, but I knew it hadn’t been pretty. Not only had I shoved a baby through a too-small channel and produced fluids and odors that I’d rather not remember, but I’d said things. Snapped. Shouted. About pain and exhaustion and the goddamn patriarchy even though the birth of a child was one thing the patriarchy, no matter how much it tried, couldn’t ruin.

I was sure good mothers didn’t show their asses—in the metaphorical sense—during childbirth. They took it in stride and appreciated the miracle of birth and the support of their partner, which wasnotwhat I’d done.

Yet Danny was still here.

He’d done his duty. He’d watched our child being born. He could be sleeping in that fabulous, cozy bed of his. Instead, he was here, waiting for me to wake up.

I shifted to face him and curled my legs up to minimize the pressure on my bladder. That first trip to the bathroom was going to suck.

Why had he stayed?

I couldn’t delude myself any longer. I knew why he’d stayed. Why he’d come in the first place even though I’d pushed him away and ignored him for weeks.

He loved me. For all that I was, the good and the bad. He saw it all, and he loved me anyway. I couldn’t repress the smile that curled my lips. I loved him too.

He was hardworking and principled and caring. He cared so much about everyone. Not in the way that I did, standing up for what was right in an abstract sense. No, Danny cared about individual people. Once he let you into his circle of people, he’d go to the ends of the earth for you. That was why he cared so much about the bar, and Barb, and his family.

And me.

I didn’t even have to prove myself worthy because he already thought I was.

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