Page 29 of Something Like Shelter

“Can I get you something to drink? Water, coffee, beer, soda, seltzer?” she asked, waving at her own drink.

“How do you drink those?” I asked, shaking my head. “They taste like someone whispered ‘lemon lime’ in the general vicinity of the can…”

That got a laugh out of her.

“They’re kind of like red wine, I guess. I had to train myself to like them. Which I did to get myself off a pretty bad soda addiction I developed in college.”

“I’ll take the actual soda,” I said, accepting the can she passed me. “How is it you have no food in there but a shit-ton of drinks?”

“Most of the drinks are from when my family came to stay right after the baby. I try mostly to drink water and tea these days. So they’re just sitting there waiting for guests.” She clicked her can to mine. “Let me grab plates.”

“I’m fine eating out of a carton if you are.”

She looked relieved at that as she fetched forks instead.

We both dug in, but she froze when Adelaide made a grumbling sound. But she quickly settled back down.

“Do you have a plan for after your maternity leave?” I asked.

“I plan to do two in-office days a week. That would let me meet with clients in a professional setting. And attend any work meetings. The rest I plan to do from home. My boss isn’t thrilled about it, but seeing as he works from home most days, he can’t really say much about it. My mom has called dibs on one of those workdays. My cousins and aunts want to rotate the other one.”

“Are you nervous about that?”

“I mean, it’s hard to imagine leaving her for longer than twenty minutes. But I know it would probably be good for both of us. She would get the benefit of all the knowledge from the women of my family. And I’m assuming it would be good for me, from a mental health standpoint, to be around some adults here and there. I think most moms get that from their spouses, but there have been whole days where I don’t talk to other adults.”

“Yeah, that’s probably not the healthiest.”

“I mean, for the most part, I don’t have the energy to socialize. Anytime I can, I’m trying to sleep. But Adelaide does seem to be giving me a whole three hours in a row now that we have that giant fan of yours. Which is nice.”

“Has it been harder than you expected?”

“Um, yes and no. I’m an almost compulsive researcher. So I read all the good stories about motherhood along with all the horror stories. So I think I was mentally prepared to fall somewhere in the middle. Middle because I was a little… spoiled before all this.”

“Spoiled how?”

“Well, I never really had any responsibilities outside of work. I was used to getting nine hours of sleep a night. Lazy weekend mornings. Being able to book hair, nail, or massage appointments anytime I wanted a little pampering.”

“I wouldn’t say you were spoiled. You were living the life you had at the time.”

“I guess. But I knew that the lack of sleep was going to hit me hard. And all the other little things: the house getting messy, having no predictability of a schedule, not being able to pick up and leave the house at the drop of a hat… all those things.”

“From an outsider, it looks like you’re doing well.”

“Thanks. I’m… getting the hang of it. Trying to really soak it up. I know this is just a short period of time. I don’t want to miss all the sweet moments just because I haven’t been able to hit a Pilates class.”

“Are you even supposed to work out yet?”

“I can now, yeah. But getting to the gym would be impossible.”

“I have a home gym in my basement. Makes life easier.”

“Don’t get me started on the basement,” Willa said, wincing.

The first time I came to the house and needed to access the basement, she’d stood at the top of the stairs and shouted directions toward the breaker box because she claimed, “The spiders own the lower level.”

To be fair, there were a lot more webs than you’d typically see. But that was likely because she was never down there to disturb them.

“I think I need to start taking Adelaide on some walks, though. It would be good for both of us.”