Hope: She’s not going back to the hospital bc UR not done knitting. Hospitals only keep you 2 days for a V birth. How RU feeling?
Me: Tired. Scared. Tucker told me he loved me at the hospital.
Hope: OMG.
Carin: OMG.
Hope: What’d u say?
Carin: She said she doesn’t believe in love, right?
I stick out my tongue at the phone.
Me: I pretended I didn’t hear him.
Hope: OMG.
Carin: See!
Hope: That’s the worst.
Is it, though? Is it really?
Me: It was an emotional time. Not holding him to it.
Hope: UR dumb. I’m ending my friendship with u.
Carin: She’s being unselfish.
Me: Thank u, C.
Hope: UR still dumb.
Me: Not dumb. Mom hates me. T’s forced to live in Bos. Don’t want him tied down. T shld b out there, hitting bars, tapping asses.
Carin: I take that back. UR dumb.
Hope: See!
Carin: You’d kill any chick who looked twice at him.
An image of Tucker with another woman, holding another baby besides Jamie, forms in my head, and a dull ache springs up in my chest. Carin’s not wrong at all. I’m not prepared for Tucker to move on, no matter how nonchalant and uncaring I try to be.
Jamie releases a sharp cry and I peer down to see her precious baby mouth rooting around for the nipple again.
Me: Gotta go. Baby crying.
Hope: Good luck.
Carin: Don’t wish her good luck. It’s not a sporting event.
Hope: :P What’s the worst response to I <3 you?
Carin: Silence and then, “I wish I felt the same.”
Hope: I’m thinking “Why?”
Carin: How about “That’s nice.”
Hope: Brutal.
Me: I’m done here.
Jamie opens her mouth, and the volume that comes out of her lungs surprises even me. It’s like there’s an amplifier in her throat.
“Shhhh. Shhhh.” I whirl around and pluck the blanket out of her car seat. It takes a few tries before I have her bundled up like a burrito. All the while, I’m shushing her. A ton of people online swear by a system called the Five S’s where you shush, swaddle, swing, side or stomach position, and…dammit, I can’t remember the other one.
Jamie doesn’t like that I’ve forgotten. Her face contorts into a puckered, unhappy mess as she belts out her opinion of my mothering skills.
“Shush, swaddle, swing, side or stomach, sing?” I hum a few bars.
Jamie wails on.
“Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on in there?” Ray’s up and pounding on my door.
“Come on, Little Jamie. Stop crying. Mommy’s here.”
Little Jamie doesn’t give a fuck. She screams even louder.
“Suck!” I shout in triumph. “Suck is the other one!”
I lunge for the dresser in the corner, where all of Jamie’s paraphernalia is stored. The door bursts open and Nana comes bustling in.
“What are you doing to that child?” she yells over the baby.
“Told you she was going to fuck up.” Ray’s right behind her and can’t wait to offer his unwanted two cents.
“Ray, that’s enough. You go eat your French toast.” Nana pushes me aside. “What’re you looking for?”
“Pacifier.” I fumble through tiny onesies, blankets, and burping cloths until I find a paci.
“Thought you were breastfeeding,” Nana comments as I try to shove the pacifier into Jamie’s mouth. Her tongue is stronger than Tucker’s ninth grade girlfriend’s. I give up after she spits it out for the fifth time.
“What do I do?” I ask Nana in desperation.
“She wants the nip,” Ray says from the door.
Is he right? Panicked, I flip up my shirt, not even caring that Ray can see my bare breast. Jamie latches on almost immediately, her whole body shaking from the crying. Small hiccups interrupt her sucks, but at least the crying has stopped. I sag onto the bed in relief.
In the middle of the room, Nana shakes her head. “You shouldn’t have ever got her hooked on the boob. Now that’s all she’s ever gonna want.”
“I like it.” Ray gives me a smarmy thumbs-up. “Nice tits, Rina.”
“Get out,” I snap, letting go of my top. Jamie gives a little cry as the fabric falls over her face. “Seriously, just get out. Nana, please.”
“You should’ve used a bottle,” Nana chides.
“You should take your shirt off,” is Ray’s helpful suggestion.
I clench my teeth. “I need some privacy. Please.”
“How you going to feed her while you’re at class?” Nana asks.
Jamie starts crying again. I pull up the shirt despite the fact that Ray is leering at me. I send another pleading glance to Nana, who finally moves toward the door.
“You go on now, Ray. Your breakfast is going to get cold.”
“This isn’t going to work, Joy,” he mutters. “That kid can’t be attached to Rina’s tit all day.”
“Leave them alone.” Nana shoots him a dirty look before addressing me. “Babies cry.”
Even before the door shuts, I whip off my shirt. Jamie quiets as I direct my nipple into her mouth. When she latches again, the tension starts to leech out of me.
Holy shit.
I don’t know if I can survive this. Her little head is dwarfed by my giant boob, but when her eyes open and her hand starts kneading me, so much love floods through my system that I grow weak.
The whole feeding process takes less than fifteen minutes. It’s the only fifteen minutes of peace I have for the next two hours. I can’t put her down. Every time I try, she starts to cry, which sets off a bout of screaming between Ray, Nana, and me. So I end up carrying her around, learning to eat with one hand, changing her diaper using three diapers because I tear off the tapes of the first two.
By the time Tucker checks in at noon, I’m an exhausted mess.
“Your daddy’s calling,” I tell Jamie as she stares at me out of slitted eyes. I’ve collapsed onto the floor, holding her bundled frame in my arms.
“How’s it going?” he asks when I answer the phone.
“I’ve had better days.” I hitch Jamie a tad higher on my shoulder. Her face burrows into my neck. “But I think you’re right. We shouldn’t have left the hospital.”