Infinitely

You never knew me, Charlotte

I step out of the shower - probably the fastest one I've ever taken in my life - and listen. There's no sounds. No crying baby, no singing Justin, no one talking, or pacing, or anything. For just a second I breathe. Then I start to panic.

Still in my towel I fling open the bathroom door, expecting to see that everyone's been abducted or strangled in the 2 minutes I was in the shower and couldn't hear anything. But what I see instead makes me cry in a different way.

Justin is fast asleep on our bed with Caelen passed out on his chest. Neither one of them has a shirt on but it doesn't seem to matter. Caelen sighs and smacks his lips and just a few seconds later Justin makes a face that I see Caelen make all the time. He's two days old and already looks exactly like his father.

I crawl in bed with the two of them and just watch Caelen as he sleeps. All he seems to do is sleep but he's forever making the sweetest faces while he does it. I could spend hours watching him and kissing every part of him from his fuzzy head to his wrinkly little toes.

Our bedroom door opens and I see Sarah peeking in. She smiles at me and comes over to look at Caelen.

"Are you hungry?" she whispers.

"Yes," I have to admit it because my stomach is growling but I don't want to get up.

"Luke's making grilled cheese," she says.

"Luke's still here?" I sit up.

"Yeah," Sarah shrugs like it's not a big deal so I try not to react but I don't do a good job. "It's only been two days, Charlotte."

"Oh, right," I give Caelen a kiss and make myself get up.

"They'll be okay until you get back," Sarah tells me, giving me her hand so I can get out of bed without falling over.

"I know," I insist but it's still hard to leave the room. It's not that I think something's going to happen, it's just that I can't think of anything that matters to me more than being with Caelen. I thought I loved him before he was here, when all I could feel were his little kicks and rolling movements. Now that he's outside me where I can hold him and see his face it feels completely different. I hate that he's not with me all the time anymore and that he seems so small and fragile.

"Hey!" Luke gives me a big smile when I get into the kitchen. "How's the little guy?"

"He's good, sleeping," I tell him. Now that I'm seeing him here I can suddenly remember that he showed up right after Caelen was born. It seems like months ago.

What I remember from the night Caelen was born is still kind of hazy. Everyone promised I would forget how bad it hurt and that's only sort of true. They also keep talking about how fast it happened but I remember it taking forever, especially while I was alone. It wasn't how I wanted that day to go and I was so scared thinking I might have to do it all by myself.

After Sarah showed up the pain was strong enough to keep me from being completely aware of everything. So many things stopped mattering to me, like how stupid I probably sounded making all that noise or how Sarah had to see me naked. And it's all too far away now to even care when I think back to it.

Then there are the things I thought would happen but didn't. I'd pictured Justin being there the whole time and us going through all the things they taught us in our birth classes. The moment he walked in was one of the best and worst moments of the whole day. I was so relieved to have him there but so upset that he'd missed so much of it because I could relax so much more when he was with me.

I keep thinking the whole thing would have been different if Justin could have been there the whole time. Maybe then I would have gotten to have Caelen in our bed instead of on the floor. That's one thing I keep coming back to. How could I have let myself have our baby on the floor? Why did I ever say it was okay for Justin to leave? If only I'd made him stay.