No Spare Key

Chap 24 👩🏾

    Rosie and I are alone at home right now, Jaime and the boys are off working on something to keep us safe, that includes Johnny and Julia now.  Julia is actually off with Butcher right now and they're going crib shopping since Butcher also took up the task of putting the crib that she brought here together and managed to split almost every piece of it that he could, then did something similar to Ro's old crib.  For which I chewed him out.  
   My sister's not in the state right now, she's in Los Angeles for work so she doesn't have much time to talk.  Anika is off on vacation with her boyfriend so she's not super keen on answering her phone right now.  Jen and I still aren't talking, more specifically I'm not speaking to her.  Her betrayal was something I should've expected, but it still came as a shock to me.  Steven and I still talk, but I'm surrounded by men all the time.  I'm in dire need for a girlfriend.  Julia's been an absolute godsend but she's struggling a lot with her pregnancy and she's tired most of the time so we can't talk all that much either.  When we do, I'm likely taking care of her.  No fault of her own of course, but it just feels really lonely.  Jaime doesn't exactly live in a super populous city where you can meet people all the time. In fact, we kind of live in the middle of nowhere.  We're surrounded by trees and rivers and wildlife, and as relaxing and carefree as that can be most of the time, it's deeply isolating.  Rosie is the love of my life, Jaime is incredibly stimulating and easy to talk to but there are something's he'll never understand that other women would and things Rosie not ready to talk about.

  Still, sitting here on her little bed and brushing her pretty blonde hair so unlike mine, is such a comforting, bonding time.  She's only three and I'm already scared she's growing up too fast.  Learning things too quickly.  Of course what we experienced that first night we moved in didn't help, and I'm still hoping she won't suffer any horrific long-term effects from it.  But even before then, she was always so easy to teach.  So ahead of her years.  I can only hope that won't become more of a problem than any of us see coming.  She's only three, but reading so well for her age.  Speaking with the clarity and range of a kid that's at least in second grade or so.  She loves when I teach her big words that I don't even see how she would even use yet.  She loves math, like.. him, but bonds with Jaime over that instead.  Loves when I tell her stories at night, so I don't bother with the 'Cinderella's or the "Sleeping Beauty's, those stories are fun and have value but as long as I've got her attention I'd rather teach her history.  Last night I told her a very simplistic version of what Martin Luther King Jr did for the US, and she ate it up. 

   I almost don't want to put her in regular school because I'm afraid they might cause her to backtrack.  That's what happened with me.  I tested at a 3rd grade level when I was in kindergarten but the public school system insisted I be put in first grade at the highest regardless of how I tested because "I couldn't be emotionally ready" to be in a grade so much higher than kindergarten.  My mom fought it tooth n nail but got shot down every time.  It's difficult fighting against what is essentially the government.  It completely derailed me academically, and the only reason I was put in school is because my parents had to work and couldn't afford to homeschool me. 

  I can afford to homeschool Rosie, and she can make friends outside of school at a playground or I could take her to a kid's gym, so is it really worth taking her to school for the sake of socialization when it could screw her education?  I could afford to pay really good tutors, and knowing Jaime he'd insist we get the best tutors in the state, if not the country and he'd wanna pay for all of it.  I know private school is always an option but I have a lot of issues with most private schools too, some of which are the same as public schools. 

  Like the dress codes.  I remember developing a little faster than other girls and getting called out by my male teacher for wearing a uniform that's too revealing and tight on me.  I was ten years old and had gone through a growth spurt, my mom hadn't been able to take me uniform shopping so she just sent me in the uniforms from last year.  The boys never got called out for dress code, they could be walking around shirtless and covered in literal shit and nothing would happen to them but if my skirt revealed just a little too much of my ten-year-old legs, it was a massive problem and girls get what is basically slut-shaming.  I went to both private and public school.  My grades were high enough that I got into this fancy private school in Doral with a scholarship, and they managed to be even worse. 

  Bullying, bad influences, biased teachers, faulty grading systems, misogynistic dress codes, or straight up ugly uniforms, an amount or academic stress so crippling kids develop serious psychological problems.  If I can avoid putting my daughter through all that and still get her an amazing education that I approve of, why not?

  As I brush Rose's hair, she brushes her doll's just as carefully with a little comb.  I don't know what I did to deserve a kid this intelligent and this conscious at such a young age, or at all.  I barely had to teach her to be careful with her things, to be considerate, or to lead with kindness.  She's better than I ever was in every conceivable way, and I can only hope to be a good enough mother to her.  That I'll teach her not to repeat my mistakes.  How to forgive herself if she does. 

  She wasn't an easy baby by any means.  I'm pretty sure she cried loud enough that every single one of my old neighbors probably have PTSD or something from hearing her deafening cries every night, every two hours, for two years.  Breastfeeding was hell, my nipples were raw and bloody no matter how much nipple cream I used and my left breast always produced less milk than my right so it became bloody milk when I'd feed her from my left. 
My pregnancy and delivery almost caused me to die.  I had to give birth through emergency c-section and let me tell you, all that bullshit about it being the easy way to give birth and that natural birth is always the best way to deliver is the biggest fucking lie I've ever heard. I went into labor on November 31st 2016, and two hours later I was in the delivery room with everyone crowding around me yelling about how I dilated faster than they anticipated and that I needed to start pushing, only to be told that it's not doing anything and rushing me to the O.R without telling me what was happening. Fifteen or so minutes later I was told my baby was suffocating and that I needed an emergency c-section. I was told to avoid a c-section delivery at all costs since my uterus was already traumatized from a previous miscarriage that almost caused me to lose the ability to stay pregnant at all. Now I might not be able to have more kids, and I know Jaime would say he's completely fine with adopting and I would actually love to adopt but I know that's not what he really wants.
I just want to be able to deserve the amazing things I've been given.