mine {h.s.} | {b3}

CHAPTER TEN

— CHAPTER TEN —

march, year one.

The clock beside me reads 2:21 in the morning.

Edie is in her basinet crying. I'm not far behind her.

She wakes frequently in the night. Mostly, this is because of her feeding schedule. As a breastfed newborn, she needs to eat every two to three hours. This is a fact that I know inside and out. Sometimes, she wakes up screaming and crying just for the hell of it. Realistically, I know that she's just not used to a sleep cycle yet, and that this is her way of figuring out life, but, it does little for my sleep schedule as she adjusts to hers. "Edie," I moan out, first burying my face in my pillow. I try not to let her see me frustrated. I know that her body is somewhat programmed to respond to my emotions. If I'm upset when I hold her, she picks up on that. She grows upset herself. On a good day, I am enamored by this connection that we share. On occasions in which she wakes me up in the middle of the night and I am mere seconds away from breaking... that's another story.

Before I even have the chance of rolling out of bed, Harry pops up. I'd not even noticed that he was awake. "Oh," he's instantly cooing, down at the foot of our bed where the basinet is. Every day I rethink our genius plan of keeping the basinet in our room. For the sake of convenience in proximity, sure. But for the sake of my sleep schedule... it is less than ideal. I know that her days here are limited, that soon we will have to transition her into sleeping on her own in the nursery that we had assembled for her. In the long run, it will be much better for the both of us. "That's alright," he's saying to her. I brace myself up on the pillow, my hair falling around me like a curtain. "Come here, my darling buttercup."

I watch as he bends down to pick up the crying baby. Without even needing to look at her, I can imagine the redness of her face as she continues to work herself up. The sight of that face—her eyes welled with tears as she screams and cries—breaks my own heart. It breaks my heart that this is her sole form of communication. The sound of a crying baby is gut-wrenching in ways that I had never known to anticipate. "Give her here," I say, already pulling aside my top to free my breast. The sound of her cries is instinctive for me; they elicit an immediate bodily response.

"No, no," Harry is using his baby voice, holding Edie close to his face. Her vision isn't yet fully formed and he likes making things easier for her by getting right up close to her. In spite of her crying, he presses kisses all over her tiny, growing, pudgy face. "We're going to let mommy sleep, isn't that right, buttercup?" He looks over at me and winks, already walking in the direction to the door of our bedroom. "We'll take one of the bottles from the fridge and we'll let mommy sleep. She did so much work for nine months, growing you, taking care of you, feeding you, and even once you came out mommy still wasn't done. No, she had to go through post-labor contractions and... now mommy gets to rest."

Edie is in his hands, but I don't miss the way that he blows me a kiss with his lips. My heart melts on the spot. I want to stay awake. I want to go downstairs and watch him with her. I want to remember these moments and cherish them, but I'm already sinking back onto the mattress. "I love you," I groan, the words already sounding far away.

"Me you more," he responds, not even missing a beat as he exits the room. "Now you get some special daddy daughter time. Isn't that exciting, buttercup?" He's in the hallway now, and his voice sounds faint, but I can hear just barely the way that he begins to hum the familiar rhythm of My Girl; the song that he sings to her every time we put her down to sleep.

☤☤☤

"Fitzy, go home."

They are words that I thought that I would never speak.