The baby plays on the floor, contentedly, for how long, who can say. It's been seven minutes already. Maybe another four? Another seven? He bats a wooden crab furiously, his movements spastic, then determinedly scoots after it as it goes careening across the floor. "BA BA BA," he chortles. Am I ignoring him, or fostering independent play? I wonder to myself, the certainty of my mistakes is the answer, obviously, it always is. If it's my fault, then it means I can fix it, I patiently explain to my therapist during our weekly phone calls. Forty-five minutes each week, that I'm supposed to have to myself. Forty-five minutes, interrupted at least two or three times. The seven-year-old needs something from the room, or just wants to wave from the door. The two-year-old cries for me, wants a hug, a kiss. "Mama all done phone!" The baby is awake, needs to nurse. My thoughts, constantly interrupted, my therapist grows quiet on the other end of the line. Are you there, Caitlin? She is patient. I am embarrassed, infuriated, unsurprised. Then, for the rest of the day, I hear references to my "self-care" and the sacrifice involved in making it happen.
I am patient with the kids. I hold space for emotions, for tantrums. I take deep breaths. I get up with the baby three, four, six times a night. I am kind to my patients. I answer their questions about our ever-changing visitor policy and nod sympathetically while they tell me they can't believe they have to have this baby without their mother with them. I chat nicely with my coworkers, asking after their kids and their families, remembering names and ages of grandkids I have never met. I have nothing left for him. I disentangle his underwear from his pants, unball his filthy socks before putting them in the washing machine and the rage rises inside me like an erupting volcano, scaring me with its intensity. I fucking asked him to stop doing this and he doesn't fucking listen. I wipe up the coffee grounds he has left on the counter, again, and the rage gives way to absolute indifference, gone as quickly as it arose. It doesn't matter. None of this matters.
I stand in the winter drizzle at the park with my best friend. Our boys run across the sopping empty playground and she says, Maybe you can find a way to just coexist for the kids. Is that what you want? Tears sting my eyes, unbidden, I blink as I unzip my parka to nurse the baby who looks just like him. No, I say, remembering the warmth of his solid form behind me in bed last night, I want us to be okay.
