Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Haven’t lost my touch, I’m thinking, allowing that small win to soak in, when an email notification flashes up on the screen. My stomach flips as I realize it’s from a business contact back in New York.
Dear Miss Hoffman . . .
Weird, considering he and I have shared many a lunch together.
Thank you for your recent email . . . blah, blah, blah . . . currently aren’t in need of advisory services in any capacity, nor will we be in the future.
What the hell? That’s not what my email suggested. Hinted at, maybe. I basically just asked if he had time for a call. The asshole was willing to listen to my advice before! What’s with the formal language and the curt brush-off?
Mother . . . fucker.
As I set down my phone, I find the sting is more than just in my cheeks. The rejection burns, maybe because it’s from someone I thought was . . . not a friend, exactly. A friendly contact. But also because this isn’t the only rejection I’ve had since I sent out a bunch of speculative emails, looking for work. True, most of those rejections have come in the form of silence. Which I tried to sell myself as something other than outright rejection.
What the hell is going on? Maybe news travels continents, and that’s why I’m running into walls. Maybe they know I got fired. Or that I’m pregnant.
What is my life right now? I can’t manage a five-year-old, and I can’t get anyone to answer a call or reply to an email. It’s like my identity is slipping from my grip.
Something catches the corner of my gaze. There, on the countertop, lies my gift from Letty. Baby’s First Year.
I feel . . . in need of something—a distraction—as I draw the book closer and lift the cover. I turn the pages, losing myself in the cute illustrations, each page a place to record our child’s milestones. Until I’m struck by the realization that no one recorded my history. The arrival of my first tooth. My first tentative steps. My first word. I hardly remember ever receiving a kind word, let alone having someone take a photograph. There were probably photographs, but I took nothing when I left home. I didn’t want the reminder. Like she didn’t want me.
“Think you’re so goddamn clever.”
“All you’ll ever be is a hole for a man to fuck.”
Those were her parting sentiments.
Projecting, Mama? Oh, how you loathed your little girl.
But this book. These people—Matt, Letty, Clo. There is so much love. My experience won’t be hers, because this baby will be watched with awe. She’ll be encouraged, cherished. And oh, what a life she’ll have, I think, my heart aching with this gladness. And still a little sadness.
Matt spoke of foundations, and I’m beginning to see what he meant. The heights she will reach standing on the shoulders of that man.
My heart skips as I hear soft, padding footsteps and look over my shoulder to find Matt coming toward me, dressed for bed. A pair of checkered pajama pants barely hangs on to his hips, the fingers of his right hand curled around a book.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize you were in here.”
I make a careless gesture—he shouldn’t apologize—as I turn back to the book, dropping the end of my braid as though it’s burning. It’s an old childhood habit, brushing my lips with the end. “It’s your kitchen.” It’s your world. I’m just living in it for a little while. I flick my gaze back his way, unable to resist a second look. His half-nakedness makes my blood feel part lava, part champagne because he’s all hollows and dips in this low light.
“I was hungry,” he says, answering a question unspoken.
“Aren’t you always?”
“You know how it goes,” he says. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“It’s not dark. It’s comforting.”
“And why are we whispering?” His shadow falls over me as he places his book down. The Expectant Dad’s Handbook. He said it was a gift from Fin.
“Because it’s nighttime.” And a good thing too, as my nipples draw tight under the cotton of my nightdress. I shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be here. Whispering and ready for bed in all kinds of ways.
Why does my breathing sound so loud?
“What are you looking at?” he asks, leaning over my shoulder.
“The gift Letty brought earlier. It was so kind of her.”
“She owes you more than that after Clo—”
“She owes me nothing,” I say as I angle my head his way. A mistake, as I watch him reach back to rub the nape of his neck. The flash of dark hair under his arm shouldn’t twist my insides. The pop of his bicep, the muscle and sinew flexing in his chest, I’ll forgive myself for, at least.
“What do you think our baby’s first word will be?”