Beside the sofa, he’d evidently gotten one of the Old Ladies to bring in a bassinet, and on the rickety coffee table in front of her, her diaper bag was open and there were full bottles in there which told me she’d been expressing milk.
Not enough to take her through the night, mind, and as Maddox wasn’t fussing too bad, I figured she’d been feeding him every couple of hours.
Was she asleep now? Or just pretending?
Cuddling Maddox closely to my chest, smiling when he nuzzled my boobs again, I headed over to the sofa and though it icked me out to sit on it, I rested against her and peered over to see her face which she had turned away, her back to the room.
"You must want to shower," I told her softly, aware from her tension that she was awake.
She didn’t answer.
Maddox fussed harder.
She heaved a sigh then, despondently, whispered, "I wish he liked me."
The words weren’t what I expected, but I hummed under my breath as I bobbed Maddox in my arms. "Of course he likes you."
"He likes my boobs."
I snorted. "I think you’ll find he likes a lot more than that. Did you know babies still think they’re in the womb at his age?"
She tilted her head back so she could look at me. "Really?"
I nodded. "You want to hold him?"
"I always want to hold him," she whispered miserably. "He’s the one who doesn’t want me to hold him."
I clucked my tongue, then carefully handed the baby over to her. When Maddox settled against her, he immediately started bawling, which had MaryCat sobbing too.
Goodness.
"He can feel your tension," I tried to soothe her. "You need to relax, honey. You’re his mommy. Of course he loves you."
"Why does he always cry? I’m so tired of him crying." She released a soft, grief-stricken sob. "He won’t stop. Not unless someone else holds him."
"That’s because you’re tense around him," I told her calmly, even though I felt her pain like it was my own. "You’re stressing him out with your stress."
Well, I really hoped that was the reason why.
It was a long darn time since I’d had home ec and had learned about babies, and about as much time since Cyan had been this age.
Apparently, my softly-spoken, non-judgmental words worked. "You really think so?" she asked, the plea in her voice so strong that it hurt me to hear it. "Mom says it’s because he hates me. She says it’s because I’m a shitty mother."
My eyes bugged. "She said what?" MaryCat’s mouth wobbled a bit as she awkwardly edged her way into a sitting position. I held out my arms to help her upright, and murmured, "They’re super sensitive to how you’re feeling, MaryCat. Storm said something about your mom trying to take him away?"
A sardonic laugh hiccuped from her. "Yeah, Moms are supposed to help, aren’t they? Not try to steal your baby away from you." Maddox fussed but then stopped squirming when she adjusted her shirt and started feeding him.
When a relieved sigh escaped her as she tipped her head back against the sofa, a soft laugh escaped me. "I swear, there’s no pain like it, is there?
She pulled a face. "No."
"No better feeling either."
"Agreed. Oxytocin FTW."
I smiled, but then a thought occurred to me that had it dying. "Why did your mom do that? Try to take him away from you?"
"I’m not being paranoid!" MaryCat barked at me.
"I never thought you were," I replied quietly, well aware that the other woman desperately needed more sleep and to chill out a little.
Of course, that wasn’t so easy with a newborn, when you were on the lam, hundreds of miles from home, and the man you loved was only God knew where in the country.
Frickin’ bikers. I remembered those days so well.
As VP, Storm hadn’t gone on as many runs, but back in the early days of our relationship, I’d hated it when he went off for days at a time.
My friends had left for college but they’d stopped talking to me months before that; my family had cut me from their lives; I didn’t fit in with the Sinners, and my status as a biker’s wife had made people who’d known me almost all of my life suddenly turn their backs on me in town… I was alone.
So isolated and lonely that it made me shiver just to remember those times.
No wonder I’d grown to depend on Storm for everything.
No wonder our relationship hadn’t been healthy.
MaryCat broke into my troubled thoughts with: "I was diagnosed with postpartum depression."
"Lots of women are," was my calm response.
"Not according to my mom. The way she was talking to me, it was like I was going to hurt him or something." Her voice broke. "As if I’d ever do that."
Mind whirring, I questioned, "Digger’s on a run?"
"Yes."
"Do you know when he’s coming back?"
"He said four days, but you know what they’re like."
My nose crinkled. "Time flies."
"Exactly," she said with a sigh, before she tipped her chin down against the crown of Maddox’s head and gently hugged him. "I wish he were here."
"He can be. I’ll bet he’ll ride here and not back to the other chapter."
"Do you think?" she warbled hopefully.
"Why would he go to West Orange or Manhattan," I amended, "when you’re here?"
"Maybe Rex wants him there?"
"I’m sure Rex will get it." I reached over and with a finger, softly traced the fuzzy hairline at the back of Maddox’s head. "If he doesn’t, I’ll make him get it."
MaryCat shot me a watery smile. "You will?"
"Men aren’t the only ones with balls. I had to grow a pair of my own."
"When you left Storm?"
"It took a lot of courage." God, understatement.
"But you did it."
"I did." I smiled back at her. "Best thing I ever did. Shocked the hell out of him, though."
"I heard about Cyan," she whispered. "I’m so sorry, Keira, but I’m relieved she’s safe."
"She’s definitely that, but… things are hard right now." My smile was rueful. "Not unlike Maddox, she’s acting out. That doesn’t get easier. Being a mom doesn’t either.
"At first, after, I thought everything was going to go back to normal, but then I realized there is no normal. Not without Storm, and I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know how to fix things for her when the solution isn’t feasible for me."
MaryCat blinked. "She wants you back together again?"
"And she makes that abundantly clear every time he comes home for dinner."
"You have to do what’s right for you."
"For her too." I smiled down at Maddox. "I didn’t mean to change the subject, just… I guess I wanted you to know that having kids and being a mom, well, it’s okay to feel like it’s impossible some days. Because it really can feel that way. I didn’t have PPD and some days, I bawled my eyes out.