1
Gordo
All of the proper nighttime rituals had finally been completed, and now I could almost breathe. I’d fed my almost month-old daughter, Giuliana, her last bottle for the day. When her eyes had finally fluttered shut, her thick dark eyelashes dusting her rosy cheeks, I’d managed to change her diaper without any fuss. That was a trick my brother, Mason, had taught me. It was far easier to put a clean diaper on a milk-drunk baby than try to do it before, when she was hungry and raging.
After the diaper came her footie pajamas, and the whole time I dressed her, I marveled at how small the jammies were, like a doll’s outfit. Finally, I had rocked Giuliana in the dark. It didn’t matter that she’d already fallen asleep a half-hour before—the rocking was just for me. It was the only time in the entire day I didn’t question if I’d made the right choice to be a single father.
The soft smell of Giuliana’s hair sent waves of comfort through me, soothing me while the white noise machine hummed in the corner. The gentle rise and fall of her chest and the heat of her pressed against me was so wondrous that for a moment, I could almost believe I was good at this.
When rocking her, I could forget about the poo that had exploded from her diaper earlier, staining the beige couch in a Cheeto-orange smear. I could forget about how I’d left her on the couch while I ran to get disinfectant, the thought that she might roll off not even crossing my mind until it did. That had caused a lurch in my heart and a spike of adrenaline that hadn’t faded for hours, even though she would have been entirely fine; she couldn’t even roll over yet.
Rocking Giuliana helped me forget that I was alone in this when there were supposed to be two of us. My ex-husband, Kyle, and I had planned on raising a baby together when we’d decided to become fathers six years into our marriage. The expensive and heartbreaking rounds of in vitro with a surrogate had lasted two years, and left us feeling fragile and desperate.
I’d hoped the grueling experience, that constant pain and stress, would bring Kyle and I closer. But two years can feel like a lifetime, long enough for two people who love each other to grow apart, and it only took one last call—a positive pregnancy with an egg that had my sperm—for Kyle to be out the door.
Giuliana let out a toot and a soft sigh, and I knew it was past time to put her in the crib. It was time to put me to bed, too. Exhaustion was relentless, and no one had been joking when they’d told me that raising a baby would be tiring.
But it wasn’t just tiring. It was torturous, made bearable only by the thought that the small infant I held was mine. The whole of my world now fit into my hands.
“Time for bed, Peanut,” I whispered as I maneuvered out of the rocking chair. It was a little past eight in the evening. If I was lucky, I could grab a quick shower and a few hours of sleep before it was time for a night feeding.
As soon as she hit the mattress, her arms and legs sprawled out, making her into a tiny starfish. Every parenting class I’d taken had said absolutely no blankets in the crib with babies. No pillows, no stuffed animals, nothing but a baby on a mattress. But there was a deep instinct in me to tuck, and I stood, letting it ebb. One day I’d be able to tuck her in.
One day I’d have a handle on being a single father, and I’d have built a business from the ground up that allowed me to give Giuliana anything and everything she could want or need.
But first, sleep.
Maybe I’d skip the shower. The baby wouldn’t care if I smelled a little, or if my hair was greasy. She only cared if her diaper was wet or if I was late getting a bottle to her. In a way, it was nice to have such simple demands. On the other hand, they were constant, her needs turning into a litany of cries that marked the hours.
If Kyle was here, it wouldn’t be so hard.
I shoved the thought out of my mind. It was definitely time for sleep if my mind was so determined to latch onto things I couldn’t control. Instead, I tried to focus on the portfolio of graphic art I was building. I needed some edgier designs if I was going to be able to land some of the newer, hipper business springing up in town.
In bed, those thoughts became sluggish. I was so tired that a fugue settled in before sleep did, making it feel as if I were sinking. It was the kind of tired that, once felt, made a body spin and revolt because if it wasn’t allowed to sleep for twelve hours straight, it might die.
You won’t die from a few sleepless nights, I chided myself. Only it wasn’t going to be a few, was it? Without Kyle, without my parents, without anyone, I’d be the one up for every wake-up of Giuliana’s life. It could be years before I slept a full eight hours at once.
My heart thumped with this realization so hard that it was as if my body buzzed with it. But then the thump happened again. And again. Shit. A glance at the clock told me all I needed to know—it was now nine-thirty, and the neighbors were having yet another party.
Giuliana and I had spent the first two weeks of her life living with my brother. But for the past week we’d been home, in our new home that was supposed to offer a fresh start from the life I’d had with Kyle. And for the majority of that week, the house next door has had parties. Loud parties, with the bass going so loud my windows rattled.
Most of the time Giuliana could sleep through it. But not always, the parties sometimes keeping us both up. God, I needed tonight to be a sleep-through night.
The monitor crackled, and Giuliana’s tiny wail came rushing through the speaker. Apparently tonight would not be a night she could sleep through the noise. Anger flared hot in me. For the love of all that was holy, what was with those assholes?
This was a residential neighborhood, with a homeowners association and five house designs that peppered each street and cul-de-sac. I’d chosen the house for those reasons, wanting something appropriate for raising a baby, and I’d even broken the lease on my apartment to achieve it. The one thing there shouldn’t have been was nightly ragers at the neighbor’s like they lived in a goddamned frat house.
My daughter’s cries escalated as I lurched from my bed and shoved my feet into some shoes. Enough was enough. Being a father was hard enough—I wasn’t going to let some impolite jerk make it even tougher.
It took no time to pull Giuliana from her crib and strap her to my chest with a baby wrap. God bless the person who invented baby wraps. Having my hands free made me feel more in control, while the warm, snug presence of my daughter on my chest kept me grounded. And it helped her, too. It was probably smug, but I loved that my daughter was the most calm when we were together like this.
It was warm outside, muggy in the way it got before the rain came. No clouds yet, though, just a blanket of stars that would have given me pause if I couldn’t still hear the party next door. The music was loud enough that I felt as if I were already in the house instead of stalking across the dewy grass, mind flipping through a hundred rude things I wanted to say.
The yard was well maintained, and there were flowers in pots along the steps, blue and white hydrangeas, which seemed at odds with the piercing growl of guitar coming from inside. At this point, I hesitated at the foot of the stairs, trying to decide if I was too angry for this house call, if maybe I should wait until tomorrow, when I’d cooled off a little, so I wouldn’t do something I’d regret.