While I was nursing the baby, you settled into bed beside us. But you had this tense, pained expression, then you sat straight up and didn’t move for several moments.
I said your name and reached for you, and you nearly jumped out of your skin, twisting your body away from me.
I said, “Are you okay?”
“I’m not okay!”
“Talk to me.”
You never replied.
From time to time, your fingers went to your neck, your lips moved, counting the beats.
Eventually, you settled back down in the bed, brows furrowed, eyes wide and wild, darting left to right so fast for so long I literally googled, “psychotic break” while the baby slept. Nursing. Oblivious.
I tried again, “Can you tell me what’s happening?”
You didn’t say anything. You were playing notes, or maybe typing, fingers moving rhythmically in the air. You seemed to calm after a while, and you slumped into the covers.
When I finally unlatched the baby and laid him in the crib, I went to the bathroom. Got some more water. You stirred, sat up a little, when I climbed into bed still wearing my clothes.
“What happened?”
“Hmmmmm?”
It was a friendly hum. Warm, like I’d interrupted a pleasant nap. Like maybe you’d like me to join you.
“I mean, what was that? Earlier? You said you weren’t okay.”
Confusion shadowed your features, and I couldn’t tell if it was an act or sincere.
“You don’t remember any of that?”
You shook your head, settled down into the pillows some more. Bored with the interrogation.
“How much did you drink after dinner? When I took the baby for a walk?”
“I put everything away.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I said I put everything away.”
“I’m not asking if you cleaned up, I’m asking what else you had to drink.”
You kept evading. Clinging to this weird truth, because it was the only answer you could come up with that was true. Kept acting confused.
Except you already told me you had “just a little more.” Back when the baby and I first got home. I guess you forgot.
I turned out the lights and lay there fuming. Then I got back up and went to the bar, the flashlight from my phone bobbing erratically in the dark. I grabbed whatever I could carry, and poured it down the kitchen sink.
It didn’t make me feel any better. It just felt like a waste.
Everything feels like a waste.
