25

STILL US

by Ashlee Gadd

It’s 3:26 a.m., and the baby is crying. Again. You’re sleeping soundly next to me, your chest rising up and down ever so slightly with each breath. Moonlight shines through the window, casting a faint glow over your peaceful head.

I want to punch you in the face a little bit.

I settle for your arm.

“I got up last time. It’s your turn,” I say coldly.

You grunt in response. The baby cries on.

We continue this dance for a few more minutes: I poke your body, you grunt, I complain, repeat. Eventually our whispers turn to attacks, and then to comparisons of the most ridiculous kind. Next thing I know, we’re arguing over who needs more sleep, whose job is harder, whose daily responsibilities will suffer more as a by-product of inadequate rest. And so on.

Nobody ever wins an argument at 3:26 a.m. We know this. We go to bed with our backs turned.

I close my eyes and remember a pillow someone gifted us at our engagement party. It said “love” on the front and everyone wrote down their best marital advice with a sharpie pen on the back.

One of the lines read: Don’t ever go to bed angry.

What a bunch of crap.

The night before we became parents, I was standing in the doorway of our bathroom with a toothbrush in my mouth when the realization hit me.

This is our last night as a family of two.

After months of decorating a nursery and feeling a tiny human doing somersaults in my belly, you’d think I’d be used to the idea. Somehow I had made peace with most of the other shifts: my changing body, a house suddenly filled with baby gear, a new lifelong commitment that would alter my identity and heart, not to mention my daily schedule and still-evolving career.

But our marriage? Unintentionally, I had saved the processing of that change for the very last minute: 10:00 p.m. the night before the scheduled C-section, to be exact.

A wave of panic washed over me and I began sobbing, my mouth full of toothpaste.

You rushed to my side, worried. “What is it? Are you okay?”

I managed to choke out bits and pieces of the emotions unraveling in my mind: how scared I was, how bittersweet that night felt, how much I was going to miss the pre-kid version of us.

You wrapped your arms around me and smiled.

“We’ll be okay,” you promised.

I wanted to believe you, but my heart remained a weird mixture of terrified and paranoid. I had so many fears, so many questions. Would our marriage end up on the back burner? What if the flame burned out? How would we protect it?

In that moment of panic, I was so focused on what our marriage was giving up that I didn’t even have time to think about everything it would gain.

Do you remember New Year’s Day 2006, before we were married, when I woke up writhing in pain and my mom called you from the car?

“We’re taking Ashlee to the emergency room. You can meet us there,” she said.

Somehow you beat us to the hospital. You showed up in your pajamas, hair all awry, not an ounce of caffeine in your blood. An hour later, I was hooked up to a morphine drip, sweet relief running through my body while the doctor muttered something about a kidney stone. The morphine made me sick, and I started puking in a bucket right in front of you, my adorable boyfriend who had barely seen me without makeup. I was mortified. You never even flinched. I stayed in that hospital bed all day while you held my hand in yours.

Six and a half years later, we took up residence in a different hospital room. I was watching you hold our newborn baby while the pain meds crept through my veins and made me nauseated. In a matter of seconds, you handed the baby off, grabbed a bin, and shoved it right under my face while I got sick. Our baby was barely two hours old, still fresh and new and a miracle to hold, but you sprang into action without a second thought. Someone else held our baby while you held back my hair. For as long as I live, I will never forget that—in your first few hours as a dad, you still chose me.

Four years into parenthood, our marriage has grown and stretched, sometimes against its will, like a too-small T-shirt being pulled over my head. Some days it feels like the old version of us is a ghost, floating around the house, taunting us in superiority. Other days I like the new version of us better—no doubt these kids have made us stronger, closer, and more resourceful.

But my favorite days are when the two worlds collide, when a bit of the past meets a moment of the present and all of a sudden I’m recognizing a piece of my old life inside my new one.

Once upon a time, our weekends were lazy. We used to lounge on the couch in our sweats all morning with our legs entangled, a pretzel of limbs. I made you breakfast; you rubbed my feet. My coffee stayed hot and your energy drink stayed cold. We had all the time in the world.

Now we’re up at 6:00 a.m. on Saturdays with the same routine as weekdays—cartoons on the TV and two cups of Cheerios being spilled on the couch while you and I drink coffee with our eyes closed. Our weekends are full and exhausting from dawn till dusk. Downtime looks like lying on the floor while children climb on our backs, running toy trains down our legs, pretending we’re human railroads. And there, on the carpet, our bodies melting lazily into the ground, I see it. You smile at me and I smile back. We’re still us.

Once upon a time, our love was sustained through big romantic gestures—surprises and gifts, rose petals and love notes. You made me dinner and lit every candle in the house. I surprised you on your birthday with breakfast in bed and plane tickets for a spontaneous getaway. “We leave in an hour! Pack your bag!” I ordered with a mischievous grin.

Oh, the romance back then. I remember it well: the lingerie, the slow dancing in the kitchen.

Let’s be honest: I miss it sometimes.

You probably do too (mostly the lingerie).

And yet.

Last week you put gas in my tank because you noticed it was almost empty, and I know you do that because you love me. I have to look extra hard to see all the little ways we love each other now. It’s in the last of the milk that you left for me, and in the four-dollar bouquet of flowers you brought home from Trader Joe’s. It’s in the peanut butter cups I snuck into the cart for you, and in the way I fold your T-shirts. Every once in a blue moon, you surprise me with a grand gesture, like the time we sat at dinner celebrating my small writing victory and you handed me a poem that you (the nonwriter) had written for me that afternoon. I cried all over my meatballs, and there it was again. We’re still us.

In some ways, everything is smaller now, but when I think of the effort it takes to love each other amid a year’s worth of sleep deprivation and fifty-six days of potty training and all of the other exhausting situations we find ourselves in . . . there’s really nothing small about it.

Underneath all the chaos, the celebration and grief, the leaking sippy cups and mushy fruit snacks between the couch cushions, we are still there. I can still see us, the love that founded and grounded all of it.

It’s morning. There are dishes in the sink from last night’s dinner, but the kitchen smells like coffee and forgiveness. You grab my favorite white mug, the large one, and add the perfect amount of hazelnut creamer before sliding it toward me on the counter.

A peace offering.

We’re too tired to apologize with words, so we apologize with our eyes. We’re both sorry, we know. Fighting at 3:00 a.m. is dumb. We’re tired. It’s okay.

If anything, I’m reminded that marriage has been, and continues to be, a refining process.

Sure, it’s only a cup of coffee you’re offering me, but it’s more than that. This coffee is everything: a fresh start, a reminder that every day we wake up and make the choice to stay, to put in the work, to lay down our own selfish desires for the good of the other person, for the good of this marriage and for the good of this family.

While we may not be the same couple we were twelve years ago (skinny, tan), or even five years ago (two disposable incomes), or even four hours ago (zombies), when I look into your eyes after a long night of broken sleep, I know there’s nobody else I’d rather do this holy work of raising children with than you.

Because I love you. And you love me. And underneath it all, we’re still us.