Luis repeatedly slams a wooden piece against his puzzle when it doesn’t fit, then cries when his hand hurts. I bring his tiny fist to my mouth and shower it with kisses until he’s giggling and brush his silky, fine hair back from his face with a sigh.
“So easy when you’re a baby, isn’t it?” Amelia sits on the couch and smiles at her son. “Ready to burn down the world one minute and the next...” She laughs when Luis starts gumming the piece then holds it out to me with a long, glistening string of drool still connecting it to his mouth.
“Hmm.” After that noncommittal response, I take the puzzle piece and trade it for a fabric book with crinkly pages that he loves. Once he’s engrossed in his book, I scoot back on the floor until I can lean back against the side of my empty wheelchair to watch him read.
“You’re not gonna tell me how today went, are you?”
I glance over at her. “There’s not much to tell.” Such a lie and the flat expression on her face tells me she knows it.
She lowers her non-crinkly page book to her lap. “You know I didn’t just invite you over so you could play with my kid and give me a break from doing floor transfers while dealing with morning sickness. I mean, I love that and please don’t ever leave, but also you can talk to me. Sometimes I say things that are almost helpful.”
“You say a lot of helpful things,” I tell her as I clean the puzzle piece with a wipe and reach to pop it into its opening. “But I just want to forget about it.” If the fatigue in my voice doesn’t communicate that sentiment strongly enough, I let my eyes fall closed.
There’s maybe a second or two of silence from Amelia before she says, “Okay, but—”
I groan. “No, but.” Luis is very aware of tones so even though I’m feeling irritated, I keep my voice soft and even. “I’m not ready to celebrate my life. It doesn’t feel like a good thing right now and I’m not really looking for you to tell me all the ways that disabled lives can be great.”
Matching my gentle tone, Amelia says, “It’s okay to accept your disability and still mourn too, especially on life days. I can look at my husband and son and be so happy, but also have to go lock myself in the bathroom sometimes and cry. It’s a complicated thing, and your feelings about it will change and grow alongside you. But—” and she emphasizes the word so much that Luis looks up at her “—if you keep trying to convince yourself that your feelings don’t matter and that if you ignore them long enough that they’ll go away, they build until eventually—” She makes an impressive explosion sound that causes Luis to laugh and crawl over to the couch, pulling himself up to his feet so she can lift him onto her lap. “So maybe just explode with me because you know I can deal with the carnage.”
“That was a really good explosion sound,” I tell her, because it was and because I’m not ready to respond to what she actually said yet.
“I’ve been working on it. Mathias can do all kinds of explosion sounds and laser guns and everything and I am not going to be the lame parent who can only go ‘pew, pew pew.’” She snuggles her son and takes on more of a baby voice. “No, Mama is going to be just as good because I still have a crippling need to prove that I can be as capable as my able-bodied husband even when it comes to ridiculous things like making battle sound effects for a baby.” She sighs and turns to me. “See what I mean about complicated?”
She plays with Luis for a while after that and I watch her. Nothing today went like I wanted it to and I get what Amelia means about talking about it instead of keeping everything bottled up, but at the same time I don’t see the point. Ethan isn’t here and my mom wouldn’t stay. How does saying any of that out loud make me feel better? Right now I just feel numb and I don’t want to risk losing that.
“You know,” she says after setting Luis back down to crawl over to me. “Things are going to be really different when the new baby comes. We’ll keep a bassinet in our room for the first year probably and the addition we’re planning will be done before then. I never use the office in the guest house, so we’re just going to turn it back into a bedroom. It’s pretty big too and it’s just going to be empty...”
I freeze in the act of helping Luis balance to walk, that numbness beginning to seep away. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I’m not stupid and you seem to think I am. Also because Neel talks a lot.” She gives me a reproachful look. “College in California, really?”
I lower Luis until he’s sitting and squeeze my arms into my sides. I understand what she meant about emotions building until they explode. It’s almost as if my heart has started beating a countdown. “I was going to tell you.”
“But why? Unless you’re a phenomenal liar, you love working in the shop as much as I do. And okay, fine, maybe you’ll want to start something of your own eventually, but there is still a lot I can teach you right here. Why would you want to give that up for an expensive degree I don’t even think you want?”
Tick.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. That’s what I’m oh so subtly trying to tell you. If you just need to move out of your mom’s house then you can move in with me and Mathias. We already talked about it. You’d have the whole guest house to yourself and unlike a college dorm, there’s plenty of privacy. Plus we were already planning to remodel the bathroom and make it accessible.”
Tick. Tick.
“I know there’s a lot with you and your mom and maybe you feel like college is your way out, but it’s not the only way. Maybe it’s not even the best way. Just think about it, okay?”
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“I’m not going to push you, but I’m serious. Mathias and I would love it. Luis and this new little one too. Promise me you’ll give it some thought.”
“I will.” But I won’t. I can’t. I’m scrambling for that numbness to come back but it’s not there.