by Jade White
“Sit down,” Ryan told her. “Hang out for a while. Shawna, I’m going to order some food. Is there anything you don’t want us ordering?” he asked her, strangely enough, considering the fact that she might have an aversion to something.
“Italian,” she said with a broken heart. She loved pizza, but she couldn’t stand it lately.
Ryan ordered food for him and their sister, but Shawna didn’t want anything. She sat down at the table and realized how good it felt to sit down. She was ready for pregnancy and all of this madness to be over.
She knew she had a couple of months before everything was even remotely close to being physically different, but by then, she was sure that Blake would be trying his hardest to drive her insane with keeping her up at night. That was okay, she was looking forward to all of it. She was eagerly anticipating all of Blake’s moments in her life.
When the food arrived, they sat around the table, silently whispering and eating as they shared Chinese food, something that Ryan picked up on that Shawna had been craving throughout her pregnancy that hadn’t quite gone away yet. She would pick at their Mandarin chicken and she smiled while they talked about life and as always, it drifted back to their insane parents and how they were still trying to give Ryan, who was thirty-two now, a curfew if he was living at home with them.
Shawna was surprised at how excited and happy it made her to have someone around. She had been going it alone for a while now and she had really been used to the silence of her apartment or the music that she was playing. She wasn’t interested in loneliness anymore and as Ryan ate dinner, she knew that this was going to be another chapter in her life. The last chapter had been about such loneliness and isolation that she couldn’t help but think that right now, there were things that were going to be different.
“So, what’s the plan now?” Ryan asked her as he ate some of the fried rice, looking at her as she thought about it, rocking Blake for a while as he ate his tiny bottle.
“Spend some time at home with him and then head back to work as soon as possible. I want to get back into the game before they think they can run that place without me.”
She thought about going back to work and it scared her. She wanted to start building the new world that she was looking forward to, there was something about getting out there and starting up the fight again that was so alluring to her. She wanted every chance that she could take.
“What are your plans with him?” Amanda asked, gesturing to Blake who was starting to fall back asleep. She gently placed him in the bouncer again and looked at Amanda.
“I know a few nannies that I might hire,” she said with a shrug.
“Aren’t you going to contact the father and let him know?” Amanda asked, completely forgetting that there was such a thing as tact and grace in the world.
Ryan looked at Amanda and a cold breeze seemed to sweep through the entire apartment as Amanda froze up and realized that she had just done the unthinkable. She had just done something that no one was allowed to do in Shawna’s life and they especially weren’t allowed to do it in her apartment. It was the unwritten law of Shawna’s life and it was the easiest rule to break in the world.
For Shawna, it had been something that she had established early on when her parents were berating her and shouting at her about what she had done to herself and that she had been sleeping around like some kind of whore. It was all unfair to her and she was done with that kind of treatment in her life. She was only going to have positive influences in her life and that meant she had to set up rules and boundaries.
Chaos was the complete opposite of everything that she wanted and Amanda had brought up the one thing she had most adamantly pointed to never come up in her life again, because it made her angry.
It made her angry because Shawna wasn’t a fool and she knew her family and friends were talking about Victor. She knew that behind her back, the world was still moving and people were still people out there and that meant that they were curious as to what it meant that she had a child with a man that she was not currently with.
It was a topic that she didn’t want to discuss and she didn’t want other people around her discussing it as well. They could take that stupidity and nonsense elsewhere if they wanted to discuss it, but it wouldn’t be around her. She wasn’t some novelty for them to gossip about. This was her life and it meant more to her than anyone else.
“We don’t talk about him here,” she said coldly, looking at Amanda, locking eyes so that her sister understood fully that she was not allowed to bring up the topic of Blake’s father ever again. Amanda looked down at her carton of orange chicken and tried her hardest to be invisible.
Good, Shawna thought.
CHAPTER THREE
She was glad to see them leave and she was ready to be alone again. There was something about having people around that was truly exhausting to her. It was something she couldn’t quite explain, but she wanted to make sure there was something left for her to enjoy.
The process of coming out of her shell and interacting with people again was something that was exhausting to her and she was still getting used to it. It was hard to make the sudden transition and she wanted to know how to do it easier without having to suffer through everything that made her feel exhausted.
For the past nine months, she had basically invested all of her time and effort on making herself better, making her home nicer, and getting to the point where she felt financially stable and ready to deal with everything that motherhood was bringing her way.
Now that she was trying to expand beyond that, she knew she was going to need time more than anything. Adjustment was the hardest part of any life. She wanted to be a part of it, but she was going to need some time getting used to it. Everything about her life made her think that she could easily do it, just that she would need time getting into this new phase of her life.
The last phase of her life had taken her to a dark place. When she was alone, she would often think about Victor and she had wondered whether or not she was going to take up the hunt to find him. There was part of her that was always going to find it interesting and necessary for her to take up arms and to chase that man down, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she probably wouldn’t.
She wasn’t going to do anything. At this point, she knew that Victor was long gone and that her dreams of finding him were nothing more than fantasy that she would never actually get to see any fruit from. He had left her life and she had decided that it was time to move on.
But hearing Amanda bring him up brought all of the old feelings back to the surface. She wanted to think about him and dwell on him, but she knew it was a waste of time. The more she thought about him and the more she worried about him, the more elusive and painful everything got to her.
She wasn’t the kind of person who could just let go of a man like that so easily and to think about him only gave him more power over her. She needed to just cut him loose and she needed to give up on that chapter in her life. What was going to be so hard about that?
She picked up the empty cartons and tossed them into the garbage, washing the silverware that they had used and her chopsticks before she decided to move on and do something else. Shawna had become addicted to the idea of cleaning as she went through her house. Leaving things for later was the biggest waste of time that she had ever found in her life. It was addicting and it was destructive. She took a deep breath and looked at Blake lying in the bouncer. It was getting late and she should really start considering what she was going to do for the night.
Shawna had found herself looking at Blake and staring at him more than anything else. It was amazing how a baby could take away so much time of your life and how you could be totally fine with just letting hours and days vanish while you watched a tiny little person living their life peacefully.
She wondered if she was ever going to be able to get used to the idea that she had a small human in her life that was completely de
pendent upon her for keeping him alive. She thought about how unqualified she felt for the role, even after all of the reading she had done about it. She had gone to class after class about how to take care of her child, but she still felt like she wasn’t ready.
There was no getting ready to be a mother and there was no practice run. In fact, there was nothing that really got anyone ready to be a parent other than getting that child placed in their hands and realizing for the first time in their lives that they were responsible for more than just themselves. Being a parent was more than being prepared financially or emotionally for having a child, in fact, that didn’t mean anything in the end.
In the end, she was willing to put her old life behind her and rise to the occasion. She was willing to be something different and something new for the sake of the child that was inside of her. She decided that Blake was going to be ahead of his curve. He was going to have the best set up for life.
She stared at him as he slept, gently picking him up and carrying him to her bedroom where she had a bassinet waiting for him. She was going to be the only one in this fight and that meant there would be no movie scenes in her life where she would roll over and nudge her spouse to get up and take his turn with the baby. No, she was on her own and that meant she was going to be the one in charge. She wasn’t bitter about it and she didn’t have a problem with it. She would learn to adapt.
Setting down a blanket so that Blake wouldn’t roll over onto his back or stomach, she made sure that everything was perfect for him, just like the classes and the books that she had read. She wanted everything to be just right for him and she was nervous for every little thing that might happen to him. She might have been panicking too much, but she wanted to do right by him.
She watched him lying there with his little cap on and swaddled like a little burrito of love and affection, softly sleeping as he breathed quietly, so quietly that she was worried for him. She would constantly hold her fingers over his face to feel the puff of warm breath that would wash over her fingers. She was terrified that he was going to stop breathing and she instantly knew that she wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep whether he woke up crying or not. She was going to be up, worried about him anyway.
It was strange to think that the world was so huge and powerful for little babies to exist inside of it. He was so small and fragile. He wasn’t ready for any of this. She was going to have to make sure she was taking every precaution to make sure that he was safe and well cared for.
“I love you,” she said softly to him.
There was something that made her feel warm and whole inside of her chest, swelling and swirling with a warmth that made her feel as if something in her life was finally right. There was something inside of her that was complete and fulfilled.
She was ready for anything that might come their way, so long as she was going to make sure that he was there, right next to her, through all of it. She just wanted to make sure that he was safe and healthy. She didn’t want there to be any point in her life where she wasn’t aware of what was happening in his tiny, little life. She loved the sight of him, watching him breathe and the world around him moving, waiting for him.
He was going to be a magical little person and she was so excited to see what his personality was like. She was excited to see what he loved and what captivated his little mind. She wanted to know if he was going to be an athlete or if he was going to be an academic. She wanted to know what would make him laugh and what his dreams would be.
She turned and left him in her room, eager to see him when she came back to check on him. She wanted to make sure that everything was locked up and that they were ready for the night when she walked through the apartment, looking for any sign of a mess or trouble. She was paranoid since she had been left pregnant and abandoned by Victor. She couldn’t help but run over images of him inside of her mind, over and over again. She replayed them and thought about how he had seemed so otherworldly and unnatural.
There was something about him that unnerved her that she still couldn’t put her finger on. There was something about him that made her nervous, like he was someone she should truly be afraid of.
Walking into the kitchen, she looked around, feeling the call of ice cream, but she resisted it. Her body had been destroyed by the pregnancy and it was something she was going to work very hard to correct over the coming months and try to avoid having some ice cream as a snack for a while. Of course, she’d done pretty well through her pregnancy, going to the gym and keeping her diet healthy, as well as her cravings would allow.
As she walked into the living room, she shivered, feeling a cold breeze rush over her and she suddenly felt like there was something wrong. She looked back at the room where she had left Blake and her heart started to pound. She rushed back across the living room and gently opened the door as quickly as possible. She had greased the hinges so that she wouldn’t wake him up when she opened the door. As the pale light was cast across the bassinet, she watched him for a moment, making sure that he was safe before she turned and walked back out into the living room, keeping the door open.
Something felt wrong. There was a cold inside of her and she didn’t like it. It was wrong and it was so sudden that she thought maybe there was a window open. She walked to the nearest window and checked it to make sure that everything was okay. It was shut and locked and there was no window open in there.
Walking over to the door, she wondered what she was feeling. What was it that was lurking inside of her that was making her feel so off and like she was in danger. It was the kind of feeling that reminded her of when she was a child and she went to live with her grandparents for a few weeks over the summer with her siblings out in Nebraska.
She had stood in front of an electric fence, sensing the danger and knowing that it was going to hurt. It was like there was this lengthy period of time where all she could feel was the lingering anticipation of the pain and the terror of what would happen before she grabbed the wire.
She opened the door and looked out into the hallway of her building. There was no sign that there was anyone in the hallway and there was nothing that was out of place. There was something about this building that had drawn her to it for the safety features. She knew she was being paranoid and completely unreasonable. All she could think about was that she needed to get a grip on herself.
There was no wire here for her to grab and there was no terror waiting for her. She was just a nervous woman who was lost and scared for the moment. She was going to be just fine and she needed to remember that there were no creatures that went bump in the night. She walked back into her bedroom and looked at Blake as he slept, knowing she needed to be braver than that for his safety. She needed to be strong and not so terrified of things that she didn’t understand.
But, as she watched him and got ready for bed silently, so that she didn’t disturb him, she knew there was something gnawing at her. There was something was bothering her. She just couldn’t put her finger on it.
As she crawled underneath the covers, staring at the bassinet, she couldn’t help but feel like the answer was staring her in the eyes, lurking in the darkness. She felt like there was someone or something watching her, but there was nothing in the room. She was being ridiculous.
* * *
No matter how hard she had planned for the inevitability of this day coming, there was something about the morning catching up with her that she had not been prepared for. It was a ridiculous feeling and she couldn’t help but feel like she had been completely caught off guard as she tried to get to the door as quickly as possible.
What kind of a person wasn’t ready to go back to work after a month of being home and getting ready? She tried her hardest to put her earring into her ear as she opened the door and smiled at Greta.
Greta was the miracle woman who lived in the building with Shawna. She was a bit of an ambitious and hardworking soul who had taken it upon herself to start working harder and harder at becoming so
meone who worked two jobs. She worked at nights and during the days, she was a babysitter that Shawna had contracted out privately for herself. The other people Greta had worked for only needed her once or twice a week. Shawna had gladly taken up the mantle of being this young girl’s patron.
“Hey Greta,” she said with a smile to the young, twenty three year old who was hoping to be an aspiring painter and wanted to be famous and known all across the planet, but right now, she was working as a babysitter and a clerk at the nearest store.
There was nothing wrong with that and there was something about it that made Shawna feel like she knew someone who would one day be famous. It was a win win situation for both of them.
“Sorry I’m running late,” she said with a placating smile on her face. “I went through the schedule a thousand times, but things are not coming back together as I hoped they would. I’m a million pounds overweight and nothing fits. I’m freaking out.”
“No worries,” Greta said with a soft smile, entering her apartment and acting like they had just met. Greta was a shy girl and Shawna had thought about having her over for dinner sometime to break the tension between them and to get to know the woman that was going to be with her son. “You look fantastic, by the way.”
