“Yougainedsomething by losing Dustin.”
“I know. But I wanted marriage and kids. And I only got one.” Sunlight seeps through the split blinds, littering pinks and yellows on the bedspread and floor. I trace the illuminated corners of a ray as I explain myself to Goldie. “I don’t want Dustin. I wantmy dream.” I pause, thinking about Beau. “I mean, Beau’s a twenty-six-year-old, Goldie. I have to be smart. Just because I want to fuck his brains out does not mean I should expect him to love Jett and me forever.”
“But what if he does anyway?”
I pause because… I’ve wondered that myself. I pull at the loose thread, looping it around my finger. “It’s scary to think about. I don’t want to go through that again.”
“But what if you don’t?”
“Woke up as the devil’s advocate, I see.” I sneeze, and at the exact same time, I hear Jett sneeze through the baby monitor. When we moved into this place, my mom and I went to town on this house in what can only be described as Monica Gellar’s wet dream. So it’s hard to imagine our sneezing is dust-related. Maybe allergies to something blooming in the yard. I sneeze again, but this time Jett coughs a little.
“Bless you,” Goldie says, sounding offended by the wetness of my sneeze through the ether. “Are you sick?”
I press my hand to my head. Shit, I do feel a little warm. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Do you need me to come down?”
I swing my legs out from beneath the covers and they feel like lead as they connect with the floor. My head is a little spinny, too. “I sneezed twice, Goldie. It’s fine.” But when I rise, I find myself sitting back down again, not prepared for how much energy it was going to take.
“Okay, Imighthave caught something.”
“FuckingWheel Get You,” Goldie mutters.
“Nope. You can’t blameWheel Get You. I only drove Beau for the last few weeks.”
She sips what I assume is her morning latte. “Is he sick?”
I can’t think of him without remembering how sexy he looked last night. I’m fantasizing about things I haven’t thought about in years. Being fucked with my skirt around my waist by the muscular man wearing the leather jacket, the one whose jawline and eyes could command a room of women with just a glance.
“He didn’t seem like it, no,” I reply, thinking aloud.
“Well… whether you need me or not, the point of this morning’s phone call is to tell you I’m coming to visit.”
“You were just here,” I say, and because I kind of groan the words due to my sudden onset of ache and dizziness, I soften it with, “not that I don’t want to see you, I just don’t want to dominate you.”
“That little leave of absence I was taking from work turned…permanent.”
“Oh no, Goldie. What happened?” I ask, tapping the speaker icon on the screen before dropping my phone onto the bed. It’s a use both hands to get your old ass out of bed type of day, so thank you, speakerphone.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says quickly. “And I don’t meankeep asking me because I’m feeling attention-y,it's legit;please don’t make me talk about it.Not yet.”
“Okay,” I reply, wanting to know what happened with my best friend and her complicated job working in PR for a major league baseball team, but also really wanting to be able to stand and walk. My head is spinning, and not just a little woozy. I feel like I hit the Truly 12-pack with the energy of a college girl but the sustainability of… well,myself. Reaching out, I grab the phone and tell Goldie I have to go.
“Okay, but I’ll be there shortly. What do you need?”
When people ask me that, my sensitivity to being a single mom creates a wall of impenetrability around me. Accepting help when people want to give it is one thing, but accepting help because people feel bad for you is quite another. And in my time as a single mom, I’d been served plenty of heaping doses of “that poor woman” looks.
Goldie, however, watched me poop myself while I split into two human beings so asking her for a Medicine Ball tea from Starbucks isn’t falling on my sword too hard.
“If you pass a Starbucks, I’ll take a Medicine Ball, actually,” I admit, padding down the hall towards Jett’s room. The floor feels like ice against the balls of my bare feet, sending a shiver up my spine. My hand is clammy against the textured wall, too. “You know, I definitely came down with something and I could be contagious.”
“Well,” Goldie sighs, “you and Jetty are worth the risk.”
“I’ll unlock the door,” I huff before crumpling into the recliner in the corner of Jett’s room. His little toosh is still sky high, and while his breathing does sound a bit wet like he’s holding congestion in his chest, he’s still asleep, andyou don’t wake a sleeping baby.
“See you shortly,” she says. “Wait–does Jett need anything?”
At the same time, my chest aches, and I realize that Jett sleeping in meansI need to pump. “Nothing that doesn’t come from my body.”