Neighborly(48)

After I do my pump, I hesitate over the bathroom sink. I’ve never had to discard my milk before. It’s a precious thing, a gift for my daughter, and I’ve contaminated it. For what? To please my new friends? What am I, sixteen?

I take some aspirin and get into the shower. With Doug this angry, there’s no way he’s building me a desk today. I hear him moving around the kitchen, making eggs and bacon, based on the smells. I feel a wave of nausea.

I’m so tired that I go upstairs and pull the covers over my head. That’s where I am when I hear Sadie wake up. I force myself out of bed, but my joints feel creaky. It’s like I’ve aged fifty years in one night. Never again, I swear.

“Don’t bother!” I hear Doug yell, and not kindly, either.

“I want to see her!” I yell back. If he’s this upset after one night of my going out, I can’t imagine how he would react to my pitching the idea of an open marriage.

I can hear him talking to her, his voice light and teasing, and then they appear. She’s in a fresh diaper and a short-sleeve onesie, and I reach out my arms, tears in my eyes. There’s nothing greater than this joy.

I drink her in—wrong word choice after last night—I breathe her in, that’s it, and let the sweet smell of her envelop me. Oh, I love this girl. In this moment, I love nothing more than being her mommy.

Doug has stepped away, and he’s watching from the doorway again. I want us to get past whatever this is. We’re family. I hold out my hand, inviting him into the circle for a cuddle, but he just shakes his head.

I nuzzle Sadie, my wet hair plastered to her beautiful cheek. I close my eyes and just let time pass, savoring like a rich and delicious meal. Then I hear Doug’s voice, loud and startling, right next to the bed: “We should get moving.”

He looks like a glowering giant standing there at my side. He’d moved so silently and stealthily that I hadn’t even heard him cross the floorboards.

“Where do we have to go?” I ask him.

“You know my theory about hangovers.” He’s unsmiling.

I remember him pulling me from the bed early in our relationship after we’d both tied one on the night before. I’d groaned theatrically, and he laughingly said, “Hangovers are a sports injury. You get beaned by a baseball and what do you do?” I’d never played a sport in my life, never been a part of any team, so he answered his own question: “You walk it off.”

I’ve never been part of any team, that is, until this one. I wish he’d stop glaring at me like that, like Bart did to Raquel the day of the block party.

“What do you do?” he asks me now, like it’s a pop quiz.

“You walk it off.” I know it’s the right answer, and I hope it’ll have an open sesame–type effect where his broad, handsome face breaks into a smile, but he turns from me and begins to tickle Sadie.

She melts for him. “See,” he says, “Sadie knows the remedy.”

“Well,” I say, “let’s hope she doesn’t need it.”

“Someday, she’ll need it. Let’s not kid ourselves.”

I gaze at a laughing Sadie and say softly, “I want to kid myself.”

“I need to get out of the house. I’ve been cooped up all night. Are you with us or not?” It’s an invitation, at least, though it’s tinged with that same anger.

“Can we walk slow?” I say.

“We could take the bikes.”

He’s not kidding. He’s needling.

I remind myself that the bikes are not a divorceable offense. Ditto his behavior right now. He’ll get over whatever’s bothering him, and I’ll get over the way he’s acting. This will all blow over.

Doug pushes the stroller, and I trudge along beside them, sunglasses on.

“We’re headed that way,” Doug says.

I give him a quick reproving glance. I agreed to a walk; I never agreed to a destination. I certainly never agreed to a Sunday stroll on Main Street where we’d see everyone out and about. It feels like he’s punishing me. But my own body is already doing the work for him. I can’t ever remember a hangover like this.

No matter how much I drank back in the day—and sometimes I drank a lot—I never felt that peculiar sequence from last night: the extreme highs and lows, the paranoia, the hallucinations, the near-paralysis, and finally, the blackout. Back when I was craving a dose of true oblivion, I took whatever people handed me. LSD. Ecstasy. One time, something called Special K. That was the closest to what I experienced last night.

I’ve stopped in the middle of the pavement, and Doug is asking me, with more irritation than concern, what’s going on. I tell him that I have to go home. “I feel sick,” I say, and his face darkens.

“Of course you do,” he says shortly. “Well, Sadie’s going to Main Street with me.”

I don’t feel like I can really argue, when clearly he’s in better shape to take care of Sadie than I am, but I’m sorry to see them go. Doug doesn’t so much as cast a glance over his shoulder to make sure I’m OK.

We haven’t even done a full revolution around the block, so I get home quickly.

Inside, I open my laptop. Special K is also known as ketamine. It can be used as a roofie. A date-rape drug.

Andie and I were standing at the bar for a while, talking. Could a stranger have slipped me something?