Page 21 of Look at Her and Die

I patted the baby’s bottom as I walked over to the group—another bunch of regulars—and took their orders.

Just as I got their order written down with some difficulty due to the wriggling baby in my arms, the bell over the door pinged again.

I looked up to find the young girl from yesterday.

Scottie, Posy had called her.

“Hey.” I smiled. “Just take a seat anywhere, and I’ll be with you as soon as I put this order in.”

Scottie went to the same stool her brother had taken the night before and sat, smiling at me. “You have a baby?”

“No,” I said as I filled up drinks. “That woman over there behind you does. But she looked like she was about to have a mental breakdown, so I offered to hold him for a bit.”

She nodded and turned to look.

Sure enough, the woman was likely no longer about to have a mental breakdown. She was now full blown having that breakdown.

She had her face buried in her hands and she was hunched over, shoulders shaking.

The baby in my arms gave a little hiccup, then stopped crying.

I turned so that the young girl could see and said, “Is the baby asleep?”

“Yep,” she answered.

“Good.” I sighed. “Let me get these drinks over, give the order out, and I’ll be back. Unless you just want to come get your own drink.”

Surprising me, she did just that, getting her own drink and then writing her own order down on a pad of paper before sliding it back to Lenny.

Lenny took it with a wink, and I got to work with a sleeping baby in my arms.

“I need some ketchup,” Taryn said when I placed his fries down in front of him.

I reached over to the table that was just a few feet away from his and gave him the bottle, which he took with an eye roll.

Ass.

Since the baby was fully asleep now, I went back to the car seat and placed him inside.

He didn’t wake.

But the woman finally looked up from contemplating her hands.

Her eyes were puffy and red, and I couldn’t help myself.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

I don’t know what it is about me, but people always talk to me, whether I want them to or not.

But this time, I was more than okay with her opening the floodgates on me.

“I’m just overwhelmed.” She sniffled, her eyes going to her baby. “I had him three months ago, and today I made an appointment with my doctor because I think I have post-partum depression. I went, and she said that I indeed do have PPD. When I got home, I went to tell my husband, but I found my baby sitting beside him crying his eyes out, smeared in poop, with my husband playing his video games with his headphones on. I’ve asked him so many times for help, yet he says that ‘I’m on maternity leave, and he still has to work, and this is my responsibility.’ I don’t know what happened, though. He was great before we had the baby. But the moment we had Holt, it’s like my husband just flipped a switch. He works from home all day. Then when he gets off at five, he immediately puts those stupid headphones on and starts playing his video games. And I’m left to do it all. I finally broke down today and just had to leave so I wouldn’t smash that stupid computer of his into the ground.”

Anger rose within me, and I was hot for a woman I barely even knew.

What an asshole!

“And he keeps saying that I’m not giving him sex, and that I should be fulfilling his needs if I want his help in the middle of the night.” She sniffled some more. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

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