Page 167 of The Infiniteness of Yesterday
“Is your mouth hurting, sweet girl?” I pull back her lips, searching for a sign of a tooh breaking through. She cries, wiggling to try to get out of my arms. “I don’t think so, squirmy wormy.” I tighten my hold on her, so I don’t drop her. The shower squeaks on in the bathroom. “Come on, let’s try to get you calmed down so mommy can rest when she gets out of the shower.”
Monroe gives a shrill cry like she very much disagrees with this statement.
I have no doubts that Harlow has tried anything and everything to calm our infant, so instead of trying to feed her or get her to suck on something cold, I decide to sit down on the couch and lay her against my chest. She cries, but I talk softly to her, rubbing her back and head to relax her.
She begins to quiet somewhat, so I reach over and grab a pacifier off the table. There’s usually a stray pacifier on some nearby surface because you never know when you’ll need one. I press it to her lips, and she opens greedily for it. Her eyes are getting heavy, and I think I got here just in time for her to give in to exhaustion from wearing herself out.
Monroe is well and truly asleep when the bathroom door opens and Harlow steps out with wet hair and a towel held against her. Her mouth drops open in surprise.
“She’s quiet,” she gasps. “How did you do that?”
“I didn’t do anything special.”
She frowns, hurt scattering across her face. “I couldn’t get her to settle at all. Not even for a nap.”
Fuck. I know what she’s thinking.
“I didn’t do anything special. She was just worn out, is all.”
Tears fill her eyes. “All day I’ve held her, and rocked her, and tried to make her feel better and nothing has worked. Then you get here and suddenly she’s fine.” She gestures at me with our sleeping baby on my chest. “It’s not fair. What am I doing wrong?”
“You’re not doing anything wrong,” I assure her. “Like I said, I think she’s exhausted from being up all day.”
She shakes her head, obviously both hurt and annoyed. She pads across the hall to our room, presumably to change. I ease up and transfer Monroe to her playpen. She doesn’t do well with transfers, but she’s out enough that she doesn’t stir.
I raid the kitchen for something I can throw together for dinner. There’s not much, so it looks like we’ll be having Kraft macaroni and cheese and hot dogs for dinner.
When the food is ready, Harlow still hasn’t emerged from our room.
I do a quick check on Monroe and she’s still sleeping peacefully. The door to our room isn’t shut all the way, so I give it a gentle shove. I find her laying on top of the covers and I almost ease back out, thinking she’s asleep, but I realize her body is shaking.
Fuck. She’s crying.
I ease over to her side and touch her shoulder gently. “What’s wrong, baby?”
She jerks away from my touch and the rejection stings.
“I can’t do this,” she says through trembling lips. “I suck at being a mom. I can’t even comfort her like you can.”
I go around to the other side of the bed, laying on my side so I can face her.
She looks so broken and I feel like nothing I’m doing or saying is helping her. I wonder if moving into our own place was the wrong move. I thought it would be good for us to be on our own and I’d be able to see them more often since I work late alot. But I’m wondering if I was being selfish with that decision. She seemed excited at the prospect of having our own place at the time, but things can change, and not having her parents to help might be having a negative effect on her, among other things.
“What can I do to help?”
“I don’t know,” she answers brokenly.
When her tear-filled eyes meet mine, it hits me like a ton of bricks—just how badly she’s hurting.
I don’t want to lose her, but I fear I already have.
CHAPTER 68
HARLOW
“I’ll call my security to come and get me,” Spencer says on a sigh, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He’s already been here two hours, and we’ve checked twice, the last being five-minutes ago, and the paparazzi and celebrity journalists are still outside.
I shake my head. “All that does is confirm they’re in the right place.”
