Melissa looked like Sophie had just asked her to explain quantum physics and interpretive dance. "Well, sweetheart, sometimes babies need to stay with their birth mommy for a little while before they go to their forever home." Birth mommy. Jesus Christ.
She was talking about herself like she was running some kind of baby-rental service. "Like when we fostered Mr. Whiskers before he went to live with Grandma?" Emma piped up because my eight-year-old apparently had a better grasp on the situation than my wife did. "Something like that," Melissa said, which was probably the most honest thing she'd said in months. But the comparison to our brief stint fostering Joanne's cat was more accurate than Melissa wanted to admit.
Because just like with Mr. Whiskers, everyone expected me to help take care of something that wasn't mine and wasn't staying. The bottles started appearing in our sink like some kind of domestic plague. Formula containers cluttered our kitchen counter. Dirty diapers overflowed the garbage can.
And our washing machine ran constantly, churning through an endless cycle of tiny clothes and blankets that smelled like that particular combination of baby powder and desperation. Through it all, Melissa kept shooting me these looks. Part pleading, part anger, part complete bewilderment that I wasn't stepping up to help her with her noble sacrifice. Like I was failing some test I'd never agreed to take.
The breaking point came on a Thursday night about two weeks after she brought the baby home. I was in the living room trying to help Jake with his math homework while the baby screamed bloody murder upstairs when Melissa appeared at the top of the stairs looking like she'd been through a blender. "Grant," she called down, her voice cracking with exhaustion. "Can you please just hold him for 10 minutes?"
"I need to take a shower." I didn't even look up from Jake's algebra worksheet. "Not my baby, not my problem." It was the same response I'd been giving for months, delivered with the same flat tone I'd perfected during our entire pregnancy nightmare.
But something about hearing it in that moment, with the baby crying and Melissa looking like she was about to collapse, made it land differently. She came down the stairs slowly, still holding the baby, and I could see her hands shaking. Not from exhaustion, though she was definitely that, but from rage. Pure, undiluted fury that had been building up for weeks.
"You know what?" she said, her voice getting louder with each word. "I am so sick of your attitude. You owe me this much." That's when I finally looked up from the homework.
Jake was staring at both of us with wide eyes, probably wondering if his parents were about to start throwing furniture at each other. The baby was still screaming, which seemed appropriate for the moment. "I owe you?" I repeated, standing up slowly because this conversation was clearly going to require my full attention. "I owe you what exactly?"