put on a suit every morning and go to work?” I say, stupefied.
He tells me then that he had been dressing as if he was going to work, and then he would just come back home for the rest of the day.
It was true, he had been home before me almost every night. I had not given it much thought—I’d believed him when he said his company was trying to promote family time.
“I didn’t want to worry you,” he says. His eyes and voice are plaintive, but he has taken a step back. He has always been afraid of me; we both realize that now with surprise.
And he stares at me and I at him and we are both listening to the sound of our heavy breathing. Outside our door, footsteps patter up the stairs.
“Don’t be upset,” he says, waiting to see what I will do next. “It isn’t good for the baby.”
* * *
· · ·
I HAVE TO admit that I have no idea what your younger years will look like, other than some very vivid visions of me holding a beribboned, swaddled you in my arms. In these visions, the curtains are drawn but light is seeping through them—it must be your nap time, and I must be trying to put you to sleep in my arms. You are squirming and perturbed, but your gaze is locked on mine and I know just how to soothe you. In my visions the concept of time is hazy, and soon, or perhaps it is hours later, you are quiet and still and slumbering.
You will have things I did not when I was growing up—like cherished photographs and birthday cakes and days spent at the beach.
What I daydream about most is an older version of you. You are a young woman, perhaps the age of those girls who live above me—not that much younger than I am now. But unlike them and unlike me, you have a perpetual smile lurking at the corners of your mouth because you’ve had a happy childhood.
In my daydream, you are coming to visit—you are practically flying to see me because you have some good news and you want to tell me in person because we are so close, you and I, and you want to see my face shimmer with joy. You ring the bell, your foot tapping impatiently, and when I open the door, there you are, in your splendid, regal confidence, wielding your happiness like a scepter. And your news will spill from your mouth, your words running over each other because it is something you have worked hard for and you are so proud to tell me how you have achieved this.
And I will pull you inside, saying come in and sit down and tell me more slowly and fully, and I will cry because the process of raising you will have made me sentimental, and I will wrap my arms around you and marvel at how beautiful you are, how tall and strong and shining. And all of my memories of you will dance in front of my eyes as I thirstily listen to all that you have to say, laughing and holding my hands and leaning on my shoulder, or perhaps putting your head in my lap the way you would do as a child.
And then it is time for you to leave me again, to go back to your own life, humming with aspiration. You don’t have to worry about me—I will be the happiest I have ever been, even as my heart breaks a little to let go of you.
Still, I know you will always come back to me. And that will be the only wish I’ll have ever known.
Ara
It is only when I jolt awake that I realize I must have fallen asleep at my desk again, watching old videos of Taein on his final reality show, Slow Life, Happy Life. He’s been lying low ever since his scandal with Candy broke, so I haven’t been able to indulge in my favorite routine of binge-watching all his latest TV appearances at once at the end of the week. Instead I have to resort to watching reruns for