The stroller.
The car seat.
Picked the nursery colors.
Selected the bedding.
She brought over an old baby blanket from 1964 and announced that Wren would sleep under it.
I was too tired to fight most of it.
Roland wanted to name our daughter Beverly.
That was the one thing I refused.
I named her Wren.
Wren Celeste.
For my mother.
We brought Wren home on a Thursday.
The first week barely exists in my memory.
Feedings every two hours.
Exhaustion.
Pain.
Standing in the shower crying for reasons I couldn’t explain.
Roland returned to work three days after we came home.
“I can’t take more time,” he said. “The rest of the leave is unpaid. Mom says you’ll manage. She did.”
Beverly came Tuesday.
She held Wren for an hour.
Then told me the house looked terrible.
Suggested I put on makeup before Roland returned.
Warned me that I should get back into shape because “men notice.”
Then she left.
On Wednesday, our neighbor, Mrs. Adeyemi, placed a pot of chicken soup on the porch.
The note said:
For the new mama. Eat something.
I cried over that soup.
On the sixth evening, I was reheating it when Roland came downstairs wearing his navy dinner jacket.
Wren was sleeping against my chest.
My hospital bracelet was still around my wrist.
“Faye is hosting dinner,” Roland said. “Mom leaves for Savannah tomorrow.”
“What time are we leaving?”
He hesitated.
“It might be easier if you stayed here.”
I waited.
“The drive is a lot for Wren. Faye’s place will be crowded. You need rest.”
His SUV was being repaired.
So all week he had been driving my Camry.
The infant-seat base was installed in it.
Wren’s diaper bag was inside.
Her car seat was in the back.
Everything I would need if I had to take my newborn anywhere.
“You’re taking my car?”
“Only for a few hours.”
“And leaving us here?”
He looked at his phone.
“It’s just a family dinner, Simone. Please don’t make this difficult.”
Family dinner.
I stood there in stained pajamas.
Six days postpartum.
My daughter sleeping against my chest.
The hospital bracelet still on my wrist.
Then the front door shut.
Through the kitchen window, I watched my own car back out of the driveway with everything I needed to transport our baby safely.
Before the garage had fully closed, my phone lit up.
A private message from Beverly.
He deserves one peaceful night away from you.
Then a photograph appeared in the family group chat.
Faye had posted it.
Roland sat beside Beverly at her dining table.
Her hand rested on his arm.
Everyone was laughing.
Seven places had been set.
Beverly.
Roland.
Faye.
Derek.
Aunt Glenda.
Uncle Paul.
Cousin Mariah.
No empty plate.
No place for me.
No place for Wren.
Faye’s caption read:
Family’s all here!
I read those words twice.
Family’s all here.
The soup began boiling over.
I turned off the stove.
Then I looked down at my six-day-old daughter.
Her tiny fist rested against my collarbone.
Something inside me became completely quiet.
It was the same silence I had felt at sixteen in the hospice hallway.
The silence of finally understanding who wasn’t coming.
