Two Kisses for Maddy_ A Memoir of Loss & Love - Matthew Logelin [20]
We spent the morning doing all of the mundane things that new parents do the day after their child is born: We chatted with family members. We filled out insurance and hospital paperwork. We applied for Madeline’s Social Security number and birth certificate. We debated whether we should rent or buy a breast pump. We decided which day to attend the recommended baby CPR class. We discussed what it would be like at home, just the two of us with Madeline, with no help from the nurses and doctors.
The sense of relief I felt about having our baby out in the world overwhelmed me, but now I felt a new nervousness at the tasks that lay ahead. We were now responsible for this kid’s life. Unlike some of the other major events in our lives, I planned to take an extremely active role in raising our daughter, but I sort of felt that as a man, I didn’t have that motherly instinct. I knew I had a lot to learn, but I was confident that Liz was ready and prepared, and that she’d be able to lead the way. Together, the two of us would be able to handle any challenge.
Midday, my mom called and asked me if I was ready to go to Tiffany’s to pick out a gift for Liz. She knew that I had planned on surprising Liz with a piece of “thank you for enduring this hellish pregnancy” jewelry, but that I hadn’t yet had a chance to get anything. I thought that jewelry would be the absolute best way to show her that I cared, that I appreciated her, and that we were creating new memories to cherish for the rest of our lives. I also owed her a couple of pieces.
A few months earlier, just after we had learned that our baby was a girl, we decided to paint the nursery green. We chose a lovely, light, bright green partly because we liked the color, and partly because the idea of too much pink made me ill. And if our next kid was a boy, well, the room would still be gender-appropriate.
We wanted to make painting a family affair, so we waited until Tom, Candee, and Liz’s sister, Deb, were in town, and we invited them to join us. The evening after they arrived, we were standing on our porch, having just come back from dinner, excited to begin coating the bare white walls with broad strokes of Corn Husk Green. I was fumbling to find my keys when I realized that something about our house felt…wrong. Through the sheer fabric of the curtain in the living room, I could see that some things were out of place. The television and the stand upon which it sat were away from their usual spot against the wall, and the floor looked more cluttered than we had left it. My first thought was an earthquake.
Had I been thinking rationally, I would have wondered why every light was on, and I would have noticed the unfamiliar car parked directly in front of my house—unusual on our nearly empty street.
“Stay outside,” I said to Liz and the assorted Goodmans. At that point, Liz was a little over five months pregnant, and I didn’t want her stress level to increase, so I planned to do a quick cleanup before she entered the house. As soon as I pushed the door open, it was clear that the mess was not a result of any tremors. In the middle of the living room floor was one of Liz’s suitcases, opened wide and half filled with electronic items. The door to our office was open, and so were all of the desk drawers, the contents spilled out everywhere. Right behind me was Tom, his eyes huge and his eyebrows nearly touching his receded hairline.
“What’s going on?” he shouted from the living room.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! My camera!” I yelled. Actually, four cameras were missing, including the one I had purchased just a few months earlier to replace one that had been ripped out of my hand by a thief on a motorcycle in Ho Chi Minh City. “We’ve been burglarized!” So much for the whole not-wanting-to-stress-Liz-out thing.
“Just stay