Two Kisses for Maddy_ A Memoir of Loss & Love - Matthew Logelin [49]
“What the fuck are we going to do with this crack torch? Neither one of us smokes crack, I don’t think.”
“It’s a crème brûlée torch, you ass.”
“I hate crème brûlée,” I said.
“It’s my favorite, so you better learn to make it.”
During the day it was easier—a phone call from a friend would distract me long enough to dig through the cupboards to find all of the pieces of Maddy’s bottle. But the anxiety was especially bad at night. There were no visitors. No calls. No support. Still no wife. Everyone was asleep or up late dealing with their own crying babies. The quiet darkness brought out my weakness and anguish. Things got so bad, I tried so hard to avoid going near that pain, that I moved a supply of bottled water, powdered formula, and a bottle warmer into the bedroom so I wouldn’t have to make up Maddy’s bottles in the kitchen.
At first I had been pretty much unable to eat at all—the feeling of perpetual nausea had followed me home from the hospital. I probably dropped twenty-five to thirty pounds in the first few weeks after Liz died. I was a fucking skeleton. The unmistakable look of grief emanated from every part of my body. I was destroyed, and a mess. My eyes looked as if they had been shoved two inches back inside my head; my face was ashen and expressionless, except when I was crying. I’d lost so much weight that I looked like a little kid wearing clothing stolen from my father’s closet. I was pathetic and visibly not okay. But I had to hold it together for my daughter.
I was learning as I went and making adjustments as needed. Madeline’s very strict schedule for the first few months of her life of course meant that I was on a very strict schedule for the first few months of my new life, keeping me from completely falling apart and withdrawing from the world. Despite multiple warnings, I broke the one rule that every parent shared with me: sleep when your baby sleeps. I found it nearly impossible. I was never much of a sleeper, but when Maddy first came home, I only slept for three or four nonconsecutive hours per day. She kept me regimented, but I also needed ways to keep myself busy while she slept. Too much alone time led to thinking and overthinking and usually breaking down. I did all the chores around the house that I had actively avoided while Liz was alive and asking for my help, simply because they kept my mind occupied. Wilco’s “Hate It Here” repeated over and over in my head: I even learned how to use the washing machine, but keeping things clean doesn’t change anything. The lyrics seemed written specifically for my situation.
I also used Madeline’s sleep and feeding times to keep up with the things I used to do before. I’d sit in my office in front of my computer, reading record reviews and catching up on the news while holding her in my arms. After a while, I had a general sense of how long it would take her to drain a bottle. She was drinking maybe four ounces at a time over the course of fifteen minutes. One night I put a bottle in her mouth and propped it up with a blanket under her chin so it could rest stably while she drank. That way I’d still have one hand free to maneuver the mouse and keyboard. I started typing, and it couldn’t have been more than twenty seconds till I heard the schlshh, schlshh sound of sucking air. I looked down and saw that the bottle was empty. There was a little bit of milk around her lips, but I definitely didn’t see it all over her or anything else. What the hell?
Fuck, I realized, the nipple had a giant hole in it. My daughter had just done a beer bong out of her bottle; she’d just sucked it down like the drunk wannabe sorority girls with whom I went to college. Oh shit. I was starting to panic. I had no idea if I should I induce