by Amelia Mae
The tears are back. I can’t help it.
Ever since the nurse put baby Alicia in my arms, it’s been non-stop waterworks. I seriously didn’t think there were any tears left in my body, but I guess I was wrong. I look over at Ian and he’s no better, but he’s at least trying to keep it together.
“Alicia Mary,” I whisper to her, rocking her in my arms.
“She’s perfect,” Ian says.
I nod. She is perfect.
“It’s never going to be the same, is it?” I ask, my voice still low.
I scoot over on the hospital bed, and Ian gets in next to me.
“No,” he answers. “Never going to be the same. It’s going to be better.”
“She’s finally asleep,” Ian says. He’s still whispering, even though there’s no reason to. He’s superstitious. I don’t think either of us has had a decent night’s sleep in the past four months.
“Thank you for getting up.”
He mumbles something and slides back under the covers.
“I love you,” I tell him.
I think he says you too before rolling onto his side.
“Ian?” I ask, concerned.
He rolls back over, a little more awake now.
“We haven’t had sex since Alicia was born,” I remind him.
“Well, aren’t you supposed to wait…”
“Didn’t have to be this long.”
He runs a hand through his sleep-rumpled hair.
“You… want to try and have sex right now?” he asks.
“I mean…”
Ian raises an eyebrow. “Cora, as much as I…”
“Yeah, I don’t think we’d get very far,” I admit.
“I could try, but I think I’d pass out with my face between your legs,” he says with a laugh.
“Charming.”
It feels good to laugh at something. Together.
“I’m worried I’ll never get it back, Ian,” I whisper.
“What’s ‘it’?”
“You know… We used to be all over each other. All the time. And now I feel like I’m all dried up and empty inside. Like the want is gone.”
“You don’t want me anymore?” he asks.
“Fuck, no. I’m not saying this right at all.” I sigh out loudly. “I just thought that after the baby came, I’d feel sexy again. I mean, I’d want sex again.”
“It’ll happen.”
“Well, I’m frustrated. It’s not happening fast enough.”
“Just be patient,” he says. His eyes are closing.
“I know, but it’s been months and it’s not back.”
“Everybody’s different.”
I groan. He’s right. But that’s not helpful.
“What if it never comes back, Ian?” I ask, growing a little restless.
“It will.” He sounds sure.
“But if it doesn’t, are you seriously okay being with me, knowing that I’ll never want to have sex. Ever again.”
“Cora, that’s really going to the extreme.”
“Answer the question.”
I look into his eyes, demanding the truth. He softens and lets out a deep sigh.
“I’m here the long haul, Cora. If you really, truly never want to have sex again… I’ll figure out how to deal with that.”
Ian closes his eyes and easily drifts off to sleep.
I, however, am wide awake, wondering if this is how I’m going to feel forever.
Fifteen
Ian
Weeks pass and nothing changes.
On the surface, Cora and I are fine. We don’t fight. We get up and tend to Alicia, get ourselves ready, and go about our respective days. Which for me, means a ton of recording sessions with the guys.
The international tour was postponed for one year and during the touring hiatus, we’re set to release an entire new album. Dylan’s hell bent on calling it Shades of Jane after his girlfriend, the infamous Jane Doe. And since he writes the majority of the music, the rest of us aren’t fighting him.
He’s got a new song written called In the Darkness that we’ve now attempted to record about seven times. And I’ve messed it up six of those times.
This seventh one is going okay, but Dylan stops us anyway.
“What’s going on, man?” he asks. “You’re playing like you’re falling asleep over there.”
“Sorry.” I don’t have the energy to fight him right now.
“Look, I get it, but we’ve gotta get this done today,” he says.
He doesn’t get it. None of these guys do.
They’ll all go home at the end of the recording session to their significant others and things won’t be tense and unsure. They don’t have the love of their life feeling lost and broken and they’re helpless to fix the problem.
None of them have a newborn at home either.
I want to tell him to go fuck himself.
Then I want to sleep for a week, wake up next to Cora and have her climb on top of me, wanting me again.
But I keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to start shit. The faster we get it done, the faster I get home.
“Do you need a coffee?” Dylan asks. “Maybe a shot?”
I shake my head.
“Well, we’re taking five anyway,” he announces.
Dylan walks off without another word. If he’s pissed, I don’t have the energy to care. I decide to get a cup of coffee from the place around the corner, even though I’ve had so much caffeine today, I don’t think it’ll do anything.
“Double espresso, please,” I tell the barista.
I feel someone come up behind me. Someone familiar.
“And a large, regular coffee. Black,” Shawn calls over my shoulder. He hands over his credit card before I can get my wallet out.
“Thanks, man.”
“No worries. How are you, um… doing?” Shawn asks. He sounds cautious as he asks.
“Fine. Tired, though.”
We get our coffees and head back to the studio. I can tell that Shawn wants something.
“How’s Alicia?” he asks.
“She’s fine.”
“That’s good. Really, really good.”
“How about you just ask me whatever it is you want to ask me?”
He chuckles. “You caught that, did you?”
“You’re not subtle.
“I… Well… Aya and I are thinking about kids.”
“Big step.”
“Yeah,” he agrees.
“Are you looking for advice or something?”
“Maybe. I’ve always wanted kids, and Aya thinks she’s ready,” he tells me. “And the time is right, you know. It’d be best to try and get pregnant before the band hits the road again.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“I’m just worried about all the things that are going to change.”
“Everything’s going to change,” I tell him.
“You and Cora seem like you’re making it work,” he assesses. “You’re okay, right?”
That’s a loaded statement.
“Yeah. We’re… okay.”
We head back inside the studio and attempt to record In the Darkness one more time. The coffee kicks in and by the second run of it, we’ve got a usable take. It’s definitely not the best I’ve ever played in my life and I know it. But I’m too tired to ask for another.
“I think that’s as good as it’s going to get,” Dylan announces.
I nod. Time to head home.
Back at the apartment, I immediately peek in on Alicia in her nursery. She’s awake, smiling, and gurgling, and I can’t help but brighten up a bit. She’s so small and helpless, but also sometimes the most fascinating thing in the world.
She’s got my eyes. Cora says so.
But everything else is her mother’s.
I make sure that the baby monitor is in place and head into the bedroom where Cora is napping. She lifts her head as I enter.
“Hey,” she whispers. She starts to get up, bu
t I stop her.
“Stay there.”
I kick off my shoes and climb into bed next to her. She settles into me, smelling like green apple shampoo. I inhale her scent and immediately feel a calm wash over me.
“How was recording?” she asks.
“It sucked.”
I hold her tighter and inhale again.
“We’ve got a show on Saturday, though. Do you want to come?”
I expect her to say no. She hasn’t felt much like going out lately.
“Actually, yeah.”
“Really?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
“I love watching you play, Ian. I mean, I know I haven’t been…”
“That’s understandable.”
“But I want to go. I miss concerts.”
I smile, so happy to hear her say something like that. She casually rolls over so that we’re facing one another.
“I love watching you play,” she says again. She presses herself against me and that semi is now fully hard and ready to go. Despite how tired I am, I want to make her come.
“I love having you watch me,” I grit out.
Suddenly, I’m on my back and Cora’s on top of me. I raise an eyebrow.
“What’s gotten into you?” I wonder.
“Not sure.”
I grip her waist and slide my hands up to her ribs.
“Ian, I’m still not sure that I can…” she says, her voice trailing off.
“That’s okay, baby.”
I kiss her temple and run my hands up and down her back.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” I tell her.
“I just needed to touch you,” she admits.
She tries to shift off of me, but I’m not ready for her to let go.
“Not yet. Please. Just lie here with me,” I whisper, keeping my grip on her. “I need this as much as you do.”
She rests her head in the crook of my neck and we lie there together. I don’t know how much time passes. It could be hours. All I know is that I feel worlds better than I did earlier today and all it took was this simple gesture. All the talking in the world can’t heal me the way this does.
“I feel better,” I tell her, my voice low.
“Me too.”
“Maybe…”
And, right on cue, this moment is cut short by Alicia’s ear-piercing cry.
Cora presses her lips to mine and gets up. I follow suit.
“Saturday,” I start, “let’s find someone to watch Alicia, and you and I can make a whole night of it.”
“Ian, I don’t think I’m going to want to go to an after party.”
“Not the after party,” I assure her. “We’ll get a hotel room. Dinner, drinks, anything you want.”
She smiles. “That sounds amazing.”
Sixteen
Cora
Saturday rolls around and my mother agrees to watch Alicia while I’m out. She’s at the door waiting for me when I pull up.
“How is my granddaughter?” she asks, a smile on her face.
My mother is always happy to see Alicia.
“She’s fine,” I answer on Alicia’s behalf. “Always hungry, always trying to grab things and put them in her little mouth. You know…”
My mom picks Alicia up and kind of parades her around the house. She’s a very enthusiastic grandparent, and it makes me happy, but also a little jealous. When I was growing up, my mother was always stressed, always two seconds from snapping. She didn’t enjoy being a parent.
“And how are you?” she asks. She narrows her eyes, looking concerned.
“I’m… fine.”
She shakes her head. “No, you’re not.”
“I really am. Just tired. You know.”
“I do know,” she sighs. “I was a new mom once. And I was alone in it.”
I nod, not trying to lead my mother down that road. She gets really upset if anyone mentions my father. In her mind, he’s dead.
“Which is why I know that it’s more than just newborn baby tiredness. There’s something else going on here, Cora,” she insists. “Something with Ian?”
“No,” I tell her. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
I’m not about to divulge to my slightly judgmental mother that Ian and I haven’t had sex in forever, and I’m feeling a lot of pressure to do it tonight.
No, that sounds wrong.
It’s not pressure to have sex with Ian. He’d never pressure me like that.
It’s the pressure to want to have sex with him. And then, if we do, there’s pressure for it to be amazing.
“What is it, then?” she asks.
“It’s… him and me. Well… actually, it’s mostly me,” I say, telling her part of it. “Ian and I were, like… perfect. And now, it’s like there’s a wall up. We’re not as close as we used to be.”
She gives me a strange once-over.
“How long did it take before you felt like… yourself again, Mom,” I ask her.
“Myself?”
“Yeah, like… I don’t know how to say it. Before you felt like you did before you had me?”
My mom’s face softens. It’s an odd look for her.
“Cora, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re probably never going to feel the same way about your life, your body, or Ian ever again,” she says.
My eyes well. “Never?”
“But,” she says, her tone more reassuring, “you’re going to grow and change and become a new version of yourself. You’re going to see a side of yourself that you never knew was there. You will feel like you again. Just… new you.”
I nod. That doesn’t sound too terrible.
“New me,” I repeat.
“And, lucky for you, you have someone who’s ready and able to go through it with you.”
“I know,” I reply, thinking of Ian. He’s been there for me through everything, holding my hand and never complaining. Putting Alicia’s and my needs ahead of his own.
Alicia coos from her little rocking seat.
“When I told your father I was pregnant, he was excited,” she says.
I shiver at her words. She literally never talks about my father, and I know that whatever she’s about to say is hard for her, so I’m the picture of attentiveness.
“But he was more excited about the idea of a wife and child than anything else,” she says. “He wasn’t prepared for the sacrifices that he was going to have to make once you were born. Before that, even.”
My thoughts return to Ian and how easily he got his famous band to postpone the biggest tour of their careers for our family. How he stopped going out and partying without a second thought.
“And, after you were born, he kept telling me that I wasn’t fun anymore,” she says. “Because I was the one worrying about you and who I could get to watch you and whether or not we had enough diapers and formula. That wasn’t fun enough for him, so he started distancing himself from me. And… you.”
“I remember some of that.”
My parents never got married, but they lived together throughout my early childhood. Though, I’m pretty sure that my father kept a separate apartment the whole while. When he officially moved out of our house, it wasn’t that much of a change for us.
And then, suddenly, he was just gone.
“Ian, for what it’s worth, is just as good as being not fun as you are,” she states.
“Really?” I ask. “I feel like I’ve changed so much into un-fun Cora and he hasn’t changed at all.”
“He’s changed quite a bit. It’s a little more subtle, but I see it.”
I don’t. But I’ll trust her judgement.
“Cora, I’ll never give you love advice. I’m hardly qualified. But I know that the two of you wake up every morning and make a conscious choice to love each other and do what’s best for your child. Making that choice repeatedly… it’ll help you reconnect.”
“Really?”
“You both agree on where you want to be. You’re
just getting there at different speeds.”
“That makes sense,” I tell her.
She smiles and immediately goes back to playing with Alicia.
“Thank you, Mom.”
“Anytime.”
And, just like that, my insightful, rational mother dissolves into a puddle of baby talk and noisy toys. I give her a hug and head back to the car.
Then I get an idea.
Sure, Ian and I have to figure out our future. But maybe a little reminder of the past would do us some good.
On the way home, I stop at Aya and Shawn’s apartment. I text her that I’m on my way and she opens the door for me as I arrive.
“What’s up?” she asks. “Coming to the show tonight?"
“Yeah, that’s kind of why I’m here.”
“Oh?”
“Aya, do you still have that red dress?” I ask.
“Which red dress?”
“Um, the one I borrowed that night.”
“Which night?”
She crosses her arms over her chest and smirks. I know she’s messing with me. She knows exactly which night and exactly which dress I’m talking about.
“The one…”
“The one Ian Brooks ripped off your body the first night you slept with him? The one that spent the night in a puddle on his bedroom floor? The one that…”
“Yes, Aya. That one,” I say, interrupting her.
She smiles, ear to ear. “Follow me.”
A few hours later, I’ve straightened my hair, put on some makeup, and squeezed myself into Aya’s little red dress.
“Wow,” I say to my reflection.
I think about how I looked when Ian and I first reconnected a few years ago. My hair was longer then, and I wore more makeup. My boobs were smaller. I’m certainly curvier now.
A few weeks ago, I might not have smiled at the thought that I’m a little heavier and a little less ‘perfect.’ But I’m coming around to accepting it now. Feeling good about it, even.
But one thing about right now is remarkably similar to that night.
I’m still crazy nervous.
Seventeen
Ian
I’ve gone all out for tonight and sent a car to pick up Cora and take her to the venue. We finish the sound check and I hang around backstage watching everyone go through their pre-show routine.