Filed to story: If He Had Been With Me Book PDF Free
“I have all the drawers sorted.” I open the second from the top. “Look at this one,” I say, and we paw through together, unfolding each onesie to exclaim over it and therefore undoing all the meticulous work I had done.
The feeling remains. I’ve proved something to myself or Angie.
This is real.
Really real.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe.
Usually, it’s hard to believe, actually, and the rare times that it does feel real, it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced. And then I wish Finny was with me to make me less afraid, and the grief takes over.
Without my asking, Angie helps me fold everything again. She suggests a different drawer for pajamas that makes sense. I try to ignore the part about how I won’t want to have to root around in a lower drawer “while covered in something or other.”
“I promise that was the last mom thing we talk about today,” I tell her as I close the last drawer. “We should watch a movie.”
“I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk about mom stuff with me,” Angie sighs. “It’s an impossible balance. On one hand, Guinevere is everything to me, and on the other, I’m still me.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I think I get that.” Hoping that she understands my line of thinking, I add, “I finished my novel over the summer.”
“Autumn, that’s amazing,” Angie says as we descend the stairs.
“That is not the word for it,” I say. We stop together at the bottom of the stairs. “I mean, everyone knows someone who’s written a novel.”
“I don’t!” Angie says.
I try to suppress my smile and fail.
“I mean, I didn’t until now!”
“It’s great that I finished it,” I say. “Hopefully it will be amazing someday.” I’d tried to begin edits last week, but I had to stop to cry, and I haven’t been able to look at it again.
When I’d first written it, my novel felt like a place to put all the secret feelings I carried for Finny. But now that I know I could have told him, that I didn’t have to hide in my writing, it makes the manuscript impossible to read.
“Can I read it?” Angie asks. We’re heading back to the living room couch.
“Um—” I try to think as we sit down.
“Has anyone read it?”
“I thought you’d recorded my devotion in perfect detail and then dropped it in my lap without considering my feelings.”
I freeze, but since I was about to sit down, I sort of fall on the couch. I close my eyes.
“And I still loved it as a story.”
“Autumn?”
I open my eyes. Angie is leaning toward me, frowning in that concerned way I’m used to from The Mothers.
I take a deep breath. “Finny read it. That was part of our last day together.”
“I bet he said it was incredible.”
“You’re a good writer, Autumn. You’ve always been good.”
If only he could tell me that I’ll be a good mother.
I know I’m a good writer. Now I want to be both a good writer and a good mother.
“Autumn? You okay?”
“Sorry, I was thinking…” I trail off.
“It’s fine, Autumn. We’ve been friends long enough for me to know you get weird sometimes.”
“That’s offensive, Angie. I’m always weird, and you know it,” I tease, trying to shift the mood. “So how are other things with Dave?”
Angie sighs. “I took your advice. I told him I appreciated his not making a big deal about the sex thing. It meant a lot to him, and we had this great conversation about how I want to get back to having sex regularly, which actually turned into us fooling around a bit.”
“That sounds good—“
“For a couple of days, things were so much better. Then yesterday he hit me with the ‘all you talk about is the baby’ comment—“
“But you said that it led to a good conversation too?”
“It did!” Angie leans back against the couch. “But I can’t shake it. I hate that he even thought it.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” I say.
“I know he didn’t.” Angie scrunches up her face. “It’s just—I’m glad you have your writing, Autumn. It’s good to have a life and a purpose outside being a mother.” She sighs and rests her head on the back of the couch.
“What do you mean? Do you not have that?” It hadn’t occurred to me that being a writer, spending time on myself, could help me as a mother. I curl my feet under me, adjusting for the strange new ache that I’ve been feeling in my hips.
“I guess I thought that Dave or our love and the life we were building together would be enough. I knew it would be hard, but I thought that while we were working and saving money for the future together, we’d be more together
? Maybe doing better than we are now?”
“Do you mean financially or in your relationship? It sounds like you aren’t doing too badly.”
“Financially, we’re always trying to save, and whenever we make a little progress, something happens. Last month, it was the car, and two months ago, we had the bill from taking Guinnie to urgent care for her ear infection. There’s always something.”
“But you’re saving money and working things out as they come up,” I remind her. It feels so strange to be talking about such adult problems with her.
“Yeah,” Angie agrees. “Yeah, we are. There’s still always something.”
There’s a beat of silence, and I find myself saying, “Do you have any regrets?”
“I don’t. I’m exactly where I want to be. It’s just so much harder than I thought, at least for now.”
“Eventually you’ll be able to move out of Dave’s parents’ basement,” I say.
“And eventually Guinevere will be potty trained or starting kindergarten. But that doesn’t feel real. It’s not that I don’t believe that Dave and I can’t beat the odds,” Angie says, meeting my eyes again. “But some days, it is a lot more conscious choice than belief.”
“I think that’s the difference between the people who get out of the basements and those who don’t,” I say. “You’re choosing to believe.”
Angie shrugs, but she’s listening to what I’m saying, so maybe it’s helping.
“Maybe you’re right. I hope you are.” She laughs. “Listen to me. Complaining because choosing to do the hard thing turned out to be hard.”