did, but only on the proviso that I took the early shift on Saturdays and Sundays. I couldn’t really argue with her. There’s only so much you can push it with a woman who’s just given birth.
I grumbled something and pulled back the duvet, knocking the empty glass of water from my bedside table. Another groan from Beth. “Sorry,” I muttered.
These early starts had been going on since Christmas, six months before. We had tried all the advice in the books, from friends and family. Let him cry it out, change the bedtime routine, put some water in his cot, change his day-time naps, fill him up with Weetabix before bedtime . Or, from those who weren’t parents: can’t you just ignore him? Sure, ignore him. Ignore the thunderous screams of rage and the cot hammering against the wall as your wife’s body stiffens with fury in the bed next to you, exhausted after another night of fragmented sleep.
We had called a midwife out in January. ‘The main thing is not to worry,’she had said, one palm laid carefully on Beth’s knee so as to avoid the various stains of sick, stewed apple and sour breast milk. ‘It’s just a phase, he’ll grow out of it when he’s good and ready.’
Beth had nodded back dutifully, sobbing quietly as Arthur drained her bruised, broken left nipple for the third time that morning. I’d been watching from the kitchen as I tried to cram cold porridge into Alice’s bawling mouth. A metre of snow outside, still dark at 8:30am, wondering again why we were living in fucking Scotland.
What if this all just went away , I had thought. What if this all just blew away .
I cringe when I remember how hard I thought life was back then. With no sleep, no sex, no time, no respite. Honestly, I thought having kids was hell. But Beth was the one who did it all. She was the one who took it all on, growing them, giving birth to them, changing more than her fair share of filthy nappies, never complaining when I snuck off to the pub or stayed up late watching telly, never complaining when I fell into bed beside her in the middle of the night, my breath heavy with wine. Beth didn’t drink because of the breastfeeding, but I pretty much drank every night. I reasoned that it was my right as a tired parent, that I worked all week to provide for my family and that it helped me relax. I told myself that a glass or two on weeknights and a bit more at the weekend was fine and perfectly healthy. In reality I was pushing at least a bottle a night and two on a Saturday, not to mention the pints after work on a Friday. And exercise - who had time for that with a nine-to-five and two children? The same tired old excuses. The truth was that, aside from a minor decrease in sleep, my body had found a way of getting what it wanted: a sedentary life with plenty of carbohydrates and relaxants. And I gave in. I learned to avoid mirrors, learned to ignore the dull shock of seeing paunch, jowls and breasts growing day by day.
I made it easy on myself, very easy. And that made it hard on Beth.
I have to keep telling myself not to look back so much. I’ll always regret not being a better father, a better husband, but I have to look forward or else I won’t get to the place I’m going and I need beyond everything else to get there. The past is a foreign country , someone once said. They do things differently there. My past - everyone’s past - is now a different planet. It’s so different it almost makes no sense to remember it.
But still, everyone remembers that day.
‘It’s just a phase,’ the midwife had said on that dark winter’s day all those months before. ‘He’ll grow out of it when he’s good and ready.’
Just a phase. A phase that saved our lives.
I poured myself a glass of water as I waited for the microwave to heat up Arthur’s milk, opened the back door and stepped out onto the deck. It was another sunny day and already warm. Arthur flinched at the low sun and snuggled into my neck,
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