“Here you go,” she said. “I can’t find the other one.”
I looked at her for a moment, waiting to see if it would click. It didn’t.
“Dee, there is no other shoe. I threw it in the closet until I get a prosthetic.”
“Oh,” she said, a horrified look crossing her face. “Malia, I am so sorry.”
“Stop. It’s fine. Seriously. I’m fine. Let’s go hold a squishy baby.”
I was happy to go over to Wendy’s for multiple reasons, but the best one was the squishy baby, Hope. Olly was also a trip, and he was a bundle of energy for the first fifteen minutes we were there before crashing hard for a nap. Wendy said he had been up since the sun rose and was happy that he was finally napping, and I could see the truth on her face. Olly could be a lot, and I could only imagine how that compounded with a new baby.
She seemed absolutely blissful with Finn. And as for Finn, he seemed every bit as smitten with her as she was with him and was, by everything I could see, a terrific father. He was the one who put Olly down for his nap, and most of the time Hope was awake, he was holding her. When I finally got my hands on her, she was awake and curious, looking around the room and trying to figure the world out.
“She’s so quiet,” I said, holding little Hope against my chest and taking in the scent that only tiny baby heads have.
“Not always,” Wendy said, sitting down on Finn’s lap. “You should hear her at three in the morning when she needs a change.”
“Oh, I bet,” Dee said. “How do you do it with no sleep?”
“I don’t,” she laughed, pointing at Finn, who grinned.
“Changes between midnight and 6:00 a.m. are exclusively my territory,” he said. “Since I’m up a lot of the time anyway, it works out.”
“So cute,” I said. “You said you work at the diner?”
“Dina’s, yeah,” he said. “I don’t do as many closing shifts anymore, but on occasion, I don’t get out of there until three or so. When that happens, I just stay up with the kiddos and let Wendy sleep for a bit.”
“He spoils me,” she said, laughing.
“She spoils me,” he said with all seriousness. “It’s the least I can do.”
I smiled and looked back down at baby Hope. She was so small, so fragile. Wendy and Finn seemed so happy with their lives with her. It made me wonder when that would happen for me.
Then a wave of melancholy hit me, and I motioned to Dee, who happily took Hope out of my arms. As much as I wanted to keep holding the adorable baby, the thoughts parading through my mind were getting to be too much. I had to separate myself from them.
All I could think was—who is going to find me attractive now? Who is going to love a woman like me in the first place, someone so aloof to interpersonal relationships and so focused on their career? Then you add an amputee to it? Someone with ugly scars and missing body parts?
I shook it off.
I was being stupid. I had never lacked self-confidence before, but this was getting to me. It was something I was warned about in the aftermath of the accident. Thankfully, I wasn’t experiencing flashbacks or anything like that. Fear wasn’t ruling my life too much. But I was feeling down on myself more often than I ever had, and on top of the phantom leg pain, I was having bouts of mild depression. It was to be expected, but that didn’t make it any less difficult.
It was nearing lunchtime, and the group was talking about going out to eat. I begged off and asked Dee if she could drop me back at home, claiming that the meds were just wearing me out. It wasn’t a lie, really. I was worn-out. But mostly, I just wanted to be at home alone and try to work through what was going on in my head by myself.
Dee waited until I was in my room and opened the curtains to wave at her before she pulled off.
When she pulled away, I sat down on the bed and sighed. The bed was firm and a little bouncy, better than any other bed I ever had, for sure. Dee made sure I had something that would help me as much as possible and went out and bought this one, with the remote that I could push to lift my legs up if I needed to elevate them. I tried to buy it myself, coming out of the money the settlement gave me, but she’d insisted. I planned on buying her one myself for Christmas to pay her back.
I grabbed my tablet off the bedside table and brought it into bed with me as I shed my clothes and curled up under the blanket.