I see his eyes flicker from Maisy to me and back again.
“Are you ladies ready for tonight’s story?” he asks, and Maisy cheers out loud, waving her arms and legs and narrowly avoiding hitting me in the face. Cam chuckles and launches into a retelling of one of Maisy’s favourite books, and she listens with rapt attention until the very end, when her face splits in a yawn and her eyes begin to droop.
“Night night, Daddy,” she whispers to the tablet. “I sleep now. Love you.”
“I love you, Maisy Girl,” he says back. “Have big dreams, sweetheart.”
Maisy’s snoring softly before the words are even out of Cam’s mouth. I’m almost asleep too, but I manage to roll myself out of Maisy’sbed and grab the tablet, stopping only to flick her bedroom light off before heading straight to my own bedroom.
“Jet lag, huh?” I hear Cam’s voice. Shit, I had already forgotten we were still on the call. I hold the tablet up to my face and squint at it, forcing a tired smile.
“Yeah, this one hit me like a truck,” I complain. “I filled up my car and tried to pay with a Starbucks card earlier, and then I slept for ten hours. I’m still exhausted.”
“Oh, baby,” he says.Baby. I may not be, but the butterflies in my belly certainly are awake, swooping down to throb between my legs. “Jet lag’s a bitch at the best of times but yours sounds pretty awful today. Go get some more sleep, okay? Text me tomorrow.”
I offer a tight smile and finger wave and then jab a finger at the screen, trying four times before I manage to hit the right button to end the call. I don’t even change out of my leggings and sweatshirt before crawling back into bed and falling asleep with the light on.
It’s still dark outside when I wake again, fully dressed. It’s four in the morning, and I’ve slept for most of the last nineteen hours.
I head for the shower, bare feet slapping noisily against the tiled floor, and I take my time to do everything I didn’t do yesterday, like double-cleanse, and use my favourite curl products. Dressed in leggings and another oversized sweater—this one with a green elephant on the front, I pad down the stairs in a pair of fuzzy socks and head straight to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and start on the first of several loads of laundry. I find myself yawning as I stir my drink, as though I haven’t just slept for the better part of an entire day.
But that’s what jet lag does. I adore my job, and if everything goes right, it’s easy. But there’s no denying it can be hard work; long days,longer nights, lonely hotel rooms away from home for nights on end. Never being able to cook a real meal, always eating out or existing only on pre-packaged, ready to eat junk food. And then there's the jet lag: the brain fog, the jelly limbs, the all-encompassing bone-deep exhaustion that just doesn’t shift, no matter how long you sleep.
And you miss stuff when you’re busy sleeping. The first time Maisy saidmama, I was asleep, exhausted after jumping back into work after maternity leave with a trip to South Africa. I cried for two weeks, sick to my stomach with guilt and desperately sad that I’d missed it—and her—because I’d been sleeping.
I’ve missed parties and weddings, cancelled plans with my friends because although they’d been planned around my work schedule, I’d been too exhausted to make it. Instead, on most of those occasions, I sat at home, alone.
I pull my phone from my pocket.
Amie
Sorry for flaking on you last night. Don’t know why this trip hit so hard.
Almost immediately, my phone buzzes, and I turn it over, expecting to see a reply to my message. Instead, I see a video call request, Cam’s profile photo lighting up my screen. It’s a candid shot of him with Maisy and I can’t help but smile as I answer.
“Hey, she lives!” He jokes in greeting.
“Yeah, God, I have no idea… just kicked my ass, I guess.”
“Sometimes it happens,” he says. “I’m sure it just builds and builds. I can bounce back and forth between Phoenix and Miami for a monthand be fine, and then I’ll fly one more transcon and it’ll just knock me out for a couple days. And that’s only a couple hours’ difference.”
I hum in agreement.
“How’s Maisy? Was she with your mom yesterday?”
“No, Paloma kept her for the day,” I say. The night before last, while I’d been in Hong Kong, Cam and I had conference-called Paloma to say goodnight to Maisy. “They went to the zoo, and at some point, Roo joined them. I woke up to find the three of them having a rave in my living room. I’m pretty sure Lo was about to break out the glow sticks and glitter hair spray.”
Cam laughs, a deep rumble from his belly.
“That girl is a law unto herself,” he says. “I take it Maisy adores her.”
“She does,” I confirm. “With wild, reckless abandon.”
“Sounds like our Maisy Girl,” he says with another chuckle. His eyes are soft, love evident in every inch of his expression. I don’t take it for granted for a second. I know things could’ve turned out so differently. He could’ve been uninterested in Maisy, he could’ve been angry with me. He could’ve broken her heart. But the fact that he didn’t, and the way he loves her takes me right back to that night, to the warmth in my belly and the tug in my chest when his green eyes locked with mine.
Before we hang up, we talk some more, firming up our plans for me and Maisy to fly out to Phoenix for Thanksgiving. As I stuff my phone in the pocket of my sweatshirt and carry my empty mug to the sink, a thought pops unbidden into my head.
Last night… he called mebaby.
