Free Heads or Tails by Leslie A. Gordon Page B

their travel from the womb! It goes away after…never mind. U don’t want 2 know.”
    I gently closed the swinging door that separated the living room from the kitchen and, as quietly as I could, brewed myself a cup of coffee. Jesse had lifted our blinds, as was our morning custom. But it was too bright for me — like looking directly at a meadow of snow on a sunny day — and I yanked them closed. I pulled out a scrap of paper from the makeshift desk in the kitchen and began jotting down things I thought I might need for the next few days. Other than diapers and formula, I couldn’t think of what else to add, though I was sure I was missing some pretty major necessities.
    “Did U get the goodies I left U?” Sarah texted.
    “Huh?” I typed back.
    “I can’t come over ’til tomorrow. School conferences, etc. So I left stuff inside UR side gate. Sorry. Thought Jess wld see it & bring it in.”
    I went out the back kitchen door and walked around to the side of the house, which was accessible from the street only if you had the code to the side door, which Sarah did because she took our trash bins out for us whenever we were out of town on garbage day. I dragged two boxes inside. One was a plastic Container Store box filled with miscellaneous baby items and the other was a cardboard product box, taped closed with blue painters tape, for something called a Pack ’n Play.
    “Just found it. Thx.”
    “It’s basic stuff: diapers (may not B right size), toys, play mat. For anything else, U can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear until I can come by 2 assess the situ.”
    I plopped down on the kitchen floor began pulling items from the plastic box. When Sarah’s son Henry was a baby, she prided herself on dressing him the way she’d wished all her ex-boyfriends had dressed, all tailored and preppy. Very J. Crew. And then when Lily came along, she’d prided herself equally on dressing her baby girl in Henry’s hand-me-downs, deliberately blasting all gender stereotypes. Already, I’d pulled from the box a tiny pair of madras shorts and a light blue button down. I didn’t see many girl clothes. Still, I texted back, “Phew. Thx.”
    “For now, 2 minimize nighttime wakings, stick strictly 2 this schedule: eat, activity, poop, sleep. Repeat.”
    I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant but I was too tired to inquire further. So I simply wrote again, “Thx.”
    “And the PnP is in lieu of a crib. Whatever U do,” her final text of the morning read, “do not let that baby sleep in UR bed.”
    ***
    The next morning, Tuesday, I consulted my calendar for the first time since Sunday’s plane ride. I realized I’d missed my first Spanish class at the JCC the night before. Even if I’d remembered, there was no way I could have gone. Not only had taking care of the baby left me too tired even for a shower or to eat anything more for dinner than a few graham crackers (it turns out that eat, activity, poop, sleep takes a lot more energy than it sounds), but there was no way I was going to ask Jesse to watch her while I went to a class of all things. Already, he’d kept his distance from her — and hence from me — going to both the early and late training runs yesterday after work. He wore ear plugs to bed, though luckily the baby slept in the Pack ’n Play all the way until four-fifteen, which despite the ungodly hour, I considered a decisive win compared to the night before.
    I hadn’t even left the house since returning home from New York late Sunday night. I had no stroller and I couldn’t figure out how to use the fabric front body carrier that Jean had sent home with me. I feared that I’d think I had it all securely attached and then once I stood up, the baby would drop to the floor. So I wasn’t risking it.
    I hadn’t been in my car since Thursday. Normally I loved driving. I loved anticipating the ruts and grooves in the road with my body and adjusting the vehicle’s course just so. But without the