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I don't know what this is, or why, but it jumped on my head five minutes after I went to bed and I ended up having to get up to write it.
I'm not bothering with a header, since it would be longer than the ficlet, or even a title, since I want to go back to bed, but here, have a disclaimer: It's fiction. I'm not implying anything here about A-Rod's parenting skills, okay? I promise.
Alex knows by now that the idea of the parent/child post-birth bonding moment is kind of a myth. He knows that if, when you hold the baby and look into the little face for the first time, you feel only exhaustion, it doesn't mean you're going to be a bad parent. It isn't really the best moment to be meeting someone for the first time, after all.
But . . . isn't it supposed to happen eventually?
In the weeks and months between Natasha's birth and his departure for spring training, Alex tries. He holds Natasha, talks to her, lets her grab his finger and direct it to her mouth. A couple times he watches television with her, sort of, letting her sleep on his chest while he lies on the couch and keeps a hand on her back in case she chooses this moment to learn how to roll over.
He watches Cynthia with her, too. Cynthia has the hang of this whole parent thing. Which, at this stage, mostly means that she can quiet Natasha when she screams, but that's a valuable skill that Alex can't get the hang of. He doesn't even want to know how many times he's given up and passed Natasha along to her mother. Of course, she has the whole nine-months-pregnancy advantage. Plus, she decided months ago to breastfeed, so that's one thing Alex can't be part of. Probably Natasha just sees Cynthia as a giant milk machine, anyway, and has some baby instinct that tells her not to scare away the food source. He considers asking Cynthia to pump some milk into a bottle so he can try feeding Natasha himself, see if that helps things along, but he doesn't want to explain why.
All winter, he tries. And when Trot Nixon responds to Alex's off-handed remarks with sneering comments about Alex sending Natasha to school in a limo, it scares him and he tries harder for the few days he has left.
On the day he goes, he kisses Cynthia goodbye, then carefully kisses Natasha's forehead. He pauses to look into her eyes, still baby blue, and tries one more time. This, he tells himself, this, leaving his daughter for the first time, should be a moment of devastation. Before he leaves, he should already want to come back home.
So he waits for his heart to break. And still, nothing happens.
I can't decide whether the fact that I'm childfree makes my writing this ironic or just fitting.
I'm not bothering with a header, since it would be longer than the ficlet, or even a title, since I want to go back to bed, but here, have a disclaimer: It's fiction. I'm not implying anything here about A-Rod's parenting skills, okay? I promise.
Alex knows by now that the idea of the parent/child post-birth bonding moment is kind of a myth. He knows that if, when you hold the baby and look into the little face for the first time, you feel only exhaustion, it doesn't mean you're going to be a bad parent. It isn't really the best moment to be meeting someone for the first time, after all.
But . . . isn't it supposed to happen eventually?
In the weeks and months between Natasha's birth and his departure for spring training, Alex tries. He holds Natasha, talks to her, lets her grab his finger and direct it to her mouth. A couple times he watches television with her, sort of, letting her sleep on his chest while he lies on the couch and keeps a hand on her back in case she chooses this moment to learn how to roll over.
He watches Cynthia with her, too. Cynthia has the hang of this whole parent thing. Which, at this stage, mostly means that she can quiet Natasha when she screams, but that's a valuable skill that Alex can't get the hang of. He doesn't even want to know how many times he's given up and passed Natasha along to her mother. Of course, she has the whole nine-months-pregnancy advantage. Plus, she decided months ago to breastfeed, so that's one thing Alex can't be part of. Probably Natasha just sees Cynthia as a giant milk machine, anyway, and has some baby instinct that tells her not to scare away the food source. He considers asking Cynthia to pump some milk into a bottle so he can try feeding Natasha himself, see if that helps things along, but he doesn't want to explain why.
All winter, he tries. And when Trot Nixon responds to Alex's off-handed remarks with sneering comments about Alex sending Natasha to school in a limo, it scares him and he tries harder for the few days he has left.
On the day he goes, he kisses Cynthia goodbye, then carefully kisses Natasha's forehead. He pauses to look into her eyes, still baby blue, and tries one more time. This, he tells himself, this, leaving his daughter for the first time, should be a moment of devastation. Before he leaves, he should already want to come back home.
So he waits for his heart to break. And still, nothing happens.
I can't decide whether the fact that I'm childfree makes my writing this ironic or just fitting.
