“I hope you don’t mind me breastfeeding in front of you. One of the things that I have lost being a mom is my modesty about bodily functions. Pee, poop and nipples are just facts of life.”
“It doesn’t bother me. It’s kind of interesting. I don’t think I have ever seen a kid breastfed before.”
“Breastfeeding is so much better for a baby than a bottle. I may have to stop when I go to college, but he will have gotten most of the value of breastfeeding by then.” She looked down at Owen then looked back at me. “Oh, thanks so much for lending me your car yesterday. Could I borrow it again today? You’d have to get a ride home after work again…”
“I guess so. It worked out well last night. But you can’t keep borrowing it every day.”
“I know. I’m trying to get something in place, but I am going to need some wheels for the next few days. I’ll fill the tank when I am done and I’ll do something nice for you later, okay?”
“Okay.”
“What did you mean by ‘it worked out well last night’?”
“I normally come right home after working my shift. Last night, I stayed and hung out with my co-workers. I told them with Curt disappearing on me, I was on the lookout for a new roommate. One said he might know someone who’d be interested.”
Friday morning when I had gone to my roommate Curt’s bedroom to confront him about where his half of the rent money was, I had discovered that all of his stuff was gone except some crappy furniture. Later, I had called someone I knew who worked at the restaurant Curt worked at and I had found out that Wednesday he had shown up for work tipsy and had been fired.
With Curt gone, I didn’t have to sleep last night on the couch like I had been expecting. I had been surprised when Ashley called me a month ago to ask me to come to her graduation. Then she explained that she wanted to move to Madison and asked me to move her stuff down and let her stay with me for a few days until she could find her own place. I had expected at the time that I would sleep on the couch while she slept in my room. With Curt gone, she had slept in his room and I had slept in mine.
“Just to be clear – this means you have even less time to find subsidized housing or whatever. I don’t want a potential roommate scared off because you and Owen are staying here indefinitely. I am already late on the rent and I can’t swing the whole month by myself. You can take Curt’s furniture with you when you move out if you want.”
“Look,” said Ashley. “You’ve been great – far better to me than I expected. I’m grateful for all you have done for me, including cleaning up the apartment yesterday.” When we had gotten to my apartment, I realized that what was clean enough for two guys wasn’t nearly clean enough for a baby to live in. We had spent the two hours before I went to work picking up, vacuuming, sweeping until there wasn’t any crap within Owen’s reach. “Do what you need to do and I’ll get out of your hair as quickly as I can.”
Ashley finished nursing Owen, set him down on a blanket and gave him a couple of toys.