For Part One, click
here.
The next morning saw him being circumcised and getting to nurse. He took to it quickly, and didn't want to stop. Visitors came, a few friends and my siblings. I called my dad, from whom I'd been estranged from for several years (more on this later), to tell him he had a new grandson. By the way, my son had a name, in fact, we'd picked it out right after finding out we were pregnant--to protect his privacy, I will give the "back-up" name we'd also picked--Draven--in place of his real one.
After we were discharged, Draven and I were picked up by my sister and driven home. I got settled in, and the ex was about to leave for work. He worked 11 to 11, four hours at Hot Topics and then eight at a restaurant in the kitchen. Afterwards he'd sometimes stop in at a pub (bar) he used to work at to get a Guinness and shot the sit with old friends.
That night he did a lot more. He came in at like 3 am, drunk, stumbling, got his pants down around his ankles before puking (promising to clean it up) and passing out. I took off his shoes, pants and cleaned up the puke. Keep in mind I'd just brought home a new baby.
Two weeks later, my mom flew up to see me. While I was pregnant, the ex and I had decided that once the baby was born, I'd move down to Texas, stay with my mom and brother, get a job, and an apartment, and then the ex would move down and join us. So the plan was, when my mom came up, I'd return with her.
Seemed easy, right?
Except my brother and a friend were renting the other bedroom in the two bedroom apartment my mother rented. She'd sold her condo in NH and was using the money for rent and other expenses, just working part-time because she'd had a few issues lately after a minor fender bender--a head injury that affected her memory and attention. Nothing really really major, but it was an adjustment for her.
So when Draven and I joined her, we got the second bedroom for a few weeks, and my brother and his friend had to sleep on the living room floor.
Then my mother decided since they were paying rent, and I wasn't, I should get the floor, and they the beds in the bedroom.
So from November to February, Draven and I slept on the floor of the living room, on a large unzipped sleeping bag with a full size comforter on top of us. I had to have it all folded and put away before 9 am or, once I started working, before work.
My mother agreed to watch Draven while I worked, and I signed on with a few temp agencies, hoping one would lead to a permanent position. I worked a few days here and there, lugging my breast pump and cold packs to and from the bathrooms every break and half of lunch. I got rides from my brother or my mother, sold my car which I'd left in NH, and still, I could not afford an apartment.
My brother and his friend soon found one for them, and in February, they moved out. I got an old box spring and mattress (twin size) from my mom's storage, and as I'd just started a longer term job, my new manager, who was about to have a baby herself, gave me a crib they'd been given by a friend, since they'd decided to buy a new one--she even drove me to pick it up!
That job lasted three months, then I was out of work again for about six weeks. But I got my income tax refund, and a settlement from a car accident 3 years before (minor one, but I had issues with my back spasming up for months after, and the lady's insurance company was VERY generous) so I was able to buy a used car, and some more work clothes.
I worked two more temp jobs until July, when I was hired as an administrative assistant by a firm working under a woman who was a friend of my mother's--it turned out she was NOT nice to work under, but I did my best. Then a spot FINALLY opened up at a local day care for Draven, and it seemed, all was set.
Except the ex. I could not contact him. The phone number was disconnected. He didn't reply to my letters. Nothing.
Within six months of working at this job, I was able to move into a one bedroom apartment. I had to, because my brother wanted to move back home, and my mother was still collecting child support for him, and she wasn't supposed to if he didn't live with her. I had also taken up with a guy, the first I'd slept with since the ex, since before Draven was born--it'd been about a year and a half since I'd had sex. My episiotomy scar hurt the first few times.
The guy let me borrow money from him, which I paid back, but I only was paid once a month, so I had a little lag between, to pay the security deposit and the rest of it...I told him I couldn't sleep with him once he loaned me money, I felt too weird, but he was fine with that, and we remained friends, but this time with no more benefits...
So a cousin donated an old dresser to me, and when my income tax refund came, I bought a futon and a dinette set, and my mother's friend gave me an old set of silverware and a comfy chair. My younger brother bought a washer and dryer from a neighbor who was moving and didn't want to take it, and gave me those.
I bought a set of dishes from Sears and one of my sisters sent me pots and pans for Christmas. I was set up this way.
The fridge was never full, and some dinners were just a can of beans, whole wheat noodles, and fruit, but we lived as best we could, Draven and I.
Before my washer and dryer were hooked up, I'd do laundry at my mom's...she insisted I buy her detergent as well as my own to make up for the increase in her water bill. To let you know how stingy she was, when my oldest sister and her husband and daughters, a few years before, had to stay with my mom for a few days after a fire in the condo next to theirs, my mother CHARGED THEM FOR TOILET PAPER, insisted they provide their own meals, and basically all they got for free was a roof over their heads for a few days.
I really couldn't afford to live on my own, as a single parent, but I didn't have anyone but my mother and brother to turn to. My brother helped a bit, but my mother was so stingy. I never went out--it was maybe three times in that period from birth that she watched Draven while I went out for a date. Even when I was living with her, I sprained my ankle when Draven was 6 months old, and stayed out of work one day--to rest--and she took to her bed that day, and refused to help me AT ALL because she was sick. I went back to work the next day, to rest.
I was never able to pay my electric bill, luckily it was very small, and barely afforded day care and rent and food.
I made friends with the girl who rented the apartment above mine, and occasionally she'd order a pizza and I'd take the baby monitor up to her place (the apts were directly on top of each other, right now my kitchen and bedroom are further away, separated only by doors and a small staircase.) and we'd hang out.
I also made friends with a coworker, who was about my age, with kids, and she and I would sometimes eat lunch together. An attorney I worked with would also occasionally have me order a pizza "to split" though he'd see I took home the leftovers and he always paid for it.
Everything was okay until that fall.
That's when the twin towers fell, and though there was no direct connection, my life fell to shit.
