there's no place like home

Winnie knew she had no right to complain, but it came so easily, lately.

1. Her husband Dole had let her down.
2. She'd quit her job at the marketing place to be a mom.
3. Dole was let go at the pharmaceutical company.
4. He'd been so strange since the baby was born, as if he might throw up when he was around her and the baby, Bella.
5. Winnie needed sleep, food, water, but none of that happened on a schedule. There was the baby to breast-feed.

She'd decided Dole must have been undisguised. She was certain he had Asperger's, yet when she looked up the cues on GOOGLE, she found she might be the one prone to Asperger's. After all, she did think a lot and there was a lot to think about while she was nursing Bella.

Dole would stand there watching, saying nothing. She imagined him this way when he was old. He never talked about losing his job. He would say ever so often, "I'll find another one." It hadn't happened yet, and her mother was tired of dealing with the two of them. So here they were in another guestroom. At another relatives' house. Just the three of them.

At least, Bella was in a crib now. She didn't have one at her mother's. They'd made do with a white laundry basket and fat pillow inside it.

Winnie worried night and day that her child would roll over and suffocate. Actually, Winnie didn't know what sleep was anymore. And she wondered now why she found Dole attractive in the first place.

Was it because he was the only one who could put up with her nervousness? Wanting to be alone, yet wondering what in the world was happening outside. She needed a guide, but guess who did all the driving, organizing his week, paying the bills and keeping them afloat?

Dole was oblivious to everything.