Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me Read Online Free

I’d just skip the cranberry sauce altogether. Lyle didn’t care about Thanksgiving one way or the other, so why was I even bothering? Lyle thought we should take advantage of the fact that Stella was still clueless, as he liked to put it, and go to our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant on Thanksgiving, where there was usually an hour and a half wait but would be empty on the holiday.
    Outside, it was drizzling. I started to run, so Stella wouldn’t get wet, then heard someone behind me yelling. “Miss, oh Miss!” I turned to see a police officer—blond brush-cut, forearms the size of my thighs—trotting up behind me. His gold nameplate said Beckett. “You haven’t paid for that.”
    â€œPaid for … oh, oh! I thought …” I looked down, expecting to see Stella in her little red fleece jacket and cap, but there was the turkey in my arms instead. The fleshy, nonfrozen breast stared blankly up at me. It seems I was also patting it in a reassuring manner. “I thought this was my baby! I mean, I mistook her … it …” I started to snort. Lyle calls it my grandmother laugh. “This is only the second time I’ve been out of the house without Stella, so naturally, it was just habit … Stella is much prettier than …” I couldn’t stop laughing.
    Beckett said he also had a six-month-old. We swapped war stories. He said his wife had inadvertently given him a black eye during a particularly hairy patch of labor.
    I said, “Hate to break the news, but it wasn’t inadvertent. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m sure your wife appreciates you very much. I’m sure you’re one of those guys who makes ‘involved father’ sound like God’s truth instead of an oxymoron.”
    Beckett gave a hardy PR laugh, the kind that displayed his molars to their best advantage, but he didn’t take his eyes off me.
    â€œOh! The turkey. Let me just get my wallet. Do I pay you—or no, I just probably go get back in line …” I pawed around inside my shoulder bag. No wallet. “Let me just …” I moved the turkey to the crook of my left arm, so I could check my jeans pockets and the pockets of my coat. I have an informal banking system where I leave five-dollar bills in rarely visited pockets, for moments just like this. Two nickels and a penny. This was not good. This was starting to look like shoplifting. “I must have left my wallet at home.”
    Beckett took the turkey from me and stuck it under his arm. You could tell he used to play football. A few shoppers in the parking lot dawdled over unlocking their cars, allowing them to stare. Beckett clapped me on the shoulder. “I’ll let it go this time with a recommendation: Get more sleep.”
    I had the presence of mind not to blurt out “Easy for you to say!” which is, I suppose, a testimony to my fundamental sanity. I kept quiet, felt my face get hot, then, as I watched him turnaround and go back into Donleavy’s, thought I might cry. Tired, that’s all. Tired, and now turkeyless.
    At that moment Mary Rose came over. “What was that all about?” She was pulling a waterproof anorak over her head. Around her waist she wore a tan leather holster, where she kept all her clippers and such. I told her what happened. She lit a cigarette, listened, blew smoke sideways out of her mouth. “Shake it off. I’m sure the cop sees stuff like this all the time. It’s no big deal. Where is Stella, anyway?”
    â€œHome with her father. He can’t get enough of her, you know? I practically have to wrestle him to the ground to get her away from him, just so I can feed her. Joined at the hip. Fathers and daughters, you know how they are. From birth they’re that way. Joined at the hip. Wait, did I already say that?”
    I heard my voice go wobbly. Is this what motherhood had reduced me to? Weeping in the