Poem: "The Most Room in Your Heart"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem is spillover from the December 5, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from technoshaman, alexseanchai, and janetmiles. It also fills the "guardian angel" square of my 12-3-17 card for the genprompt_bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by technoshaman. It belongs to the Damask thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.


"The Most Room in Your Heart"


There are two locks on the door
of the bedroom that once belonged
to Maisie and now belongs to
both Mallory and Dairinne.

One is a simple sliding latch,
high up toward eye level, and
the other one is the key lock in
the metal plate under the knob.

Mallory likes locks.

They are simple and
easy to understand.
They make boundaries
both clear and secure.

After all the time that
she spent sleeping on
the futon on the landing,
Mallory revels in having
a door that she can lock.

The problem is that
locks and babies
don't really mix.

Heron has impressed
on her that it's not safe
to hand over the baby,
lock her door, and then
fall asleep where nobody
could reach her in a crisis.

Nor is it particularly safe
for Mallory and Dairinne
to fall asleep together in
a locked room, just in case
something should go wrong.

And locking Dairinne in is
apparently right out, even though
it'd keep people from waking her up.

That leaves Mallory with a room
that can't (shouldn't) be locked,
and of course, in a house full of
college students, it means that
people barge in at awkward times.

After the time that Paige walks in
on them both completely starkers
because Dairinne had barfed on
Mallory and it was easier just
to shower off together and
Mallory hadn't gotten clothes
back on them yet, she's had it.

"I can't stand this," Mallory says
to Heron, waving her hands. "I don't
want to live in a house where I
can't lock my frigging door!"

"It's not the door, Mallory,
it's the baby," Heron says.

"I know, I know," she says,
"but if this happens again,
I swear to fuck I will start
boobytrapping my door.
There will be buckets."

"Mmm, let's see if we can
find a better solution than
that one," Heron says.

"Knock yourself out,"
Mallory mutters.

She wants to slam
the door in his face, but
that would definitely
wake up the baby.

How is this her life?

She used to be Farce,
a scary supervillain,
the terror of Urbanburg.

Now she's afraid
to slam her own door.

"You seem pretty upset,"
Heron says. "Do you want
to talk about it while I search?"

"It's just, there's so much more
that I have to do now," Mallory says.
"I don't mean just the practical stuff
like feeding and diapering. It's that
everyone wants me to talk about
the baby and give me advice
and it's all so exhausting."

"Emotional labor often is,"
Heron says. "Some of it
is necessary to maintain
relationships ... but you
should think about which
ones you truly care about."

"Not many," Mallory grumbles.
"You. Our housemates. I guess
your family doesn't totally suck."

"Thank you for that," he says,
and one corner of his mouth
curls into a faint smile.

"I just hope that you can
come up with something
to fix the door issue before
I snap," Mallory says.

"How about this?"
Heron asks, showing
her a product page on
his tablet computer.

It's one of those silly signs
like they have in hotels to
hang on your doorknob.

One side is pink and white
with a sleeping baby and it says,
Please do not disturb. The other
is blank whiteboard with a pen
clipped along one side of it.

"Really?" Mallory says,
raising her eyebrows.
"You think that'll work?"

"It will if I explain the situation
to our housemates," Heron says.
"It's better than a bucket of water
over the head, and they know it.
They'll treat 'Do not disturb' like
a lock except in an emergency."

Mallory snorts. "You're like
my own personal guardian angel,
or would be if I believed
in that sort of stuff."

"Well, you learned
to believe in me,"
Heron says. "That's
good enough for me."

"I need to have something
to hold onto, or I will go nuts,"
Mallory says. "I have baby things
spilling everywhere. How can someone
so tiny take up so much of my space?"

"I know new babies always require
some adjustment, but I'm still sorry
that you're having such a bad time
with this," Heron says, wrapping
his warm arms around her.

"It's not bad, it's just weird,"
Mallory says. "I feel like she's
taken over my whole life. It
drives me totally crazy, and
yet I love her so much, too.

Heron hugs her tight and says,
"Sometimes, the smallest things
take up the most room in your heart."

* * *

Notes:

"Sometimes, the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."
-- Winnie The Pooh, A.A. Milne

The master bedroom is the one with the ensuite.  It originally belonged to Maisie, who gave way to Damask, who passed it along to Mallory and Dairinne since a new baby has much need of a bathroom.

Door etiquette can get complicated, especially in a house shared with several housemates and a baby.

Door booby traps have their own trope, named for the bucket version. These instructions detail several methods. Watch videos for a tub of flour and funnel of water.

See Mallory's door sign. The front side is pink on top and bottom, white in the middle with a baby's face, and blue text says, "Please do not disturb." The back side is all blank whiteboard with a dry-erase pen clipped on one side to write messages.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

I've seen [on video] a SWAT team respect that sign [or very similar]... Granted, it was on the door next to where they were raiding... but imagine a dozen highly armed officers whispering at some drug dealer to get on the ground etc...and *shushhing* the bad guys when they kicked off. Simultaneously amusing as anything and scary.

I had to wonder just how many of them were family men though.

[technoshaman]

Yeah. Pooh is right. <3 Yay household with good skills, where that will work!

that door tag... I'd trust velcro more than a clip... less pointy bits, holds better. But hey. Use what you got.

[chanter1944]

I love Heron dearly, but he is waaaaay too calm in this situation. I'd have blown my cork if he'd asked me if I wanted to talk about my feelings in that counselor-y way right after I'd gotten done snarling about not being able to keep people out of my damn room. Duh, Heron, <3 though you are. And why is he the one doing the explaining of the sign on the door, instead of at least tag teaming it with Mallory? It's her door. Letting the only dude in the house explain... ehh. Even though he's the one familiar with the sign, he's not the one living behind the door and getting barged in on. This feels like half Mallory's call, at least. At best, it's a case of someone with knowledge of an item preempting the person who'll be using it, which is iffy but understandable. At worst, it makes me wonder if someone might listen to Heron over Mallory, which I doubt, but still, eew.

Re: emotional labor: A lot of what Mallory's getting thoroughly (rightfully, IMO) sick of doesn't sound as much like emotional labor as it does putting up with people's well-meant unhelpful advice, platitudes, and bullshit. I'm surprised Heron didn't make the distinction more plainly. There quickly comes a point when that's plain old work not worth doing. Being a parent =/= losing your own identity separate from kid, or being modeling clay for every well-meaning soccer parent wanting to use themselves as a template.

I <3 <3 <3 you, Ysabet. I just... really badly want Mallory's roommates to have listened to the 'stay the @#&! out of our room unless it's an emergency' rule the first time Mallory said it. I'm surprised they didn't have more of a handle on that one. Screwups happen, but eesh. And for Heron to not do the counselor thing as a default--ugh. Sorry, that just squicked me in this situation. Normally he doesn't have that effect on me at all. This was just a towering case of duh, pal. Duuuuuuh, and of course Mallory can't scream 'what do you think?' because baby.

So not a parent here. Giving up that much autonomy, that much agency... This just drove it home.

[manglefox]

You know. I was just thinking about door etiquette about an hour ago. Apparently the system has door etiquette here for people's personal rooms.

For my crew though, we all share a single pizzeria, with some quiet rooms in the back that are not customer-facing areas as we have people here who don't want to deal with customers or can't for various reasons. Some of them just duck into those quiet rooms for short periods of time. Others have specific rooms that are ours, and all of us have places to be after hours, too mostly.

We all have places for ourselves, and though there're no doors per se, except on the non customer-facing rooms, restrooms, kitchen and the like, we still do follow etiquette. If someone looks like they want to be alone, we ask them and respect their answer.

However, system as a whole does have more standard door etiquette, complete with signs in some cases. It's important, even in a system who all share one body to have privacy and respect from all parties involved.

Hm. Maybe we should write down all our house rules some time. It'd be an interesting read if nothing else. If I wasn't trying to finish nine articles in a day right now I would.

[manglefox]

Ok. So, I personally had a couple things I wanted to bring up/wondered.

Firstly, this is a great story. I still think Mallory should seriously arm her door with buckets of water. :P Except, knowing her luck one would fall on her head!

Secondly, something I've always wondered. Do Maze&'s housemates know they're a system? I'm assuming they do, because of differences in posture/body language/etc, but I had to ask because I'm curious.

Thirdly, not trying to be a nitpick here, but shouldn't that be "The room that used to belong to Maze& since there isn't a Maisie anymore?