by Katie Powner
Her heart beat a little faster, and she forced herself to lean into the couch and breathe. She was being paranoid. It wasn’t possible. But wasn’t paranoia one of the symptoms? Hot coffee. And wasn’t another symptom loss of ability to do things a person used to do? She thought of her dad in the kitchen. He’d always been able to fix anything. That kind of work came naturally to him. So why couldn’t he figure out the ice maker?
She rested her head on the back of the couch. This wasn’t helping. When her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, Bea had convinced herself she had it, too. Now she was doing the same thing. She closed her eyes. Stop getting carried away. Stop getting carried away.
Her phone buzzed, and she peeked at the screen. A text message from Amber.
What are you doing today?
A welcome distraction. Bea readily typed a response.
Nothing, why?
I need a favor.
Bea sat up a little.
What’s up?
Axel’s back in town, and I need to talk to him. But my mom’s not around to watch Hunter.
Bea’s brow furrowed. Why would Amber want to talk to Axel after what he’d done? She rubbed her temples. It did make a little bit of sense. He was Hunter’s dad, after all. But why couldn’t she take Hunter with her?
Doesn’t he want to see his son?
Amber’s reply was a long minute in coming.
No. Can I bring him to your house? It’s just for a couple hours.
Bea was sitting up with her feet on the floor now. She scanned the room. What would she do with an eight-month-old for two hours? What kind of toys did he like? She was pretty sure he couldn’t walk yet, but was he crawling? She eyed the sharp edges of the coffee table. This house was definitely not babyproof.
Amber texted again.
Please?
Bea shook her head. She couldn’t refuse to help her only friend. Surely she could keep one baby safe for two hours.
Sure. Bring him over.
Amber’s response was immediate, as if she knew Bea couldn’t say no.
Be there in ten.
Bea was on her feet already. Ten minutes? She had ten minutes to prepare for a child? Her heart did a funny little swoop as she pictured Hunter’s face. She needed to do a sweep of the house to look for hazards. She needed to check the kitchen for food suitable for a baby. She needed to pee.
Why did Jeremy have to pick this morning of all mornings to be gone?
She slid her phone into her back pocket and put her hands on her hips. She could do this. She was a grown-up. She had her own baby coming in just under seven months. She didn’t need Jeremy’s help.
“Dad?”
Hunter pulled himself to a standing position using the coffee table for support and banged his hand on the wood surface. Bang, bang, bang. He stopped, widened his eyes in surprise, then did it again. Bang, bang, bang.
“Should I stop him?” Bea sat on the floor behind him, ready to intervene. “What is he doing?”
Her dad grinned at Hunter. “You like to make noise, don’t you, buddy?”
Hunter bounced and banged, drool running from his mouth.
“He’s fine.” Dad set a blue plastic cup on the table in front of Hunter. “It’s just what kids do.”
After a number of attempts, Hunter grabbed the cup by the rim and brought it to his mouth.
“No, don’t.” Bea reached over to pull the cup away. “That’s dirty.”
Hunter’s face scrunched up, and he took a deep breath.
“It’s fine, B.B.” Dad quickly gave the cup back. “It’s not going to hurt him.”
It was too late. With his mouth open wide, Hunter began screaming. And screaming. Bea’s neck and shoulders tightened. Amber had assured her Hunter hardly ever fussed.
Dad scooped him up. “It’s okay, buddy. Look, you can have the cup.”
He tried to put the cup back in Hunter’s hand, but the kid would have none of it.
“What do we do?” Bea asked.
Other girls her age had made money babysitting during their high-school years, but Bea had always worked at the Food Farm. And since she didn’t have any cousins or nieces or nephews or anything, her childcare experience was painfully limited.
Dad set Hunter down in a standing position on the other side of the coffee table and placed a Montana Outdoors magazine in front of him. “Distraction.”
Hunter stopped crying and hit the magazine with his palm. Slap, slap. Then got ahold of the cover and started jerking it back and forth.
Bea inched closer. “He’s going to rip it.”
Dad waved her away. “He’s fine.”
Part of her was thankful she didn’t have to face Hunter alone. Another part wished she hadn’t gotten Dad involved. “You keep saying that.”
Dad chuckled as Hunter succeeded in tearing off the magazine cover and crumpling it up. “That’s because it’s true.”
But how did he know? Bea remained on edge as Hunter proceeded to rip more pages out, one by one. How was she supposed to know if he was fine? If he was doing what he was supposed to be doing? If she should let him do what he wanted or intervene?
Dad must’ve read the anxiety on her face. “Don’t worry. You’ve got lots of time to figure it out.”
“Seven months is not ‘lots of time.’” Bea gasped as Hunter lost his balance and fell backward onto his bottom. He made a little burbling sound but otherwise seemed unfazed, his diaper having cushioned his fall. “What if I don’t know what to do?”
Oops. She hadn’t meant to ask that question out loud. Dad already thought having a baby was a bad idea. The last thing she needed was for him to find out how unprepared and ill-equipped she really was.
Dad helped Hunter to his feet, then pressed his own back into the couch and put his hands on his knees. “One time, when you were a little younger than this guy, we went to Ponderosa for something—I don’t remember what—and totally forgot to bring your diaper bag. We had no spare diapers, no wipes, no nothing, and you had this huge blowout in the middle of a Wendy’s restaurant. It was so bad, we ended up throwing away everything you were wearing and wrapping you in my favorite T-shirt. Which was soaked in pee by the time we got home.”
Bea’s eyes widened. “Why would you tell me that?”
An old, familiar light sparked in his eyes. “Because we lived through it. We learned. Your mother and I never forgot the diaper bag again, and it wasn’t nearly as big a deal as we thought it was at the time.”
Emotion flooded her as she pictured herself as a baby in her mother’s arms. “What about your T-shirt?”
“I threw it in the wash and kept wearing it. And told your mother that next time she had to sacrifice her own shirt.”
Bea smiled to herself. Her mom and dad had been new parents once, too. Everyone had to start somewhere. She began to relax, but then her previous anxiety resurfaced. What if Grandma June did have familial Alzheimer’s disease? What if Bea carried the gene? What if she’d already passed it on to her child?
She needed to stop fixating on the possibilities. Fixation was another symptom of mental deterioration.
The next hour passed quickly. When Hunter had arrived, Amber said he’d just woken up from a nap. As lunchtime passed and his mother did not return, it became evident he needed another one of those. Bea texted Amber to ask when she would be back but got no response.
She held a yawning Hunter on her hip and looked around the house. “Where is he going to lie down?”
Dad was unperturbed. “We’ll move a couch cushion to the floor.”
“What if he rolls off?”
“Watch this.” He slid the couch so it was perpendicular to the wall and tucked a cushion into the ninety-degree angle formed on the floor. He stood a second cushion upright against the side of the makeshift bed opposite the couch and nodded.
“Set him so his feet are this way.” He pointed to the one open side. “And he’ll be fine.”
He’ll be fine. How many times
could Dad say the word fine in one day?
“Are you sure?”
“He’s not going to roll feet first. Just make sure he’s asleep before you put him down so he doesn’t try to escape.”
“Okay.” Bea was skeptical and didn’t care if she sounded like it. “But can you at least put a blanket over the cushion or something? It’s covered in cat hair.”
“Well.” Dad raised an eyebrow. “That’s not my fault.”
Hunter’s eyes were almost closed. Bea moved him to her shoulder, and his body grew limp. She gave her dad a look, and he raised his hands and went to the linen closet to find something to lay on the cushion. By the time the makeshift bed was ready, Hunter was completely sacked out.
Bea stood over the cushion and looked down at the floor. It was so far away.
“How am I supposed to set him down without waking him up?” she whispered.
Dad gave her an amused look. “He’s sound asleep. He won’t even notice.”
She knelt in slow motion, eyeing the distance to the cushion and praying silently the baby would not wake up. She laid him next to the blanket she’d pulled from his diaper bag as carefully as she could, slowly moving her hands out from under him and inching away. He twitched and made a snorting sound, then pulled the blanket to his chest and started to snore.
She backed away a little farther, then stood. Whew. That was stressful. She turned and gave her dad a triumphant smile. “We did it.”
He pretended to wipe sweat from his forehead, and she chuckled. Quietly. Together they tiptoed to the other side of the couch to head for the kitchen.
The front door flew open.
Jeremy entered, his arms spread open as he called out in a singsong voice, “Honey, I’m hooome.”
“Shh!”
Bea and her dad both put a finger to their lips and shushed him at the same time.
His eyes widened. “What?”
Hunter began to cry.
Bea frowned at her friend and shifted on her feet. “You could’ve at least texted me.”
Amber nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know . . .”
Her voice trailed off, and Bea rubbed her forehead. She’d expected Amber around noon, and it was almost five o’clock and long after Hunter had woken up from his second attempt at a nap, and she’d fed him everything she could find in his diaper bag plus yogurt and Ritz crackers from the kitchen. But it couldn’t have been easy for Amber to see Axel again.
Bea peered over her shoulder to make sure Jeremy and her dad were out of earshot. “What did he say?”
Amber kissed her fingers, then touched them to Hunter’s nose. “You look so much like your daddy—did you know that?”
Hunter held his arms up, wanting to be held. Amber obliged. “He said he was sorry he left.”
Bea fought off a frown. “Really.”
Amber shrugged. “He said a lot of other things. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Is he moving back?”
“I don’t know. He said he’s got a job in Ponderosa.”
Questions dangled on the tip of Bea’s tongue. What kind of job? Did he plan to support his family? Did he have any idea how much it cost to raise a child? Because holy cow it was expensive. How could he just show back up?
She didn’t ask any of them out loud, but a warning rang out in her brain. “Does he want to see Hunter?”
Amber nuzzled her son’s neck. “He said he isn’t ready.”
He wasn’t ready. How nice. Bea wanted to call him a not-so-nice name, but she saw the expression on Amber’s face and changed her mind. “I’m sorry. This must be really hard.”
Amber looked up, her eyes glistening. “Thank you, Bea. For everything.”
Bea looked down. She hadn’t done much. Watched Hunter for a few hours and tried not to be too judgmental. Was that all it took to be a good friend? She’d never really had one before except her mom.
“You’re welcome.”
“I mean it. Other people from school wanted nothing to do with me once they found out about Hunter. It’s like they were afraid my situation was contagious.”
“That sucks.”
“I get it, in a way.” Amber blew a piece of hair from her face. “They wanted to party at the river and go to concerts and date each other. You can’t do stuff like that with a baby.”
Bea bit the inside of her bottom lip. She didn’t care about parties or concerts or dating. But what other things might she lose from her life once her baby was born?
“Well, I better get this guy home.” Amber slung Hunter’s diaper bag over her shoulder and smiled at him. “Did you have fun with Auntie Bea?”
Hunter gave a happy-sounding gurgle as he and Amber headed for the door, and Bea’s heart squeezed. Auntie? She was an only child. She’d never be a real aunt, but she sure liked the sound of it.
“See you later.” Bea waved and closed the door after her friend.
Friend. Who would’ve ever thought she and Amber Moss would be friends? Jeremy appeared, drawn by the sound of the door.
“She gone?”
Bea nodded. “I’m exhausted.”
“I’m sorry I missed most of it. I need all the practice I can get.”
“I had no idea what I was doing.”
“I’m sure you were great.” Jeremy kissed her on the forehead. “I had quite a day, too. Ed showed me how to change a tire on the ten-wheeler. Then I stopped at that antler shop on my way home.”
“You talked to Mr. Van Dyken?”
Jeremy nodded. “He showed me all these amazing pictures on his phone of his work. He even has a video about how to build an antler chandelier that he made for his grandson.”
“Whoa, I would totally watch that.”
“It needs some editing, but yes, it was really cool.” Jeremy was fired up now, and his voice rose. “But all that stuff’s just sitting there on his phone. Being wasted! I showed him how to set up a Facebook account and post pictures on it.”
“Did he do it?”
“No.” Jeremy deflated. “He said he wasn’t ready for that sort of thing.”
Bea harrumphed. “Well, is he ready to go out of business?”
“I said something along the same lines.” Jeremy chuckled. “Except with a little more subtlety.”
He steered her toward the kitchen. “Shall we go see what your dad has planned for this big dinner he keeps talking about?”
Bea was happy to turn her attention to dinner. They entered the kitchen and found Dad elbow-deep in raw meat. He was kneading a giant ball of burger in a glass bowl and forming patties with his hands. Containers of chili powder, seasoned salt, garlic powder, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce were scattered around the counter.
Bea perked right up. “Are you grilling?”
Dad nodded. “Just the way you like them.”
Even though she thought she’d never be hungry again after her cheesecake breakfast, her stomach rumbled.
“Do you mean grilling on a grill?” Jeremy looked back and forth between her and her dad. “Like a barbecue grill?”
Dad broke off a handful of meat and began rolling it between his palms. “Of course.”
Jeremy gaped. “It’s twenty degrees outside.”
Once the meat had formed to his satisfaction, Dad began flattening it into a patty. “Technically, it’s only seventeen.”
Bea washed her hands in the sink. “Anything I can do to help?”
“You can cut up cheese and pickles and such if you want.”
Though he looked skeptical, Jeremy helped her pull everything from the fridge that could possibly go on a hamburger. While Dad took the plate of newly formed patties outside to place on the grill, she and Jeremy sliced tomatoes, cheese, pickles, and onions.
When tomato juice dripped down her arm, Jeremy had a rag in his hand to wipe it up before she asked. As he opened the bag with the block of cheese in it, she set a cutting board underneath before he could even look for it.
Bea thought o
f her mom. She and Dad had made a good team, too.
“Get down, Steve.” Bea shooed the cat off a chair as she began to set the table. “Dad won’t like you sitting up there.”
Jeremy opened a bag of hamburger buns. “Was it fun?”
“What?”
“Taking care of Hunter.”
“I don’t know.” Bea filled three glasses with water. “I was too nervous to have fun.”
“I bet it’s scarier with other people’s kids.” Jeremy ran a hand through his hair. “With your own, it just . . .”
She raised her eyebrows and waited for him to finish his sentence.
He shrugged and grinned. “Just comes natural.”
She tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. That couldn’t possibly be true. “But what if—”
The back door opened, and a blast of cold air stalked through the kitchen like a wolf on the prowl, stealing Bea’s words away. Jeremy gave her a questioning look, but she shook her head. Maybe she wasn’t ready to say it out loud, anyway.
Dad proudly set the burgers on the table. “Dinner’s ready.”
“Smells good.” Bea took her seat. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Yeah, thank you.” Jeremy sat down beside her. “I’m starving.”
Dad prayed over their meal, and then they all eagerly prepared hamburger buns to their liking. For Bea, that meant mayo, lettuce, tomato, two very thin slices of pickle, and a tiny bit of mustard. No ketchup, no onions, and definitely no barbecue sauce. Barbecue sauce on a burger was a sacrilege she only overlooked for the sake of family peace.
Jeremy loaded everything available onto his bun and took a huge bite.
“Did you get the fridge fixed, Dad?” Bea asked.
His face darkened. “Not yet.”
“Uh, guys.” Jeremy set his burger on his plate. “I think there’s something wrong with this beef.”
Dad smirked. “It’s not beef.”
Jeremy gave his plate a confused look. “Um . . .”