Quiet As It's Kept

by Monique Miller

  He wasn’t going to dwell on how Morgan would feel or react about Isaiah’s own godfather watching him. He felt as if he were in a lose-lose situation anyway. The only way he might be able to help rectify things would be to find a job. And he was determined that by the end of the week, he would be employed somewhere.

  Will picked his keys up from next to the baby’s bag on the couch. “His bag has diapers and enough formula to last him a little while. His favorite stuffed animal is in there too. If he gets sleepy, he might want it. He shouldn’t be hungry anytime soon, but I packed some baby food also if you need it. And if he does get hungry, he’ll probably use sign language to let you all know he wants to eat.” Will showed them the sign for “eat.”

  “This baby knows sign language?” Phillip asked.

  “I’ve taught him a few signs,” Will said.

  “Well, I’ll be darned.”

  “I’ve seen a couple of toddlers at the hospital doing sign language, but never a baby this young. That is amazing,” Shelby said.

  “Okay, man. You act as if we don’t know how to take care of a baby. Get on out of here. Isaiah will be fine,” Phillip said.

  Will gave Isaiah a kiss on his forehead. As if sensing that his dad was about to leave him, he started to whimper. This pulled at Will’s heart. He hated it when his son was sad, and especially when he cried. Crying because he was wet, hurt, or hungry was one thing, but crying because he was scared or lonely was an entirely different story.

  Shelby took her hand and gently pushed Will toward the door. “Isaiah will be fine. Go ahead and do what you need to do. I assure you he’s in good hands. And, hey, if he chokes or something, don’t worry, I’m a nurse.” Shelby laughed.

  Will didn’t.

  “Just joking,” Shelby said.

  Will knew that she was just joking, but it didn’t make him feel any better about his son starting to cry. He said a quick good-bye to his friends, knowing he needed to take care of business. He sat behind the wheel of his car and said a prayer to God. He prayed that the Lord would lead him to the right places to find a suitable job.

  He’d had faith before, but he knew faith without works was dead, so now that he was working harder, Will had no doubt that somehow and someway, by the end of that week, God was going to open a door for him to be gainfully employed.

  Chapter 9

  Will felt like he was working at a real job—a job as a runner for an office building or a postal worker. He’d covered a great amount of pavement looking for jobs. He’d taken Phillip and Shelby up on their offer to watch Isaiah another two days in a row. And by the third day, Isaiah acted as if he didn’t even care that Will was leaving him, especially when he was playing and trying to keep up with P.J. Luck had been on Will’s side, because P.J.’s daycare had been closed the last couple of days for staff development. Phillip had been happy to keep Isaiah along with his son during the day.

  This made Will even more determined to find a job. It still didn’t sit well with him that he was keeping a secret from his wife. Morgan had no idea that he was taking the baby over to Phillip’s house. In one way he wanted to tell Morgan, because it wasn’t a big deal as far as he was concerned. But he knew Morgan wouldn’t feel the same way he did.

  If he didn’t know any better, Will would say that his wife was jealous of the other couple. But as far as he was concerned, there wasn’t any reason for her to be jealous. They were just as blessed as the other couple. And if it was a vanity thing, Morgan was probably more beautiful than Shelby was. Morgan could pass for a fashion model if she wanted to.

  Often when he tried to figure out what the problem was in Morgan’s mind, Will found himself getting a headache. He also felt his spirit plunge into a dark abyss. And as much as he tried not to dwell on it, his mind often ended up perplexed. He figured that one day he was just going to have to accept the strange relationship.

  That Thursday, Will continued to keep the faith as he walked back into his home a little after four o’clock in the afternoon. He knew that he had to have put in at least thirty applications in the past few days. But he hadn’t had any callbacks.

  Isaiah had fallen asleep during the ride home and was now lying on Will’s shoulder, snoring like a grown man. He placed him in the playpen, slid his favorite stuffed animal next to him, and covered the baby up with a blanket.

  Will sat on the couch for a moment and took a deep breath. He was tired and his feet hurt from being on them all day, but he decided to suck it up and got back up. He sat down at his computer to check his e-mails. There had been a couple of e-mails from jobs saying that he didn’t meet the qualifications for their positions. He’d also gotten a few junk e-mails. The only e-mail that brightened his day was the one his sister had forwarded. She didn’t forward e-mails often, but when she came across one that she thought Will would like, she shared it with him. Sure enough, the message she’d sent had him laughing out loud.

  He shook his head, knowing that even though she was thousands of miles away, his sister could still make him laugh until his stomach hurt. As if she were clairvoyant, Will got a text message from her asking if he was home and if he could log on to the Web camera.

  Will responded and, within minutes, he was sitting face-to-face with his sister on the West Coast.

  “Hey, big brother. What’s going on?” Nicole asked.

  “It’s funny you just texted me. I just got that e-mail you forwarded me.”

  “You just got that message? I sent that, like, two days ago.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been a little tied up and just got a chance to check my e-mails,” Will said.

  “I’ve been a little tied up also, so I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to talk to you. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t have much time now. But I just thought I’d take the chance,” Nicole said.

  “Again, your timing couldn’t have been more perfect, in more ways than one.” Will laughed again, thinking about the message his sister had forwarded. “How’s the new job?” Will asked.

  “Good, I can’t complain. What about you? How is the job search coming?”

  “Slowly, but surely. I have faith that I’ll get work soon.”

  “You will, just hang in there,” Nicole said.

  He was hanging in there, but he was glad to have someone else with the same faith that he’d find a job.

  “Where’s my nephew?”

  Will looked over at the playpen, half surprised that the baby hadn’t woken up to the sounds of their voices. “He’s asleep.” He looked back at the camera. “I am surprised you can’t hear him snoring.”

  “Is he that tired?”

  “Yeah, he’s been trying to keep up with P.J. and Nyah the past few days.”

  “Really? That’s so nice. How are Phillip and Shelby?”

  “They are good, the kids are good. Isaiah thinks he is a big boy when he’s around the kids.”

  “That is too cute. You have to send me some more pictures of Isaiah. And I haven’t seen Phillip’s kids in a while either. I’d love to see how big they’ve gotten.”

  “The next time I get a chance to go over there I’ll take some pictures of the kids and send them to you.

  “Nikki, do you ever think about Dad?” Will asked. He knew his question was out of the blue, but his thoughts and dreams about his childhood had been weighing on him lately.

  “No. I don’t have a daddy. Mama conceived by Immaculate Conception, remember?” Nicole chuckled, trying to make light of the question asked. “Don’t you remember? At least, that is how I remember it.”

  “Nicole, seriously.” Will reverted to calling her by her given name instead of her nickname.

  “No, I don’t think about that, man. I forgot about him and all his antics when I moved out here. I spent far too many nights thinking about that man my entire childhood and I refuse to do it now,” Nicole said.

  The house phone rang. “Nikki, hold on a second.”

  A look of relief washed over Nicole’s face, as i
f she was glad for the interruption.

  Will answered the phone. It was a manager at one of the retail stores in the mall. He wanted to hire Will as a sales associate and wanted to know how soon he could start. He needed him to work during the day. Will was thrilled because, instead of only giving him minimum wage, the manager was going to be giving him a dollar above minimum wage.

  When he got off the phone he told his sister the good news. “That was the manager of a store in the mall. He wants to hire me as a sales associate.”

  “That’s good,” his sister said.

  “It is good, not great, but definitely good,” Will said.

  “Are you okay?” Nicole asked.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Because you look as if a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders. I didn’t want to say anything, but the last few times we’ve talked, especially on this Web camera, you’ve looked like you’ve had a lot on your mind.”

  Will had to chuckle. “I can’t get anything past you, can I?”

  “Nope.”

  “Being out of work and not being able to find a job has been getting to me. You know me. I’m a hard worker and have had a job ever since high school.”

  “Yeah, I know. I just didn’t want to say anything. I knew that whatever it was, you had it under control.”

  “Well, thanks for recognizing and being concerned. But I have faith that God has got me and my family in His hands. This is all just a test of my faith. And I do not plan on failing this test.”

  Will was elated to know that he would soon be contributing to their household finances again. He had to take a moment and look up toward heaven. He mouthed a thank you to the Lord.

  “Dag, time flies when you are having fun. I wish I could talk to you a little longer, but I’ve got to run,” Nicole said. “Tell my little nephew I said googey, googey, googey, daba, daba, daba, doo, doo, doo.”

  Will laughed almost as hard as the baby would have if he’d been awake. “I’ll do just that, little sis.”

  “Love you, Will.”

  “Love you too, Nicole,” Will said, and clicked off the Web camera.

  He sat back and took a deep breath, again thanking God for coming through for him. The job didn’t even come anywhere close to mirroring his previous job, salary, or benefits. Nor did this job have any sort of prestige. But getting the phone call and job offer had made his day. He felt like he’d won the lottery for a million dollars.

  He couldn’t wait to tell Morgan about the job, but held back from calling her at work to give her the good news. He wanted to tell her face-to-face, over a nice dinner. So in their deep freezer Will found the last pack of steak they had and cooked it. He baked a couple of potatoes, steamed some broccoli, and tossed a salad for their special dinner.

  Once Morgan arrived home, he had already set the table with the food in the dining room. He’d also pulled out a bottle of sparkling grape juice they’d been saving for a special occasion. It had a slight chill from the short amount of time he’d had it in the freezer.

  “Hey, honey,” Morgan said. Morgan wasn’t as tense as she had been the previous couple of days and Will took this as a good sign. She set her purse down on the kitchen counter and picked Isaiah up out of his high chair.

  “Hey, yourself. How was your day?” Will asked.

  “It was good, pretty much uneventful for a change.” She gave the baby kisses on both of his cheeks. Isaiah smiled as he raised his hands and cupped his mother’s face. She looked around the table at the containers of food. “What is all this?”

  “Dinner for my baby.”

  “I know it’s dinner, silly. I mean, what is all this? You cooked steak and there’s a bottle of chilled sparkling juice ready to be poured into our champagne glasses. Are we celebrating something?” Morgan asked, then a smile brightened her face. “Are we?”

  “Yes, my dear, we are.” Will unscrewed the cap of the sparkling juice and poured two glasses. He handed one to Morgan. Isaiah immediately put his hands out to grab the glass from Morgan. She let him have a sip of it. The baby’s face frowned up as if he had just been given a sour lemon to eat. Both Morgan and Will couldn’t help but laugh.

  Morgan returned Isaiah to his high chair and then gave her full attention to her husband.

  “Let us toast to celebrate my new job.” Will tapped Morgan’s glass with his for the toast.

  “Are you serious?” She smiled like a Cheshire cat.

  “I wouldn’t play about something like this,” Will said.

  She gave Will a tight hug. “Thank you, Lord.” Morgan took a sip from her glass. “I say, that is good news.”

  Will smiled, feeling as if he were on top of the world. He was well on the way to helping his family get back on track. It had been a long time since he’d felt that way, so long that it seemed foreign to him.

  “Okay, come on, sit down, tell me all about it. What firm is it with? Is it a pay raise from your last job? What kind of benefits package do they have? When do they want you to start? And what kind of hours will you be working? You have to keep in mind that it isn’t just us two anymore, we have to think about Isaiah.” She barely took a breath before continuing to say, “So you’ll have to let the company know that you can’t work long nights at the office all the time. I mean, I understand if you have to do so in the beginning, but please try not to make it a habit like you used to.”

  “Whoa,” Will said. “Don’t get ahead of me, and don’t get too excited just yet.”

  Morgan’s eyes crinkled in question. “Huh? Why?”

  “Here, let’s not let this food get cold.” He put food on both plates and grabbed Isaiah’s plate of baby food, which was cooling off on the kitchen counter, while Morgan went to the bathroom to wash her hands.

  When she returned, Will said grace and they both dug into their food. After about her third bite of steak, Morgan turned her attention back to her husband.

  “All right. I do have a new job. They want me to start on Monday. But, Morgan, it isn’t with a firm, and it doesn’t have a benefits package, much less any benefits, except that I’ll get a discount on clothing,” Will said. “And I’ll be working during the day from nine o’clock A.M. to three o’clock P.M. And what else did you ask? Oh yeah, there won’t be any late-night hours with this job.”

  Will spooned some baby food into the baby’s mouth.

  Morgan stopped chewing her food. “What kind of job is it where you only work six hours a day and get a discount on clothing? Is it a retail job or something?” Morgan laughed at the thought, but stopped when she didn’t see Will laughing with her.

  “Actually, it is a retail job. I’ll be a sales associate for that new clothing store in the mall.”

  “I was just joking,” Morgan said. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I told you a few moments ago, I wouldn’t joke about something like this.”

  Morgan dropped her fork onto her plate. “So what you are telling me is that you went and got a minimum wage job at the mall?”

  “I’m getting paid a dollar over minimum wage,” Will said. He wanted her to know that he wasn’t starting completely at the bottom.

  Morgan rubbed her forehead with her hand. “So let me get this straight. You have a job working slightly over minimum wage, so you’ll be in the low five figures?”

  Will thought about what she was saying and realized that he would be in the low five figures—a place he hadn’t been since he worked at the local McDonald’s when he was in high school. “Yeah.”

  Isaiah hit the palms of his hands on the surface of the high chair. Will spooned a little more baby food into the baby’s mouth.

  “Wow. Well congratulations,” Morgan said.

  The words came from her mouth but there wasn’t a bit of sincerity in them, Will could feel it. And he could also feel that Morgan had a lot more that she wanted to say. Will didn’t want to hear any of it. He had been on cloud nine just a few minutes earlier, optimistic about their lives getting back
to normal. But, as usual, Morgan had a way of putting a damper on a situation.

  “And who is going to watch Isaiah during the day?” Morgan asked.

  “We can put him in a daycare. He is older now. And I think it would be good for him to socialize with other children.” Will thought about how much fun the baby had had with his godbrother and godsister.

  “Oh really now? And since you’ve got all this planned out, with your budget and everything, just how much do you think daycare costs nowadays?” Morgan asked.

  Will had no idea how much sending a child to daycare would cost. And, as he thought about it, he didn’t even know where any daycares were that might be in close proximity to their home. “I don’t know. I’ve never checked to see. I just got the call about the job a couple of hours ago.”

  Will handed Isaiah his training sippy cup filled with baby formula so that he could drink.

  “Well, honey, let me clue you in on something, Mr. Minimum Wage. A good daycare in this area is going to cost anywhere between eight and nine hundred dollars per month. By my calculations, your job will barely pay for daycare, and any money that is leftover will be eaten up by the gas you spend driving back and forth to daycare and your mall job.”

  “Morgan, you don’t have to call me Mr. Minimum Wage.” He was tired of the name calling that he knew was only meant to belittle him. Morgan seemed to taunt him in little ways, as if trying to get him upset. She hadn’t gotten back in his face again after the incident when he’d grabbed her arm. He’d apologized profusely to her that night and promised never to lay a hand on her like that again. But it seemed as if she didn’t care. It was as if she wanted to see how far she could push him again.

  “If you call me anything, call me by my name. When I first met you and married you, lest you forget, I was the one making a salary of over six figures.” He wanted to add that even though Morgan made a good amount of money herself at her own job, it wasn’t anywhere near six figures. But he wasn’t going to go back and forth, tit for tat.