by Shay Savage
“Just get the fuck out, all right?” I snapped. “All of you!”
I don’t know if the nurse thought I was joking or what, but she ignored me. I started heading around to the side of the bed where she stood. A second later, my father was there at my side, stopping me from whatever I was about to do.
I wasn’t sure what it was, either, but in retrospect, it probably would have been bad.
The next thing I knew, Dad ushered everyone out of the room—family included. He gave me a quick nod before shutting the door and presumably stood guard outside of it. Tria and I were suddenly alone with our baby.
I pulled the rolling chair up close and reached out my hand to Baby Katie’s cheek. Her head turned a little toward me, and her mouth started working like she wanted to eat, but she just couldn’t get the hang of it.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!” Tria sobbed quietly.
“Shhh,” I said to both of them. “Remember what the doctor said? Babies get all this extra fat and stuff while they’re inside of you so they have time to learn to eat and whatever until the right kind of milk comes in.”
“Instead of colostrum,” Tria said with a sniff.
“Right—that stuff. So we just have to be patient and help her get it, right?”
Tria nodded, sniffed again, and took hold of her breast in her hand. I lifted Baby Katie up and we worked together until she finally managed to latch on the right way. Tria nearly started crying again in relief, and she finally got to sit back and relax for a few minutes until we switched sides and started all over again.
It was a little easier that time, at least.
Once she was full, our daughter fell asleep there on the pillow with Tria’s nipple half in and half out of her mouth.
“I don’t want to put her down,” Tria said as she glanced at the bassinet.
“I know,” I replied. “But you need to sleep—we both do. She’ll be right there—you can watch her the whole time. I already told them she’s staying in the room with us. I’m right here, too, so nothing’s going to happen to either one of you.”
Tria nodded reluctantly and surrendered Baby Katie to the bassinet beside the bed. I sat back down on the rolling chair, propped up a pillow so I could basically lay half of me down beside Tria without bumping into her and tearing her incision or anything. It was a tight fit, but there was no way I was going to sleep on the nasty little Flip-n-Fuck they had for new dads in the corner of the room.
With Tria’s head on my shoulder, we both watched out daughter intently. Despite the exhaustion from the last twenty-four-plus hours, neither of us could stop watching her long enough to close our eyes and fall asleep.
“She’s so pretty,” Tria whispered.
“Beautiful,” I said. “Like you.”
“She looks like you.”
“She has your eyes.”
“Your hair.”
“There isn’t enough to tell,” I said with a quiet snicker.
“It’s definitely your color,” Tria insisted. “And her ears—those are your ears.”
“They’re kinda pointy at the top.”
“The nurse said that would go away in a couple of weeks.
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t admit that was I a little disappointed. It made her look a bit like an elf or a pixie, and I thought that was kind of cool.
We watched her in silence for a few more minutes. The next time I glanced at Tria, her eyes were closed, so I wrapped an arm above her not-so-bulging stomach and settled against her on the bed. As soon as my eyes closed, I was out.
What must have been about thirty seconds later, Baby Katie was crying.
Tria struggled to get out from under me, but I told her to stay while I got up, went around the bed, and picked up my daughter. I ran a finger over her lips as I walked her back to her mother, and she tried to turn her head to suck on the end of my finger. It made me smile.
Tria got herself situated with pillows over her stomach and under her arm to try to get Baby Katie in a football hold or whatever to nurse her. It wasn’t working at all, so we switched everything around and tried the other side while Baby Katie’s cries got a little more insistent. I wasn’t sure which of them was more frustrated, and I was a little worried Tria was going to hit me.
“You aren’t helping!” she hissed.
“Well, I’m trying!” Trying to remain calm, anyway. I guess I thought Tria would instantly return to normal again once Baby Katie was born, but apparently there were a couple hormones left in there. “You tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”
“I want you to convince her to latch on right and eat!” Tria snapped as tears filled her eyes. “This hurts!”
My chest hurt as I couldn’t breathe again for a minute. I had seen Tria in enough pain over the last day—I didn’t want to see any more. Without knowing what else to do, I knelt down beside the bed and looked Baby Katie in the eyes.
“Listen here, girl,” I said quietly. “You need to eat, and your mama needs to get her rest. So how about you stop goofing off, and maybe get on there the right way so you’re not so frustrated, and your mama doesn’t shoot me the next time I want to fuck her.”
Tria smacked me in the back of the head.
“Don’t swear!” she scolded.
“Right…uh…I mean, the next time I want to do that shi…um…stuff moms and dads do when they want to give you a baby brother.”
“Not going to happen,” Tria giggled.
I kept talking total crap, and sometimes it seemed like Baby Katie was focusing on me, but mostly she was just pissed off. That is, until Tria let out a gasp and Baby Katie suddenly quieted. She closed her eyes and started to suck rapidly as I glanced at Tria.
Her teeth were ground together, but otherwise she seemed okay.
“No one ever told me this shit was going to hurt,” she said quietly.
“Don’t swear,” I replied with a smile.
Tria rolled her eyes.
“At least she’s eating now.”
With Baby Katie fed, we both managed to get a little sleep.
I was never one to embrace change, but when I looked in my daughter’s face, being a father seemed pretty cool.
Chapter 21—Realize the Family
The whole sleep deprivation thing wasn’t all that different from being strung out.
I was doing my best to keep it to myself, but it wasn’t easy. The first four weeks with Baby Katie at home were fine—Tria and I could both sleep when she slept. Once I went back to work, the morning, afternoon, and evening naps evaporated, and I was exhausted most of the time.
Of course, Tria shoved Baby Katie into my arms as soon as I walked in the door.
Baby Katie.
No one ever called her just Katie—she was always Baby Katie.
She was awesome.
She cried all the time—all night, all day—unless someone was holding her. Every time I thought about that nurse in the hospital telling me I was going to spoil her, a big smile crossed my face, and I held her even closer to me. She cooed sometimes, but more often she just burped or farted. On a good day, she stuck her tongue out at me.
I’d fucking spoil her forever if that’s what the word meant.
She slept with us in our bed, and I didn’t give a shit what some people said about how that was wrong or dangerous or whatever—I did the research, and outside western society, most of the world had family beds. I didn’t think we’d do it for long, but right now, as Tria had to nurse her about every thirty seconds, this was the way to go as far as we were concerned.
Tria’s boobs were sore, and if I touched them, she’d threaten to smack me. It was okay though, because we were allowed to have sex again, and I was making good use of that edict.
Yeah—the whole “your cock will never enter my cooch again” shit didn’t last long.
If Baby Katie ate but still wouldn’t sleep, Tria took her out so I could get more rest for work. During the day on the weekends, I took he
r so Tria could do the same.
Baby Katie always felt so warm and snuggly, I really didn’t mind. Tria needed the break when I got home from work—usually just to have enough time to take a shit or a shower—and I liked hanging out with my daughter on the couch. Sometimes she cried, and sometimes she slept, but usually she just looked at me as I babbled total bullshit at her.
Though I hadn’t actually attended a Sunday dinner at Michael’s yet, the entire family had been over to the house at one point or another. Julianne and Chelsea practically took turns living there the first week, and even Amanda came around a couple of times.
After the first time my cousin’s wife spent the afternoon with Tria and Baby Katie, I finally gave up waiting for Tria to tell me and flat out asked her what the deal was between the two of them. Tria just shrugged.
“She didn’t like me,” she told me with a harsh laugh.
“Why not?”
Tria laughed again.
“Every Thursday a truck came in with stuff for all the residents. Mostly it was donated clothing and a few toys. Right before Christmas, a delivery of brand new Christmas bears came in. They were big enough to use as a pillow, and when you squeezed their hands, they played Christmas songs. There were seven kids in the group home at the time and only six bears. I got the last one.”
“The lady who worked with kids there brought in another bear,” Tria continued. “I think she actually went out and bought it herself to make sure Amanda had something, but it wasn’t the same. It didn’t play music.”
“So, she…what? Hated you over a stuffed animal?”
“She took it out on me, yeah,” Tria said. “It got so bad, I even tried to trade bears with her, but she didn’t want it by then. She just wanted to make me suffer for it.”
“That’s fucked up,” I said.
“It definitely seems like it now,” Tria agreed. “At the time, it was obviously important to her. I don’t think she had much of anything before she came to the shelter. She really latched on to everything they gave her—even an extra cookie. She would hide that sort of stuff in her dresser drawer.”
“She hid cookies?”
“Other things, too.”
“Like what?”
“Small toys, bits of craft projects—anything she could sneak away. I don’t know where she came from, but no one there came from a happy home, you know?”
“I guess that’s true.” I put an arm around her and pulled her close to me. I didn’t like Tria thinking about where she came from. I wasn’t even sure which was worse—living with her mom, losing her dad, or ending up on that fucked up island. “You two seem to be getting along okay now.”
“Not bad,” Tria said. “I think she’s coming to terms with it all.”
“It all?” I repeated.
“I usurped her,” Tria said. “Even when she invited you to the wedding and everything else, she never expected you to come back into the family. You had been estranged for so long, she thought her position was secure. Even with Douglass constantly telling everyone the businesses were going to you whether you liked it or not, she thought he would eventually realize Teague Silver would collapse if he did that and he’d let Ryan take over instead. That would have made her queen again.”
“So when we showed up married and pregnant…well, I took her place. She wasn’t expecting that, but I think she’s dealing with it.”
“I kind of figured she took it that way,” I said with a nod. “Even when we were kids and she and Ryan were dating, she didn’t like girls I took out.”
“Probably for the same reason.”
“Most likely.”
Honestly, knowing where she was coming from didn’t make me like Amanda any more than I ever had, but at least I had some understanding. It was obvious that she loved Baby Katie, and that was more important than anything else. I was finding that increasingly true when it came to my tolerance of others—as long as they loved my daughter, they couldn’t be too bad.
That’s probably why I was never, ever going to tolerate Dana Lynn.
Brandon and Nikki had come to visit when Baby Katie was just a few weeks old. Brandon was totally freaked out by the baby at first but warmed to her once Nikki made him sit down and hold her. Within a few minutes, he was laughing at her and trying to get her to smile at him just like everyone else.
It was actually Nikki’s idea for Tria to call her mother.
“Well, I just thought you might like to know…No, I don’t need money. That’s not why…no…”
Tria sighed, dropped her head in one hand, and closed her eyes. Nikki stood off to one side with Baby Katie in her arms and a pained look on her face.
“No, that’s not why I called.” Tria started to sound like she was dealing with an Alzheimer’s patient. “I figured you might want to know you had a granddaughter…no, I don’t…”
Brandon shrugged when I glanced at him and motioned with his thumb toward the porch.
“I don’t know why she thought that shit was a good idea,” Brandon said as soon as the door closed.
I pulled out a little case of electronic cigarettes and cartridges—a gift from Michael when Baby Katie was born—and handed one to Brandon. He laughed his ass off at them the first time I offered him one, but he decided he liked them, and Nikki went ballistic on both of us when she found out I had given him real cigarettes before. He didn’t want to chance it again.
I still liked hanging out on the porch for no real reason, and the e-cig gave me a pseudo-reason.
“She was trying to help,” I replied with a shrug. “I reconciled with my parents, so maybe Tria and her mom can work things out, too. It doesn’t seem to be happening though.”
“I met her once,” Brandon said. “The woman is a nutcase.”
“Yeah? Tria doesn’t really talk about her.” I inhaled water vapor and blew it out in rings.
“She came to the island once,” he said. “It wasn’t long after Tria’s dad died—less than a year. Leo thought Dana was hoping to get the pension benefits from his death, but the adoption was already final, so there wasn’t anything she could do. She gave up her rights to Tria when Tria’s dad was still alive.”
Brandon took a puff off the e-cig and turned it around to look at the little red light at the tip.
“She messed up the place,” he continued. “She threw a coffee table and wrecked the kitchen and then pretty much left. I saw her for about three minutes as she was coming out of the house and I was walking by. She threw rocks at me just for being there before she got in a rundown Chevy and left, and I was just a kid, too—younger than Tria.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“Yeah,” Brandon agreed.
We stood there and puffed for a while. The weird thing about electronic cigarettes is they don’t really have an end until the battery needs to be recharged. “Smoking” can go on for a half hour because it doesn’t burn out in five minutes like a normal cigarette would. Of course, I didn’t smell like an ashtray all the time anymore, and Baby Katie wasn’t getting exposed to that shit, so it was all good.
Leaning forward a little, I looked into the front window and saw Nikki rocking the baby in her arms while Tria was still on the phone.
“She’s a natural with a kid,” I said and then immediately regretted it. “I mean, she does really well with the baby.”
That wasn’t any better.
“It’s all right,” Brandon said with a half-smile. “You don’t have to avoid the topic. We’re used to it.”
“Sorry, man.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”
They had been seeing a fertility doctor and wanted to try in-vitro fertilization to see if Nikki could get pregnant that way. However, the price tag was kind of insane. Brandon was trying to talk the insurance company into covering it but wasn’t having much luck.
I couldn’t help but think about the kind of money my family had and if we might be able to do something about it. I wasn’t sure
if Brandon and Nikki would accept, though. Even bringing it up might piss them off—they were proud people.
I turned when I heard the door open, and Tria rolled her eyes at our pretend smokes.
“Remind me not to do that again,” she said. “She went from asking if I needed money for the baby to asking me for money. She never even said anything about wanting to meet Baby Katie; she just kept changing the subject to money.”
Tria leaned up against me, and I wrapped an arm around her.
“Is Baby Katie sleeping?”
“Yeah, she likes Nikki’s arms.”
I glanced at Brandon and saw a sad half smile cross his lips. I had to stop myself from saying something else about how great Nikki was with Baby Katie. I didn’t think it would sound right.
“Still want to go out for dinner?” I asked, and Tria nodded.
“You better,” Nikki said from the doorway. “I came all this way to babysit just so you two could have a night on the town.”
While I cuddled Baby Katie and told her we wouldn’t be gone too long, Tria went in to grab her purse. I couldn’t come up with names for it any more—it had been totally dwarfed by Beelzebub’s Diaper Bag. In fact, three or four of Tria’s purses could fit in that thing. I refused to carry it. I’d shove a little diaper in my jacket pocket and just leave the damn thing at home.
Like Baby Katie really needed an entire set of plastic blocks, books, a tiny manicure set, four changing pads, three blankets, an extra hat, and a nose-siphon everywhere she went. Tria probably could have fit a pack-and-play in there, too, but Baby Katie wasn’t big enough to use it yet. Besides, she was only ever put down in her pumpkin seat when we were in a car. The rest of the time someone was holding her.
The thought made me smile again.
Damon pulled up to the front of the house, and I took Tria’s hand to lead her to the back seat of the Rolls. For better or worse, we had gotten used to having someone to drive us around if we didn’t want to take the bus all over the place. Damon didn’t mind, and Michael didn’t need him on the weekends much.