by Madelyn Alt
She tore her gaze from her newest granddaughters as my father moved forward behind her to put his hand on her shoulder, and reluctantly shook her head. A nod toward the corner gave the reason why: Grandpa G had parked his chair there in an attempt to be out of the way of traffic and had promptly nodded off. That would explain the distinct lack of wisecrackery.
“I’ll stay.”
The words came out of my mouth before I even realized they were in my head, searching for a way out.
My mom turned and looked at me, her reaction sheer surprise. “You will?”
I would? “Um, yeah. If that’s okay. I mean, if you’d rather . . .” I risked a glance at Marcus, but he was smiling and shaking his head in a completely indulgent way. Whew. But we’d both known it was probably too late now for any plans we’d made anyway.
“Well, if you don’t mind staying,” Mom said slowly, searching my face and eyes as though trying to make out what alien race had taken over her eldest daughter, “it would be easier for me. Grandpa has to have his medicines in the morning, and your dad never gets them right.”
She did, however, pause to take a few digital pics of the wee ones. “So the girls can see their new baby sisters—I’ll stop by to see them in the morning before coming here.”
Marcus waited until my parents had steered a spent Grandpa G out the door and up the hall before he came up behind me as I stood over the bassinets myself, gazing down softly at my new nieces in all their angelic glory. He wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his chin on my shoulder and held me a moment. “Pretty amazing, babies.”
“Yeah.”
“You ever want one?”
“Someday. Maybe more than one. I’m not sure.” More moments like this, and I had a funny feeling I could psych myself up to that state of mind pretty quickly. But it was better that he didn’t know that. “You?”
“Someday.” He kissed the top of my head. “You going to be okay if I go home? Minnie is bound to be needing some affection by now, I think.”
Minnie! In all the excitement, I had forgotten that she was still at his house. “Is it all right if she stays with you tonight?” I asked.
“Well, she’ll make a poor substitute for you, but I guess she’ll have to do.”
His quiet statement sent a shock wave of awareness straight through me. It seemed so long since we had fallen into his bed, only to have our plans for an evening of getting to know each other really, really well fall through because of Mel’s impeccable timing and my mother’s seemingly arcane ability to track me down wherever, whenever. I turned my head, ever so slightly, and he was there, waiting for me. Our lips met, blended.
“I wish things had turned out differently tonight,” I whispered on a sigh when it ended.
“There will be another time. Lots more other times,” he promised. “Right now it’s time for you to enjoy an intimate moment with your family. That’s important, too. I’ll still be here. There’s time enough for everything.”
Time. A girl could get caught up in it, if she wasn’t careful. Me, I just wanted more of it.
Checking first to make sure Mel was still asleep, I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back for just One. More. Taste.
“Mm,” he breathed against my lips, brushing his own along mine in a gentle but somehow completely enthralling caress, “you keep doing that and I’m going to have to think a little bit harder about sharing you in the future.”
“Oh good. Then that makes two of us.”
Reluctantly I released my grip and eased out of the enveloping warmth of his energy. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” I asked.
His blue eyes glowed at me through the semidarkness. “Mm-hm. Most definitely.”
Yay! Now that was definitely a cause for rejoicing.
When he was gone, I stood there a moment, my arms hugging around my waist, smiling to myself and basking in the glow of happy.
“Well, that is certainly a step forward.”
Melanie had opened her eyes, having managed, apparently, to drift out of the chemically induced slumber that only moments before had seemed to hold her in its sway. She’d obviously reacquired some of her heretofore misplaced speech capabilities as well.
Embarrassed, I dropped my arms. “Well, what a time for you to wake up and regain your senses.”
“Touché.” She shifted in her bed and winced. “Ow.”
“Hurts?”
“Yeah. Like a bitch.”
Yeah, I could see that. “Shall I call the nurse?”
She shook her head. “Where’s Greg?”
She didn’t remember the conversation she’d had with Mom just a little while ago. “He had to go home. He had work in the morning.”
Mel frowned and closed her eyes, her lips tightening. “Hm.”
My offer to stay with her had come out of the blue, and I really didn’t quite know what I could do for her . . . but I was there for the duration, so I decided I would make the best of it. “The babies are beautiful.”
That brought a tiny smile. “Thanks.”
“But then, so are Jenna and Courtney.”
“Of course. This is the one thing I’m good at.”
There was a sadness to her words that I didn’t expect and wasn’t really comfortable with. My always confident little sister wasn’t allowed to feel vulnerable. But then, maybe that was her weariness talking. There were shadowy smudges under her eyes, and there was a fragility to her that I wasn’t used to seeing. “Don’t be silly. You’re good at lots of things.”
“Am I?” She fell silent a moment, running a hand gently over the blankets covering her tiny mound of a stomach. When she spoke again, it was with a change of subject. “I like your guy. Marcus. I keep meaning to tell you that. It was very kind of him to come out to my house like that when he didn’t know me from Adam and try to help. Not every man is willing to help out a stranger. Some can’t even be bothered with their own families.”
I felt a hint of discontent beneath her words. It made my intuitive senses tingle. “Thanks. I like him, too.”
“How did Mom take it? I assume she’s figured it out.”
“Yeah. And I don’t know. I should probably feel lucky that she was more concerned with what was going on with you than to spend all her time worrying about me.” That was almost certainly an understatement. “Mel . . . something the nurse said had me wondering. You . . . did you know that you were going to have to have a C-section? She made it sound like it had been scheduled and that you’d almost made it, only to go into labor.” Or maybe I was the only one in the family who hadn’t been apprised of her delivery intentions. That was a possibility, actually. Odd girl out, and all that.
“What? No. No, of course not.”
“I mean, I know with complications C-sections are sometimes a safer bet, but last I knew it was business as usual. And the babies,” I continued on as another question reared its head. “You didn’t know that you were carrying twins, did you? I mean, Greg looked pretty surprised.”
She huffed out a sigh and ran her hand back over her hair, threading her fingers through and plucking at her blond bangs over and over. “I don’t know why you’re asking me all these questions,” she pouted. “I’ve been through an awful lot tonight.”
“I know, but . . . I guess I was just curious.”
She stared at the light over the bed for a moment. “You know, I am feeling tired after all. I think I’ll just close my eyes a little while, if you don’t mind.”
Why did I get the feeling she was playing the avoidance game with me? But I let her close her eyes, and I let her pretend to sleep until the dream god Morpheus came to carry her away. There was time enough for questions later, when she couldn’t throw up a red flag of caution to warn me away. She couldn’t avoid me forever. Because the more that I thought about everything, the more certain I was that there was something she was hiding, or trying to hide, from me. And when Mel didn’t just come right out and spill whatever was on her mind, that was
a pretty good indication that whatever it was, was serious.
Chapter 8
I spent part of the night in the fake leather recliner in the corner. It wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, but it was just for one night, I told myself. One night that I wasn’t going to be sleeping much anyway, because . . . well . . . there were babies to hold and coo over!
I was an old pro at being an auntie. I had been one of the first to hold Jenna after Greg had managed to get stuck at the airport in Chicago during one of the worst snowstorms the Windy City had seen in a decade. I had been present and accounted for at Courtney’s birth, too, and had done my share of babysitting and girls’ afternoons out over the years. Even if my mom had not asked me to come to the hospital this time around, I would have been hard-pressed to stay away . . . although I might at least have taken the opportunity to share a little quiet interlude with Marcus first, if you know what I mean.
I had many reasons for wanting to be the one to stay tonight, and not the least of them was the sweet little things that awoke right on schedule around two in the morning, making mewling sounds from within the flannel blankets that swaddled them into compact little bundles. Mel had never been into breastfeeding and had made her preferences known in her chart, so there was no reason to wake her when she was still feeling the effects of the anesthesia. She would wake up soon enough, ready and eager to see her little girls, but for now I was there. A fuzzily permed and somewhat chubby nurse brought bottles of formula, tsking none too softly to herself over young mothers who did not appreciate the finer aspects of breastfeeding. She handed me a miniature bottle and a babe, made sure I knew what I was doing, then took over with the second baby. If I knew what I was doing, then I’m not sure what kind of super-expert that made her, because before I knew it she had fed, burped, changed the diaper of, and then reswaddled the baby in the same amount of time it took for me to get the first to drink even half an ounce.
“I’ll just take this little peanut down to check her stats. How’z about, Auntie, you bring that one down to the nursery when she’s finished so I can get her, too, and we’ll see if the doctor has added anything to the charts for them or for Mom here.”
She whisked the baby away, leaving me alone with a sleeping Mel and a second baby girl not nearly as interested in eating as she was in peering up at me from beneath her little hand-knitted pompon cap with eyes swollen from the drops all newborns are given. I couldn’t help staring back into the dark blue eyes and noting the exquisite detail of tiny blond lashes, the fine wisp of golden eyebrows, the button nose that all babies seemed to have, and the painfully perfect bow of pink lips. So. Incredibly. Beautiful.
All babies are beautiful, I kept telling myself. And that was true. So why, why, why was I fighting the baby wants right now in a big way? Every time I looked down at this little one, I felt a tiny, unmistakable tug at my heart, and an expanding warmth. It felt a little bit like the first flush of love. Yeah, that was probably it. Because it most certainly did not have anything to do with the jump-starting of my biological clock. That was nothing more than a myth that women of all ages continued to spin to justify their sudden decisions for wanting to get married and settle down into that white-picket-fence lifestyle.
Not that there was anything wrong with that. But I was far too young.
Far.
And more than that, I reminded myself as I leaned down to kiss the little pumpkin in my arms on the forehead and breathe in the baby smell of her while my heart did flip-flops in my chest, at present I was just flat-out ill-equipped for the job. Having a family required several things—a stable relationship, a padded nest egg, a fabulous medical insurance plan—none of which I could lay claim to at present. Now was most definitely not the time for me to start going all broody and weird.
And talk about a guaranteed intimacy killer in a new relationship. One hint of the my-biological-clock-is-ticking discussion, and a girl could kiss almost every new-to-her boyfriend good-bye. Marcus was special, but that was asking a lot, even for him.
For the umpteenth time that night, I cursed Mel and her ridiculously bad timing.
And as for this new “feeling,” which at least was one thing I could count as having nothing to do with the metaphysical: No, no, no, no, and most definitely, no.
The baby girl in my arms sighed in the midst of halfheartedly nursing her bottle, smiled, and then fell asleep, looking angelic as all get-out.
The universe was so not playing fair.
Since she wasn’t likely to finish eating anytime soon, there was nothing left to do but to relinquish her to the nursing staff, as requested.
Holding her carefully, I set her in the bassinet and made sure the blankets hadn’t come untucked. Then, after checking to be sure Mel really was sleeping and not just pretending this time, I wheeled the cart slowly out the door and down the hall, past doors swung wide on their hinges, past rooms that were mostly devoid of occupants. The sound of the wheels on the ceramic tiles made me cringe, but it didn’t seem to bother the cart’s only passenger. We passed one room whose door was mostly closed—inside the room, the shifting light patterns suggested that the TV was on, but no sound came from within. Muted, probably.
The nursery had several lamps switched on, but maybe that didn’t bother sleeping babies as much as it did adults. Though right now, the only babies present were the twins. I had almost forgotten how few maternity patients there were tonight. Looks like it hadn’t gotten any busier, either.
The frizzy-haired nurse glanced up from the paperback romance she had been engrossed in, and started to get to her feet. “All finished?”
I held up the bottle, which had an ounce of formula left.
“Not as such. Though I doubt you’ll get her to take any more.” It had started out with only two ounces in it as it was.
The nurse didn’t appear fazed by this. “Not all of them want a full meal on their first night in God’s country.”
“Not even the breastfed ones?” I asked, only slightly teasing.
“Not even the breastfed babes,” she admitted. “Sometimes it takes them a day or two to get a fire in their belly.”
She rolled the cart in beside the other. As though they each sensed the other’s presence, two precious faces turned and angled gently toward each other in their sleep.
I had never seen anything so wonderfully stirring in my life.
The nurse noticed, too. “Aw, look at that. Aren’t they the cutest little things?”
“Do all twins do that?” I asked her.
She nodded. “Funnily enough, they do. It’s like they have this invisible radar for each other. Twindar.” After another moment, she chuckled and shook her head. “Look at me. As though I hadn’t seen babies every work night for the last twenty-two years. You’d think I was a newbie, wouldn’tcha, at this rate. Moonin’ over every pretty baby that crossed my path. Now,” she said, all business again, “let me take this one off your hands, and why don’t you head back to your sister’s room to get a little shut-eye. I’ll bet you’re not used to staying up all night with babies.”
I shook my head, smiling. “I guess not.”
“My guess is, your sister is out for the rest of the night—most C-section mommies have enough anesthesia and pain meds in them to keep them in and out of la-la land for a good little while. You might as well get some rest, too.”
It had been a long day, and it was proving to be a long night. And she was right—I wasn’t used to this. A little cat-nap was starting to sound like a pretty good idea.
Heading back toward Mel’s room, my weariness descended on me like a weight pressing down from above. Every step felt harder to manage. Yawning, I rounded the corner, thinking about how good sleep was going to feel.
Someone had laid out a stack of flat sheets and a couple of soft blankets on the love seat in Mel’s room. Mel herself had not budged—she was still flat on her back, as out of it now as she had been when I had left the room moments before. Moving quick
ly, I threw a sheet over the recliner and then collapsed on it, leaning back as far as the chair would allow. Ahh. Bliss. From a supine position, I flung the first blanket outward, using my feet to maneuver the lower part into position as best I could. There. The second blanket could wait, because for now I could feel unconsciousness calling me into oblivion with its siren song of black nothingness, and I sank toward it, willingly. Eagerly.
I don’t know how long I had been out when I opened my eyes, not quite awake but no longer quite asleep either. It took me a good, long moment for my foggy brain to process the strange room I found myself in, and why. For some reason it seemed a sound must have awakened me. At first I thought it must have been the nurse returning the babies to the room. I sat up straighter in the recliner and forced my eyes open wider, blinking away the sleep dust that made me want to close them again. But a glance around the room showed no babies, no bassinets. Perhaps it had been Mel, I thought then. But Mel slumbered on, her mouth falling open ever so indelicately in the depths of it.
Baffled, I let my eyelids drift closed again, grateful to subdue the sandpaper-grit monsters that had launched a sneak attack the moment they had sprung open.
Voices.
And no, not the in-my-head kind. (And as a side note, why did it have to sound so bad when I put it like that? I ask you.)
I kept my eyes closed, as though the very act would allow me to focus harder, hear better.
But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hear the words, not even the tone. Only a steady drone, varying in pitch.
One thing I did hear, moments later, was a door opening on pneumatic hinges as the pull latch released, followed by a low voice. Female. The sibilant hiss of it settled in my bones, even though the words remained unintelligible. Someone was not happy.
The woman’s voice was raised. “Get away from him. Get away from me. And don’t come back here, you hear me? Don’t. Come. Back. Please. Just don’t.”
“You’re being a bitch, you know that?”