Merry Christmas, Babies

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Our three-year-old had managed to slide out of the safety straps, and Abby didn’t know it until he stood up,” Merle, dressed in overalls without a shirt, added.

  That convinced her. Two sets of two it would be. She wrote the Hudsons a check, watched while they showed her how to fold the contraption for travel, and stepped back as Merle and Joe loaded it into the back of Joe’s Lexus.

  “So, you’re really having quads, huh?” Abby asked. Elise could see she was going to have to get used to people staring at her stomach. Or never go outside.

  “Yeah, I really am.” She resisted the urge to cover her protruding belly.

  “How far along are you? Five, six months?”

  “Fifteen weeks.”

  “So you’ve gained what, eight or nine pounds?”

  “Close to twenty.”

  “Whew. What’re the next three months going to bring?”

  Elise tried to laugh. “Hopefully only about twenty more. I’ve been told I’m not going to be able to see my feet for at least eight weeks. And might not be able to walk much, if at all, at the end.”

  “Well, hey, give me a call if you need to gripe or anything,” the friendly young woman said. As Joe closed the trunk of his car, Merle approached. “Is this you two’s first time around?” Merle looked back and forth between Elise and Joe, who was walking toward them now.

  Elise frowned.

  “Your first pregnancy he means,” Abby added.

  Mortified, Elise couldn’t look at Joe. “Oh…I’m—”

  “Yeah, first time,” Joe piped up. “And so far, it’s smooth sailing. Thanks so much for the stroller. We really appreciate it. And now, we’ve got to get going—more shopping to do, you know…”

  With another couple of innocuously friendly comments, Joe got them out of there—without having given up Elise’s phone number.

  “I’M SORRY.” Elise wasn’t sure if she was suffering from morning sickness or was just sick at heart. The sun was too hot. The risks too great. Optimism seemed pointless.

  Joe glanced from the road to her and back. “For what?”

  “Back there,” she said, staring at the license plate of the pickup in front of them. B 4 U. “Putting you in that mess.”

  “We bought a stroller. No big deal.”

  “It should have occurred to me that asking you to do things with me would put you in an awkward position. The more I’m showing the more people are going to assume you’re the babies’ father.”

  “You know that old saying about assuming, don’t you?”

  “I can’t remember it.”

  “When you assume something you make an ass out of you and me.”

  Between him and the guy in front of them, she was surrounded by jokesters.

  At least Joe didn’t sound nearly as upset as she’d thought he’d be. As he had a right to be.

  “I’ll be more careful in the future,” she assured him, anyway.

  “You’ve got real things to worry about, Elise,” he said, his voice sobering. “Don’t make them up where they don’t exist. What do I care what a couple of perfect strangers think? Or what anyone thinks? People who know me know the truth. And it’s not like being the father of your babies would be a bad thing. For any guy who wanted kids, that is.”

  He had such a way with words.

  Her heart, instead of feeling lighter, sank, which made no sense at all. She sat there next to him, growing fatter by the second, feeling like she had a disease and he’d rather die than catch it.

  “In any case, thanks for coming to my rescue.”

  “That’s my job.”

  And to him that’s all this was, Elise knew. To her, too. She’d just lost sight of that for a moment or two.

  “People are bound to be curious, you know,” he added as they took I-96 into Grand Rapids.

  “Not that many of us know someone personally who’s had quadruplets,” he added.

  “I didn’t plan to be one of them.” Elise laid her head against the seat back. “The plan was to have a quiet, normal pregnancy and create a strong and loving home for my baby.”

  “You know what they say about the best-laid plans.”

  “Yes, Joe, I know that one.” Elise chuckled. It was hard to stay completely blue around Joe.

  “Folks are going to want to know about the father, too,” he said gently. “How a guy handles the advent of four babies at once. How he’s going to support them. How he feels about middle-of-the-night feedings and changing diapers.”

  She knew what Joe’s answers would be.

  “And when they find out that I’m doing this on my own,” she said, “they’re going to look at me like I’m certifiable.”

  “Since when have you cared what other people think?”

  Since always. Why did he think she’d worked so hard to create a new life for herself? To hide her past? Because she couldn’t bear the pity on others’ faces when they heard the truth. Couldn’t stand to be set apart as different. Hated the thought of them looking at her and wondering what she might really have looked like if fate—and Thomas Fuller—hadn’t stepped in.

  “I don’t,” she said and wished it were true.

  “SINCE WE’RE OUT, what do you say we drive into Grand Rapids and hit a couple of car lots?”

  Just the way she’d envisioned her Sunday afternoon—walking around on black pavement in the hot sun staring at cars. “Sure,” she said. If Joe wanted to see cars, they’d see cars. He was sacrificing almost six months of his life for her. She could give him an afternoon.

  “WHAT ELSE IS BOTHERING YOU?” Joe had racked his brain for something to explain Elise’s mood. He’d never seen her like this before, wondered if it was a product of the pregnancy, or just his seeing her in a more personal light. Everyone had bad days, bad moods, down times. Most managed to cover them up, at least to a point, while at work.

  “I’m fine.”

  “This is me, Elise,” he said as they drove between tall areas of woods interspersed with patches of green grass. “I might have missed some things about you over the years, but I do know when you’re bothered.”

  “You’re going to think I’m whining.”

  “You have every right to whine.”

  “I asked for this, brought it on myself.”

  “You asked for one, got four. You were instrumental in the process, but you aren’t fate, my dear.”

  “Why are we going to a car lot?” She glanced around the car. “You just bought this less than a year ago. It’s nice.”

  He was glad she liked it. “In case you missed it, that Corvette of yours isn’t going to hold two car seats, let alone four.”

  “Oh.”

  She looked so pathetic he almost laughed—except that he knew she wasn’t faking it. For whatever reason, today Elise was having a hard time with everything.

  He wished to God he knew what to do about it.

  Going canoeing probably wasn’t going to do it. And probably neither had running off to play basketball that morning. Maybe she was spending too much time alone for someone who was facing major and very frightening change.

  He tried to enjoy the scenery they passed, the blue sky and familiar roads. And tried not to panic as he felt the chains of her needs tightening around him.

  It was only for five more months. A blip in the span of a lifetime.

  “So what, besides your car, has you down?” he asked again five minutes of silence later. They were still a few miles from the city, and he couldn’t stand to see her so unhappy.

  “I only have two arms.”

  Was she serious? She was staring straight ahead, no teasing smile in sight.

  “Most of us do.”

  “But most of us aren’t going to have four babies that need to be held. Think about it, Joe. No matter what I do I won’t be able to care for my own children by myself.”

  He recognized the panic in her voice. He fought panic, too, every time he thought about her leaving B&R. Or being unable to return.
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  “Of course you will, if you need to.” His switch to salesman mode was automatic, a defense mechanism because he couldn’t afford to fail. “There’ll be a lot of repetition, but you’ll keep a schedule, do two at once if you can manage. Say a feeding is at one.” He drove on, winging it as he went, drawing from the vast experience he’d gained growing up with six siblings. “It’ll take about two minutes per baby, one when you get really good at it, to change diapers. That’s four minutes. Half an hour at the most for feeding—should be able to get that down to about fifteen minutes, assuming they’re eating well. That’s thirty-four minutes. You get the other two up, repeat the process, and have an hour to sleep before the three o’clock feeding rolls around.”

  The frown on her face wasn’t promising.

  “That’ll only be for the first few weeks,” he assured her. “Maybe a couple of months at most and then they start sleeping longer. Once you get them on cereal, they’ll sleep through the night.”

  “And if all four are crying at once?”

  “You buy earplugs, tend to them one at a time, and life goes on.”

  “But—”

  “You ever hear of a baby dying from crying?”

  “No.”

  “And the best news is,” he said, pulling onto Twenty-eighth Street, “you aren’t going to be doing it all alone. I’ll be there for the first week or so, depending on when you deliver, and then it’ll be the first of the year and your salary will increase and you’ll be able to hire someone to help out for another six weeks until they sleep through the night, at which time you’ll only need daytime care.”

  “You’re planning to help with nighttime feedings?”

  “You going to be able to think about B&R if you get no sleep?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll be helping.”

  “You hate anything to do with babies.”

  “Doesn’t mean I’m not good at it. Ask my mother. She’ll vouch for me. So will the four of my six siblings I fed and diapered.”

  “You’d do that for me?” Her mouth was almost hanging open.

  Of course he would. Didn’t she know that by now?

  “I’d do it for B&R,” he said.

  Nodding, she continued to stare at him as he pulled gratefully into the parking lot of the dealership he’d just noticed.

  “So, what kind of minivan do you want?”

  SHE WAS NOW the proud almost-owner of a new Buick Terraza seven-passenger minivan with all-season blackwall tires, four-wheel antilock brakes, a latch system that included lower anchors and top tethers for children and, also, at Joe’s insistence, a built-in DVD player that would be suspended from the ceiling of the car and viewed from all four car seats. The van would be ready for delivery Tuesday night.

  She was too tired to mourn the impending loss of her Corvette—she was trading it in as part of the deal—as she sat at the kitchen table, having a glass of milk before bed that night. Brochures for the van were spread out on the table before her. She wasn’t looking at them.

  “Buyer’s remorse?” Joe asked, coming in from the garage. He’d run home to collect his mail and another suitcase of clothes.

  “Business partner’s gratitude,” she told him honestly. “I’d have gotten around to the idea that I had to lose the ’Vette eventually, but I hadn’t been ready to consider it yet. You made it all relatively painless. Thank you.”

  She expected a quip back. His quiet, “You’re welcome,” surprised her.

  As did his next move. He pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “I think we should amend our plan a bit.”

  She started to shake. “Okay.”

  He was leaving.

  She didn’t blame him.

  What in hell am I going to do now? She’d thought, lying burned and orphaned in a hospital, she’d experienced her life’s share of helplessness.

  She hadn’t.

  “We need to get out a little more,” he said, his eyes serious as, hands clasped together on the table, he leaned toward her.

  Those same hands had helped her up into the van that afternoon when she’d almost lost her balance. They’d held her around her thickening waist until she’d regained her equilibrium. And been there to help her back down again when their test drive was through.

  She could still remember their warmth through her blouse.

  And how much she’d liked having them there.

  “Why?” she asked when she realized he was waiting for her to say something. She thought she knew the answer. He was really telling her that he had to get out more, because soon he wasn’t going to be living here. He knew she’d been having an inappropriate feeling or two about him.

  “I’m going to say something you probably aren’t going to like. I want you to hear me out and not get all defensive.”

  Oh, God. It was worse than she’d thought.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “OKAY.” Elise braced herself. She’d lived through some excruciatingly hard times. She could handle whatever Joe had to dish out.

  “I don’t think it’s good for you to be alone so much right now,” he said quickly.

  She immediately began to form a denial, which he gave her no chance to utter.

  “I know you like your independence, and I understand that, but right now, with so much going on, so much uncertainty and worry, all this time alone probably isn’t such a good thing.”

  What did this have to do with his leaving?

  “What are you proposing?” she asked, needing him to quit humoring her and just get to it.

  “That, unless you have plans with someone else, we eat together at least five nights a week and at least twice on weekends—whether breakfast, lunch or supper. And we go out for dinner at least once a week. I’d like to suggest, as a caveat, though this part is up for discussion, that we also see one movie a week outside the house.”

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, what?”

  “You want us to eat together more.”

  “Right.”

  “Here.”

  “Yes. And out at least once a week.” He sounded as though he were explaining something simple to a child.

  “You’ll still be staying here at night?”

  “Of course.” His frown wasn’t as nice as his humoring compassion had been. “We made a deal. Why would you ask that?”

  Because I thought about you naked in the shower. She threw up her hand. “It’s been a rough day. I wouldn’t blame you for rethinking things, is all.”

  “Do you get to rethink them?”

  Not hardly. She was already pregnant. “No.”

  “Then why would you think I can?”

  She could give him several reasons, but was half-afraid he hadn’t thought of them. Why give him cause to go if he didn’t think he had to?

  “That’s all you wanted? The whole dinner thing?”

  “Yes.”

  She should argue. She knew that. She shouldn’t consume so much of his life. It wasn’t good for either of them.

  “Okay.”

  He sat back. “That’s it? Just okay? No argument?”

  “Are you prepared to listen to anything I have to say on the matter?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “It’s settled then. Good.”

  She sipped her milk, avoiding his gaze.

  “Why haven’t you ever been this agreeable at work?” His voice had a teasing tone.

  “Because I can afford to have you mad at me, there.”

  MONDAY NIGHT over a slowly prepared dinner of risotto carbonara, Elise resisted the urge to prop her swelling feet on the seat across from her. No reason to have Joe worrying—or hassling her—about something that, while irritating and uncomfortable, was completely natural to her condition.

  She was pregnant. There was bound to be discomfort. Joe would have her staying home from work, and that she wasn’t about to do. Not unless her babies’ lives were in danger.


  She’d brought the little television in from the converted nursery and put it on the kitchen counter so they could watch television while they ate. And not have to talk.

  Joe was engrossed in the news. She’d heard all she needed to know.

  “Talking about the feeding schedule, are you planning to breast-feed?”

  The rice on her fork slid to her plate. “Who was talking about a feeding schedule?” she asked around the glass she raised to her lips to hide behind.

  “We were.” He pushed some rice around on his plate, stabbed a piece of ham, scooped up some peas, seemed to thoroughly enjoy the bite he’d made. “Yesterday.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Elise got up and carried her plate to the sink, rinsed it and put it in the dishwasher, looked around for something else to do.

  “So, are you?”

  Turning, she leaned against the counter, folding her arms on top of the stomach that seemed to be protruding another inch every day. “Yes.”

  “Good.” He scooped up another bite.

  “Why is that good?”

  “It’s generally considered to be healthier for the babies.”

  She eyed him critically. “Something else you learned during your youth?”

  “Something I read about when I was waiting for you at the clinic the other day.”

  The man never ceased to amaze her. “Well, they do say it’s healthier,” she said. “Studies show that babies who are breast-fed tend to have fewer ear infections and other common childhood maladies.”

  “So how does that happen with four of them? Does your body know to give you that much milk?”

  Elise moved her arms up a notch, half covering herself. She was standing in her kitchen talking to her partner about her breasts.

  And he acted like they were loaves of bread.

  She told him what she’d been told when she’d asked that very question six weeks before. “Mothers produce milk based on need. The more the babies take, the more I’ll produce. But in the case of four of them, I’m probably going to need to pump and also supplement with formula.”

  “Ohhh,” he said, nodding his head as though she’d cleared up some burning issue for him.

  He’d been worried about the work her breasts were going to be required to do? Thinking about them at all?