She crept beneath her covers and closed her eyes, but she still lay awake for a long time, listening for Calvin and cursing her sister.
Ethan was right. It was time to talk about Rachel.
But how was she supposed to explain the biggest failure of her life?
Chapter Twelve
Ethan’s phone didn’t ring again that night, and when his alarm went off without an SOS from Tessa, he didn’t know whether to be worried or relieved. Did it mean everything had gone all right? Or just that she wouldn’t call him if it didn’t?
It had been so hard to leave her last night. She’d stopped his breath for a minute when he’d opened her closet door. Her straight hair was a wild mass of waves, probably from the tight braid she’d kept it in all day, and she looked untamed in a way that tugged on something in his gut. But the panic and exhaustion on her face had tugged even harder at his heart.
He texted to ask if she needed help getting Calvin into the car, but she didn’t answer. He hadn’t really expected her to. He dressed and decided to skip breakfast and head into work early. Maybe he’d beat someone in besides Tessa for once. But he also wanted a chance to talk to his mom on the drive.
“Hi, honey. Something wrong?” she asked when she picked up the phone.
“Why does something have to be wrong for me to call?” he asked.
“There doesn’t if it’s your usual Sunday night call. But it’s Thursday. Morning. So.”
He sighed. “Fine. Tessa needs help. It’s more than I can give her. I’m willing to help her as much as I can while I’m here, but I’m only here for twenty-four more days, so what do I do?”
“How are you trying to help?” she asked.
He explained about the baby scooting off the bed and how he made Calvin a bassinet. He explained how he’d begged Tessa to call anytime she needed a break, offered to take over middle of the night feedings, and tried to talk to her about Rachel. “She doesn’t listen, Mom.”
“She doesn’t? Or you don’t?”
Her tone was gentle, but the subtle criticism still stung. “She doesn’t. No matter what I say or how I try to say it, she shuts me down. Won’t talk to me about anything.”
“Maybe it’s because she’s not sure you will listen because you’re doing a lot of talking. I get it. You’re a problem-solver. I am too. I’ve learned not to rush in with solutions all the time, but you called me for advice, so I’m assuming you’re interested in a few solutions?”
“Yeah. I’m at a loss here.”
“Well, that was your first solution I just gave you by example. Ask if she wants you to solve the problem. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she just needs to know she’s not alone.”
“But she’s making a really big deal about doing this alone. It sounds like that’s exactly what she wants.”
“That’s because you’re very literal-minded. Remember all our conversations about subtext?”
Subtext. She’d worked on the idea of subtext with him since he was a teenager, trying to explain to him that much of what people actually meant wasn’t in the words but under them. Sometimes he got it. In the early years with Sarah, he’d worked hard on reading her subtext, learning when “I don’t really care where we eat” really meant, “I’m testing to see if you remember my favorite restaurant and suggest it,” and “Nothing’s wrong” meant, “You said or did something wrong, and now you have to guess what it was.” He’d failed so often that he’d finally gotten to a point of taking her literally again, forcing her to be verbal and specific about what she wanted or needed.
“I’m out of practice,” he admitted.
“It’s hard,” his mom said. “Sometimes people tell us things in subtext that they don’t even know they’re saying. That might be what you’re running into here.”
“But that . . .”
“Makes no sense?” she finished for him. “It doesn’t make logical sense. But it makes perfect emotional sense. Do you have any idea why Tessa doesn’t seem to trust offers of help? Is it something about her past? That might help you make more sense of her.”
“Not really,” he admitted. “She’s always been pretty independent to the point of stubbornness. She never mentions her parents, and it sounds like Rachel has a history of being wild, so I’m guessing an unstable family life growing up? I don’t know.”
“Find out. That’s my advice. Don’t offer any solutions. Just sit and listen.”
He was quiet for so long that his mom asked if he was still there. “Yeah. Aren’t you going to tell me not to wade in when I’m leaving so soon?”
“Of course not. Helping for three weeks is better than not helping at all. Figure out why she doesn’t want help. Then ask her to tell you how you can help anyway. Sounds like she needs it desperately but then beats herself up every time she asks for it.”
“You’re smart, Mom.”
“Just lived long enough to figure out some stuff. Hang in there, son.”
He pulled into the BBMJ lot, which was a quarter full even though he was a half-hour early this time, but when the doors to the lab slid open and he spotted only Sanjay and Mary, he was almost as pleased with himself for beating Darius into work as he was when he got his first interview with Klieber.
“How early do I have to get here to beat you?” he asked Sanjay as he passed him.
Sanjay blinked. “You can’t.”
Mary shot him a wry smile. “It’s true. No one has ever gotten here before Sanjay.”
He threw a look at the other man. “What if I slept here? I’d beat you in then.”
Sanjay gave him a slight smile and turned back to his work.
“Spooky,” he said to Mary. She shrugged.
Five minutes later, Darius arrived and bustled over to his station, dropped his work bag, then headed straight to Baby Quad. What was that about? But it wasn’t any of his business, so he settled into his own work, already deep into it when Tessa pushed Calvin’s stroller from the elevator at 8 AM exactly. She looked more like the Tessa he’d seen Monday night before her sister had upended everything. The skin under her eyes wasn’t puffy, and her hair looked brushed and smooth, though a small part of him missed the wild and untamed mane of the night before. It was as if her hair had revealed a layer to her that he hadn’t seen before. But if she was feeling as pulled together inside as she looked now on the outside, then that was the best outcome of all.
Sanjay rose from his chair and went back to Baby Quad which Darius had deserted. “Going to C-Building,” Darius said to Mary, hefting a reusable grocery sack over his shoulder. “Back in twenty.”
Mary nodded.
Tessa headed to Baby Quad too, locking the stroller wheels and detaching Calvin’s carrier.
“I made him this,” Sanjay said, and Ethan glanced over to see what he’d come up with this time, but all he could see was them bent over and studying a square of cloth on the floor. Tessa smiled and patted his back, and Sanjay proceeded to drag whatever it was over to the empty space beside her desk while she unhooked Calvin’s safety buckles.
“What is it?” Ethan asked as Sanjay settled the fabric. It was about three feet square and looked like a thick blanket with clamps around the edges.
“Baby mat,” he said. Then he went back to his own desk.
Curious, Ethan climbed out of his chair and went over to examine it. Sanjay had taken a floor mat like the ones beneath the larger lab machines for absorbing the vibrations so they wouldn’t shake the rest of the floor. He’d covered it with one of the thin blankets Mary had bought—and she’d bought five packages of thin blankets, a sign that even unflappable Mary had panicked in the superstore baby aisle. The clamps were rubber-tipped, avoiding the pitfall of sharp edges.
Sanjay’s engineering was blunt and pragmatic, but while he didn’t make beautiful things, the solutions themselves were elegant. He doubted Calvin would care about the utilitarianism of his mat, but he would probably find it more comfortable than lying so directly on the floor.
How come Ethan hadn’t thought of a solution like that? Or Darius’s shape mobile that Tessa now set up over him?
“Do you have the other stuff in your car? Want me to go get it?” he blurted to Tessa, anxious to help too.
Tessa’s lips began to purse and he could see the “no” forming, but she pressed them together for a split second, smiled, and said, “Sure. That would be helpful.” She handed him the keys and told him where she had parked.
He smiled when he opened her trunk and saw that instead of the portable crib, she’d brought the laundry bassinet. When he stepped from the elevator a few minutes later carrying it and the swing, Tessa was waiting for him.
“Thanks for coming to the rescue again last night.”
“You’re doing better than you think you are.” He kept his reply low.
She shook her head but took the laundry basket and walked with him silently to Baby Quad to leave the new items. “I’d like to talk later,” she said.
He almost said, “I think that would be so good for you,” but his mom’s advice overrode his mouth and he said simply, “I’d like to listen.” Maybe there would be a chance to tell her what he’d learned about the resources DCS could offer. But maybe he would need to save that for another time. He added only, “You look rested this morning.”
“I am. He slept six hours straight before he wanted to eat. I think the bassinet helped.”
“Good.”
An awkward silence fell between them for a few seconds before she cleared her throat and jerked her head toward her desk to indicate that she’d be returning to it.
He followed her, and the next two hours passed quietly except for the return of Darius, still schlepping his grocery bag, and the clack of keyboards as everyone pursued their work. When Calvin began to get restless, kicking and turning his head more, Tessa went straight to the breakroom to make him a bottle and had it in his new bottle sling and ready for him right in the middle of his first full cry.
Mary hurried over to fuss with the contraption, but when Calvin settled right down to eat, she returned to her desk. It was quiet again for fifteen minutes until Calvin finished and needed burping, which he accomplished so loudly that Darius jumped up and ran over to Tessa to give the baby on her shoulder some knuckles in congratulations.
Even Calvin’s cry for a diaper change was a minor disruption, and when he fell asleep for his nap around 11:00, Tessa put him in his laundry basket and sat down again with a sigh.
“You’re doing good, mama,” Darius said before turning back to his computer.
But since Ethan watched Tessa more than he did anything else, including his own work, he saw her mouth form a hard line and her shoulders tense. He reached into his work bag and came up with two Cups O’ Noodles. “I’m going to take an early lunch, and I’ve got extra. Can I make you some?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks. I need to take advantage of his nap. He seems to have one major meltdown a day, and since it hasn’t been at the same time so far, I want to get as much as possible done before it happens.”
He nodded and put the cups back in his bag. He wasn’t actually hungry either. Even when he did go warm up his food an hour later, Calvin was still sound asleep, and Tessa had the laser focus he’d been so awed by in college, constantly scanning her monitor, typing periodically, clicking every now and then, and scanning some more.
Maybe she’d feel better now that she was getting her work done, so was everyone else, and Calvin was fine.
Except that he let out a cry right then, and Tessa started the whole feeding, burping, diapering routine over. This time when she set him down on Sanjay’s mat, he cried. Ethan hurried to pull the swing over, but that didn’t work either. Sanjay clapped his hands over his ears, but otherwise kept his eyes on his screen.
“I’m so sorry,” Tessa said, pulling Calvin out of the swing, but she seemed to be apologizing to the lab at large. She walked and bounced him. That worked after a couple of minutes until she tried to set him down again. Then the wails started back up.
“I got this,” Darius said, coming over with his grocery bag. He set it down and pulled out several of the blankets Mary had bought, only now they were all sewn together and emerged from the sack like a stream of colorful handkerchiefs from a magician’s pocket.
“What is that?” Tessa asked, and Ethan was glad because he wanted to know too.
“It’s for baby-wearing,” Darius said.
“Let me guess,” Tessa said, and her voice was loaded with resignation but laced with humor too. “You read an article about it?”
“Yeah, and then I went over to C Building and asked them to sew these together. And I watched a couple of tutorials, and it’s very smart how the tribal mothers did this. And how lots of moms do it now. Sometimes newer isn’t better,” he said, nudging the now empty baby swing aside. “Can I try?”
“You want to wear the baby?” Ethan asked. He hadn’t ever really seen anyone do that before, but that didn’t mean anything. He’d quit paying attention to baby stuff when he’d left for college.
“Is that okay?” Darius asked Tessa, his face scrunched in anxious lines.
“Won’t it make it hard for you to work?”
He shook his head. “Not the way I’m going to do it.”
“Why not?” she said, raising her voice as Calvin’s crying grew louder. “It’s not like this is working.”
“Can I do it too?” Sanjay asked.
“Bro, I figured this all out. Wait your turn. But you can help me wrap up. Come over here.” Then he handed the blankets over to Sanjay, held out his hands for the baby, and Tessa, not looking at all certain about this turn of events, gave him Calvin. Darius carried the baby in front of him, arms fully extended, back to his computer. “Bring the wrap, Sanjay.”
Sanjay hurried over, and soon they were bent over Darius’s screen. The first step apparently involved sticking Calvin’s front against Darius’s back in the approximate position of a backpack. Then there was some blanket wrapping around Calvin’s back and Darius’s torso, and soon there were so many overs-and-unders of limbs and blankets that Ethan lost track almost right away. But it served to distract Calvin, who was quiet through all of this, and it was probably the only reason Tessa didn’t say anything either, although she watched the proceedings with a worried face.
Finally, Darius stood and gave either end of the wrap a firm tug. “Come and see, Tessa.”
She did, checking the tautness of the fabric. The position allowed Calvin to either look around or rest his head on Darius’s shoulder, which is what he decided to do now.
“Seems secure,” she said, stepping back.
“It is,” Darius said. “Now don’t worry. He’s going to come with me while I do some component work.” Then he headed toward the Maker Quad to tinker with the 3D printer, Calvin still content against his back.
“Huh,” Ethan and Tessa said at the exact same time.
Mary had watched all of this without comment, but now she rose and went to Tessa’s desk. “Could I talk to you in the breakroom?” She kept her voice low, but Ethan sat too close to avoid eavesdropping.
“Sure,” Tessa said, and though she didn’t sound or look any different, he could still sense a shift in her, a tightening, but almost like it was coming from inside her.
As they disappeared into the breakroom, Ethan stared after them and tried to ignore the churning in his gut.
Was Tessa’s barely standing house of cards about to collapse completely?
Chapter Thirteen
“What’s wrong?” Tessa asked. Mary had never pulled any of them aside privately before. But Tessa wasn’t sure why she even asked when she knew the way she always knew unpleasant things in her bones. This was about Calvin.
“It’s about Calvin.”
Tessa almost smiled at how right she’d been except it wasn’t like it would have taken a genius to figure it out. “I’m sorry he’s such a distraction,” she said, leaning back against the breakroom co
unter. “I’ll figure out the childcare thing soon. I know he can’t be at work.”
“It’s not that,” Mary said, and Tessa’s eyebrows shot up. “I mean, it is,” Mary amended. “But it’s not because he’s a distraction. I’m fine with him being here. Sanjay and Darius don’t seem to care, and they’re each making good progress on their components, so it’s fine with me. I’m not worried about the baby. I’m worried about you.”
“Me?” Guilt swept over her. “I’ll get my stuff done, Mary. You know I will. No one cares more about getting this prototype working—”
“It’s not that either.” Mary’s interruption was gruff even for her. “It’s . . . you don’t look right. You can’t work this many hours and take care of a baby all by yourself and keep up that pace indefinitely. You’re going to collapse.”
“I’ll be okay. I found a better way for him to sleep which means I slept more, and I feel so much better today. And I haven’t given up on the idea of finding childcare for him. It’s just been . . . busy.” That plus not having the first clue about where to check next had pretty much ground her search to halt, but she’d . . .
You’ll what? her common sense snapped at her. You still have no idea how to solve that problem.
“I looked into it a little bit last night,” Mary said. “If you’re declared his legal guardian, then it makes things easier for you. You get state funds to help with his care, for one.”
“Money isn’t really an issue,” she muttered. BBMJ hired the best because they could afford to, and since she’d worked in fully endowed graduate programs, she didn’t have school debt to pay off. Between her salary and her modest spending habits, she was flush.
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