by Arlene James
With some none-too-patient prodding, he discovered which formula the clerk felt was best. Faced with a choice of small cans of ready-to-feed, large cans of concentrate and canisters of powder, he grabbed some of each and went on to bottles and nipples. The choices there made his head swim, but a little discussion caused him to remember that Candace had been breast-feeding. The clerk seemed to think that mandated use of a certain type of nipple, which in turn required a certain sort of bottle. Parker squashed the sad feelings engendered by the thought of Candace holding her little one to her breast and gratefully accepted the middle-aged woman’s advice. For good measure he snatched up a couple of new pacifiers, a bib, a package of baby wipes and two different sizes of disposable diapers.
After paying cash for his haul, he sprinted back to the car and found Edward in the back seat bouncing a gurgling baby on his knee. Parker felt a stab of resentment. She howled for him; she gurgled for Edward. But just then that pixie face screwed up, and she opened her mouth and screamed through toothless gums. Edward shot Parker a harried look.
“About time! I hope you got diapers because this is a ripe package you’ve got here.”
“I got everything we need. Now will you just trade places with me, or do you want to try your hand at changing her?”
Edward plopped the crying baby down onto the seat and nearly bowled Parker over getting out of there. Parker shoved his packages onto the floorboard and climbed in on top of them. The most appalling odor instantly assailed him, gagging in its intensity. His first impulse was to look at his feet to see if he’d stepped in anything he shouldn’t have, but even as he did it, he knew that was not the source. With cold, dead certainty, he looked to his niece, who was again wailing at the top of her lungs.
“Crap!”
“Precisely,” Edward said from outside the car.
“And you were bouncing her on your knee!” Parker accused. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Edward announced through the window. “But at least I am willing to admit it.”
Parker glowered at him, but deep down he knew that Edward was right. Still, it couldn’t be all that difficult. He could learn and learn swiftly—though he had no illusions about the process being pleasant. He took a deep breath, which was a big mistake, and spent the next several seconds coughing and clearing his throat, but then it was time to get down to business.
First, he took off his jacket, folded it and draped it over the back of the front seat. Next he pushed up the sleeves of his turtleneck sweater. A quick hands-off examination of the squalling stranger, who was kicking and batting her arms against the leather car seat, revealed suspicious stains near the bends of the tops of her legs on the one-piece pink jumpsuit she wore. It would be wise, he decided, to protect the surface of the seat. Rummaging quickly through the diaper bag, he came up with a lightweight blanket embellished with bunnies wearing pink and blue bows. This he spread across the seat beside her. Then, ever so gingerly, he picked her up beneath the arms and transferred her to the blanket. She quieted for a moment and rammed her fist into her mouth, sucking industriously. Welcoming any reprieve from that ear-splitting wail, Parker set to work divesting her of that soiled jumpsuit. The first parting of a snap ended the respite. Her face curdled, and she began to scream.
“Dar-r-la, give me a break!”
Just the sound of her name seemed to calm her a bit, so he kept talking.
“Just let me clean you up, babe, and we’ll get on to dinner. A few more snaps...”
He opened the suit all the way up, then tugged at the foot, one forefinger slipping beneath her small, pudgy knee to ease it out. Gosh, but she was soft, like buttered silk. Her little foot popped out, and she clenched her toes, her wail resuming its former glass-shattering decibels. Suddenly oblivious, Parker ran the tip of one finger down the sole of her foot, marveling as she arched it away from his touch.
“Oh, man,” he breathed. “You are something.”
The screams abated somewhat.
“Like a doll with working parts,” he went on, stripping the other leg free. He grimaced, but kept talking. “How anything so tiny and delicate can stink so bad is beyond me. Is this what’s called baptism by fire? Well, if your daddy managed, so can I.” He wondered if she understood so much as a single word.
Whether she did or not, she seemed to be listening. The crying was on automatic now. Her mouth was open and sound was coming out, but her eyes were on Parker now, somewhat apprehensive but hopeful. He took one look at the diaper and frowned grimly.
“Yuck.”
It was dark and soggy nearly to her waist. He needed something to clean her with. Baby wipes. He dug around in the diaper bag and came up with the foil packet. Pulling open the flap, he extracted four of the moist paper towels and laid them on the seat beside her, then reluctantly began to peel back the tapes on the sides of the diaper.
“No offense, kid,” he said as jovially as he could manage, “but this isn’t my idea of a good time. What do they call it? Quality time? I wouldn’t want to rate this experience. It’d be a definite subzero. How about a little cooperation, hmm? I’m new at this, you know.” He had gotten the diaper open, nearly shredding the plastic covering in the process, and folded it back. “Oh, God.” He thought, for a moment, that he was going to bring up the contents of his stomach, which couldn’t be much, but the next moment it passed. He told himself that after what he’d come through in the past few hours, he could face any unpleasantness, and he knew it was true.
Determinedly, he took up the first towelette and went to work. Almost immediately a new problem presented itself. What to do with the soiled towel, not to mention the diaper? He gnawed at his lip, glanced around him and remembered the plastic bag in which he’d carried his purchases. Quickly, using one hand, he dumped the contents of the bag onto the floor beneath his feet. The towelette went into the empty bag, and he employed another, talking as he worked. All four towels were used to clean her front, and then the heavy work began.
Gathering her tiny feet into one hand as he’d seen her mother do, he lifted her puffy little butt off the diaper and took a peek. Two things happened next. She shut up instantly—the sound cut off in mid “waah”—and he dropped a four-letter word completely unfit for a little girl’s ears, even one who couldn’t understand a syllable of English and was covered in slimy dark green excrement from her legs all the way up her back to her shoulder blades. He let her down and ripped six more towelettes—all that remained—from the package, then lectured her sternly.
“Now see here, Darla Gayle, that’s no way for a young lady to act. You’re going to have to get over this ugly little habit, and you might as well know it now. From here on out I’ll tolerate dainty little doodles deposited circumspectly in the seat of a dry diaper, at least until you’re old enough to walk, at which point you’ll toddle your little behind off to a potty and do your business there. Got that?”
She stuck her fist in her mouth, slurping loudly. After a second or so she wrinkled up her nose, and Parker recognized the signs of an impending wail. He grabbed her ankles and pulled them up. She whimpered and grunted but otherwise remained silent. He yanked the diaper out from under her and got it into the plastic bag, using only the tips of two fingers, then picked up a fistful of wipes and started wiping. In the end, he had to remove her arms from the sleeves and get the suit out of the way, too. After a moment’s consideration, he dropped it into the plastic bag with the diaper and soiled wipes, saying, “I’ll buy you another one.”
Her only reply was a smacking sound and a grimace. Her fist, apparently, made an unsatisfactory pacifier, and he knew his second reprieve was coming swiftly to an end. He rolled her onto her tummy and completed the cleanup, then picked her up, naked as the day she was born, and folded over the blanket before laying her back down. She started to scream, and he sighed.
Edward tapped on the window. “Aren’t you through yet? People are starting to giv
e me strange looks.”
“Get in the car!” Parker snapped.
Edward got in and started up the engine. Darla cried, and Parker thought about joining her, but as the adult on the job, he remained determinedly dry-eyed as he wrestled a clean diaper into place and taped it down. It seemed damned unfair, but the past fifteen hours had been one long, hateful lesson in just how unfair life could be. Parker pushed such depressing thoughts out of mind and addressed his unhappy niece.
“Believe me, kid, I know just how you feel.” She didn’t seem impressed, but he didn’t let that bother him. He had to get her dressed.
A resigned investigation of the diaper bag produced a green nightgown, a pair of the tiniest blue jeans he’d ever seen and a pair of delicate, lace-edged socks. He put them all on her while she alternately wailed and sniffled, then placed her in the car seat and belted her in.
“You can get moving now,” he told Edward.
“Thank God! I’ve been expecting the cops to show up for the last fifteen minutes.”
“Ha-ha. Very funny.”
“Who’s joking? Child abuse is a federal offense.”
“So is lawyer abuse. Shut up and drive.”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n.”
“In your eye, shyster.”
Edward shook his head, but Parker saw his smile reflected in the rearview mirror. Tying a knot in the top of the plastic bag containing the debris of this poignant experience, he instructed Edward to pull over at the first roadside litter barrel he found. Tying up the bag helped subdue the odor, not that Parker was even aware of it anymore. He felt suddenly weary to the bone and immune even to Darla’s cries, which had become pitiful, throbbing wails of despair.
“Okay, okay. Almost there,” he told her, scrubbing his hands with a monogrammed handkerchief extracted from his hip pocket. That done, he found a can of ready-to-feed formula, a bottle and a nipple. He punched two holes into the top of the can with the sleek pearl-handled pocketknife he carried, poured formula into the bottle and screwed on the nipple. When he inserted the nipple into her mouth, she lapsed into silence, shuddered and latched on to it, grumbling even as she took long, hungry pulls. Parker smiled down at her wearily. “You’re a real feisty little imp, aren’t you? More trouble than a motorcycle gang, greedy as a banker, smelly as a skunk—and I’ll fight anybody who tries to take you away from me. Anybody.”
He gazed down at her, that sad, weary, loving smile on his face, and completely missed the look Edward bounced off the the rearview mirror at him. It was a look of concern, worry and doubt, the look of a lawyer who knew he could well be on the losing side of his most important case, the look of a man in fear for his best friend.
* * *
He had never been so tired in his life. He had missed nights of sleep before, but never had he been so tired. Parker sighed against the surface of the coffee in his cup and took desperate solace in the silence.
Darla had cried all night except for brief snatches of sleep that had seemed merely to fortify her for the next bout of screaming. At about dawn he had cried with her, and not just a trickle of silent tears but an uncontrollable cascade of racking sobs and misery so heavy that he’d bent his head against folded arms braced upon his knees just to bear it. He was drying his eyes, hot with embarrassment, when it occurred to him what it was all about. She was crying because she missed her mommy and her daddy and her home and her bed, and he was crying for the very same reason. They were grieving together, whether she was old enough to realize it or not. He had picked her up then for perhaps the dozenth time and cradled her close against him, talking to her in soft, crooning words about her parents and how fine they had been and how inadequate he felt in trying to replace them.
“But I will,” he had said. “Somehow I will, because I love you.”
And it was true. He marveled at how deeply he loved that little scrap of humanity now sleeping peacefully in the center of his big bed. Just knowing she was there gave him a feeling of peace and satisfaction. He might even have been happy, despite the weight of grief that he bore, if only he hadn’t been so tired.
He heard the door open and peered between two widely spaced columns. Across the clean, open expanse of the living area, Edward stepped down out of the foyer and shrugged free of his rumpled overcoat. Whatever he did, however he dressed, Edward never resembled anything so much as a bear just waking from a winter’s hibernation, albeit a rather handsome bear with pale blue eyes and thick brows and mustache fully two shades darker than his shaggy, light golden brown hair. Parker supposed it was his size, for though he stood a touch over six feet himself and weighed in at one hundred and seventy-five pounds, Edward eclipsed him in both height and breadth. Moreover, he was built like an ox, all wide, flat muscle and heavy bone. Edward spied him and lifted a hand in hello. Quickly crossing the living area, he stepped up into the kitchen and accepted the mug of hot brew that Parker filled and thrust at him.
“So how’d it go?” he asked, his voice hushed and cautious.
Parker rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “How’d what go?”
“Your first night with the baby.” His tone added an of course
Parker dropped his hand. “Fine,” he lied tersely. “What’s brought you out so early?”
“Thought you’d want to see this,” Edward said, fishing a folded paper from his back pocket.
Parker knew fax paper when he saw it. He set down his cup and took the folded sheet. Opening it, he scanned the contents. A ripple of relief so intense, it was debilitating, skittered through him. He closed his eyes. “Thank God!”
Edward slurped his coffee and nodded at the same time, managing to spill hot liquid over his fingers. He flung it off, spattering the smooth, cool gray cabinets and the gleaming black countertops. “It certainly helps that Nathan named you guardian in his will.”
“Helps?” Parker said, snorting at the notion. “It settles it, doesn’t it?”
A wary look came over Edward. He canted his head slightly. “Not necessarily. People aren’t property, you know. One doesn’t just leave a baby to whoever one chooses like he would his car or the family silver. Besides, wills are challenged—and set aside—every day.” He shrugged. “But then maybe the Pendletons won’t challenge.”
Parker put his hands in his hair. “Oh, right! And the wind doesn’t blow. Of course they’ll challenge! This is an affront to her life’s work, to her standing as a doctor. She has to challenge. Good God, her own sister chose to leave her baby daughter’s care to an inexperienced bachelor, and her a noted child psychologist and experienced mother! She’ll challenge. Oh, yes, she’ll challenge! And she’ll win. Oh, God.” He pulled a sleek chrome chair out from beneath the glass table and collapsed upon it, thinking of the long, difficult night that had just passed and how inadequate he had felt to the simple task of putting that child to sleep. But he could learn. Heaven help him, he could learn—given the chance. “What am I going to do?” he asked miserably.
He must have made a more pitiful picture than he knew, for Edward dropped a heavy hand upon his shoulder and squeezed.
“We’ll fight them,” he said gruffly. “If you want to keep that baby, then we’ll fight them for her. But, Parker, you’re going to have to bend over backward to convince the court that you can care for her. Fortunately, we can verify your claim that Nathan and Candace wanted you to have her, but all that means, good buddy, is that you don’t have to prove you’re better able to care for her than the Pendletons. If we can satisfy the court that you’re as able as the Pendletons or, depending on how lucky we are in drawing a judge, at least adequate, then the will should clinch it for you. The bad news is, your reputation is going to work against you. Unless I miss my guess, you haven’t much time to get respectable.”
Parker clenched and unclenched his hands. “Just tell me what to do,” he said.
Edward sighed, pulled out a chair and sat down, stretching his long, thick legs out in front of him. “Well,” he said thoughtfully, “fo
r one thing, you’re about to get religion. What I’m saying is, join a church, any church, as long as it’s mainstream and uncontroversial.”
Parker stiffened. “For your information, I already am a member of a church.”
Edward had the poor grace to look surprised. “No kidding?” He seemed to ponder this new information, then shrugged. “Well, all you’ve got to do then is start attending—regularly.”
Parker nodded grimly. Lord, there were going to be some shocked old biddies soon. Well, he wouldn’t think of it. He squared his shoulders. “I’ll be in church this Sunday,” he said.
“With the baby,” Edward added.
Parker looked down at his hands. They were trembling. “With the baby,” he repeated. “Now, what else?”
Edward hooked an arm over the back of the chair and sipped his coffee. “The kid needs a room of her own,” he said.
“Her name is Darla,” Parker snapped testily. “And she’s going to sleep in the guest room as soon as I get her things over here.”
“You can move into Nathan’s house once the will is probated,” Edward mused, “but for now the guest room will have to do.”
Parker had no intention of moving into Nathan’s characterless cracker box of a house, but he didn’t bother to tell Edward that. By the time the will was probated, the whole custody issue would undoubtedly be settled, so it was pointless to worry about trying to make that architecturally bankrupt “investment” of Nathan’s a livable residence. He concentrated instead on how to make this fine old house of his a “family” place. His mind was buzzing with ideas when Edward called him back to the conversation by leaning forward, elbows on the glass tabletop.