Page 77 of This Baby Business
“I’m just saying, be careful.”
“You wouldn’t be a best friend if you didn’t say something.”
“Exactly.” She picked up her bag. “Remember that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He drove off, sulking all the way. While he’d been surrounded by friends since he’d arrived in Fortune, all of that came with its detriments as well. He never seemed to get any real privacy. Everyone was in his business. Damned if sometimes he wanted everyone to get out of his life and let him live it in peace. Let him fly planes. Raise Grace. Let him and Carly…what?
Hell, he didn’t know what, but something told him he better figure it out.
CHAPTER30
Carly
“What do wedo with this?” I lifted the item out of the box and set it on the floor.
The UPS guy had just delivered a package from a local company holding a prototype of a baby chair. Basically, it was a pink, molded plastic chair with a tray attached. The opposite of a high-chair, it essentially looked like alowchair.
“What the heck is this used for?” I said, puzzled.
“Baba!” Grace said. She was rocking on all fours on the play mat nearby.
I didn’t think Levi had one of these. Was there any use for it? There was a sheet with instructions and a short request.
Please consider usingour new and improved baby chair and reviewing it on your site. We’re a new company in Southern California. All of our products are made in the USA. We’d love your feedback.
It wasgood to know someone still cared about her opinion.
“Let’s try this out, Grace.”
Companies were still sending their products, even if the direction of RockYourBaby had shifted from product recommendations to fashionable baby clothes. She’d been contacted by the local newspaper for an interview and expected to answer questions about the changing direction of RockYourBaby. But maybe it couldn’t hurt to have a new product recommendation squeezed in among all the #fashionistababy photos. For some of Mom’s loyal fans who’d stuck around through the transition.
I had never seen a molded baby chair before. She wasn’t even sure why a baby would need one, but there had to be a use for it or they wouldn’t have made it. She picked Grace up and put her in the chair, then cinched the belt. Once she attached the tray, Grace seemed to think she should have something on the tray. It seemed too much like a high chair not to have food there. She banged her little fists on the tray.
“Baba ta dada!”
She needed a some grain cereal like what Cassie had been feeding Grace on Sunday. She’d loved it, and I had picked up a box at the store specifically for Grace. Hurrying into the kitchen, she grabbed the box from her cupboard. She froze with her hand on the box when she heard a piercing scream, dropped everything and ran.
Grace had climbed out of the chair, and lay facedown on the ground, one of her little legs still caught in the belt.
Oh, God.I raced to unbuckle her and release her little leg, then pulled her off the floor. Grace screamed as if her leg had been cut off, which made me check both of them. Three times. They seemed to be intact with no bruising, thanks to the coveralls she’d been wearing. But her little face was another story. Her lip and nose were red and bruised.
Should she call nine-one-one? Drive her to the hospital herself? Call Levi? With no time to waste, she grabbed her purse and keys and was out the door without another thought.
* * *
The triage nurseat St.Louise Hospital did not seem to understand the seriousness of the situation. Granted, in her car seat on the way here, Grace had calmed down. That did not help me get across the urgency of her being seen immediately.
“But she fell! See her lip?”
The nurse stared over her glasses. “Did she fall from a height?”
“Of course not! Well, a small height. It was a kind of Bumbo chair.”
The nurse squinted her eyes. “What’s a Bumbo chair?”
“Can I talk to the doctor?” I demanded. “This is an emergency!”
