Page 245 of The Holy Grail
A few days later, Julian and Jacob were dropped off at the townhouse at 4:00 p.m., so Paige and David would have time to go out for a nice dinner before the Foo Fighters concert.
Jacob immediately ran to Evan. “Evan!”
Evan high-fived the excited boy. “Hey, Little Man. How much have you grown since the last time I saw you?”
“A lot. I had to get new shoes. See?” Jacob lifted a foot so his navy Chuck Taylor’s were on display.
“Very stylish. You can’t go wrong with a pair of Chuck’s.” He pointed down to his own battered black pair.
Along with the children, Paige and David had brought what seemed to be an extraordinary amount of stuff. For Julian there were diapers, baby wipes, baby clothes, bottles of breast milk, a car seat, stroller, and even a portable playpen/crib thing. Jacob didn’t have nearly as much stuff, but he had a large backpack with a change of clothes, art supplies, books, and a couple of movies.
“For being so tiny, babies sure have a lot of shit,” Jules murmured when David had finally gotten everything inside, with the help of Evan and Malcom. “Men go to war with less than this.”
Along with all the stuff, came two full pages of instructions and emergency numbers, of which there were many. Just reading through some of them (how to heat up a bottle,the proper sleep position for a baby, and what to do in the event of choking), had Jules wondering if she was going to make it through the night.
She’d never even had a houseplant, for crying out loud.
Thank God Evan was going to be around, because Malcom appeared to be a little uncertain, himself, which meant between him and Jules, they didn’t even add up to one qualified adult.
“You’re looking a little overwhelmed,” Paige said.
David was looking at Jules like he was having very strong second thoughts about leaving his children in her care, so she brushed off Paige’s concern with a wave of a hand. “I’m fine. I just honestly had no idea all this was part of the babysitting experience. But, I’m really fine. I mean—” she broke off to pull Jacob in for a side hug and ruffle his buzzed hair, “this one probably won’t be too much of a fuss, so the only one I really need to worry about is that one there,” she said, pointing to Julian, who was still being held by Paige.
If anything, David looked like the second thoughts he was having were now full-onHell, nothoughts.
“Don’t listen to her,” Evan said, his words directed at David, as he moved in to take the baby from Paige like an expert. “Nothing is going to happen to the fruit of your loins. I promise.”
“What are loins?” Jacob wanted to know.
“Never mind,” David told him, before telling Evan in a low voice, “Try and keep new words to a minimum, please.” Then after glancing at his watch, David turned back to Jacob. “Who’s in charge while you’re here?”
For a second, Jacob didn’t seem to know if it was supposed to be Jules, Evan, or Malcom, so he simply pointed to each one.
“That’s right. They’re all in charge, but Evan is a little bitmorein charge, okay?”
“He’s the boss?” Jacob asked for clarification.
“Yes, exactly. So go to him first for anything.”
Jules rolled her eyes.
“What if he’s in the bathroom?” Jacob wanted to know.
“Then knock on the door.”
What followed then was almost like the ‘goodbye’ scene inSophie’s Choice.Only instead of saying goodbye to one of her children forever, Paige was saying goodbye to both of hers … for approximately sixteen hours. There were kisses and hugs, until David finally ended it by pulling Paige out of the house. “Time to go. We have reservations,” he reminded her.
“Have fun!” Jules called after them, before closing the door. “That was intense,” she said to Jacob, who was still standing there. “Is she like that when dropping you off at school?”
He thought about that. “Not anymore.”
For dinner, they ate waffle sandwiches, which Malcom and Jules made, while Evan hung out in the living room with Julian and Jacob, watching TV. Every once in a while Jacob could be heard cracking up, sometimes accompanied by Evan. When Julian woke up and started crying, Evan changed his diaper, then came into the kitchen to warm up a bottle of breast milk.
It was a little strange having a child at the table, as was seeing Evan holding a baby while he ate, one-handed.
It was also a lot strange at how many questions an almost six-year-old boy could ask. They started off benign enough, with Jacob wanting to know why they only had one cat, were they going to get any more, why the furniture didn’t match, and why the stove was so big, all of which were asked in about the first five minutes of the meal. From there, he began lobbing some harder to answer questions.
“Why did you all want to live together?” he wanted to know.
