Page 29 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch
“Not exactly. We were using the insurance company to fight the lawsuit. If it had gone on, we’d have gotten our own just to make sure the insurance company wasn’t screwing us over.”
The only lawyers I knew of were Schaub & Schaub, not only because they had represented Roberta, but they had a big sign in front of their offices in Masons Bay. They were available now, but it might still be a conflict of interest.
“Okay, well, let me know when you find someone.”
I picked up my sister and left. When I walked into my grandmother’s house, I found my grandmother in the living room sitting in her favorite chair. She was watching Court TV.
“Are you supposed to be sitting up?”
“Shhhh. They’re talking about Michael Jackson.”
The previous month Jackson had been charged with child molestation. An early Christmas gift to Court TV and mygrandmother. Something on the TV caught my attention. On screen Micheal Jackson was on top of an SUV dancing around and waving to the crowd.
“What’s happening?”
“He was just arraigned.”
“He looks happy about it,” I said.
“He’s happy there are cameras. The whole thing is so disgusting.” Which only made it better television.
After a few moments, I said, “I’ll make you lunch.” I went into the kitchen, carrying Emerald in her car seat. I stopped when I saw a turquoise vinyl and chrome high chair sitting at the table. Nana Cole must have dragged it in from the porch. And here I was worried about her sitting up.
“Is it safe?” I called out to the living room.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” That was her usual answer when I questioned the things she brought out. Mainly, I asked because if something went wrong and the damn thing collapsed causing Emerald to spend the rest of her life in a vegetative state, I could blame Nana Cole.
On top of that, the baby was getting fussy. I had to get her out of the car seat soon. I unstrapped her and took her over to the high chair. I carefully threaded her into it. Immediately, she began banging her hands against the tray. It might have been a demand for food, but was more likely she’d just discovered she could be annoying on purpose.
I grabbed her toy keys from the car seat and set them in front of her, hoping to distract her. She grabbed hold of them and began banging them against the tray. I’d just made things worse.
There was a ripe banana in a bowl with some other fruit on the table. I grabbed it, pulled a cereal dish out of the cupboard, then mashed up half the banana. In the fridge, I got out a bottle of formula—thank you Dorothy or whoever was here yesterday filling the bottles up—I unscrewed the top and splashed a littlein with the banana. Then I mushed all that together. Should it be warm? Did it need to be? I had no idea.
Giving up, I grabbed a baby spoon from the back of the cutlery drawer where it had been waiting since the early eighties, rinsed it off, then sat down next to Emerald. I got some banana mush onto the spoon.
“Nom, nom, nom…” I said, feeling ridiculous. It also didn’t work. She stared at me like I was crazy.
“Listen, kiddo, you’re going to need to try new things. Today’s new thing is banana. Ba-nan-a.”
Her mouth dropped open, possibly because I looked like such an idiot, and I popped the spoon in. She grimaced, then moved her jaw around, then looked a little happier, then spit most of the mush out. I scraped it off her chin and popped it back in. Most of it came back out. But then she swallowed.
I scraped off her chin, added a tiny bit more then tried again. Behind me, Nana Cole said, “Should have started that three months ago.”
I turned around and stared at her. She was using her cane and gripping the door jam. I asked, “How are you getting around so well?”
“I took a couple muscle relaxers.”
“What’s a couple?”
“Three. It says on the bottle to take them as needed. I needed three.”
“How are you even awake? Don’t they make you groggy?”
“I took a little nap while you were gone. Help me sit down.”
I put the bowl and spoon on the tray and helped Nana Cole into the seat across from the baby. Behind me I heard the clanging of the spoon hitting the floor. I turned around and saw that Emerald was covered in mashed banana. She’d gotten her hand into the bowl and was now chewing on her banana flavored fist.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Nana Cole said.
