Page 2 of Brooklynaire
Four people live in this apartment, but I’m the only one with a full-time job. Fine—the baby is unemployable. But two adults count on me, too. My sister is trying to finish up her associate’s degree, while working a few shifts as a barista. And her baby daddy—our apartment’s fourth occupant—does construction work whenever he can get it. But often he’s doing baby careinstead.
That leaves me and my steady paycheck. And even though the team’s owner has known me for seven years, these last two years I’ve worried about my job security. My absence today won’thelp.
So what the hell am I going to donow?
I must have said that out loud, because my nephew shifts in hissleep.
Ever since Matthew came to live with me, I’ve learned that babies have an uncanny knack for choosing the worst possible moment to wake up. I wipe my eyes with the heels of my hands and take a deep, calmingbreath.
Matthew rolls over and grunts softly. His little mouth moves as if tosuckle.
Uh-oh.
Slowly, I lean over the Moses basket, where he’s sleeping, and fish the abandoned pacifier out of the blankets. Then, ever so stealthily, I slide the pacifier into his mouth. These are tricks I never thought I’d learn. But then my younger sister got pregnant at twenty-two. “I’m keeping the baby,” she’d announced immediately. “And Renny is going to go work on an oil rig in the Gulf to supportus.”
Right.
Fast forward a few months, and I experience exactly zero surprise when Missy loses her Queens apartment for falling behind on the rent. And I experience only slightly more surprise when Renny lasts just a few months on the oilrig.
He came through my door a week ago, dropping to his knees on my rug in an overly dramatic gesture. “I just couldn’t stand another day without my family!” the twenty-one-year-old fool cried. (Yes, my sister fell for a younger man. I’d call him her child-groom, except they aren’t evenmarried.)
Now we’re all one big happy family in the tiny Brooklyn apartment I used to share only with my best friend Georgia. I love my sister, but this apartment really isn’t big enough for so muchmelodrama.
I’ve been cast in the role of Spinster Auntie. And right now, behind the closed door of the bedroom my sister and Renny share, I can hear the hushed moans of their lovemaking and the rhythmic thump of the headboard rocking against thewall.
They think they’re so sneaky. Ever since Renny returned from Texas, they slip off once a day for a quickie while the baby naps. Any minute now they’ll emerge, flushed and happy, with their soft-eyed glances for one another, their hands lingering on each other’s bodies, as if it would cause them physical pain to let go of oneanother.
My sister is kind of an idiot. Always has been. And yet she snagged a man who truly loves her. Every time I think about them I want to throw up a little. And that was before I got aconcussion.
At my feet, Baby Matthew stretches his short, little arms over his bald, little head. His eyes are still screwed shut, but it won’t last. The pacifier falls out again. Then he makes a breathy little complaint, and those blue eyes popopen.
No matter how shittastic my life is right now, one thing remains unshakably true: my nephew is completely adorable. “Hi,” I say softly, and his eyes find me. “Did you have a goodsleep?”
He considers thequestion.
“Want to come hang out with me on the couch?” I lean over to fit my hands beneath his heavy warmth. I tug. And when I sit up again, my head gives a stab of pain so sharp I hiss withsurprise.
The sound catches Matthew off guard, and hewhimpers.
“S’okay,” I say, my eyes closed against the pain. “It’s going to befine.”
It’s unclear which of us I’mcomforting.
Matthew makes a few more fussy sounds. He’s working himself up to a full-blown cry. For once I don’t mind because it covers up the sound of the sex crescendo in the other room. But I’ve left the pacifier in the basket on the floor, damn it. Holding Matthew makes it doubly hard to bend over, but I manage it.Barely.
When we’re settled back again on the sofa, the room spins in a way that rooms really shouldn’t. The big brown roses on the ugly couch—The Beast, as Georgia and I call it—seem to swim in front of myeyes.
Trippy.
Matthew sucks a little desperately on the pacifier. It won’t hold him for long. He’s hungry. Sure enough, his whimpers become wails after a couple more minutes. I rock him in my arms, but two fat tears squeeze from the corners of his eyes. In sympathy, a couple of tears leak from my own eyes,too.
Then the bedroom door flies open. “Daddy is here!” Renny declares. He’s bare chested, and the top button of his jeans is still undone. But he runs around the sofa and scoops Matthew out of my arms. “My pumpkin muffin. My sweetie pie.” He lowers his scruffy face to Matthew’s velvety cheek and begins to kisshim.
That baby is hungry, and Renny does not have the plumbing he needs. But apparently a half-naked nutbar like Renny is just entertaining enough to distract Matthew from his empty belly. The baby puts his little starfish hand on daddy’s face, and they stare at each other like long-lostlovers.
“Who’s the best little pumpkin muffin in the world?” Renny babbles. He sits in the other corner of The Beast, and then my sister enters the room looking flushed and more sexually satisfied than any new mother has a right to look. “Mommy!” Renny calls out, sounding like a moron. “We need your luscious titties overhere!”
“You know,” I grumble, although I’m positive nobody is listening. “In a couple of years, he’s going to repeat all the stuff yousay.”
