Page 128 of Bountiful
She was startled, too, blinking suddenly when ourgazesmet.
“Dada,” she said, her voicesmall.
“Hi,” I whispered, watching her. She looked surprisingly chipper given all the previous day’s miseries. But, heck. I’d been young once. I knew exactly how different it felt to have the youthful resilience of childhood, instead of the muscle pain that greeted me each and everymorningnow.
I sat up carefully, checking in with my body the way a professional athlete in his second decade of play always did. I clocked all my minor aches and pains, then reached for my baby girl. “Come on,” Iwhispered.
Nicole climbed into my lap, then looked over at Zara. “Mama,”shesaid.
“Mama’s sleepy,” I whispered, because Zara was lying on her face, dead to the world. “Come with me.” I grabbed some shorts and a polo shirt and carried her into thelivingroom.
Funny how I could find the diaper bag and change a diaper before I was fully awake. Although I got stuck on the next bit. “Do you still drink milk in themorning?”
“Baba,” Nicole said, which was her word for the sippy-bottle thing she drank fromthesedays.
“Where do you supposethatis?”
Nicole walked over to the diaper bag, then began to root around in it. But I spotted the cup beside the hotel suite’s little kitchen sink. “Here we go. Let’s go fill this up,”Isaid.
The pointof staying in a luxury hotel wasn’t the stylish furniture in the lobby or the elegant pool with the disappearing edge. The point was handing an empty sippy cup to the first concierge I could find, and watching that person scurry off to fill it upwithmilk.
“Baba,” Nicole said with a frown, watching itdisappear.
“They’re going to hook you up,” I promised. If I were a smarter man, I would have asked for coffee, too. “Let’s look around while we wait.” I spotted an aquarium across the way and carried her overtoit.
As we looked through the glass, a grumpy-faced bass swam past us at a rapid rate, and Nicole gasped. “Fissy!” sheexclaimed.
And,wow. It was so cool to hear new words coming out of her. She’d made a big leap forward since I’d seen her in Vermont, and I’d mostly missed it. Sure, I’d heard a few words on Skype, but that was nothing like holding her and hearing that little voice at closerange.
Maybe it had taken me a little longer than it could have, but being Nicole’s father felt right to me now.Your life has just changed for the better, my sister had said on that first, terrifying morning after I’d come back to Vermont.I hope you’re not too stupid to figurethatout.
Well, sis. I got there.It just took awhile.
“Excuse me, madame,” a man’s voice said behind me. “Is thisyours?”
“Baba!”
I turned around to find a young guy holding Nicole’s sippy cup, and it was full of milk. “Thank you,” I said, flashing my key card. “Where doIsign?”
He handed me the bottle and a bill wallet, where I filled in my room number and a generous tip for Nicole’s beverage ofchoice.
“Thank you, sir,” he said, andwasgone.
In order to let Zara sleep a bit longer, I carried Nicole out the sliding glass doors and across a patio. When the patio ended, the sand began. The beach was really wide here, so the hotel had made a shady enclosure with hammock-like chairs. Every one of them was empty now. I sat down carefully so the thing wouldn’t swing sideways and dump us both onto the sand. Then I eased back and let Nicole make herself comfortable against mychest.
She lifted the sippy cup immediately and began to drink the milk. The poor kid was probably starving since she hadn’t stopped crying long enough consider food lastnight.
Kicking off my flip flops, I buried my toes in the cool sand. Somewhere in the distance, the ocean crashed against the beach in rhythmic waves. And seagulls chased each other on the horizon, their cries carried off bythewind.
“I gotta say, it’s pretty nice right here,” I told mydaughter.
There was no answer, except for some slurping sounds. While I rocked us in the chair, she drank every drop, then handed me the empty bottle. I could almost hear her adding,Listen, Dada, this bottle was toosmall.
In a minute I’d get up and find out how to order some room service. After the night we had, I thought we were due for someseriouschow.
But first… I dug out my phone. It was barely seven, but that meant my sister was up and showered and nearly ready to head for her office. I tapped on her ID in Skype so she could seeNicole.
She picked up immediately. “Heyyyyyy!” shesquealed.
