Page 80 of Bountiful
Woken from her nap to find herself with strangers, she would not be soothed. If anything, the wailing gotlouder.
Bess tried everything. She offered the kid a bottle of milk and a handful of crackers. She fetched a toy she’d brought from a specialty shop inMichigan.
Nope, nope, and nope. Nicole’s face had turned bright red, and I didn’t know how one small person could make so manytears.
There was nothing wrong with my child’s lungs, that wasforsure.
Poor Bess paced the house with the baby in her arms. “Shhh, honey,” she said. She tried singing a couple rounds of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” But nothingworked.
I didn’t know I’d have to step in until my sister began to look tearful herself. “I know I shouldn’t be offended,” she said. “She only wants hermother.”
Uh-oh. Sad sister. It was time for anintervention.
“I’ll take a turn getting yelled at,” I told her, scooping Nicole out of her arms. “You relax for a minute.”Maybe find some earplugs.
Nicole howled at me when I took her. She opened her mouth so wide I could see her tonsils rattling as she cried. Like the baby onThe Simpsons, exceptcuter.
“I know, girl,” I said, just in case she was listening. “You want your mama. We’re going to see her in a while. She’s pretty great. I understand howyoufeel.”
The crying really seemed to bounce off the walls of the cabin, so I pushed open the screen door and went outside. The breeze had kicked up, tossing all the leaves on the branches. The baby’s cries became a little distracted as she followed the movement with her bigbrowneyes.
“How do you feel about hammocks?” I asked her. Did other people ramble on to babies like this? Probably. It would be rude not to ask her opinion. “This hammock is my favorite thing about the cabin,” I told her, sitting carefully down in the center of it. I rocked for a moment. And when the crying didn’t get worse, I tilted until I was lying down in the hammock, one foot anchored on the ground forstability.
Nicole turned her body, struggling a little until she was lying in the crook of my arm. That took some effort, so she had to stop crying to do it. She began making little snuffling sounds, her back hitching with each shuddery inhale. Then she let out a big,resignedsigh.
“Sorry you’re stuck with me,” I whispered, and she listened. I nudged the ground with my foot, and we swunggently.
One little hand suddenly gripped my thumb, but she didn’tcomplain.
“It’s nice here,” I pointed out. “Not too hot, not too cold. If you want to finish that nap you started, now might be a good time. Justsayin’.”
Small fingers sifted through the hair at my wrist, and I rocked the hammock gently again. We had a view of the treetops, where the breeze whispered. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bess’s face appear in the window of the cabin. She was probably wondering what I’d done to stop the crying. But she was smart enough not to come outsideandask.
The baby was a warm weight against my ribcage. The breeze was sweet on my face. The July day held its breath for me, and the baby didn’t start cryingagain.
I must have dozed off. The next sound I registered was the faux-shutter noise of a phone snapping pictures. I opened my eyes to see Castro standing over me, grinning away, tapping the screen repeatedly. I gave him a glare.Don’t wake up this baby or I will end you. Nicole was passed out, her little face turned into my chest, her eyesscrewedshut.
Grinning, Castro backed away, then handed the phone to Bess who was lurking nearby. They fled when I gave them anotherglare.
I lay there a while longer. Parts of my body were numb, and my healing shoulder was stiff. But a twenty-million-dollar signing bonus wouldn’t have been enough to makememove.
Who would even recognize me right now? Two weeks ago I’d driven to Vermont with very different ideas about how my vacation—and my life—were supposed to go. Whatever Castro had captured on that camera was a shot I’d never expected to pose for. It was madness. Iknewthis.
Weirdly enough, I didn’t mind all that muchjustnow.
Eventually Nicole wokeup from her nap, this time in abettermood.
Bess spread a blanket on the lawn, and the baby deigned to sit on her lap, snacking on strawberries, while I did some stretches on the grass and watched my sister. She’d brought Nicole a wooden school bus with little painted peg people that fit inside the top. The bus rolled on its perfect wooden wheels, but the baby seemed to like taking the people out and then putting them in again, one atatime.
The toy looked handmade, and I wondered where Bess had gotten it, and what she saw when she looked at it. Bess and I never had anything that nice to play with, ever. I remembered loving the Head Start program my mother had dumped me in when I was four because they had toys there, and I could touch them whenever Iwantedto.
Jesus.
The worst thing about the last two weeks wasn’t the stress of finding out I’d fathered a child. And it wasn’t getting yelled at by a baby or my sister. The worst part was a brain full of shitty old memories. No lie—every tense conversation with Zara was easier than five minutes alone with myownhead.
I pulled out my phone to distract myself. There were texts from Zara, with an address for the farm. Her mother was scheduled to arrive at the wedding during the ceremony. And Zara would text me when it was over, probablyaroundsix.
It was almostsixnow.
