Lee slept at the hospital for two nights, watching Harry around the clock until it was time to take him home. Shirley seemed content with letting Lee take the lead. While Shirley and Harry slept, Lee reread an email. Parlour & Juke wanted to hire her. She’d asked her boss to write her a recommendation letter a few months back, before the baby, and he had. She’d have her own chair. They would pay her a salary. Apparently, the girls she’d styled at the last hair show had made an impression on their boss. He was recruiting, and he’d asked specifically if she was interested. She’d built a great book, and now someone wanted her skills. Her talent.
Lee thought of starting over, of getting her own little house in another part of town. No real memories. No ties. No mistakes.
Nothing had ever sounded better.
“What are you smiling at?”
Lee closed the email and set her phone down. “Just an email.”
“About?” Shirley groaned as she pulled herself to sitting.
Lee couldn’t contain the excitement. “Parlour & Juke just offered me a chair.”
Envy flashed through Shirley’s eyes and was instantly replaced. “Lee, that’s fantastic. That’s what you’ve been wanting.”
“It is. I just can’t believe they offered it.” Lee let her mind wander to how utterly amazing it would feel to walk into work every morning, knowing she had made it to the salon of her choice.
“I want to get back into it,” Shirley said. She peered in on Harry in the bassinet beside her. “Would you help me with my portfolio?”
Lee was flattered. She’d been waiting for Shirley to take an interest in hair again. But building a portfolio was a lot of work. She’d recommend someone. “I actually know a few people who’d be perfect to train with. I’ll text you their info.”
“Thanks.”
Harry’s future started to solidify in her mind: his mother getting her act together. Harold getting sober. They’d both have someone to live for.
When it was time to check out, Lee gathered all of Harry’s onesies, bottles, diapers, and wipes and figured out how to buckle him into the car, his impossibly tiny limbs folded into the fabric and straps of the bucket seat.
Shirley twisted around from the passenger seat. “Is he too small for the seat, do you think?”
Lee assessed. “I don’t think so. The staff checked that everything was secure.” She fussed over the baby’s straps and climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Okay, do we have everything?”
“I hope so.”
She pulled out of the hospital lot and looped onto the highway. “Have you thought any more about nursing?”
Shirley nodded. “I want to. The lactation consultant showed me what to do.”
“All the books say it really helps with their immunity. Not to mention bonding.”
Shirley fiddled with the radio. “I’ll try.”
Lee tried not to worry that Shirley hadn’t held Harry much or even looked at him too long. She knew every mother was different and she might be feeling overwhelmed. “How do you feel?”
Shirley ran her fingers through her greasy hair. “Like I’ve been through a meat grinder.”
Lee grimaced. “Lovely. But I didn’t mean physically. I just meant about … Harry.”
Shirley turned around and looked at her child. “He looks like a little old man, doesn’t he?”
“I think he’s perfect.”
A smile warmed Shirley’s face. “He is pretty cute.”
“You’re going to be a great mom, Shirley. I know it.”
Tears filled Shirley’s eyes and she knocked them away. Lee reached out and held Shirley’s hand.
“God, I’m a mess. Look at me.” Shirley flipped down the passenger visor and dragged her fingers under her eyes and across her cheeks.
“You’re beautiful,” Lee said. “And it’s just the hormones. It will get better.”
Shirley leaned back against the passenger seat and closed her eyes. “I hope so.”
Lee exited the highway and turned left onto Fesslers Lane. “Listen, I was thinking you and Harold could have a night out together if you felt up for it. I’ll watch the baby.”
“Really? Am I allowed to do that?”
Lee hesitated. “I mean, I think so. The doctors said you should rest, but I don’t think having dinner would be out of the question.”
“I’ll see what Harold wants to do.”
Lee nodded. She wished her father would get out of the house, but he’d probably want to stay in. She just wanted Harry to have a calm first night.
A few minutes later, she pulled into their driveway. The lawn was nothing but weeds. Shirley turned to her.
“Can I talk to him first?” She bolted into the house without receiving an answer, leaving the baby in the car, as well as all their bags. Lee rolled her eyes and unbuckled Harry.
“Well, that wasn’t very nice, was it? Leaving you here like that on your very first day.” She knew Shirley was anxious to see Harold. The fact that he had missed the birth of his son wasn’t lost on either of them. Harry’s whole life with her father began to flash before her eyes, and she bit back tears. All the ways he would disappoint him. All the ways Shirley would be there to defend a man who didn’t deserve defending, just like her mother had. Lee detached the car seat and inhaled the clean scent of new life.
She gazed at Harry’s sleeping face. Thoughts of her unborn baby brother made her almost capsize with grief. Here she was, so many years later, with her second chance at becoming a sister. But she was just one person. She couldn’t be with Harry all the time. She had to work. She had to leave him every single day. She knew her father had already raised a child, but she still wasn’t sure if he was capable of loving a baby. Not in this phase of life.
She looped the car seat handle over her arm and carefully walked up the front stoop. She opened the door and smelled cigarette smoke. Beer cans littered the kitchen counter in front of the patch of tile that had been ruined in a grease fire her father had accidentally set last year. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink. Mail was strewn across the floor.
“Dad, really?” She waved through the haze of smoke, kicked the mail out of the way, and stalked to the living room. Her father was on the couch. Shirley sat in his lap, the two of them already glued to some stupid show. He was drinking a beer. Lee searched the coffee table for drugs, so conditioned to look for signs. She knew Shirley had promised to stay clean, and she wanted to believe her. But deep down, she feared she’d be high again the first chance she got.
“Dad.”
Her father ignored her and took another sip of his beer.
“Dad! Hello?” She snatched the remote off the coffee table and hit mute. “Would you like to meet your son?”
“Where’s my boy?” he slurred. “Where’s Harry?”
Lee stepped back. She didn’t want to hand him the baby when he was drunk. He could drop him or make him cry.
She set the car seat at her feet and unbuckled him. He was sleeping, despite the noise, the smoke, and the unstable environment. She scooped his pliable body out of the seat and cradled his neck.
“See? This is Harry, your son.” She extended the baby for him to take a look, protective as she pulled him back again.
Her father opened his arms. He stank. He was wearing the same clothes he had three days ago, when they’d left to go to the hospital. Though Lee had insisted he no longer smoke in the house, he had, and would. A baby wouldn’t change that. She craned her arms so her father could see, but he closed and opened his fists.
“Give him to me, Lee. Jesus.”
Shirley nodded. “It’s okay.”
Lee bit the inside of her cheek as she handed off the baby. Harold bounced the infant, his head popping back on its soft, unformed vertebrae. He shook the newborn like a rattle until Harry was choking on his own cries. “Stop that crying, you.” He looked at Shirley. “Ugly little things, aren’t they?”
“Like aliens,” she said, as she lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the air.
“What is wrong with the two of you?” Lee, unusually bold, inserted herself between them and moved the baby back into her arms. She snatched the cigarette from Shirley’s mouth with her free hand and waved the smoke away. “You cannot smoke around a baby. What are you even doing?” She squashed the cigarette in the ashtray and glared at her father. “And you have to support his head, Dad. You can’t hold him like that.”
“Chill out, Lee. We’re his parents, not you,” Shirley scoffed.
“Exactly my point,” Lee snapped. “I’m the one doing everything so far, and you just had him. You literally just left him in the car.”
Shirley reddened and opened her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired. I’m not thinking straight. It’s my hormones.”
“Give her a break, Lee. Jesus.”
Lee resisted the urge to tell her dad to stay out of it. “Look, I know this is a lot, but you two can’t drink and smoke around Harry. Can we please just make a deal about that?”
Shirley nodded and elbowed Harold.
“Fine, fine,” he said. “We’ll be good.”
Lee looked at Shirley. “Are you going to feed him?”
Shirley studied the baby, her eyes glassy and raw. “Can you give him formula right now? It’s in the bag, I think. They gave me some free ones.”
“I thought…”
“I know. I am going to try to nurse. I promise. I just need to rest for a bit.”
Lee sighed and walked to the kitchen with the baby tucked safely in her arms. She wanted to remind her that if Harry got used to formula, he probably wouldn’t want her milk. As she mixed the formula and warmed the bottle, spitting out a few drops on her inner wrist to test the temperature, she wondered how this was ever going to work.
It already felt like babysitting, except she had a real baby to think about now. Harry’s lips parted as he took the bottle. He began to suck and soften, his cheeks pink from exertion. She stroked the top of his head with its silken hair, a few strands sticking up at the crown.
Shirley and Harold laughed about something in the next room. What happened to this child would largely be up to her. Despite all her best hopes for Shirley to get her act together, that meant that Harold had to as well. She could help Shirley with her career, but that was it. She had her own life to think about. She wasn’t ready for the full-time responsibility of someone else’s child.
She finished feeding Harry and took him to the nursery. Pale blue walls welcomed him, as well as a modest crib. She’d had fun decorating with an owl decal and matching curtains. She lowered him inside and cranked the mobile above his head. She watched him fall asleep, then tiptoed out of the room and shut the door.