Chapter Seven

Gabby

Maple Street

COMPETENT. ABLE TO handle any crisis.

That’s what it said in Gabby’s personnel file at Swan View Pond Adult Living Center. She knew, because she’d seen it at her last annual review. Then why did she feel lost and utterly incompetent at the moment?

Maybe because she hadn’t slept last night. Carol had been fussy, not wanting a bottle, not wanting to sleep, not even comforted when Gabby sat on the couch and rocked her back and forth.

A rocking chair. She had to get a rocking chair. Another thing to add to the list of things she’d do after she called her boss and took a few days of vacation. Her stomach growled a threat. Or maybe she’d better make it a sick day. She didn’t feel very good.

Bottles and more formula to go along with what Mike had gone out and gotten at the convenience store around the corner last night. Some baby clothes. Carol couldn’t wear the same clothes all the time. More disposable diapers and another trash can. A crib and a high chair and...

She groaned again. Her charge card was already almost maxed out. Last night, after he’d gone to the convenience store, Mike had come back upstairs to warn her that her car hadn’t come through its adventures unscathed. Fixing the broken window and jimmied locks on the front door wasn’t going to be cheap. It was just her luck that yesterday the lock had worked on the back door!

And she couldn’t go anywhere until she got a good car seat for Carol, but how could she get a car seat without going out? She knew there had to be an answer. Her brain was too frozen to figure it out.

“Oh, God, what do I do now?” she whispered, looking down at the baby.

Leaning her head back against the couch, she closed her eyes. The baby started whimpering.

You shouldn’t keep that baby. She’s not yours. She nestled against the cushions, ignoring how Mike’s voice rang through her head, even though he’d been smart and gone back to his own apartment hours ago. More than once during the night, she’d considered knocking on his door and saying, “I need to call Mr. Jackett back, I have to tell him I can’t do this.”

You look as if you could use some help. She could hear Mike’s voice as clearly as if he were standing right in front of her. She opened her eyes and almost screamed when she saw him... right in front of her. He wore his white lab coat over neatly pressed dark trousers. Not a hair was out of place. He looked so handsome and strong and exactly what she’d been ready to dream about.

“What are you doing here? How’d you get in?” she gasped, coming to her feet, juggling the baby to calm her, putting the bottle on the coffee table, and pulling her rumpled bathrobe closed with a single, awkward motion. Her hair probably looked as ratty as her bathrobe.

Mike smiled and pointed to where Mr. Shepard was holding the door open as he wheeled in something. A crib! “We knocked, but I guess you didn’t hear us.” He frowned. “You shouldn’t leave your door unlocked.”

She was sure she’d locked it. Or had she? She wasn’t certain about anything any more.

“There’s a car seat in the hall next to a rocking chair,” the old man said as he pushed the small crib over by the Christmas tree. “Get them, will you, Mike?”

“A car seat?” She smiled. “Mr. Shepard, you’re the answer to a prayer.”

He wasn’t much taller than she was and about as thin as one of the rails in the crib. Winking his bright blue eyes that hadn’t dimmed with age, he said, “When Mike told me about your little gal, I thought you might need this stuff that I’ve got stored up in the attic. My great-grandchildren outgrew it a few years ago, but my granddaughter can’t bear to give it away.” He brushed dust off the seat that Mike was bringing in. “Might as well use it while she makes up her mind if three kids are enough. There’s another box out in the hall, too.”

“You shouldn’t have gotten this down from the attic by yourself,” Mike chided as he brought a rocking chair in from the hall.

Mr. Shepard wagged a finger at him. “You’re not my doctor, young man. I have to listen to his lectures about slowing down when I see him, but I’m not going to listen to yours.”

“Next time, ask for help. You’re not twenty-five any longer.”

“Neither are you.”

Mike laughed as he went to get the box.

“He’s a nice young man,” Mr. Shepard said, barely lowering his voice. “He wouldn’t be a bad catch, Gabrielle.”

“I’m not in the fishing mood right now. It’s too early in the morning to think about that.”

“Best fishing’s in the early morning.” He winked again as Mike toted in a huge box that was half as big as Mr. Shepard.

She wondered how their landlord had gotten it down those narrow attic stairs. Stepping aside, she let Mike put it on the floor. It took up most of the remaining space.

“Open it,” urged Mr. Shepard, grinning.

Mike started to rip the tape off it. When it screeched, he glanced at the baby whose eyes were closed. Reaching under his lab coat, he pulled out a pocketknife. He slit the box open and folded back the sides. Lifting out some small sheets, he whistled softly. “There’s everything to equip a nursery in here. Sheets, blankets, a mobile. Is that a baby monitor?”

“My granddaughter had to have the latest model for each kid.” Mr. Shepard laughed. “The old ones got stored in my attic.” He reached into the box. “This one’s about six years old, because her youngest just turned six. It probably needs new batteries, but it should work.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Gabby said, blinking back tears. She must be more exhausted than she’d guessed. She hadn’t cried last night when her car was stolen. Now she was ready to bawl like a baby.

Baby!

She shifted Carol cautiously in her arms, and the baby whimpered.

A sharp beep-beep filled the room.

Mike looked down at his pocket and tilted a beeper toward him. “That’s the lab letting me know I’m late beginning the analysis I’m supposed to get underway this morning. Gabby, if you—”

“Go.” Mr. Shepard waved toward the door. “I’m here to help her. Bring home something good for Gabrielle’s supper tonight.”

Mike looked startled, but asked, “Is that okay, Gabby?”

“Fine.”

Mr. Shepard interjected, “You can call her later and find out what she wants. Go to work before your experiment is ruined. I’ll keep an eye on her and the baby today.”

Gabby guessed it was relief she saw on Mike’s face when he went out the door. And why not? He hadn’t asked to get mixed up in this insanity. Neither had she. Had she? She thought of how often recently she’d looked at mothers and their babies with a pinch of envy.

Mr. Shepard gave her no time to figure out an answer to that question. Taking her arm, he sat her in the rocking chair.

She smiled. With paisley cushions tied onto the back, it was as comfortable as the old one her grandmother had had. Back then, she and her cousins would tip it upside down and pretend its rockers were the side of a pirate ship or a spaceship or the counters for a store. Would Carol do that, too, when she got older?

She must be mad. She shouldn’t be thinking about this baby growing up here. Yet, one thing hadn’t changed. Although she knew it was impossible, every fiber told her that there hadn’t been a mistake, that Carol was really her child.

“What a pretty little thing.” Mr. Shepard raised his eyes and smiled. “She’s got your coloring.”

“Do you think so?”

Mr. Shepard sat on the sofa. “Mike says you plan to keep her.”

“Yes.”

“But you know she can’t be yours.”

Gabby didn’t want to have this argument again, especially not with Mr. Shepard who’d been so kind. “Children’s services will find one or both of her parents eventually. Until then, they’ve asked if Carol can stay here with me. They’re sending out a social worker to okay me as a temporary foster parent. I’ll make sure she’s taken good care of. What’s the difference?”

“I’m not a lawyer, but I suspect there’s a lot of difference.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to her. When she looked at it, realizing the tears had started falling out of her tired eyes, he dabbed at her cheeks. She smiled damply when he held it up to her nose as if she weren’t much older than Carol. “But a few days won’t make any difference to her, and this seems really important to you.”

“Thanks.” When the baby let out a wail, she said, “I think.”

“Here. Let me try to quiet her.”

Gabby placed the baby in Mr. Shepard’s crooked arm. She’d seen him with his great-grandchildren on their visits downstairs. He always had them giggling with his teasing. Was he as good with babies?

She got her answer when he picked up the bottle and Carol began to suck on it. “How’d you do that?”

“Practice.” He chuckled. “You’re skittish about holding her. I could see that. Babies won’t break, you know. They like to be held close to your heart, so they can hear it and know that they’re welcome in it.” Glancing up at her, he added, “Like Mike Archer might like to be.”

“You’re wasting your time matchmaking now.” Standing, she went into the kitchen and refilled her teacup with hot water. She took a sip, then grimaced when she realized she’d forgotten to put the tea bag back in.

“He seems pretty worried about you.”

“He thinks I’m crazy.” She leaned on the counter. “He may be right.”

“Do you think so?”

She picked up the wilted tea bag and dropped it into her cup. “Maybe. I don’t know. I just know that, until this morning, I would have sworn in any court of law that baby belonged in my arms.” Her lip wobbled, and tears gushed from her eyes. “Now I don’t know.”

“Gabrielle—”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Shepard.” She groped in her robe pocket for a tissue. Not finding one, she wiped her wet face on her chenille sleeve. “I’m not even sure why I’m crying. I’ve gone without a night’s sleep before and never been weepy like this, but...”

His eyes widened. “Baby blues.”

“What?”

“They call it something else now. Postpart—Postpartial—You know what I mean.”

“Postpartum depression?”

“That’s it. We used to call it the baby blues. Saw it when my own kids were born. The wife was as right as rain one minute, the next she looked like she was leaking.” He stood and motioned with his head for her to sit down.

“Mr. Shepard, I can’t have the baby blues.” She did sit, though, too tired to keep standing. “How can I have the baby blues when I haven’t had a baby?”

“Sure looks like the baby blues to me.” He put Carol in her arms.

Gabby wasn’t sure whether to laugh at his comments or to burst into tears when the baby began to whimper again.

“You’re holding her wrong.” Mr. Shepard adjusted her arms so the baby’s head leaned against her breast. “That’s how you hold a baby.”

“I don’t have much experience with babies.”

“You will.” He sat in the rocking chair and smiled. “You will.”