“Oh, baby girl, what do you want?” Grace cooed to the infant as she gently bounced her. “Your mama promised you’d be asleep for hours.”
She held the baby close, trying to figure out whether to offer the bottle in the fridge. Kristine had explained how to heat it if she hadn’t made it home by the time Eliza woke for her nighttime feeding. But Grace couldn’t imagine she was hungry already. She’d ruled out uncomfortable by changing her diaper. On the possibility that she’d just angered Eliza by exposing her to the chilly evening air, she held her tight and kept walking.
“Please please please please please don’t wake up your big brother,” she whispered. Even Kristine had showed some worry, crossing her fingers when she said Caemon usually slept through the night.
“Moooooooooommmmmmy,” a groggy voice joined Eliza’s protests.
“Shhhhh,” Grace tried in vain to calm the baby as she crept down the hall to Caemon’s room. “Caemon, honey, it’s okay. Go back to sleep,” she said, hoping he was too sleepy to recognize that the female voice belonged to neither of his moms.
He sat bolt upright. “Where Mommy?” he demanded.
Grace took a deep breath and entered his room. What was she supposed to share with him? Did he know how sick his grandma was? She sat gently on the bed beside him. “Mommy’s mom is in the hospital. Mommy and Mama both went to help your Granddad. Do you need to go potty?”
“Mommy.” He crossed his arms across his little chest, his eyes brimming with tears.
“Caemon, I can’t give you Mommy. Let’s lie down and go back to sleep. She’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Moooommmy,” he cried louder. He swung out of bed and padded down the hall, switching to “Mama” as he increased the volume.
Eliza screamed in her ear. “Caemon, I need you to be a big boy for me. Eliza’s sad. Can you help me?”
Ignoring her, he ran to the front door. “I go too. I go. I go. I go.” He stood by the door sobbing.
“I’m all you’ve got,” Grace said, following him, trying to put her arm around the boy while cradling the board-stiff Eliza. Tears threatened in her own eyes, and she wondered what would happen if she added to the chorus of cries herself.
Caemon moved away from her, pushing his back against the door, as far away from Grace as he could get. “Robyn.”
Grace blinked back her surprise and looked at the clock on the counter. Almost ten. Despite the late hour, she was sorely tempted to call Robyn. She saw the boy fist his hands at his side and tried to talk herself out of calling. “It’s late, Caemon. Let’s crawl into your moms’ bed, and I’ll lie down with you.”
He batted her away. “I want Robyn.”
I do too, Grace thought. They eyed each other, and Grace caved. Sending a silent prayer that Robyn wasn’t already asleep, she pulled out her cell phone, thankful to have her number handy.
Robyn answered immediately. “Moshi moshi.”
“Robyn?”
“Grace?”
Tears sprung to her eyes when Robyn said her name. “Thank you for answering.”
“What’s with the screaming in the background? Are you okay? Where are you?”
“Kristine swore the kids would stay asleep, and I’d just have to snooze on the couch. Obviously that plan failed. I hate to ask this of you, but Eliza woke up Caemon, and…I don’t know what to do…If he can’t have his moms, he wants you.”
“Me?” she gasped. “What am I going to do?”
“I don’t know, but if you would come, you’d at least even out the odds here.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I think they know I’m outnumbered.”
“Okay. Okay.” Robyn sounded distracted. “I don’t know how helpful I’ll be, and it’ll be at least fifteen, twenty minutes till I’m there. Will you be okay?”
“I hope. Caemon’s just crumpled by the front door. Do I leave him there? Try to move him? I have no idea what to do here.”
“I don’t know either. Hang tight. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
Figuring she wasn’t comforting Eliza anyway, she set the baby in a bouncy chair and tried to comfort Caemon. “Robyn’s coming. Will you sit with me on the couch until she gets here?”
“Want Robyn now.”
“I know,” she said, stumped as to what to do while she waited. Her phone rang and she prayed it wasn’t Kristine calling to make sure everything was quiet. She could only imagine the panic a mother would feel hearing her children wailing in the background. Luckily, Robyn’s name lit up the screen. “Robyn?”
“My friend said the less you engage Caemon, the better.”
“What does that mean?”
“She said keeping him where it’s dark is best and say as little as you can. Be a robot. Keep telling him I’m coming. She asked if the baby could be hungry.”
“I only have one bottle, and she’s not supposed to be hungry for another two hours.”
“Pacifier?”
“She spits it out.”
“Isabel said to do a half squat and on the way up, alternate turning to the right and left. She said it’s golden. I’m on my way.”
Grace crouched next to Caemon. “Robyn’s coming.” He kicked at her when she reached out to him. She retreated to the bedroom and found a blanket in his bed. She wrapped it around him and lifted him, carrying the screaming, kicking mass to the couch. “Robyn’s coming, and we’re waiting here on the couch. Robyn’s coming.”
He sank down onto the floor, but at least he was on the carpet, so Grace retrieved the baby and tried the bounce-and-sway Robyn had described. Remembering how her own grandfather had always sung “Edelweiss,” she began to hum it. Eliza began to relax. Grace bounced and swayed and hummed and counted the minutes until she heard Robyn’s car pull up at the curb.
Eliza lay quietly in her arms when she answered the door. Robyn came in without a word, just giving Grace a thumbs-up as she passed and found the crying boy.
“Hey, Caemon. Let’s get you to your bed.”
The boy stood and flung his arms around Robyn’s neck. She picked up his blanket and carried him to his room.
Grace finally slumped into the rocker, her thighs burning from the unanticipated workout, praying its motion would keep the baby calm.
She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep herself until she felt a touch on her shoulder. Painfully, she righted her neck, stiff from the angle of the chair. “What time is it?”
“Eleven thirty. Caemon’s been out for a while. Want me to put her down?”
Grace yawned. “Is it bad if I keep holding her until it’s closer to when she normally eats?”
“You’re asking me?” Robyn smiled.
“How’d you get Caemon down?”
Robyn shrugged and lowered herself to the couch. “Just snuggled in next to him and tickled his arm with his blanket. That seemed to do the trick.” She chuckled to herself. “I asked him what he was doing up. You know what he said?”
“What?”
“‘Because I a clever, clever boy.’”
Grace couldn’t hold back a bark of laughter that startled the baby. “That he is. It got you here. You are so very kind to rescue me.”
“What happened?”
“Gloria’s mom is back in the hospital. Did you know she has leukemia?”
“Kristine told me she’d relapsed, but we’ve never talked in depth about it. Is it bad?”
“I think so.” Grace’s throat closed on her as she tried to relay the information Kristine had given her. “She’s been ill for years, fortunately in remission for most of the time. But now she’s not responding to anything. Gloria’s been at the hospital all day with her mom and dad discussing what options are left. Kristine called me after she got the kids to sleep because she wanted to go be with them.” She blinked back the sting of tears.
Robyn scooted forward to perch on the edge of the couch to stroke Grace’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“I barely know her,” Grace said, trying to brush away the crushing feeling in her chest.
“I’m sorry about your mom.” Robyn’s hand stilled and Grace felt the weight of it and Robyn’s words.
Grace buried her face in Eliza’s soft swaddling blanket inhaling her soothing baby smell, trying to sidestep Robyn’s observation. The baby stirred, and Grace asked Robyn if she would mind pulling the bottle out of the fridge to put in a bowl of warm water. She quickly changed Eliza’s diaper and returned to the living room and sat on the couch.
Alone with Eliza in the quiet room, she puzzled at the blanket of grief that enveloped her. What she had assumed was feeling overwhelmed by the crying was really the feeling of her own loss returning as fresh as it had been when Leah called to break the news about their parents.
Robyn had called her friend for advice about the kids. Why hadn’t she called her sister to ask what she could do? Only now that she had Tyler back was she finally aware of how her parents’ death had fractured every aspect of her family.
Robyn returned with two bottles—milk for the baby and wine for herself and Grace. She wavered when she saw that Grace had switched seats but moved to cover her hesitation by handing over the baby’s bottle. She sat to pour red wine into a glass. “Do you want any?”
Grace nodded, accepting the glass after Eliza settled in with her bottle. “How do you do that?”
“What?”
“You knew what was right for Tyler before I could see it. You knew I was upset about my mom before I did.”
“Perspective, I guess.” She sipped her wine.
Grace waited, sensing from Robyn’s quiet that she had more to say.
“And my years in the coast guard. I saw my share of grief. I’ve seen how a new loss can intensify an old one.”
“Maybe a sudden, unexpected loss is easier. You get that call and everything is changed. I can’t imagine what it would be like not knowing whether you have a few days or a month, thinking each time you see them might be the last. I wish so badly that I’d been able to say goodbye, but for Gloria…How does she know when it’s truly goodbye?”
“It’s never easy.”
“It feels wrong to sit here feeling jealous…”
“That she has the chance to say goodbye?”
“That she and her mother are so close. I wonder if Tyler hadn’t been such a challenge…or if they hadn’t gone to bail him out…if they were still here…Before Tyler came to live with me, I could go days without thinking about them. Now…” A gentle sob escaped, and she gulped air trying to quell the ache. “I had no idea I’d miss them more. I thought having Tyler with me would make me angry. I never expected this emptiness.”
“It’s more difficult to face grief, but it’s the only way to make progress. If you turn from it, you let the grief push you and determine your path. It may be harder and more painful to deal with, but you’re in control. Even if it doesn’t feel like you’re going anywhere, you are.”
They sat in silence until Eliza drained her bottle and Grace propped her in her lap, tapping her back to help her burp. “I’m so grateful you drove over to help me.”
“You sure look like you know what you’re doing now,” Robyn said.
Grace smiled. “Thank your friend for the bounce-and-sway.”
“I will.”
“I love babies, so I hope this won’t come out sounding terrible, but I will be so glad to hand this little girl back over to her moms.”
Robyn laughed appreciatively. “I have to admit I was wondering if you were sitting there wishing for your own baby.”
“Not for a second,” Grace said, catching Robyn’s eye. So many feelings had surfaced that evening, yet she was still surprised by the intimacy she felt with Robyn. “I might be regretting that I didn’t spend more time holding my niece and nephew when they were this little, but this doesn’t make me want kids at all. You?” She tried to deliver the question casually.
“Nope. I’m too selfish with my time to have my own kids.”
“You seem pretty generous with your time to me,” Grace replied.
“On my own terms, though. Maybe you hadn’t noticed.”
Grace had noticed how much of her generosity involved her and her brother and wanted to take advantage of the evening to explore more fully how far that generosity might extend. “I’m going to risk putting this one back in her crib,” she whispered.
Inside, her stomach was a storm of butterflies, but she tried to project a soothing calm, willing Eliza to sleep through the transfer to her crib. She silently cheered when Eliza sighed deeply and continued to sleep but stayed a moment more with her hand across the baby’s shoulder making sure she was really asleep.
Disappointment flooded through her when she entered the living room to find Robyn standing with Kristine.
“All’s quiet just like I left them?” she asked, a twinkle in her eye despite her otherwise weary state.
“Just like you left them,” Grace agreed, letting go of her desire to snuggle in next to Robyn on the couch.
“So you called for company, not reinforcements.” Kristine looked from one woman to the other.
“I’ll never tell,” Grace said, picking up her coat.
“How’s your mother-in-law?” Robyn asked gently.
“They’re talking about transferring her to hospice care.”
“Oh, Kristine, I’m so sorry,” Grace said.
“That’s tough,” Robyn agreed.
“I appreciate your help, both of you. I’ll get the full story from Caemon in a few hours.”
Grace hugged Kristine tight. “Thanks for calling me, and call again if you need anything. Anything at all.”
“Tell Gloria we’re thinking about her,” Robyn said.
Kristine thanked them and saw them to the door.
Grace’s mind was spinning. She walked out shoulder to shoulder with Robyn, resisting the urge to take her hand. She then chided herself for even thinking about it given the somber reason for their being there together in the first place.