Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Bennett and Summer stayed with me for the first few nights, but a cramped apartment above a bar isn’t exactly the ideal location for a newborn baby. Ben, fortunately, thanks to a lucrative art career, isn’t destitute by any means. But it took some time with Hillary Howard, Red Bridge’s resident real estate agent, and a load of patience to find the right place to call his own.
This farmhouse is old and in need of some reno, but it’s the perfect setup to create the kind of accommodations Summer is expected to need as she gets older.
Bennett pops his head in the kitchen. His scruffy beard and haggard eyes are two of many signs that he’s not getting a whole lot of sleep these days. “How many scoops of formula did you put in this?”
“Um…” I freeze in my scrubbing of Summer’s previous bottle. “Two…I think?”
“You think, or you know?” Bennett grumbles, stepping up to the sink and dumping the obviously wrong liquid down the drain in front of me. “They put instructions on the can of formula for a reason.”
Shit. I wince. “I never was much of a reader, you know that. That’s why I had to get Gina Rapuano to do my English homework every night.”
He sighs. “You got Gina Rapuano to do your English homework every night because you liked to make out with her and feel her up.”
“I mean…” I laugh and offer a wry smile. “There were multiple benefits.”
“Just remake the bottle, please?” he asks, and a singular, soft chuckle is the only sign of his amusement as he sets it down next to the sink. And just as he turns to head out of the room, Summer’s cries pierce the air. “A speedy remake of the bottle would be nice, too,” he calls over his shoulder.
Quickly, I grab the bottle and go back to the can of formula, reading the directions this time. “Use one level scoop of unpacked powder per two ounces of water. Your baby’s health depends on carefully following these directions.” The castigation is quick and deserved, and I feel my face warm with embarrassment at being called out by a fucking can of formula.
Carefully, I add six ounces of water and three scoops before capping the thing and shaking it up vigorously. Ben is still busy, I can tell from the sounds of crying and his desperate pleas to calm Summer down in the living room, so I walk the bottle in to him.
He’s doing his best to secure a fresh diaper, but there’s a glob of yellowish-brown baby shit on the couch underneath and another streak on the back of his hand. I jump back, but he waves me forward, eager for some backup. “Clay, come here. I need you to take her while I clean all this up.”
“Oh no. No, no.” I shake my head and hold up both hands. “I really don’t think I should hold your baby.”
“Clay.”
“Ben, no.”
“Clay, take her right now.” Holding a baby is intimidating enough, but holding Summer is even more so. Because of her condition, her bones are extremely apt to break if handled with even the slightest roughness. I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I somehow—
Ben gently forces Summer into my arms and steps away, waving his hand with poop in my face as he does, and I bob and weave while trying to float on fucking air. I don’t want to jostle her. My heart pounds as she looks up at me with her sweet little doe eyes, and her mouth works restlessly, searching for something to eat. The bottle sits on the side table at the end of the couch, but I’ve never fed a baby before and doing it now feels like I need a special license or something.
“Ben, I think she’s hungry. Maybe you should—”
“Handle it!” he yells back ruthlessly.
Fuck. “There, there,” I try to comfort, swaying my hips with my arms locked to my chest. I’m hoping it’ll create some motion without actually moving her.
As Summer’s agitation grows, so does my desperation, and I pick up the bottle on the table and try to figure out how to hold it. It seems like it should be simple, but she struggles to drink at first, and I have to adjust the bottle a little higher for her to get a good suction on it.
As she starts to drink, a wave of overwhelming satisfaction and affection settles over me. “Yeah, that’s it, sweet girl. Drink all you want.”
I stare down into her little baby face and bright eyes, wondering how in the world her mother could say the kinds of things Bennett told me she did—how she could think Summer was anything but perfect. How she could just…give her up.
It doesn’t make a lick of fucking sense, and if I think about it too hard, I’m liable to get angry enough to hunt down Jessica Folger and have it out with her.