“So sorry, Mr. Steele. Dustin was sick this morning and couldn’t go to daycare. Since I didn’t think you were home, I thought… I…” The poor woman looked like she was going to break down into tears.
“No, it’s fine. Bring him anytime. Really.” Stepping closer, I got a better look at the little guy. The moment he saw me, his chubby hands waved up and down, and a broad grin spread across his toothless face.
I was becoming a sap.
Eliana was turning me into a lovemaking, baby thinking, marrying forever and ever love struck fool.
I surprised myself when I asked, “Can I hold him?”
Jan blinked. “Yes, of course.”
As she unbuckled him, I folded the paper and laid it on a nearby table and tried to remember when I’d last held a baby. I didn’t yet have any nieces or nephews. A cousin at a family barbecue a few years ago, maybe. A few minutes with Ace’s kid sitting on my lap. That was it. I was practically a baby virgin, yet here I was reaching for this toothless, grinning bundle of blue.
“Hi, big guy,” I said as I held him in a death grip. His head looked steady enough as he tilted it up to look at me. I knew that much — protect the head at all costs — but he was doing a good job on his own.
Jan was still standing there, looking unsure as to what to do.
“Go ahead and do whatever you need to. Dustin and I will be fine. In fact, he’ll be a good distraction.” As I worry and wait for two hours to tick by.
Her fingers twisted and I wondered if I was holding him wrong. “Are you sure? I don’t want to be an—”
“Sure, I’m sure. I’ve been going a little stir crazy, so it’s good to have something to do. If we need anything…” like a diaper change, “…I’ll yell.”
“Thank you, Mr. Steele. I promise to be quick.” She practically ran to the kitchen.
I turned Dustin until his back was to my front and he could see the world in front of him as I walked to the wall of glass. He leaned forward, his sticky little fingers slapping the glass as he kicked and cooed in my arms.
“You like the big city?” I asked him, and he kicked harder and passed a few shots of gas that rumbled against the hand holding his butt.
Whew. How in holy hell did something so foul come from something so little? The fart must have gone straight up the back of his diaper and into my sinus cavity. My eyes watered. I could taste it.
Moving us away from the stench by the glass, I blinked a few times to clear my vision. Dustin chortled. “Yeah, farts are funny. Always have been, always will be.”
He chortled again.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Where was Eliana?
And the feds?
An hour passed, and Dustin and I were watching baseball when Jan came in to check on us. “He’ll probably be hungry soon,” she said.
Sure enough, as if the word had poked a hole in his stomach, the baby started to howl. Jan flinched and ran to the diaper bag. I watched intently as she poured a packet of powder into some water and gave the bottle a shake.
“I’ll take him,” she said, stepping closer, her arms outstretched.
I stretched mine out in return. “I’ll do it while you finish up.”
She looked dubious but hesitantly handed me the bottle and a cloth that I stuck under his chin. See, I was a natural. The baby quietened immediately when I stuck the nipple in his mouth.
The bottle nipple made me think of Eliana’s nipples and how purple they’d become under those clamps. The marks on her breasts. Her screams of bliss-filled agony as she came.
Growing aroused, I was mortified that I was having those thoughts around an innocent child. I turned my focus back on the game, a rerun of my last one. I pointed at the screen when I took the plate. “See there, that’s me. When you grow up, I’ll teach you how to play baseball too.”
No, I wouldn’t, I realized.
By the time this kid was old enough, I’d be in California, stuck behind a desk. The thought was depressing.
“Do you know how to burp a baby?” Jan asked from the hallway.
I had zero idea.
Handing him over to her, I watched as she expertly flipped him up to her shoulder. A few pats later, a belch echoed around the living room. Easy enough.
She handed him back, and he went to work on the rest of the bottle. As he got full, his eyelids began to blink more heavily, his eyes occasionally rolling back into his head. When the bottle was sucked dry, I eased him onto my shoulder and began to pat. Burp! I could have shouted at my sense of accomplishment.
But I stayed quiet and laid him back down in my arms, propping my elbow up on a pillow. He smiled and blinked sleepily at me. When he closed his eyes for good, I closed mine too and…
***
Woke, startled, and freaking burning up. I looked down, and the baby was still in the crook of my arm, heat coming off him in waves. Was that normal?
“Jan!”
Moving, I turned Dustin until he was off my chest. Maybe it was me who’d gotten him too warm. Eliana said I was like an oven. He didn’t wake as I laid him in my lap and pulled the blanket off. His face was red, and when I touched him again, he still felt very hot.
“Jan!”
Dustin startled when I yelled, his arms springing out in surprise. He opened his eyes to look up at me, then they rolled back into his head, and he began to shake. Holy fuck, he was having a seizure.
“Jan!!”
I turned him onto his side and stuck my finger into his mouth to hold down his tongue. At least that’s what I thought I needed to do. I wasn’t sure.
“Jan!!!”
Even though he didn’t have teeth, his gums closed down on my finger hard. I didn’t care. I just needed this to stop, for him to be okay.
“Jan!!!!”
The housekeeper came running, skidding to a halt, yellow gloves on up to her elbows. “Oh my god, what’s wrong?”
“Seizure. Call 911.”
The gloves were off, and she was flying to the phone. By then, the grip on my finger was relaxing, and the shaking was slowing.
I could hear her yelling into the phone, giving the dispatcher my apartment number and address. She was crying so hard, I didn’t think they could hear her. I waved her to come over and stay with the baby while I took over.
Fifteen minutes later, paramedics came rushing into the door. By then, Dustin was sleeping again. Still hot, but no longer shaking.
“Probably febrile seizures brought on by a high temperature. Has he seen a doctor?”
Jan shook her head. “He was only running a little temperature this morning, just enough to not go to daycare. I brought him to work with me and…” she shook her head again, “he seemed fine.” She looked up at me, her eyes pleading for me to agree. To not accuse her of being a bad mother.
I did agree, and I told the paramedics so. “He was happy. I played with him, fed him. He went to sleep and bam, the seizure hit.”
The paramedic nodded. “In babies, fevers can spike, and things can happen fast. But we’ll take him in to make sure there’s nothing else going on.”
As they strapped Dustin on the stretcher, I pulled Jan aside. “Do you have insurance?”
Her eyes welled with fresh tears. “Yes, but the co-pay for an emergency visit is…” she shook her head miserably.