Page 19 of Mad Love

“I sort of got lost. It’s big.”

He gives me the first honest-to-goodness grin and it’s unsettling. Makes me feel a little too off-kilter.

“You can always try out the rooms. If you don’t like one, try another,” he says.

“Is that what you do? Your place is so clean, I couldn’t really tell which room was yours.” It’s not true. There’s a room upstairs that looked lived in, a huge, beautiful room with a great view of the mountains.

“To tell you the truth, I haven’t really settled in here yet myself. I bought it and had a decorator do most of this while I was on the road, in and out of here. My family’s only come over once, and my parents live ten minutes away.”

I break out into a sweat thinking about having to deal with his family. It’s hard to imagine them treating me as anything other than the enemy.

“Do they know about Caleb yet?” I ask.

“I called them before we were discharged,” he says. “They’re excited to meet him. My sister Felicity is too. She’s married and lives in Landmark Mountain. It’s about an hour and a half away,” he adds when I look at him blankly. “I haven’t talked to my sister Olivia yet, and she’ll have plenty to say about it.” He laughs under his breath and the sound disappears when Caleb starts fussing.

“I have a little bit of my sister’s pumped milk and formula, but I’ll need to buy more formula soon,” I say.

“If you give me a list, I can order it or go get it or…we could go together.”

I reach for Caleb when he starts crying harder and head toward the stairs. “He gets mad when he’s not fed as fast as he wants.”

“Where’s his milk?”

“The frozen milk is in a container in the paper bags and there’s formula in there too, I think. His bottles are in the big blue bag.”

He nods and when we’re at the top of the stairs, he goes to the garage and jogs back in with the bags. Caleb’s cry has escalated to that quiver that is the most pitiful. I hurriedly get a bottle ready and it’s not fast enough.

“He ispissed,” Weston says, sounding somewhat terrified.

That almost makes me laugh, and we both sigh in relief when I get the bottle in Caleb’s mouth. He doesn’t want it at first, but he must be hungry enough to try. He finally stops crying and takes the bottle.

“You’re a pro,” Weston says.

I snort. “Hardly. I’ve done my share of holding him when I get home from work or when he’s fussy at night, but Sasha was with him 24/7.”

“What kind of mom was she?” He winces. “You don’t have to answer that. We don’t have to talk about her right now…unless you want to.”

I swallow hard. “She didn’t think she was doing a good job, but she was doing the best she could.”

It’s all I can say, and it seems to be enough. He watches me for a moment and then he goes out to get the rest of our things.

After Caleb is fed and changed, we go to Weston’s computer in the office next to the library and order formula and diapers and wipes, baby monitors galore and a few outfits simply because they’re cute, a bouncy seat and swing…and a beautiful crib and dresser that can serve as a changing table on top.

It’s been unreal to shop without looking at the price. I tried to be conscientious about it at first, but then he’d ask if that was the one I really liked or not. Once I said what I liked most, we liked the same things, which also ended up being the most expensive.

I feel guilty that I’m here.

That I’m not treating Weston like the enemy he is.

And mostly…that I’m here and Sasha’s not.

But I keep thinking of this little boy I’m holding.

All I’ve ever wanted is what’s best for him.

“Oh, we’ll need a special trash can that hides the smelly diapers,” I say as we’re finishing up.

He points at me. “I would’ve nevereverthought of that.”

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