Page 38 of Beside the Rolling Waves
At least they didn’t really have to worry about them starving to death since Marley was going to wake up and start screaming. Kevin was a little bit more laid-back. But he’d demand to be fed too. Marley would eat and then start crying an hour later, and they couldn’t figure out whether she had a tummy ache or whether she was hungry or whether she was just frustrated that she couldn’t boss the world around yet.
Rodney had a feeling that Marley took after her Aunt Becky, and it was the third option.
He hadn’t told Becky that yet. He hadn’t said much of anything to Becky. They’d been dealing with all the forms and the signatures and the things that they had to sign and have notarized and made a couple of trips to the notaries and one to the lawyer’s office, and the babies were officially theirs, pending paperwork, but they were both absolutely exhausted. Becky even more so, because she was also processing the death of her sister. The hospital had a policy that the babies could be taken care of by the caregivers, so since they didn’t have an official room, they had a little room off to the side that the hospital staff called the transition room.
They had given it to Rodney and Becky along with the twins.
It had a double bed, which was not big enough for both of them to sleep on without touching, so only one of them slept at a time.
Rodney had not figured out what he was going to do or where he was going to stay, but he knew he could not stay with Becky.
He’d lived with a woman for three months, and it had ended in heartache and disaster and with him engaging in a sin that he never thought he would be susceptible to, considering how his whole body and soul had been focused on Becky.
But he understood the danger of proximity and knew that living with Becky could not be an option for him. Not unless they were married, and he hadn’t apologized, hadn’t explained about the possibility that he had a son, and while Becky seemed to have been sincere about forgiving him and didn’t seem to hold anything against him, he didn’t feel like their relationship was at the point where they were back to being good friends, let alone ready to have any kind of romantic elements in it.
But he was hopeful that they would get there. They just had a lot of things to work out first.
And they had to take care of these babies.
Marley had erupted into the loud, mewing screams that signaled she needed attention and she needed it now.
Kevin was slowly waking up, probably because his sister was screaming. Pretty soon, he would join her. Not so loud, not so demanding, but in his own laid-back way, he’d be letting them know.
“The hospital gave us formula, so I’ll go mix up two bottles.”
“All right. I’ll…set them down, I guess, and start getting them out.”
He figured out that a car seat was a really nice place to keep them. That was just in the last few hours while they were doing the hospital paperwork and the kids were strapped in. The car seats could be lifted up, swung around, or even rocked with one’s foot while one was using one’s hands to sign the never-ending stack of papers the hospital threw at them.
“I guess we never went to the store and got anything…” Becky sighed, and she sounded weary. He wanted to say he would watch the babies while she slept, but he figured there werethings she wanted to do, like washing sheets and getting a place ready to sleep. He wasn’t sure whether there was more than one bedroom in this apartment, but maybe she wouldn’t even be interested in sleeping in her sister’s bed.
He had no idea. They hadn’t had time to talk, and she hadn’t had time to process Rita’s death.
For the next forty-five minutes, they focused on feeding the babies, changing them, burping them, and holding them while they went back to sleep.
“I think we’re good for another couple of hours,” he said softly.
Just then, Kevin fussed a bit, and he thought maybe he had spoken too soon.
Becky shot him a withering glance.
“Sorry,” he mouthed, barely allowing a wisp of the sound to leave his lips.
She smiled and rolled her eyes. Saying that she was just kidding. It wasn’t his fault that the babies fussed.
Kevin settled back down, and with a last look at the babies back in their car seats on the floor, Becky stood and grabbed her notebook and pen, and then collapsed on the couch.
He was sitting on the recliner, his forearms on his knees, watching her.
“All right. I guess we should take this quiet time to try to figure some things out.”
He wanted to point out that if she had met him at the Blueberry Beach diner when she said she was going to, they could have had at least some of it figured out, but he knew that wasn’t the slightest bit true. Not only was it not her fault her truck wouldn’t start, but while it was less than a week ago, they had had no idea, absolutely none, of what they were getting into. At least he hadn’t. This had been a lot different than what he had been expecting.
“Do you have an appointment today? Later?” he asked before she could say anything else. He didn’t want her to have to run and do all the shopping and then also run to the appointment. She would be running all day, and…he didn’t mind taking care of the babies, but he wanted to make sure that she wasn’t doing everything.
Her face clouded, although her words were clear. “Yes. With the funeral director, at two o’clock.” She looked down at her paper but did not write anything. It was like she couldn’t meet his eyes, couldn’t allow herself to feel anything, or she would break into a million little pieces.
He knew she was trying to hold it together because they had responsibilities, but he wished that she felt easy enough in his presence that she could let her guard down just a bit.
