Page 8 of Mornings By the Linden Tree
I took the time to enjoy a tall glass of ginger ale with a slice of lemon. Three fingers of bourbon would have been better given the hassle of simply getting a child ready and onto a plane, but I didn’t relish the idea of Valeria seeing me imbibing. She’d surely seen enough adults under the influence of one substance or another. I was not about to add myself to that list.
When I peeked over at her, she was looking out the window, her thick lashes resting on her soft cheek, sound asleep. I pulled a soft blanket she’d spied and had to have from her carry-on and leaned over to drape it over her.
“You’re a good dad,” the woman behind me whispered around the back of my seat.
I didn’t quite know how to reply to that. Did I lie and just accept the compliment, or did I explain that I wasn’t her father but her uncle? And why was this woman flattering me for providing some simple childcare? Did she heap adulation onto any woman she saw doing motherly things? Surely, this was not the place or time to address why men were praised for taking care of their offspring when it was just expected of women, but it just struck me as curious. Not that Valeria was mine, of course, but she was in my care. It was all a bit confusing.
“Thank you. I appreciate you noticing.” I settled on that, then returned to sorting through the notes from my paralegal while Valeria snoozed away, her show about a pink pig playing on herbright pink Android. Smiling softly, I wondered how much pink was entirely too much pink.
***
“I’ve never seen so much pink or so many bunnies in my life!”
I could only nod wearily at my housekeeper as we unpacked Valeria’s clothes and placed them tidily into the dresser in the spare room. Not that spare room my gentleman callers slept in, this spare room was bright, rosy, and filled with stuffed animals that literally spilled from a white toy box in the corner. A box Valeria was now sitting in, surrounded by rabbits who were quite the conversationalists.
“I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve reached the pink limit,” I confessed while placing tiny sneakers into the empty closet. I had to give Mrs. Polkowski credit. She had not only gotten this old blasé room cleaned out but had directed the painters and carpet company like a gunnery sergeant.
“I’m not sure, but I think you may have gone a bit overboard.” She held up a package of white frilled socks. “There’s no room in the drawer for any more socks. And they’re so tiny!”
She placed her hands on her hips to assess the packed drawers. “We can stash these in the closet until she needs them. Oh! And the man to do the mural will be here next week. Said he would have come sooner, but his mother had surgery that set him back.”
“That’s fine. I wasn’t sure what to have him paint on the walls, but I suspect it will be something to do with rabbits. She seems to have a particular fondness for them that I quite can’t figure out.”
“Bunnies is beautiful!” Valeria announced from within the toy box, her bright brown eyes sparkling as she held two fat stuffed rabbits with ears as long as my arm into the air.
“She has a point. Bunnies are beautiful.” Mrs. Polkowski beamed at the child. “She reminds me of my Katie when she was that age. Always making up fantastic stories about talking animals she was and then she became an author of children’s books.”
I bobbed my head as I dug around in my memory banks for the name of Katie’s books. Damnation. It would come to me, I was sure. Valeria was already engaged in another conversation with the mound of critters, her mouth running away with itself as we worked at getting her settled. A raccoon flew out of the box.
“Him is a robber,” she told us before climbing out of the box to shimmy up onto her new bed. It was a pretty thing, very girly, with white posts adorned with a pink canopy. The draperies and coverings matched the soft pink topper. “I’m hungry. Can we have popcorn for dinner?”
“I think we should have something a little more substantial than popcorn,” I said, then closed the closet door on the ten pairs of shoes I’d purchased for her in Missouri. That would do for a start. I knew firsthand that sharp shoes reflected a sharp mind. Valeria pouted. “I could go for something nicely crafted after weeks of hotel food. I’m sure I can get us a table at Fountain Seven for dinner. They have the most delicious seared striped bass served with a side of tasty butter garlic Brussels sprouts that go perfectly with the—”
The chipper little angel on the bed let loose a wail of pure demonic force that startled Mrs. Polkowski so greatly she dropped her socks. Valeria’s scream bounced off the walls with such force that my ears wept. The child then fell into a fit that appeared to be a seizure of some sort, with much kicking and flailing and gnashing of teeth. Perhaps there was no teeth gnashing, but there was plenty of demands for popcorn. I threw a look at Mrs. Polkowski who, now the initial shock had wornoff, stood there with her arms folded over her rather substantial bosom, staring at the tiny demon on the big pink bed.
“Should I call a pediatrician?” Valeria threw a bunny across the room. “Or an exorcist?”
“She’s just having a tantrum. My Katie always did that at this age. Best thing to do is just ignore it, and when they realize it won’t get them what they want, they stop.”
How on God’s green earth did one ignore a caterwauling spawn of Beelzebub howling for popcorn?
“Is that old-fashioned parenting or is that modern advice on how to handle…” I waved a hand at the meltdown on the pink duvet.
She shrugged. Great. That was helpful. But as I had no other sage elder with child-rearing experience to turn to, I did as she suggested. We both turned from the red-faced girl and carried on with putting away her things as if Valeria wasn’t even in the room. Within a few moments, the raging stopped, sniffling filled the air, and a tiny tug on my trousers got my attention. I glanced down at her and instantly saw the exhaustion on her face.
“I still want popcorn,” she meekly said while gripping a green frog by its neck. Her cheeks were cherry red, her hair damp from exertion and tears, and her lashes clumpy.
“I don’t think popcorn for dinner is very healthy,” I explained as I dropped down into a crouch. She frowned. “Why don’t we finish putting your new dresses in the closet, and then we’ll go have some fish for dinner. They say fish makes your brain grow.”
“Do you have a big brain?” Valeria enquired.
“I like to think so,” I answered. Mrs. Polkowski chortled. “I said a big brain not a big head.”
“Same thing from this side of the room,” my housekeeper fired back.
“Then I want fish too!” Valeria shouted before bouncing back to her toy box to find an angel fish stuffie she carried to therestaurant with her. I was quite pleased with how nicely I had handled her first tantrum in my house as well as how polite she was while eating out.
This parenting thing was much easier than it seemed.
