Page 1 of The Solstice Additions
Chapter One
“So this is Diaphony now that she’s got a tooth. Just the one tooth. My Kelli is sure that another is on the way. If you stick your finger in the baby’s mouth, you can feel it.”
I gazed down at a red-faced baby of about eight or forty months. I don’t know babies. I know beer and darts and dark-eyed singers with aged souls. Those I’m familiar with. Squalling infants. Nope. Not a clue.
“Why would you put your finger in a baby’s mouth?” I asked my great-aunt Priscilla while my sister, Nora, was busy opening yet another present from another woman I sort of knew as one of Nora’s friends from work.
Aunt Priscilla snorted into her cup of tea as if I were an idiot. “You men,” she said, shaking her silver head. “You dip your finger into some whiskey and rub it on the sore gums.”
I lowered the picture of Diaphony to gawk at the elderly woman. “I’m not real up on baby care, but even a dope like me knows that you probably shouldn’t be getting your kid soused.”
“Pah, that’s what’s wrong with all these new parents. Back when I was raising Patty, that’s Kelli’s mother, we did what worked. My kids rode in the front seat with only my arm to stop them if we got rear-ended. They drank from hoses, rode bikes with no helmets, and rode down metal slides with short shorts and they turned out fine.”
I had no reply to that, so I searched the huge condo that Nora and her husband Antoine had just moved into last month. Antoine was not here, the coward. Neither was my father or any other person of the male persuasion other than Kenan, and I found him sipping punch by the sliding glass door with some woman with blue hair and a ring in her nose.
Kenan felt my gaze, for he glanced my way. I mouthed ‘Help me!’ as Priscilla went on about how much better it was back in the day. His smile was just a small twitch at the corner of his sexy mouth. Standing under the AC vent, his long dark curls blew about his face, a look that I always found incredibly sexy. He said something to nose ring girl then slowly made his way around a baby swing, a car seat, a bouncy thing that looked like it would propel my future niece or nephew—they’d not found out, and good on them for that precluded me coming up to Ottawa to watch them pop a balloon with pink or blue powder in it—into the bright blue Canadian sky. Tiny baby clothes piled up everywhere. Bottles, diapers, and some sort of contraption for breastfeeding that I wanted no part of. The condo was a yellow duckie explosion that even my mother found a bit much.
“Hey, you,” Kenan whispered as he drew near. “Can I steal him away from you for just a few minutes? There’s something on the patio I wanted to show Brann.”
“Oh yes, of course, dear. I love corned beef.”
“So do I,” he replied with a kind pat of her hand before taking mine to lead me out onto the patio. The temps out here were pleasant, around sixty, with a touch of humidity. Nora had thethermostat set at fifty-five degrees in the condo, so it was the same temperature as a meat freezer. No shit, Antoine could hang slabs of meat in the kitchen and go all Rocky Balboa on them as training for his time on the ice.
“Oh man, this is heaven. Thank you.” I pecked his whiskery cheek. A soft wind blew up the side of the newly built tower overlooking the Alexandra Bridge. “She had me pinned down and was talking about sticking her finger into some poor kid’s mouth. No wonder the old folks all died of dysentery if that was what was considered good hygiene.”
He chuckled and turned to look over the Ottawa River, flowing peacefully along. “I’ve had your fingers in my mouth more than a few times and haven’t fallen dead yet.”
“You’ve had more than my fingers in your mouth,” I reminded him and turned to enjoy the view with him. “You know, it sucks being the only people with XY chromosomes here. Why did Dad and Antoine get to bail to play golf?”
“You know why. You’re the chosen birthing brother.”
“Between you and me, I’m not sure I want to be the chosen birthing brother. What am I supposed to do while she’s in labor? Where should I look? Why does she need me there as well as her husband? I mean, he’s seen her baby parts before, obviously, so what the hell am I there for?”
“You’re there because she loves you deeply and wants to share this moment with you.”
“I can share perfectly fine out in the waiting room, where I can puff on a cigar.”
“They don’t allow that in hospitals anymore.” He bumped my hip with his.
“Seems my mother would be the better candidate.”
“Really?”
“No, not really.” I sighed as the slider opened behind us. A gust of arctic air carrying the delightful aroma of Estee Lauder Muse enveloped us.
“Hey, what are you two doing out here?” Nora wiggled in between us, her big belly keeping her at least a good foot from the patio railing.
“He’s hiding from your great-aunt and her baby advice,” Kenan ratted me out and draped an arm around Nora. She rested her head on his shoulder. They had grown incredibly close. She liked to say he was a godsend who had brought light and love back into her brother’s life. Since I couldn’t really argue that I merely accepted they were thick as thieves now. It was kind of nice.
“Oh yeah, I’ve gotten all kinds of advice from people. Total strangers will walk up to me and ask to touch my belly.” We all went ‘Ewwww’ at the same time. “I know, it’s very creepy. And everyone has words of wisdom to pass along. Like this woman in Costco who pushed her cart into mine to inform me that if I put a pickled egg on the highest shelf of my pantry, it would prevent ear infections.” Kenan and I both stared down blankly at the perky little brunette wedged between us. “Right? I hadsomany questions. Is the pickled egg just sitting on the shelf? Is it in a jar alone or with other pickled eggs? How does placing this egg on a shelf combat bacteria or viruses?”
“I always suspected there was more to pickled eggs than just being disgusting bar snacks.”
“Why don’twehave any pickled eggs at the alehouse?” Kenan asked as Nora slipped one arm around both of us. Whenever she could, she enjoyed telling me she liked having two brothers. I would remind her that Kenan was my boyfriend and not her brother-in-law to which she would just bat her long lashes and giggle as if she knew something that only women knew.
“They’re evil,” I replied flatly.
Nora snorted in a most unladylike manner. “My back is killing me,” she moaned. “This baby is sleeping on my spine. And now I want pickled eggs.”
