Page 48 of Castaway Whirlwind
“Dangit.” Layla silences the alarm on her phone. “I have to be at the diner in an hour.”
“I think Harold will understand if you want to take the day off.”
She shakes her head, her curls brushing her collarbone.
I push her hair back behind her shoulders before grabbing her slim waist and pulling her closer. “You sure you don’t wantto stay and catch up with your brother?” I ask, even though I don’t like the way Max is treating her, showing up as he did with a couple of suitcases as if he’s moving in, along with a woman and baby Layla didn’t know about and has already asked for money that Layla does not need to be handing over. Alarm bells are ringing, but my gut tells me Layla won’t be too happy with me if I voice any of my concerns so soon.
“No, I don’t want to put them in the lurch if I call out, what with the after-church folks coming in.” Layla switches Gauge to her other arm, swaying back and forth when she feeds him the half bottle I was able to make. “How old is he?” she asks Cora.
Cora kicks off her tennis shoes, rolls over, and scoots up the bed, stuffing the pillow Layla had been biting last night under her head. “Six weeks tomorrow,” she mumbles, pulling the comforter up over her head.
Layla tips her chin down to kiss Gauge on his forehead when he opens his mouth, his cries ramping up when he finishes his bottle, still hungry. “I know, bub. Your daddy will be back soon.”
Cora groans and grabs another pillow, shoving it down over her head. I bet she hasn’t had more than an hour or two of sleep at a time since Gauge was born if Max has been as unhelpful for the last six weeks as he has been today.
I bend low to whisper in Layla’s ear when a tear trails down her cheek, “Are you ok, darlin’? I know…I know it’s hard. This.” I cup the baby’s head, still one hand on her waist. Though we’ve never spoken outright about the infertility rates with her condition, it doesn’t take a detective to see how much it affects her in her day-to-day life, especially with our friends’ families growing year over year, seemingly as easy as breathing.
“Yeah,” she lies, keeping her eyes down. “I’m fine.”
I bring Layla into me, both of us swaying with Gauge between us. Layla drops her forehead in the middle of my chest, granting me the gift of holding her together.
She’s slow to pull away when Max returns, carrying two plastic shopping bags. He holds them both up for Layla, and I take them for her. He toes off his boots and gazes at the bed with longing. “I haven’t slept in ages.”
I want to roll my eyes at his obvious tactics to get Layla to babysit without actually having to ask her…That is, until it works, and the pleading puppy-dog eyes he gives Layla has her tripping over herself to say, “I’ll watch Gauge until I have to leave for work if you want to take a nap.”
“Thanks, sis. Knew I could count on you.” Like a child, he does a running jump onto Layla’s bed, rolling onto his side to throw an arm over Cora, who pushes him off and scoots closer to the wall.
Since there’s nowhere to go other than the bathroom so we don’t wake the sleeping couple, we tiptoe outside. It peeves me off that Layla even feels the need to leave her own home, but I unlock my truck so she has somewhere comfortable to sit while she feeds Gauge the new bottle I made. I have half a mind to finally buy a new truck, one with a bench seat like Davis has, wishing I could slide Layla over. Have her sit on my lap while Gauge eats and eventually falls asleep in her arms.
She turns off her second alarm a minute before it’s set to go off, and I follow her back into the apartment. “Max. Hey, Max.” She shakes his shoulder. “I have to go to work.”
“A few more minutes,” Max pleads, then scoots closer to Cora.
“Max,” I say louder than Layla. “You need to get up.” My annoyance with the man-child peaks when he pretends to be asleep like Paul used to when it was time to get up for school. I reach over him to poke Cora. “Up, up.” She doesn’t react, either. “You gotta be shi-ooting me.”
Layla lays her hand on my arm. “It’s ok. I’ll call Harold. See if I can switch shifts.”
Just because I’d rather she quit all her jobs doesn’t mean I’m ok with her having to rearrange her schedule to accommodate her brother after he dropped the responsibility of taking care of his son squarely on her shoulders.
“You can take my truck, and I’ll stay and watch him,” I say, motioning for her to hand over the baby. It’s cute and heartbreaking how she holds onto him tighter, half-turning away, not wanting to part with him, pinching her eyes shut.
“Ok, how about this…” I grab Max’s keys he left on the kitchen table, spinning them on my finger. “I’ll put his car seat in the truck. We’ll come with you and stay for your shift.”
“Really?” There’s that hope in her voice again, and I know I’ve made the right choice. “Thank you.”
Figuring out how to remove the car seat from Max and Cora’s beater, which has more luggage piled inside, is a lesson in patience and controlling my temper. It looks as if they’ve packed up everything they own, and more alarm bells go off in my head.
It’s been nearly twenty years since I’ve had to install a car seat, and they sure have changed quite a bit over the years, so I have to look up the instructions online. Afterward, it takes me a second to move away from the truck, my heart thumping hard in my chest. It’s silly how affected I am by the sight of it when that part of my life is longover.
* * *
Old Freddy is already holding his palms up, smirking at the other old-timers when Layla and I walk into the diner, my hand on her lower back while carrying Gauge in his bucket car seat. “Pay up, boys.” They groan as they start slapping cash down, and he counts out a cool four hundred twenty-five dollars, then folds it and stuffs it in the front pocket of his vest. “The baby, though…didn’t see that coming. Where’d he come from?”
Several guys eye Layla’s middle, and she crosses her arms over her stomach. Even unable to see her face from behind, I sense her mood sinking lower. “He’s my nephew,” she says without emotion, then moves on, leaving us behind, crossing behind the counter and into the kitchen.
“I didn’t mean to upset her,” Freddy says with regret, and several guys nod in agreement.
I clap him on the shoulder twice. “She knows. She’ll be ok.”
