Page 9 of Baby Blue
Anne burst into laughter. “That’s what she wassupposedto do! Now she won’t have the tummy ache.”
Blue sat for a second, thinking, before he said, “Oh! I get it! That makes sense.”
“Yep. Air on a tummy equals a fussy baby. Next time, make sure to throw a towel or something over your shoulder so if she spits up, you won’t get soaked,” Anne warned.
“If she spits up? Should I give her medicine or something?” The idea that she might get sick scared Blue to pieces. He couldn’t handle somebody who was leaking from every orifice.
“No. They just sometimes do that, and it’s usually not a lot.” Anne gave him a gentle smile. “Sit there with her for a fewminutes. Just rock her forward and back and let her get sleepy. I need to get some clean things to put in her little basket. Do you have towels?”
Blue chuckled?it was the first one he’d been able to let out all day?and pointed toward the kitchen. “I just did a load yesterday. They’re in the dryer back there.” He watched as Anne moved in that direction.
“You’re doing really good, Mr.Blue,” Polly told him softly as they both watched Indigo’s eyes close gently.
“I’m scared I’ll wake her up,” he whispered.
“No. Once she really gets to sleep, she’ll sleep like a log. Her belly’s full,” the girl whispered.
Aha! Feed them and they sleep!That made sense too. Pretty soon, Anne appeared with the basket freshly packed and set it down on the sofa beside Blue. “There you go. I think she’ll sleep soundly enough. I should show you how to make some bottles. And we’ve got little clothes to wash and dry so she’ll have something to wear. We should get started.”
Blue laid the sleeping child in the basket and pulled another towel over her. He watched as her lip quivered and she sighed, then grew still again. A huge sense of accomplishment swept over him?he’d fed a baby and gotten it to sleep! But as soon as it hit, a tsunami of panic slapped him back into reality. “Anne, what am I going to do? I don’t have anybody to watch a baby and I’ve got to go to work on Monday. I can’t take her with me, and I can’t leave her by herself.”
“Let’s cross each bridge as we come to it, okay? We’ll figure out something. It’ll be fine. Now let’s get on the bottles and laundry.”
Three hours later they had a good handle on things. Indigo woke, but Polly watched her in the living room and kept her occupied. In a little while, there was a knock at the door and Toady joined them. He sat on the floor and made faces at thebaby, and she grinned and laughed and blew spit bubbles at him. When they had laundry done and bottles made, Blue headed into the living room and plopped down on the sofa. “Whew! I’m beat!”
“So am I,” Anne chimed in.
“This must be your day off,” Blue responded, then instantly felt bad. “And I’ve used it all up and kept you busy. I’m so sorry. I never thought about it.”
Anne shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
I should make nice with her. She seems like a kind lady.“So where do you work?”
“At Mercy Hospital.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m the assistant director of nursing.”
Blue’s eyes went round. “Really? That’s an important job.”
“Yeah. I volunteered to do second shift because someone needed to be watching the nursing staff. They also have a lot of times when they’re short-handed because someone doesn’t come in, so I’m an extra pair of hands.”
A knife-edge of guilt stabbed Blue right through the heart. She sacrificed time with her kids to do a good job and help people. She’d sacrificed her afternoon to help him. Before that, he’d been nothing but nasty to her, and he felt rotten about it. But he didn’t get a chance to say anything before she asked, “So what do you do?”
“I’m a mechanic over at Turner’s Automotive.”
“Oh! That’s a pretty good job.”
Blue shook his head. “It’s a shit job. I get paid next to nothing. So I play in a band on the weekends to make a little extra money.” He sighed. “I know my yard looks like hell, but I get off work, then go to a bar and play until two in the morning. I do that both weekend nights, and then I go back to work onMonday. Plus we have rehearsal on Tuesday nights. So I’m dead on my feet by then, and I have to do it all over.”
“Well, you don’t waste time sitting around watching TV, I see,” Anne said, gesturing around the room.
“Uh, my TV and most of my other stuff got stolen.” When her eyebrows went up and her mouth dropped open, he added, “Long story.”
“Not a random burglary?”
“No.”
