Page 50 of Knocked Up in Alaska

Chapter Fifteen

Lilah was so scared she might burst into tears. She’d fed Shayla at three a.m., and the feeding had gone fine, then fed her again at six fifteen a.m., and that had gone textbook, too, except afterward, her little daughter had cried, and cried, and cried. She’d tried holding her and walking miles around the room. She’d tried feeding her again an hour later and been summarily rejected. She’d tried rocking her and putting her in the bassinet to cry it out. Now she was back to the rocker, an exhausted maternal failure, as well as a houseguest from hell who couldn’t comfort her own screaming infant.

Izzy tightened the belt on her fluffy white robe and then sat on the arm of the rocking chair, bleary eyed and concerned. “Do you think she’s hungry?”

“I’ve tried feeding her. She won’t latch on. It’s something else, but I don’t know.”

“You’ve burped her?”

“Yes. After every feeding, I gently rub and pat her back. I think something’s wrong. Maybe she can’t digest? Maybe she’s allergic to my milk? I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t.” She pitched her voice up to be heard over the baby’s wails.

“Does she have a fever? Or could she be colic-y?” Izzy asked, while staring at her phone where she’d run fussy-newborn searches.

“No fever. The baby thermometer says she’s normal. I don’t know about colic. She hasn’t really pooped yet. Should she? I mean, she’s only had liquids, and it’s been less than forty-eight hours.” Why hadn’t she researched this before? Why wasn’t she more prepared? What kind of a mother was she?

A knock sounded at the door. “Everybody decent?” Trace called in a gravelly, sleep-deprived voice.

“Come in,” Izzy called.

He peeked around the door. “Where’s that sad princess?”

“I’m so sorry,” Lilah said, her chest clenching. “I don’t know what’s wrong. I’ve got an appointment at the clinic this morning. Hopefully, Dr. D can help.”

Trace shuffled into the room, wearing a white T-shirt and gray sweats. “You guys look beat. I could walk with her for a while. Good practice,” he added with a dazed grin in Izzy’s direction—a grin that reminded her so much of Shay her heart stumbled.

She thought about her dream of him and how he’d said everything had happened how it was meant to happen. Had her pain-wracked brain conjured it as a way to absolve her guilt? Watching Trace lift Shayla from her arms and put her over his massive shoulder told her it hadn’t worked. A heavy weight bore down on her, all the more so now that their baby was here, and she clearly didn’t have the mothering instincts necessary to help her thrive. Shay’s absence left a bigger hole than ever and her part in causing it more unforgivable.

Trace began walking with Shayla, sort of bouncing her and thumping her back with his big hand. It added percussion to her pathetic cries. Uh-oh. Trace didn’t know his own strength. That might be too hard. She opened her mouth to say something, but just then the baby let out an audible burp. He turned to face them, a triumphant smile on his face. “Does that feel better?” he murmured to the baby, still bouncing and thumping. “Did Uncle Trace fix every little thing?”

In response, she spit up on his shoulder.

He automatically lifted her away, and three sets of eyes inspected the now-quiet infant cradled in his hands. Silence held for a full thirty seconds before Lilah processed that her baby had just thrown up on their host.

“Oh, no!” She rushed forward, grabbing a small cloth off the dresser on her way. “I’m sorry.”

“No worries. Seriously,” he added when she tried to scrub at the damp spot on his T-shirt. “Honey, leave it. This isn’t my fancy shirt. And even if it was, shame on me because I’m pretty sure spit-up comes with the territory. Look on the bright side.”

“There’s a bright side?”

“You betcha.” He handed the content baby to Lilah, accepted the cloth. “We all just learned something valuable. This”—he slung the cloth over his shoulder—“was very important.”

Izzy wrapped an arm around her shoulder and smiled down at the quiet baby. “Well, now that she’s her normal, happy self, how about if Trace and I take her for a little while so you can get ready for your appointment?”

The idea of parting with her baby sent a pang of panic through her, but she tamped it down and forced herself to act logically. She really needed to shower and dress, and she couldn’t give Shayla undivided attention while she did it. “I…okay. I’ll be quick. Don’t hesitate to come get me if you need me.”

“Take your time,” Izzy said and lifted the baby into her arms. “We’re here to help.”

Yes, Lilah acknowledged as she rushed into the bathroom, they were helping, tremendously, but no, it wasn’t their responsibility. As she showered and dressed, she reminded herself that she needed to figure out how to do the day-to-day things on her own. Single parents managed, somehow. Her own mother had, and she was living proof, so no matter how overwhelming it felt right now, raising her daughter on her own was doable. She couldn’t live under Izzy’s and Trace’s roof forever or rely on them to watch the baby at any given moment.

But Lord, did it feel overwhelming at this moment. Stepping from the shower, she dried off while running down all her to-do’s. She needed to find a place to live, and to afford that place, as well as food, diapers, clothes…everything. She needed to go back to work. Savings would only float her for so long. To go back to work, she needed to find a caregiver. Last week she’d spoken to the head of the Little Cubs preschool at the local Methodist church, which had seemed like a good option, but they couldn’t take Shayla until fall. What was she going to do until then? she wondered as she pulled on a pair of black leggings and an oversize chambray button-down. She couldn’t very well wait tables at The Goose with a baby strapped to her.

Life, she acknowledged with a sigh as she dressed, would be so much easier if she still lived and worked at the inn. If her mother still loved her, and… She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror and shook her head. No sense wasting time on ifs. The situation with her mom wasn’t going to change overnight, or possibly at all.

That sad fact settling on her forced her to face disappointment she hadn’t meant to set herself up for. But consciously or not, she’d harbored a secret hope that Ford would be right. Once the baby arrived, her mother would relent. The radio silence so far suggested the news of Shayla’s birth hadn’t changed her mother’s heart. Or mind.

It was what it was. No point brooding on it.

Luckily, the morning turned out too pretty and busy to brood. Izzy drove them to the clinic for her first post-partem checkup and Shayla’s newborn screening panel. And despite the crying jag that morning, she was a healthy baby. Some of the test results would take time to come back from the state’s lab, but she showed no signs of jaundice, passed the hearing screening, displayed all the normal instincts and reflexes, and just generally got a big thumbs-up from the doctor for being “so neurologically there.”

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