Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty- Eight
Dave
T he baby woke again in the darkest part of the night. Zara got up to soothe her. She gave her another dose of medicine while I lay in bed listening, waiting to offer my services if we were in for a long night of passing a screaming child back and forth .
But Zara came back to bed fifteen minutes later, startling me out of a doze as she tucked a quiet Nicole in between us in the bed .
I reached down for my boxers on the floor and pulled them on, then lay down on my back, giving them some space .
We dozed. Then we slept. And nobody cried .
When I next awoke, there was sunlight on my eyelids and a little hand feathering its way through my hair. And when I opened my eyes I was startled to see Nicole a few inches from my face, looking right at me .
She was startled, too, blinking suddenly when our gazes met .
“Dada,” she said, her voice small .
“Hi,” I whispered, watching her. She looked surprisingly chipper given all the previous day’s miseries. But, heck. I’d been young once. I knew exactly how different it felt to have the youthful resilience of childhood, instead of the muscle pain that greeted me each and every morning now .
I sat up carefully, checking in with my body the way a professional athlete in his second decade of play always did. I clocked all my minor aches and pains, then reached for my baby girl. “Come on,” I whispered .
Nicole climbed into my lap, then looked over at Zara. “Mama,” she said .
“Mama’s sleepy,” I whispered, because Zara was lying on her face, dead to the world. “Come with me.” I grabbed some shorts and a polo shirt and carried her into the living room .
Funny how I could find the diaper bag and change a diaper before I was fully awake. Although I got stuck on the next bit. “Do you still drink milk in the morning ?”
“Baba,” Nicole said, which was her word for the sippy-bottle thing she drank from these days .
“Where do you suppose that is ?”
Nicole walked over to the diaper bag, then began to root around in it. But I spotted the cup beside the hotel suite’s little kitchen sink. “Here we go. Let’s go fill this up,” I said .
* * *
T he point of staying in a luxury hotel wasn’t the stylish furniture in the lobby or the elegant pool with the disappearing edge. The point was handing an empty sippy cup to the first concierge I could find, and watching that person scurry off to fill it up with milk .
“Baba,” Nicole said with a frown, watching it disappear .
“They’re going to hook you up,” I promised. If I were a smarter man, I would have asked for coffee, too. “Let’s look around while we wait.” I spotted an aquarium across the way and carried her over to it .
As we looked through the glass, a grumpy-faced bass swam past us at a rapid rate, and Nicole gasped. “Fissy!” she exclaimed .
And, wow . It was so cool to hear new words coming out of her. She’d made a big leap forward since I’d seen her in Vermont, and I’d mostly missed it. Sure, I’d heard a few words on Skype, but that was nothing like holding her and hearing that little voice at close range .
Maybe it had taken me a little longer than it could have, but being Nicole’s father felt right to me now. Your life has just changed for the better , my sister had said on that first, terrifying morning after I’d come back to Vermont. I hope you’re not too stupid to figure that out .
Well, sis. I got there. It just took a while .
“Excuse me, madame,” a man’s voice said behind me. “Is this yours ?”
“ Baba !”
I turned around to find a young guy holding Nicole’s sippy cup, and it was full of milk. “Thank you,” I said, flashing my key card. “Where do I sign ?”
He handed me the bottle and a bill wallet, where I filled in my room number and a generous tip for Nicole’s beverage of choice .
“Thank you, sir,” he said, and was gone .
In order to let Zara sleep a bit longer, I carried Nicole out the sliding glass doors and across a patio. When the patio ended, the sand began. The beach was really wide here, so the hotel had made a shady enclosure with hammock-like chairs. Every one of them was empty now. I sat down carefully so the thing wouldn’t swing sideways and dump us both onto the sand. Then I eased back and let Nicole make herself comfortable against my chest .
She lifted the sippy cup immediately and began to drink the milk. The poor kid was probably starving since she hadn’t stopped crying long enough consider food last night .
Kicking off my flip flops, I buried my toes in the cool sand. Somewhere in the distance, the ocean crashed against the beach in rhythmic waves. And seagulls chased each other on the horizon, their cries carried off by the wind .
“I gotta say, it’s pretty nice right here,” I told my daughter .
There was no answer, except for some slurping sounds. While I rocked us in the chair, she drank every drop, then handed me the empty bottle. I could almost hear her adding, Listen, Dada, this bottle was too small .
In a minute I’d get up and find out how to order some room service. After the night we had, I thought we were due for some serious chow .
But first… I dug out my phone. It was barely seven, but that meant my sister was up and showered and nearly ready to head for her office. I tapped on her ID in Skype so she could see Nicole .
She picked up immediately. “Heyyyyyy!” she squealed .
“Hey!” I repeated. “Look, Nicole, it’s your crazy aunt Bess. Can you tell her hi ?”
Nicole lifted her hand and waved at the screen, while Bess swooned. I let my sister chatter to the baby for a while, then I told her I needed to go see about breakfast .
“Wait,” she said, remembering that I was alive. “Since you’re here, it’s time for my weekly nagging .”
“I’m on vacation,” I said quickly. We didn’t need to talk about my contract extension today . Jesus .
“Look, I was talking to Hugh this week on another matter…” Hugh was my team’s general manager. “He asked where you stood on the question of two years versus three, and of course I told him you just weren’t ready to think about it. Eventful summer, blah blah blah …”
“ Right . So ?”
My sister bit her lip. “I wondered whether I should have asked him how he felt about a one -year extension .”
“One year?” I didn’t see how that really helped the discussion .
“Well, yeah.” She gave me a cautious smile. “I thought maybe you were having trouble choosing because suddenly it was harder to think three years out.” Her eyes flicked to Nicole. “A one-year would buy you some time to think things over .”
“Huh.” Then again, they could drop me after a year. “I’ll think about it. Gotta go. Hotel pancakes are calling our name .”
Nicole made a happy noise. I was pretty sure they were calling her name, too. I set her down in the sand to say goodbye to my sister, and Nicole plopped down on stubby knees to run her fingers through the sand .
“Come on, angel,” I said, standing up slowly. “Let’s go order some food .”
She reached up to wrap her hand around my finger. And we walked back inside together .