August
“ISAAC? OH, Iiiiiiiizzzaaac… you in there?”
Isaac looked up from the border he was putting on the baby blanket that had been joined by group effort and blinked at Roxy.
Allegra and Luca were at work, and Roxy’s kids were playing at their feet while Euclid regarded them all from the kitchen counter with sleepy eyes.
Yes, Isaac’s whole household had given up on keeping Euclid off the table or the counters whenever it suited him, but particularly now, when there were two toddlers out for his blood and a screaming infant who would cheer them on. Isaac was definitely on the cat’s side.
But that’s not why Isaac was distracted. “I’m here—oh, Justice honey, maybe don’t hit your sister with—”
But the wooden block came down on Patricia’s head, and the wailing commenced. Isaac set down the blanket and went to comfort the little girl, who sniffled on her Uncle Isaac’s shirt in a way that told him nap time was nigh, while Roxy calmly reprimanded her son.
Without looking back, Isaac carried the girl to the new baby’s room that he and Allegra had set up the week before, pleased to see that the toddler bed they’d both agreed would go on one side was already made up.
Having a toddler bed and a crib in there had been Allegra’s idea, once she realized how often Roxy visited.
“We’re going to need it eventually anyway,” Allegra said with a laugh as they’d painted the trim in bright colors and planned. “Since me and Luca are buying the furniture, I figure this way the room can welcome all the babies, you think?”
Isaac had been tickled. The room—done up with bright red-and-blue trim and pale yellow walls—had hardwood floors but lots of thick colorful throw rugs held down by furniture and Velcro.
A mom’s rocking chair stood in one corner, next to the crib and a dresser, and the toddler bed lined one wall, beside bright plastic chests full of stuffed animals and teething rings.
Allegra was keeping a bassinet in her room on Roxy’s recommendation.
“Those first weeks, before everybody’s sleep schedule is down, it’s just a blessing to put the baby in the basket and collapse. ”
In the middle of the room, Roxy had set up a porta crib, so everybody could go down for a nap, because the temperature outside would reach the 110s and Isaac’s place was as close as these kids were going to get to outside for a while, even to swim.
Roxy had arrived that morning with an ice chest full of juice and cubed fruit, and Isaac—with Luca’s help—had taped foil insulation along the outside of the west side of the house, leaving the kitchen, dining room, and living room about ten degrees cooler when the whole world got crispy.
Luca was to the point where his entire crew had filled the swimming pool with water, and they were running the filters and waiting, chewing their nails, to make sure the thousand and one things that could go wrong with a job like this had gone right instead.
The whole reason Allegra had braved the elements to go into the office was to disburse the money when the check cleared, and Isaac was both excited and anxious for the two of them. They’d poured so much into this!
He left Patricia sound asleep in the bed and passed Roxy on her way down the hall with her son, his head lolling on her shoulder.
When he got out to the living room, he saw that Annie, the youngest, had fallen asleep on her stomach, soft little baby snores coming through her mouth as she lay under the ceiling fan on her thick flannel quilt, wearing nothing but a diaper.
With a sigh, he sank back into his armchair and picked up his phone, checking to see if there was a text from Luca telling him how things had gone.
$$$ We’re bringing home takeout tonight!
He smiled but shook his head. I’ve got cubed fruit and cheese—you sure you want takeout?
Good point. Take the rain check, baby—we owe you a whole lot of bacon.
Fair.
He sighed as he set the phone down and picked up the blanket again.
It was not the only thing he and Allegra had made for the baby at this point, but everybody, Marcelle included, had been so excited about helping to sew all the squares together that they’d both initiated other baby projects while their helpers were helping.
Now there was nothing left but the edging, and Isaac had to laugh because the blanket didn’t match the nursery at all, but he still couldn’t help but look at it with a whole lot of pride.
“You gonna let the baby have that, or you gonna put it on a wall and make it art?” Roxy asked.
Isaac chuckled and rested the thing in his lap again. “Oh, I want this blanket to be hauled around, taken to picnics, used to wipe boogers and change diapers—this thing is going to be lurved.”
Roxy laughed softly too and took a sip of her own fruit drink. “That’s my kind of baby gift,” she said. “What’s got you so distracted, honey? This should be your moment of triumph here.”
Isaac glanced at his phone. “Well, for one thing, I was waiting to hear from Luca and Allegra about whether or not their big project was finalized. Apparently there’s money in the bank, and Luca’s business is solvent for the rest of this year, which is pretty awesome.”
“Oh my God! Isaac, that’s amazing. They should be so proud!”
Isaac nodded, resuming the border around the blanket, soothed by their conversation. “Oh they are—and I’m happy for them.”
“You sound as happy as a heart attack,” she said dryly. “What’s the deal?”
“School starts next week,” he said, like this was news.
“I know. This is sort of our last hurrah before we go bake in our classrooms like ratatouille.” Some fucking genius had put the thermostat controls in the hands of the company that installed the HVAC systems. The company was located in Texas, and the sensors for the thermostats were nowhere near the mass of thirty-five kids in the center of the room generating body heat by the megajoule.
The year before, teachers and students had staged a walkout when they realized they were teaching in ninety-degree heat because some pencil pusher three states away could not fathom why it wasn’t seventy-six degrees in their rooms.
“I think they fixed that?” he said, ending on an “I hope” sort of note, and she grunted.
“We’ll see. I wonder if they remembered to update my computer with the server this year.
” Two years ago, they hadn’t, and her grades hadn’t been saved.
She’d been pregnant, exhausted, and had recorded her grades sixty-dozen times only to have Paula and the principal condescend to her about, “Well, if you weren’t so tired, dear, maybe you could figure out how to work the computer. ”
Isaac had needed to hold her back, or she would have committed physical assault.
“I called yesterday and double-checked,” Isaac told her, grimacing at her surprise. “Look, I don’t know who you think is keeping me sane at that pit o’ despond, O Earth Mommy Dearest, but if I don’t have Roxy, I’m going fucking banana dumplings, and I’d just rather fucking not.”
“Aw….” Roxy smiled at him beatifically. “Same with you, my queen banana dumpling. In fact”—and she grew surprisingly serious—“given how many changes you’ve had in your life in the last three months, I’m kind of honored.
You know, when you said you were letting Allegra move in, I got kind of jealous.
I was like, ‘That bitch is smart, funny, and sweet as hell. She’d better not try to steal my bestie. ’”
Isaac chuckled because Allegra and Roxy got along amazingly well, but if Roxy wanted to tell the story like that, well, it was funnier.
No, Allegra had fit into his life just fine, and Isaac had felt an awesome sort of excitement as the two of them had prepped the baby’s room the week before.
He’d seen Roxy through three pregnancies, and he adored her brood, but this baby…
this baby was coming to live with him, and he was so excited he couldn’t stand it.
But….
“I’m going to be a parent,” he said and then shook his head to reword that. “I mean, no, not the baby daddy, and I know I’m Uncle Isaac to your kids—I can change a diaper—”
“And you do a fantastic job,” Roxy told him, saluting a little with her fruit juice and ice.
“Thank you,” he said soberly. “I worked hard to learn that skill. But anyway, this kid is going to live in my house. And I want to help. I mean…. Roxy, I really want to help. But school is starting. You know… school?”
Roxy blew out a breath and fell against her chair as though suddenly exhausted. “Yeah, Isaac,” she said softly. “I know school.”
“That first six weeks,” he muttered, and she groaned.
“Don’t remind me.”
The first six weeks in a school with a percentage of transient students was pretty hellish.
It took a while to get the classes balanced in the first place, but when there was an influx of kids in the first two weeks whose parents hadn’t signed them up for school because they didn’t know they were supposed to, or figured they could just show up with a kid and it would all be okay, or who didn’t give a shit, or whatever—well, that made things extra fun.
The rosters Roxy and Isaac were given on the first day were usually miles away from the rosters they ended up with after that first tumultuous six weeks, and in the meantime?
They still had to teach lessons, give quizzes, and make sure the kids learned something, please God anything, in six weeks of a school year.
It was, in a word, exhausting.