Chapter 19 #2
Gage climbs out of the truck. "In our defense, we didn't know what she'd like, so we got options."
"Options?" Patrice's voice climbs an octave. "How many bottles did you buy?"
"Twenty."
"Twenty bottles? She only has one mouth!"
"Different styles!" I protest. "Different nipple flows! The sales lady said—"
"The sales lady saw two panicked men and went for commission," Tessa interrupts, still laughing. "This is amazing. Gage, help me unload this disaster."
It takes an hour to get everything inside. The cabin living room looks like a Baby World warehouse exploded. Boxes everywhere. Bags of tiny clothes. Bottles lined up on the counter like we're running a dairy operation.
Patrice just stands in the middle of it all, hands on her hips. "We're never going to use all this."
"Returns?" I suggest hopefully.
"Most of it's opened. You two are keeping it." But she's smiling. Actually smiling. "Although I appreciate the enthusiasm. And the panic buying."
"We tried our best," Gage says.
"You tried something," Tessa agrees. "Not sure it was your best."
After the women leave to go back to the hospital for evening visiting hours, Gage and I stare at the pile of unassembled furniture in my living room.
"We should probably put this together," I say.
"Now?"
"Brooklyn comes home in a few days. She needs somewhere to sleep."
Gage sighs. "Fine. How hard can it be?"
The crib instructions are in Swedish. Or possibly Norwegian. Definitely not English. There are diagrams that make no sense, with parts labeled A through Z and approximately four hundred tiny screws.
"This should have come with a warning label," Gage mutters, staring at what might be the headboard. Or possibly the footboard. Who knows?
"There's an instruction video," I say, pulling out my phone.
The video is seventeen minutes long and features a cheerful Swedish man assembling the crib while speaking rapidly in Swedish. It's not helpful.
"We're Army Rangers," I remind Gage. "We can do this."
"We disarmed IEDs in Afghanistan. This is different."
"It's furniture. We've built harder things."
"Did those harder things come with Allen wrenches and threats of infant death if assembled wrong?"
He has a point.
Three hours later, we've assembled something that might be a crib. It's mostly upright. Only wobbles a little. We're both sweating despite the cabin being approximately fifty degrees.
"This seems unsafe," Gage says, giving it a tentative shake.
"It's fine."
"Your daughter is going to sleep in this."
It's not fine.
We disassemble it and start over.
The changing table is missing three crucial pieces. The swing we bought plays lullabies that sound vaguely demonic when played through the cheap speakers. And at some point, I drop an Allen wrench, and it rolls under the couch where I'm pretty sure it's going to live forever.
"We should call Tessa," Gage says around midnight. "She's better at this."
"We can do this. We're men. We built civilization."
"Yeah, but did civilization come with Allen wrenches?"
"We're not calling for help. We've got this."
By four AM, we don't have this.
The cabin looks like a furniture bomb went off.
Parts everywhere. Instructions scattered across the floor.
The crib is assembled but listing to one side.
The changing table has three legs instead of four because we used one of the legs for the crib by mistake.
The swing works but sounds like it's possessed.
Gage is lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling. "I've lost feeling in my hands."
"Same."
"Your daughter is going to know we're incompetent."
"She's days old. She won't remember this."
"Patrice will remember."
He's right. Patrice is absolutely going to remember this.
We hear a truck pull up outside. Through the window, I see Tessa's truck. She and Patrice get out, take one look at the cabin windows—still blazing with light at four AM—and head for the door.
They walk in. Survey the carnage. Exchange a look.
"Did a tornado hit?" Patrice asks.
"We're assembling furniture," I say with as much dignity as I can muster while sitting on the floor surrounded by Allen wrenches and defeat.
"How's that going?" Tessa asks.
Gage gestures weakly at the crib. "It's mostly assembled."
"It's leaning," Patrice points out.
"It has character."
"Our daughter is not sleeping in a crib with character." But she's smiling again, that soft smile that makes my heart kick. "You two are disasters."
"Disasters who love your daughter and bought her everything she could possibly need," I correct.
She picks her way through the debris and sits next to me on the floor. "Thank you for trying."
"We're not done trying. We're just... regrouping."
"How about you regroup after some sleep? Tessa and I will tackle this later today."
"We can do it," I protest.
"I know you can. But right now, you both look like you're about to pass out." She kisses my cheek. "Go to bed. We've got this."
Gage is already asleep on the floor, using a bag of onesies as a pillow.
"He has the right idea," Tessa says fondly.
Patrice helps me up—which is humiliating because I'm significantly larger than her—and steers me toward the bedroom. "You're a good dad," she says quietly. "Even if you're terrible at furniture assembly which is ironic based on your chosen career." She laughs.
"Brooklyn's going to grow up thinking her dad is useless."
"Brooklyn's going to grow up knowing her dad tried to buy out an entire store and stayed up all night building her furniture. That's not useless."
I pull her close, gentle with her. "I just want to get this right."
"There is no right. There's just showing up and trying." She looks up at me. "And you're really good at showing up."
Through the living room doorway, I can see the disaster we've created. Five thousand dollars in baby supplies. A crib that leans. A changing table with three legs. A demonic swing.
And somehow, standing here with Patrice, I don't feel like a complete failure.
Close, but not quite.
"I'm keeping the three-legged changing table," I say. "It matches the leaning crib."
"You're not keeping either of those death traps." But she's laughing as she steers me toward the bedroom. "Tessa and I will fix your disasters tomorrow."
"Our disasters," I correct.
"Fair enough." She kisses me, and for a moment, the chaos doesn't matter. The five thousand dollars doesn't matter. The furniture carnage doesn't matter.
In a few days, Brooklyn comes home.
And we still have no idea what we're doing.