Chapter 13
13
T ravis stared down at the bundle in his arms, standing in the darkened living room of the house that he’d grown up in. Roger was in Brazil, and Edgar was off on an assignment for Ford Hansen. Ford had taken all three brothers under his wing, and Travis owed him more than he could say or ever repay. But right now, that wasn’t the thought on his mind.
Instead, first and foremost, was keeping this baby alive through the night. The second thing was trying to figure out how to convince Ellen that she should be his wife.
When he suggested that she help him find a wife, he had been joking and had intended to say that she would be perfect. Hint, hint.
After all, he wasn’t going to find someone who would marry him this week, as much as he needed help with the baby. And he wouldn’t want to marry someone just to get them to do the job of a nanny. That wasn’t right or fair.
But he hadn’t been able to get the words out before she’d taken what he said seriously and jumped into it the way Ellen always did, with both feet and her whole heart. She would do everything in her power to find him a perfect wife.
He suspected she’d be asking Claudia tomorrow whenever she met with her, and she’d be talking to all the ladies at her aquatics class about it first thing in the morning as well.
What a mess. Not that he thought that there were going to be a million women knocking down his door tomorrow, but he didn’t want to have even one. He wanted Ellen. Only his stupid tongue and his overburdened brain couldn’t seem to get together.
He could call her right now and fix it, but the baby was starting to stir, and that set fire to the tiny bit of panic that had been nestling in his chest all evening.
He could do this.
Lord, I know everything happens for a reason. And You don’t give us anything that You’re not going to help us handle, but I’m a little scared right now. Please help me not to kill this baby.
He knew that he was scraping the bottom of the barrel. He should have his sights set a lot higher. He should be praying for grace and strength to raise the child up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Right now, he had one goal, and that was a live baby come morning.
“All right. I’m going to have to set you down, because I can’t make a bottle with just one hand. Maybe when I get better at this.” He spoke softly, knowing that before when he and Ellen had been talking, the baby seemed to be calmed by their voices, but this made her little eyes blink as she seemed to pull herself from sleep, and the next thing he knew, her face scrunched up and turned beet red, and the loudest noise he’d ever heard from another human came out of that little tiny, rosebud mouth.
This was his problem to deal with.
He looked around to see if there was anyone standing nearby that he could hand her off to.
But he was still in his deserted living room, the only person in the house.
Ellen hadn’t even come in. She set the car seat down by the door and seemed reluctant to leave, but she didn’t ask to stay, and he didn’t ask her to.
Things were going to be dicey enough, come morning when the whole town wanted to know where in the world the mother for this baby was. They didn’t need the rumors swirling around them tonight. He appreciated her discretion on the matter, even while he wished she didn’t have it, and that she was here beside him now.
He got his phone, and with one thumb, while the baby continued to cry, he texted her.
She’s crying.
Is she hungry?
Ellen’s answer came back immediately like she had been sitting by the phone waiting to see if he needed help. Which would be quintessential Ellen. She had always been there for him anytime he needed her. But there had been long stretches of time when they hadn’t talked at all, and he felt like that was Ellen giving him room to grow and change.
I don’t know. I don’t know how to make a bottle.
Are you still holding her?
Yes
Put her down.
But she’s crying!
She’s crying, not dying. Put her down so you can make a bottle.
His phone beeped as he walked into the kitchen, and he set the baby gently down on the counter. Was it safe to put a baby down on the counter?
Get the formula out of the baby bag. There are instructions on the side of the can.
He took a breath. He could do this.
Don’t leave me.
I’m right here. You can call me if you need me.
I won’t be able to hear you because the baby is crying too loud. She’s tiny, but she makes the loudest noise I’ve ever heard a human make.
Ellen sent a laughing emoji in reply.
He rolled his eyes, glad Ellen thought it was funny. Actually, she was right, it was a little bit funny. But he wouldn’t be able to laugh until the baby wasn’t crying anymore.
Fumbling with the formula can, he read the instructions: two ounces of water, one scoop of formula. He assumed that meant that he put the water in first.
You can use warm water. But not too hot.
He glanced at his phone and read her text without touching it. Ellen would understand that he needed both hands to make the formula. He’d thank her later.
Putting warm water up to the 4-ounce line, he took the lid off the formula, saw that the can was almost empty, and sighed. He was able to get two scoops out and stick the lid back on the bottle. While he shook it with one hand, he texted with the other.
She only sent one can, and I don’t think there’s even enough formula to last the night.
I’ll go get some.
No. You have to work in the morning. Plus, it’s at least an hour drive to Rockerton then back. That was where the closest store was that might be open at this time of night.
I’ll be there in an hour and a half, tops.
He shook his head, smiling. Relieved. He didn’t want her to be put out, but at the same time, he didn’t want to end up here with no formula and a crying baby. Although, he had a car seat now, so he could conceivably take the baby to the store, except it felt like a little much, to have the baby in the store, especially if she was crying, trying to figure out what formula to get.
Send me a picture of the formula can so I get the right stuff.
He took a picture, sent it, and then picked up the baby.
He couldn’t remember any of the songs that the note had said the baby liked, except for one. He started to sing it.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
To his surprise, even before the bottle touched her lips, the baby stopped crying and her big, dark eyes, so blue they almost looked black, looked up at him, blinking.
Nice. But the moment he stopped singing, her face scrunched up again, prompting him to start again immediately. If it would keep her from crying, he would sing all night.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
He managed to get the bottle in her mouth. She had been mesmerized looking at his face, listening to his voice, maybe even feeling the vibrations of his chest, but after a second or two, she realized what was in her mouth. She shook a little, and then her mouth closed around the nipple and she started sucking greedily. He kept singing just because she liked it, and he did too. He swayed a little as he sang.
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
He didn’t know whether he’d sung the song fifty or a hundred times before he heard a car in the driveway.
By that time, he’d gone in the living room and sat down on the recliner. He hadn’t put his feet up but had kept them on the floor, rocking back and forth. Alice stopped sucking the bottle when there was still half an ounce or so left, and checking the instructions, he realized he was supposed to burp her. He searched that on the Internet and watched a video, never stopping his song.
When she burped, she spit formula all over his shoulder. He hadn’t thought to have any kind of rag on it, but after watching the video, he’d realized spitting was kind of normal. He wasn’t sure exactly how much was normal, but a couple of the babies that he’d seen on the video had spit up whenever they burped as well.
That made sense to him, but it was one of the questions he wanted to ask Ellen when she came—how much spit-up was normal.
She knocked softly on the door but didn’t wait for him to call out before she stepped in the house.
Any time he saw Ellen, he felt drawn to look at her, but tonight more than ever. She was like a balm for his soul. She carried two large bags, and Chewy was at her heels.
“Is Chewy okay?”
He nodded. There hadn’t been too many times growing up that Ellen had come to his house. Most of the time, it was him going to hers. But they spent a few different times in the kitchen, cooking for his brothers when one of them was sick, and she’d been over a couple times to care for him when he’d been down with the flu or some other illness.
There was no reason for Chewy to be in the house, and she’d never come in with her.
“She’s asleep?” She nodded at the baby.
“She really likes ‘Blessed Assurance.’”
“That’s what the instructions said.”
It seemed like an odd song for a baby to like, but maybe that was why it stuck in his head. “I couldn’t remember any of the other ones.” He felt bad for not getting up. “I’m afraid to move.”
She told Chewy to lie down on the rug by the door, then she moved through the dining room and into the living room, holding up the two bags.
“I got four containers of formula and four packages of diapers. This is just half of it. I wasn’t sure how long a can of formula would last, but I figured four cans would at least get you through the night.”
He laughed a little. It would more than get them through the night. And he appreciated her making sure that he had plenty. Now he didn’t have to worry about going to the store anytime soon.
“Man. That stuff is expensive.” She peered over his shoulder and smiled at the sleeping baby. “If you don’t mind, I’m just going to set it on your table here, run out, and get the other bags. And then, it looks like you’re good.”
She started walking toward the table, and then she froze. “Oh! I wasn’t sure exactly how old Alice is, and whether or not she is rolling, so I got a pack and play for you. It will work as a crib if you want it to, and that will give you a place to keep the baby so you don’t have to worry about her rolling off anywhere, just in case she’s at that stage.”
“I set her on the counter.”
Ellen’s eyes got big, and her brows went way up. “She didn’t roll off?”
“No. But she was crying so hard she moved herself around a little bit.”
“Did you change her diaper?”
“I’ve never changed a diaper in my life before. I’m going to have to YouTube that too.”
“YouTube that…too? So you YouTubed something else?”
“Burping.”
“I see. Well, she must have burped. That’s what that big wet spot is on your shoulder.”
“Yeah. It’s kinda sticky. Is that normal?”
“Spitting up when she burps? Yes.”
“The amount.”
“I’m…not sure. It can seem like a lot, but I think it’s probably okay.”
“Hmm.” He would have to take her word for it.
“I know I shouldn’t stay. But if you want me to hold her while you change and set the pack and play up, I can.” Ellen lifted her brows.
“I really hate to ask you. You’ve already done more for me than a normal person should have to, and I feel like I’m really taking advantage of our friendship.”
“No. That’s what friends are for.” She held her hands out for the baby, and he handed her over gently. She stirred a little but didn’t wake. She’d been snuggled down nice and warm, and settled back as Ellen gently bounced her and swayed at the same time.
“You look like you’ve done that a time or two.”
“Having younger siblings is a real benefit at times.” Ellen laughed. “I didn’t always appreciate them.”
“Seems to me like when I came to visit you when your siblings were babies, you should have put me to work, instead of allowing me to just watch.”
“I didn’t know it was going to come down to this.” Ellen laughed. And he loved the sound. It stirred something deep in his soul. But it didn’t seem like the right time to talk about that.
“This is quite a welcome present for you. You’re gone for five years and come home to this.”
“Yeah. It was not what I was expecting, but I’ve had a lot of things in life that weren’t quite what I was expecting.” Coming home and hearing Chalmer talk about owning Ellen had been far worse than having a baby thrust at him.
He walked out and got the pack and play and the other bags of groceries, carrying everything in. He had spent a lot of late nights working on business-related things, getting reports ready, making PowerPoint presentations for a board meeting, and a myriad of other things, but this was the first time that he’d been up this late with Ellen, other than the one time they’d delivered the puppies so long ago.
She was tired. Her eyes were red rimmed, and her eyelids drooping, but she wasn’t grumpy. He appreciated that. He’d seen too many men who were stuck in a lifetime relationship with women who were either perpetually grumpy, easy to set off, or never satisfied. Ellen wasn’t any of those things.
Of course, if he looked for a woman of character, someone who tried to live what she believed, he wouldn’t have to worry about getting someone who was any of those things, but Ellen just lived it all so beautifully that he didn’t have to think about it, he just compared other women to her and found them wanting.
He thought about Shanna and the way she had acted with her children earlier in the evening. She’d been irritated and short and unkind. She’d taken her irritation out on them, and him, and, he was sure, on Ellen too.
But he hadn’t seen Ellen be anything but kind.
A person didn’t just naturally become that way, they had to work hard at it, to become something that wasn’t natural. Ellen had, and it was obvious that Shanna had not.
He wondered if maybe it was because everything had always come easy to Shanna. And then, when life started to get a little hard, she wasn’t prepared for that, because she’d never been tested before.
He supposed his rough childhood, and the fact that Ellen had lost her mom when she was little and had been raised by her uncle, never really fitting in with her friends at school, had been what had prompted them to be able to meet challenges with a bit of grace.
That, and he couldn’t discount the influence Jesus had on their lives.
Shanna would claim to be a Christian. So there was that. There had to be a deliberate desire to do what God wanted, he supposed.
He hadn’t figured it out by the time he got the pack and play together and turned to Ellen, who was still holding and bouncing the baby.
“Just in time. She’s starting to stir.”
He glanced at the clock. “I suppose it’s about time for her to have another bottle.”
“It would probably be a good time to change her diaper too.”
“Oh boy. Can you hold her for just a little bit more while I find a video online?”
“Or I could show you how to do it?” Ellen lowered her head and looked at him, and he grinned sheepishly.
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
He knew she wouldn’t, he just…hadn’t thought about asking her and felt a little foolish for needing to. But he didn’t want to do it wrong. Surely there was a wrong way. Although, as he thought back at some of the people who had been able to raise children to adulthood, his mom included in that group, he figured that it couldn’t possibly be rocket science, otherwise there would be a lot more dead babies in the world.
The thought was sobering, rather than humorous.
“When they’re really young, they can’t roll. But you never know when they’re going to be able to, so you can’t ever set them down without making sure that they’re on a surface they can’t roll off of.”
He nodded his head.
“I remember Ashley telling me that. I think it was something they told her in the hospital. Every once in a while, she would set the baby in the middle of the bed and maybe run to the bathroom or something, but you just have to be careful.”
“Once you drop it, you can’t put it back together.”
“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” she said, giving him a glance that said that she wasn’t sure whether or not he should be allowed to be alone with children of any age. He liked that glance. Because he agreed with it. Maybe she’d take the baby home.
Alice. He had to start thinking of her in terms of her name. Alice.
“As for that, there’s nothing complicated about changing a diaper. You just want to make sure that you get the diaper area wiped clean, including in all the wrinkles, and there’s lots of wrinkles in the baby, without irritating her skin. Some babies have sensitive skin.”
“I sure hope Alice doesn’t. She needs to take it easy on me.”
“We’ll find out soon enough. I didn’t get any kind of diaper rash ointment or anything like that. But if you need it, I can.”
“I feel like you’ve done more than enough.”
“I just want you to know this is counting on my time that I owe you,” she said, and there was humor in her voice. Neither one of them were going to actually make her serve that time. She would spend the time with him whether she was forced to or not. Still, it was fun to tease her about it.
“All right. Got it. You’re on the clock.”
“Good. I hoped I was getting credit for this.”
She went on to show him how to change the diaper. It was obvious she was an old hand at it, since she didn’t stumble and fumble around the way he was sure he would.
“All right. This outfit seems like it’s clean, so I’m putting it back on her, but there were several changes of clothes in the bag. I…didn’t even think about getting clothes. What kind of girl am I?”
“The kind of girl who likes dogs and cows and has a lot of compassion in her heart for her friend when he’s in a bind.”
“All right. I can go with that.”
“Good. Because it is true.”
Alice had woken up, but she lay with her eyes blinking, looking around.
“I always heard that some babies are more attached to their mothers than others. I would say that if she’s fed, with a clean diaper, and you’ve burped her, and she’s still crying, then maybe there’s nothing more you can do other than to hold her, although if her crying gets irritating, you can just set her down. It’s not going to hurt anything for her to cry.”
She lifted her shoulder. “Ashley used to say that to me. When the baby was crying, she would usually hold them, but every once in a while, she would set them down in their crib and walk away from them. She said that she’d done everything she could and maybe he was just overstimulated and needed a little bit of breathing room. Almost every single time, he’d be asleep within ten minutes.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Yeah. There’s a lot of baby things that you can get—a swing, bouncer seat, they even have a vibrating bouncer seat now I saw at the store when I was grabbing the formula. But lots of people have raised babies without any of those things.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to be one of them. It feels like maybe I’m going to need every gadget known to man.”
“That’s one way to do it.” She smiled and then held Alice out, careful to balance her head on her hand while supporting her bottom with the other. “Here you go, Dad,” she said softly.
“Wow. I don’t think I’m quite adjusted to that.”
“I’m sure it’s going to take a bit.”
He looked up at her, not wanting to ask, but scared to death, and so the words came out. “Will you stay?”
She nodded immediately. “Of course.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “If you’re here, I know I can do it.”
“That’s so funny. You go clear to the underside of the world and spend five years in Brazil, and yet a night in your own house… If I didn’t know better, I would think you were making up an excuse just to continue to see me.”
“That’s possible,” he said, very seriously. But she just laughed.
Alice started to whimper, and he was scared that she was going to start wailing again, so he didn’t say anything more to Ellen but just tried to bounce the baby gently the way Ellen had been doing.
“I’ll make a bottle. Did you use hot water out of the tap?”
He nodded, not taking his eyes off Alice. “That’s right.”
She made a bottle, and Alice took it, but she didn’t go back to sleep.
He and Ellen ended up staying up until five o’clock in the morning, walking the floor with Alice who wouldn’t stop crying. He felt terrible, because she was probably missing her mom. And at some point, he figured he would probably just lay her down in her crib and let her sleep, but he didn’t want to do that this first night in a strange house with a strange person and none of the things that she was familiar with.
Ellen completely supported him and took turns with him walking the floor with her.
It didn’t seem nearly as hard with Ellen beside him. Funny how a good friend could make a hard job easier. He felt bad though, because she got no sleep before she had to leave to teach her aquatics class.
After everything she’d done for him, he knew he owed her big time, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to repay her. Especially now that his life had taken such a drastic turn.