173 Days #2
She had no idea what to do. She noticed Danny taking in Ekele’s tantrum, and a fearful thought gripped her; was Ekele going to undo all of her hard work?
She had been running a successful parental PR campaign for weeks; was Ekele tanking the brand?
Ekele pulled his hand back, winding up to smack Rhea in the face, but she grabbed his fat little wrist before his palm could connect with her cheek and horrify Danny any further.
“Gentle hands, please,” Rhea said, parroting a phrase she’d heard Ada say at least a thousand times.
“Do you—?” Danny began.
“He must be tired or something—He’s not usually like this—Kids aren’t normally like this!”
“Want me to…try?”
To Rhea’s horror, Danny reached for Ekele. She knew Danny would not be able to calm this kid down, and it was one thing to stand in a room with a screaming child, but it was another thing entirely to hold them while they screeched in your eardrum and tried to hit you in the face.
She almost ran out the front door with Ekele to prevent Danny from turning on children forever.
Then, because apparently Ekele hated Rhea this much, he reached for Danny.
The man he had only briefly glanced at while sobbing at Ada’s sprinkle was preferable to Aunt Rhea.
Danny took him, and he instantly stopped crying.
“I’m hungry,” Chichi said, completely unaware that her brother was the cruelest baby on earth.
“Who wants pizza?” Danny asked.
The children cheered excitedly. Rhea shook off Ekele’s mega dis; instead of wallowing in the ego bruise, she celebrated the narrow avoidance of a parental PR nightmare.
Rhea took out all the Italian essentials they’d brought from her house.
Danny put a cookie sheet and all the pizza ingredients on the floor, and they showed the kids how to shape the dough and spoon tomato sauce onto it.
Rhea grated mozzarella cheese, and the kids sprinkled it partly on the pizza but mostly on the floor.
Although the misshapen disaster looked nothing like a pizza, the kids were immensely proud of their creation.
While they waited for it to bake, Danny and Ekele made a fake pizza in a toy kitchen while Chichi drew a dinosaur going doo-doo on her teacher; Rhea was beginning to think Chichi hated her teacher, the woman who was “paid to spend time with her.” Rhea tried to relax into the evening, but she felt herself keeping a watchful eye over the proceedings to avoid any disasters that would make it impossible for her to ever bring up the idea of fatherhood again.
They ate the pizza on the floor because neither Danny, nor Rhea, nor Chichi could figure out how Ekele’s high chair worked.
Ekele demanded that Danny cut his slice into tiny pieces, and even then, he barely ate any of it.
Chichi ate almost two whole slices but picked up her final bite and chucked it across the room.
It landed on the already heavily stained couch, which seemed to sigh as it absorbed yet another blow to its battered dignity.
After dinner, they put the kids in a bubble bath and Rhea shampooed their hair while Danny distracted them with water battles, crashing a rubber octopus against a tugboat, resulting in a big splash. The kids thought it was hilarious and kept demanding he do it again.
Eventually, Rhea sensed that Danny was growing weary of the repetitive game, so in a chipper voice, she told the kids, “Okay, this is our last water battle! After this, those are all done.”
After Rhea finished shampooing Ekele’s hair, he happily announced, “I pooped.”
Danny subtly recoiled at the piece of fecal matter that bobbed to the surface of the water.
Chichi, however, lit up like it was the happiest moment of her life and screamed, “Doo-doo bath!”
“Okay, everybody out!” Rhea said in a high-pitched, upbeat voice that hopefully masked her panic.
After they got the kids out of the bath, Danny picked up the tugboat, saying he would use it to scoop up the feces, but Rhea yanked it out of his hand and shouted, “I’ll get it!”
She wanted to spare Danny as much dirty work as possible. She scooped the poop and flushed it down the toilet. They drained, cleaned, and refilled the tub. They washed the kids again and quickly got them out of the tub before Ekele had time to turn it back into a toilet.
Ekele demanded that Danny read him a story, and Rhea tried out one of Ada’s famous not-nos: “Yes, Danny will read you a story after you put on pajamas and brush your teeth.”
They happily got into their jammies—little stars for Chichi and little anchors for Ekele. Chichi brushed her teeth and showed Danny how to brush Ekele’s.
Chichi told Rhea they usually read books in Mommy and Daddy’s bed before they went to their own rooms, so Rhea grabbed a dozen books off a shelf in Chichi’s room, and they all piled in Ada and Marcus’s king-sized bed.
Rhea read a book about two brothers who built a fort on the moon.
Danny read a book about a little girl who did not like princesses.
Ekele fell asleep with his head on Danny’s chest; Danny carried him to his crib without waking him.
Rhea brought Chichi to her room and tucked her in, telling her one final joke before turning out her light.
As soon as Rhea met Danny in the hallway, Ekele yelled, “Uncle Danny!” and Rhea could not fathom how Ekele had remembered his name and put an “Uncle” in front of it.
Danny picked up a now sobbing Ekele and made up a story about a tugboat that intrigued Ekele enough that he cried a little softer.
Chichi called for “Ahree!”
Rhea sat on her bed and read her the book about the brothers building a fort on the moon one more time. Finally, Ekele let Danny put him back in his crib on the condition that Danny stay in the room until he fell asleep. Danny and Rhea sat on the floor until they heard the sound of heavy breathing.
Rhea and Danny brushed their teeth in bone-tired silence.
They climbed into the guest bed, kissed each other, and immediately closed their eyes.
Rhea’s fatigue was all-encompassing, and yet, she still found the energy to stress about how the evening had affected Danny’s opinion of parenting…
and worry about Ada, Marcus, and their baby…
and wonder if she would ever again get to spend another evening taking care of children with the man she loved.