Fifty-Five
Nina’d had a rough night, so Dune sent Bridie home to get some sleep and spend the morning with baby Jo.
As frequently happened, Nina seemed to settle and sleep just as the sky started to lighten.
He went down to the kitchen and Finn was sitting at the table in a robe and slippers, hair askew, gray whiskers prominent in the morning light.
He looked haggard. Not a word Dune would ever think to apply to his father.
Dune knew he wasn’t imagining that Finn was shrinking.
Nina’s loss would be most visceral, the hardest for Finn, but for most of Dune’s life, his father had been a sturdy tree, an elm or a maple, towering over everyone, sharing his canopy, providing strength.
“Dad?” Finn looked up with a start, smoothed his hair, smiled. Some of him was back. “Did you get some sleep?”
“A little.”
“Take tonight off, too. You should try to sleep more.”
Finn smiled and slowly stood, seeming to work to get his feet under him before he started walking. He put a hand on Dune’s shoulder. “Go home. I’ll take tonight. There will be plenty of time to sleep.”
Dune knew Clara was standing by, ready for the call to come home.
He was still skittish around Clara, even though Bridie wasn’t.
After Josephine was born, Bridie had struggled mightily.
She’d had a difficult pregnancy, an unduly long labor ending in a C-section.
Josephine was only two weeks old when Bridie developed a bad case of mastitis in her left breast and they’d had to work to get Jo to take a bottle, all while Bridie was feverish and heartsick.
Finally, when the infection started to clear and the pandemonium of the early weeks began to fall into a loose pattern, the depression had descended.
Dune had, reluctantly, called Clara. He didn’t know what else to do.
Honey thought Bridie was being indulgent.
“She needs a good. Long. Walk!” Nina and Finn were far away on a cruise, not expected home anytime soon.
Fern was working nights; he couldn’t ask her to come over during the day to help with a newborn.
Clara had swept into town like Mary Poppins with a bag full of tricks.
She’d cleaned and cooked and coaxed Bridie into the bath every night.
She was helpless with Josephine at first, but that was okay.
She became Bridie’s nurse, her caretaker and confidante.
When he heard them laughing one morning when he was trying to burp Josephine, the baby splayed across his lap in what seemed like a ludicrous position for a newborn but also worked, he startled.
He realized he hadn’t heard laughter in the house since they’d come home from the hospital with the baby.
He tiptoed into the bedroom and saw Bridie, fully dressed, trying to pull on a pair of boots.
“I got fat in my feet!” she was saying through tears of laughter.
“That’s not fat. You’re bloated, you fool.”
“Are you two going somewhere?” Dune asked.
“Oh yeah,” Bridie said. “A movie and lunch.” Dune stood dumbfounded. “I’m joking. We’re going to the doctor.”
“Good,” Dune said. “Good. You and Clara?”
“No,” Bridie said softly. “You and me. If you have time.”
“Give me this nugget,” Clara said, taking Jo and looking both bemused and terrified. “We’ll be fine, won’t we?” She lifted Jo’s tiny hand and waved it in Bridie and Dune’s direction. “Just don’t dawdle!”
“Are you sure?” Bridie said. “If you’re not comfortable—”
“I am great.” Clara gave Dune a look, a look that said, Get her out of here.
The SSRIs didn’t work overnight, but they worked within a few weeks, and as Clara packed for the airport, Bridie sat nearby nursing Jo. “I’ve been thinking,” she said.
“You keep thinking, Butch. It’s what you’re good at.”
“Dune always says that to me!”
“He does?” Clara turned away so Bridie wouldn’t see the look on her face. She was surprised to feel hurt.
“So dumb,” Bridie said.
“Yeah, it’s pretty dumb. What were you thinking about?”
“I was thinking”—Bridie paused in a way that made Clara suspect what was coming—“I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if you moved back here? Back home?”
Clara turned and looked at Bridie. Raised a brow.
“I mean it. Look at your niece. She adores you.”
“And I love her. But Bridie?”
“Yes?”
“Not a fucking chance.”
Bridie smiled and looked down at Jo. “We knew that’s what she would say. Right?”