About a year ago, Ken had been in a serious car crash and Jolene had worried herself sick about what they’d do if he couldn’t return to work. Fortunately, he did recover, but he’d been off work for months. Julie didn’t want to pry, but based on Jolene’s fears during her husband’s rehabilitation, she thought there was a good chance that she didn’t have much of an emergency fund.
The spaghetti was done and Julie was setting the table when Ken showed up. He never rang the doorbell, but just walked in as if he were simply returning as usual from a day at work. The children went running to him, throwing themselves into his arms, and Eddie and Lizzie competed to show him pieces of artwork they’d made. They’d mostly stopped asking him when he was going to move back in.
Julie dished up the kids’ plates and prepared a tray for Jolene and herself to share in Jolene’s bedroom. She excused herself politely and walked down the hallway to Jolene’s bedroom, and Jolene let her in at the first knock.
Jolene was a beauty, and pregnancy only enhanced her looks. Her long, wavy red hair framed her porcelain face. No freckles appeared anywhere on her smooth skin. It was often said that pregnant women had a special glow, but Julie, who’d seen her fair share of pregnant women, thought that most of them just looked tired. Not Jolene. She had an ephemeral beauty that Julie wished she shared. She had the same beautiful red hair, but instead of wearing it in loose waves around her shoulders as her sister did, Julie kept it a little shorter and usually ended up clipping it up into some kind of simple updo.
“Ken is here with the kids,” she said unnecessarily. “I figured I’d eat in here with you and let him have his time with them.”
“Did he say anything?” Jolene asked, in a way that Julie knew she meant to sound casual.
“Not really. Just said ‘hi’ and concentrated on the kids, pretty much. I don’t think he really wanted to talk to me.” Jolene picked at her dinner while Julie went to work on hers. There was nothing wrong with her own appetite — unfortunately, she thought. She’d love to take off 20 pounds, but nothing she did seemed to make a dent. Meanwhile, the only time her naturally slim and statuesque sister had a larger waistline than Julie’s was when she was pregnant.
“Come on, Jolene. You know you need to eat well,” Julie urged.
“I’m eating,” Jolene said, but Julie could see she really wasn’t. “I still don’t get what’s going on. If he had another woman, the rumor would have reached me by now, right? He’s living in that cheap little apartment by himself. I wish I could figure out what’s going on. My lawyer hasn’t heard a peep from him for two weeks, and he quit going to church.” Jolene had quit going as well. She felt too humiliated, especially since the church they’d attended as a family was a very traditional one.
“He’s probably too embarrassed,” Julie said. “I still say, if you want to go, just go. Surely they’ll be supportive of you. And if they’re not, you could always start going to a new church. Maybe it would be comforting to you.”
“Would you come with me?” Jolene asked, her green eyes boring into Julie’s. She was asking a lot, and she knew it. Julie had never been a church-goer. Neither had Jolene, until she’d married Ken, who came from a very religious family.
“I’ll go if it helps you,” Julie said. “You know I’m in your corner.” She took Jolene’s hand in hers and squeezed it. “I will go with you this Sunday if you will eat all your spaghetti and salad,” she said. “How’s that for a deal?”
“I’ll take it,” Jolene said, and she methodically ate her dinner with all the enjoyment she’d have given to a plate full of sand. But at least she ate.
From inside Jolene’s bedroom, they could hear the rambunctious sounds of Ken and the children interacting in the living room. He hadn’t been the most attentive father ever, Julie had always privately thought, but he must have enjoyed children to have wanted so many.
She assumed the reason he didn’t ask for overnight visitation was that he had moved into a one-bedroom apartment and just didn’t have room for them all to stay there. Perhaps once the finances were all sorted out, he’d get a larger place and would want more time with them. Jolene was being driven crazy trying to figure out what was going on in his mind.
“I’ve wondered if he could be gay,” Jolene suddenly said. “I was reading online. There are women who were married for years and never suspected a thing. That would explain a few things, wouldn’t it?”
“I honestly have no clue what’s going on with him. His lawyer isn’t responding to anything your lawyer sends?”
“Not a word. Part of me wants to just go out there and confront him, but I’m afraid if I do that again he might stop visiting the children. I don’t want to have any more angry scenes in front of them.” There had been a few such scenes already.
“Let’s just let the lawyers handle it. Keep interactions between the two of you minimal and civil,” Julie advised. “You’ve already seen what happens when you try to talk to him.”
Jolene sighed. “I guess you’re right. The whole thing just doesn’t make any sense. I’ve seen couples that have divorced after growing apart through the years. I’ve seen couples that have divorced when one of them is cheating or gambling away the grocery money or something like that. I’ve never known anybody whose husband wanted a divorce out of the blue for no reason like this. I just don’t understand it!” Jolene’s beautiful green eyes were red-rimmed, and more tears were spilling out.
Julie took her hand. “I’m here for you. It’s going to be OK.” Then she decided to change the subject and see if she could distract Jolene.
“So I had the postpartum follow-up with one of my clients today. Patty Gleason. She had a great labor but her rude brother was there and nearly threw off her confidence by telling her she should get in bed and take drugs because this isn’t the dark ages. He seemed better today at the home visit. He’s essentially doing the same thing I’m doing, living with a sibling to cut living expenses.”
“Is her husband around?”
“Well, he travels a lot for work, apparently. But they’re not separated or anything. So anyway, the brother’s name is Nick, but my secret name for him is Mr. Shampoo Commercial because of the way he keeps running his hands through his perfect hair. Like this,” she said. Her shoulder-length red hair was down for once, so she was able to dramatically slide her hands through her hair, adding a little head toss and making an exaggerated face as she did it. Jolene laughed.
“Perfect hair? Be careful. I thought you were done with men?”
“Oh, don’t worry. Even if I weren’t done with guys, he’d be the last one I’d consider. I don’t take kindly to men trying to order women into staying in bed and taking drugs so they can be quiet little baby-birthers for male comfort.”
“Also, you’re jealous that he has better hair,” Jolene teased.
“I am not jealous that he has better hair,” Julie said. “My hair is fine. Not as glorious as yours, of course. That goes without saying.”
“Show me that little move again,” Jolene said. “I need to practice my shampoo commercial look.” She mimicked an over-the-top version of Julie’s already exaggerated Nick move.”
“I could almost feel sorry for the dude,” Julie said. “If he only knew how we were mocking him.”
“I think you like Mr. Shampoo Commercial,” Jolene said.
“Hardly. He’s an ass.”
“Good with the baby, though?”
“Oh, he even changed a poopy diaper for Patty while I was there. I give him points for that, I guess.”
“Your kids will have fantastic hair, no doubt,” Jolene said, her eyebrows raised.
Julie threw a pillow at her. “Stop it, Jolene.”
“Help! Pregnant woman being attacked!” Jolene said, and threw the pillow back at her. Julie’s phone buzzed and she glanced at the screen, suddenly serious.
“Client in labor?” Jolene asked.
“No, Patty is at the hospital, bleeding badly. Nick is asking me
to come. Sounds scary, honestly. I gotta go. I’ll text you later.”
Without another word, she hurried to her room to retrieve her bag. She passed Ken and the children, sparing them only a wave as she rushed out to her car.
A follow-up text specified that she should come to Patty’s house, so she did. Fortunately, Fairview was a small enough town that the drive was short.
Nick answered the door at once. Baby Jameson was in his arms, crying at the top of his little lungs, and both the man and the baby looked very upset.
“Thank God. I didn’t know who else to call,” he said, motioning her in.
“What happened to Patty?”
“She was bleeding a lot, so she’s at the hospital and Brad is with her. I’m waiting for news. In the meantime, I told them I could handle Jameson and Matthew, and Matthew is napping, but I honestly don’t know how to feed Jameson. I can’t bug them right now. I figured you’d know what to do, and your number was on the fridge, so you’re who I called.” He flung open the freezer, where a row of frozen bags of breastmilk were neatly stacked flat in the back, each containing two or three ounces of pumped milk.
“So we have milk, but it’s frozen. And it’s in these bags. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. She’s been nursing him. He’s never had a bottle. I couldn’t ask Mom. She thinks nursing is gross. She bottle fed us.”
Poor Jameson was gnawing his fist and howling.
“OK. We’ve got this. Do you know if she has any bottles in the house?”
“Yes. Matthew had one once in a while,” Nick said. He rummaged through a cabinet and triumphantly produced one.
“Give that a good wash, first of all,” Julie said. “We don’t know how long it’s been in there. I’ll prepare the milk.”
Patty had dated each bag. The earlier bags were golden yellow with colostrum, and the more recent ones were somewhat whiter. She decided to skip the pure colostrum of the first two bags in case they were needed someday when Jameson was sick. She chose the third-oldest bag and showed Nick what to do.
“I’m going to place this in a glass,” she said, choosing one from the cupboard. “And then I’ll run warm water over it. It will thaw in no time.”
She passed the glass under the running water to fill it, bumping into Nick, who had placed the sobbing baby in the nearby bassinet and was madly scrubbing the bottle as if he believed it had been last used to hold plague virus. Julie didn’t say anything. He was clearly scared for his sister and he wasn’t hurting anything by over-washing it. He rinsed all the parts under very hot water about a dozen times before he was satisfied.
“Now what?” Jameson was still crying alone in his bassinet, and Nick picked him up, absently bouncing him as he spoke.
“Now we have to thaw and warm the milk,” Julie said. “See, it’s already pretty much there. Watch.” She opened the bag and very carefully poured the contents into the bottle, using her fingers to squeeze out every possible drop. Then she screwed on the nipple and held up the bottle. “Just a little more than two ounces. Let’s see how he takes this,” she said.
Nick lifted Jameson from the bassinet and offered him the nipple. Jameson just screamed and turned his head away.
“Let me try,” Julie said. Nick handed her the baby. Julie had seen nurses work with babies who didn’t want to take bottles and she tried a few of the tricks she’d seen them use. “Next time will be easier,” she said. “He’ll recognize that this is food, and next time we will start trying when he’s not frantically hungry. He’ll get it. You’ll see.”
She squeezed a drop of the milk onto the baby’s lips and he licked it, and then she did it again. By the third drop, he accepted the nipple and began to suck in earnest. Nick’s sigh of relief was as loud as her own.
“We don’t want him to drink it too fast. We want to try to mimic nursing to the extent that’s possible. So hold him more upright, like this,” she explained. “And hold the bottle like this,” she said, demonstrating. “It’s called pace feeding. We don’t want him to get used to milk just flowing into his mouth effortlessly or he might develop issues with nursing.” Jameson had by this time finished most of the milk, and he seemed much more content.
“That wasn’t much milk. Should we thaw another bag now?” Nick said.
“Not sure. Let’s wait and see. We don’t want to waste any of Patty’s milk. This might be enough for a couple of hours. His tummy is tiny and this is probably about what he’d get if he were nursing from Patty.” She opened the freezer and counted bags. There were nine of them.
“We probably have a little less than a day’s worth of milk in here,” she said. Jameson had fallen asleep as he finished the bottle, and Julie burped him and then carefully returned him to the bassinet.
“Please tell me what happened to Patty,” she said. “She had a textbook normal birth and she seemed great when I visited. You don’t expect postpartum hemorrhage in a case like hers.”
“She said she felt perfectly recovered and announced she was going to do some organizing in the basement. Next thing we knew, she let out a yell and Brad ran down there and saw that she was bleeding. She was apparently lifting heavy boxes off the shelves, and even I know she shouldn’t have been doing that. I’m nervous to text Brad in case they’re in the middle of something, but I’m scared to death.” He covered his face with his hands and Julie could see that he was trying very hard not to cry in front of her.
“I’ll just go look in on Matthew,” she said, quietly standing and heading toward the other end of the house. She didn’t actually know which door led to Matthew’s but it was obvious as she walked down the hall by the giant, colorful “M” posted on one door. She quietly opened the door a crack. Matthew was sound asleep, so she slowly tiptoed back to the living room, giving Nick some time to compose himself.
By the time she returned, he had.
“All’s good with Matthew,” she said. “But I imagine he’s going to want dinner when he wakes up. Would you like some assistance with that?”
“Would you help with that?” Nick asked. “Really?”
“Really,” Julie said. She opened the refrigerator. “What about grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and baby carrots? Will he eat that?”
“Perfect,” Nick said.
“You want one too?”
Nick looked uncomfortable. “You don’t have to cook for me,” he said.
“Actually, I’m just being a good postpartum doula,” she said. “One of the things we do is help take care of the family so the mother can take care of the baby. Or, in this case, get emergency care for herself.”
She poked around in the cabinets and was able to find everything she needed and she busied herself with preparing two grilled sandwiches. Even though she’d just had spaghetti with Jolene, the delicious smell of the grilled ham and cheese sandwich had whipped up her appetite, and she guessed he’d feel less self-conscious eating if she joined him. She put the plates on the kitchen table and he filled two glasses with water. She pointed to the bag of carrots.
“Eat your veggies, Nick,” she teased. “The doula says so.”
Nick looked embarrassed. “OK, you did offer to tell me about what a doula does. How about now?”
“OK,” she said. “I could literally give you a speech, like I do for my pregnant clients I teach. But I’ll boil it down for you. The word ‘doula’ is Greek for ‘slave,’ so not necessarily the word I’d have chosen, but there you are. There are doulas who just do births, there are doulas who just help families afterward, and there are some who do both. I generally just teach childbirth classes and do the births, and then I always check in on them and get their perspective on how they think the birth went. Once in a while I help out afterward, but not often.”
“I’m super thankful you were able to come. Patty had said she’d teach me how to prepare a bottle from the frozen milk later. We thought we had plenty of time before we’d have to worry about it.”
“I’m glad you called me. Look how deeply
Jameson is sleeping, now that his tummy is full.”
“So what happens when I run out of milk?”
“Well, let’s wait to hear what’s happening to Patty. With luck, they’re mostly keeping an eye on her and giving her a stern talking-to for lifting heavy stuff. She might be home momentarily. But if not, we’ll see if they’ll let the baby come to her to nurse, or if she’s pumping milk at the hospital we can go collect it as needed. And there’s always formula if we need it,” she said. “But Patty is going to be motivated to pump regularly, for her own comfort as much as to feed Jameson.”
“It won’t be too hard on her?”
“Actually, the act of nursing or pumping helps reduce the bleeding because it causes the uterine muscles to contract. I could talk about this stuff all day, but I get that most people are bored or skeeved out by it. So I’ll stop there.”
Matthew was up from his nap. He walked into the room, but grew shy when he saw Julie. Nick lifted him into his arms. “Hungry?”
Matthew nodded. Julie was already heating the pan to make another sandwich.
“Offer him some carrots while I cook his grilled cheese,” she said. “Slick trick of Jolene’s I’ve learned is to serve veggies first, while they’re still hungry. Before they get the yummy main dish.”
“Jolene is your sister, you said?”
“Yes. I’ve been living there for a few months now. It’s been a learning experience, for sure.”
“Tell me about it,” said Nick, who was holding Matthew and encouraging him to eat the baby carrots.
Julie cut the finished sandwich into fourths and arranged them on a plate. “Here you go,” she said to Matthew.
“Where’s Mommy?” the child finally asked.
Nick and Julie shared a look.
“Mommy had to go bye-bye for a while, but she’ll be back,” Nick said. “Julie is helping us a little bit tonight.”
Perfect Fit (Small-Town Secrets-Fairview Series Book 4) Page 3
