by Julia Kent
Amanda finds a hooded towel that has spikes up the back like a dinosaur. It's pink and yellow and adorable.
“Tell me later, Gina?” Amanda says, then clamps her hand over her mouth.
It's truly contagious?
See. It is.
Within five minutes, I've given Gina a series of decisions and she's off to execute them, leaving me standing in the living room, Amanda wrestling Ellie's right arm into a pair of Dalmatian-inspired pajamas, her dark, wispy hair in need of combing.
“Here.” Amanda thrusts the wide-toothed comb at me. “You do this part.”
How hard can combing a toddler's hair be?
I pick her up and set her on the floor in front of the sofa, then put the comb on top of her head, barely pressing.
She becomes a fire-engine siren in petite human form, then runs across the room, scrambling over the cocktail table like she's in Special Ops training and a bear is trying to eat her.
Amanda snickers.
“Ellie,” I say in a goofy voice. “Time to comb your hair.”
“No.”
“It's messy.”
Her hand goes to the dark brown tangle. “No.”
“You have to.”
“AAAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!”
Amanda sidles up next to me, her finger in her ear as she says loudly, “Are you sure this is the hill you want your eardrums to die on?”
“You told me to do it!”
“Comb your own hair and smile while you do it.”
I look at the princess comb. “What?”
“Show her how combing your hair doesn't hurt. Then she'll be more likely to try it.”
“There is no way that will work.”
“AAAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!”
“And your current approach will?”
I lift my hand with the comb in it, spines down, and make sure to catch Ellie's eye.
She says, “Uncadoo comb.”
I nod. “I'm combing my hair. See?” I move the princess comb down my hair from scalp to end, making a mental note to have Gina schedule a haircut for me sooner than usual. Did Amanda's pregnancy make my hair grow faster?
“Comb Uncadoo.”
“I am.”
“WAN COMB!!! AIIIIIIEEEEEEE!”
Yet another woman completely and utterly confusing me.
“I think,” Amanda shouts over the fracas, “she wants to comb your hair.”
For the first time all evening, Chuckles appears. He's Shannon's old cat, Lucifer himself shoved into fifteen pounds of furry beast, and he looks at me with half-lidded eyes that clearly say, Sucker.
I lift the comb from my scalp and bend down, offering it to Ellie. “You want to comb Uncle Andrew's hair?”
She snatches the comb, then lasers in on Chuckles. “Comb kitty!”
By my estimate, Shannon's cat is pushing fifteen or sixteen, which isn't ancient by cat standards, but he's no spring chicken. But his legs sprint like Vince is on his ass, threatening to make him drink a melted beef-heart-fat energy drink with a grape-seed extract anti-mold chaser.
“You can't comb the kitty, Ellie,” I patiently explain, taking my role as morality shaper for my niece seriously.
“AAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!”
“She really doesn't like being told no,” Amanda says under her breath as I wipe imaginary blood off my earlobe from the eardrum rupture I'm certain just happened.
Chuckles runs into her bedroom. I see a giant stuffed animal in a corner wobble a bit. That cat is smart. I eye Amanda, who is looking more and more elephantine these days.
At the rate Ellie's going, I might need to take cover behind my wife.
“Want to comb my hair?” Amanda asks. Ellie's scream turns into a single sniffle, then a huge grin as she toddles over to Amanda and shoves the comb in her hair so hard that Amanda gasps.
“Practice,” she mutters.
“Practice?”
“For our boys.”
I snort. “We never combed our mom's hair. Put a frog in it? Sure. Comb? Never.”
“I think,” she grunts as Ellie yanks the comb down Amanda's waves, “I'll take a frog over this.” She reaches for Ellie's wrist and gently grasps it. “Ellie? Can you comb softer?”
“Soff,” Ellie repeats.
“Yes. Gentle.”
Ellie's downward stroke yields about 20 strands of hair in the comb as Amanda grimaces.
I look at the clock. Forty-four minutes to bedtime.
Little kids can't read clocks, so how would she know the actual bedtime? We can aim for 6:45, right?
“What's next?” I ask Amanda.
“We still have to comb her hair. Then read some books. Then brush teeth.”
“We only have forty-four minutes to do all that.”
“You're watching the clock?”
“AAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!” Ellie screams as the comb hits a knot in Amanda's hair.
“Damn right,” I say as I scoop my niece up, careful to disengage her hand from the comb first, and we go into her bedroom. I plunk her on the chair and give her a raspberry on the tummy.
The screams turn to giggles. Still ear shattering, but qualitatively different.
A long time ago, Declan told me the secret to dealing with his two nephews, Jeffrey and Tyler, was to talk about poop and turn everything into a game. The poop part won't work with Ellie, but the second part fits: turn everything we do into a game.
Just then, Chuckles makes a lazy appearance.
And Ellie pounces.
You need to understand that while Chuckles loves my brother, he hates me. Loathes me. It's as if Declan intentionally turned his cat against me as sublimation for his jealousy of my success.
Yeah, I know it sounds far fetched.
But my brother is that disturbed when it comes to competing with me.
Ellie grabs Chuckles' tail, and while I know the cat's not going to hurt her, I go into protective mode.
“SPPPHHHT!” Chuckles emotes, glaring at me as if I'm the one shoving the comb into his back.
“No!” I say firmly, carefully lifting Ellie's comb-clutching hand off the poor cat, while Amanda works on her tail hand.
“UNCADOO!” Ellie wails, as if I've wounded her.
Chuckles shoots me another killer look. If he had fingers, two would be pointed at me, then at his eyes. Jimmy Hoffa may have been offed by this cat's ancestors.
“AAAAAIIIIIIEEEEE!” Ellie screams, the comb held against her chest. “Wan Chuck!”
“How much beer can I reasonably drink and still be responsible for a child?” I ask my wife.
“This question reminds me of New Year's Eve in 2018.”
“Hey! We weren't babysitting, and I could still walk after all those shots with Vince.”
“You were the child that night, Andrew, and the answer is three. Three beers.”
Ellie abruptly stops crying, holds the comb out to me, and says, “Comb.”
Giving Amanda a wary look, I start combing her damp hair as Amanda gives her a doll to play with. One minute later, we're done.
Storm over.
“I know you want to check on work,” Amanda whispers. “I'll handle reading time.”
“What? No! That's the best part.”
“Shannon says they read Goodnight Moon every night, then two other books. I'll do the two, and you come in for Goodnight Moon.”
“What's that?”
She reads the first line of the book. Some piece of my heart starts to wake up.
I recite the second line with her and she gives me an appreciative look.
“You do know children's books!”
“No. Not really. Just a memory of my mom and dad.”
“And dad?”
“Yeah. When he was home around bedtime–which was rare–if Mom read us that book, he'd say “hush” for the role of the quiet old lady. Dad's head would pop into the room suddenly, the word “hush” would come out in his baritone, and we'd giggle.”
“We?”
“Me. Decla
n. Maybe Terry? I think he was too old by then.”
“How old are you in the memory?”
I shake my head. “No idea. But young.”
“Book!” Ellie gasps, toddling across her bedroom to the bookshelf. She begins flinging books off the shelf as if she’s looking for something.
Was Amanda’s offer a test? If I take her up on the offer to go work, do I fail somehow? It's certainly more appealing to sit with them and read picture books, the experience a glimpse into our future as parents, but reality needs to be acknowledged, too.
I'm the CEO of a major company.
I have responsibilities.
For the next twenty minutes, I triage my texts and emails, answering the hair-on-fire situations, amazed at how quickly I can work when I know time is limited.
Maybe parenting is the ultimate form of essentialism. Time spent away from your kids comes at a cost.
Better be worth it.
“Andrew?” I look up to find Amanda standing there, holding Ellie on her hip, our niece yawning.
“Oh. Right. Tooth brushing and–”
“It's all done. Just need Goodnight Moon.”
“Moooonnnnn!” Ellie yawns.
Her room has a crib, an upholstered chair, more toys than a toy shop, and a shelf of books. Goodnight Moon is an orange and green square on the chair's seat. We settle in, Ellie against my chest.
She turns the first thick board-book page and before I can say a word, she recites:
“Gay gee oom, teyfone. Yed boon...”
I guess I'm just the holder. She's the reader.
Amanda's got her phone out, snapping pictures surreptitiously. As Ellie “reads,” I find the chair too comfortable not to relax, the intonation of her words hypnotic. Here, I'm in a world I don't control, where the hardest decision is whether to comb a toddler's hair, and where just being present is all that's required of me.
I could get used to this.
“Nite ey whey,” she says dramatically, closing the book and giving me a closed-mouth smile that reminds me of Shannon. “Ah done.”
“All done,” I repeat, kissing the top of her head.
Tucking her into her crib is easy. She settles down fast, and I tiptoe out, feeling accomplished. The distance from her room to the living room is short, and Amanda's been gone for less than five minutes, but when I arrive, I find my wife fast asleep on the sofa, her head on a huge throw pillow, body curled on her side, feet propped on an ottoman.
How often do you get to just watch your gorgeous partner in stillness?
My laptop pings with a notification, and next thing I know, I'm deep in work. Hours pass, punctuated only by Amanda turning slightly, or my body's need for bio breaks. I go into a work flow state, hyperfocused.
The click of the front door opening makes me look up from my laptop, a smiling Shannon and Declan walking in, her eyes immediately landing on my sleeping wife.
“Ellie tire her out?”
“Everything tires her out.” I close my laptop. “How was your evening?”
“Great.” Declan looks down the hall. “Ellie okay?”
“Sleeping like a baby.”
He gives me a sour look. “You're about to learn how vile that saying really is.”
“We fed her. Bathed her. I combed her hair,” I say pointedly, earning a squint from Shannon, “read to her, put her to bed, and–”
“MAMA!” Ellie screams, suddenly in the hall, running for Shannon like she's an Olympic sprinter.
“Uh huh. Put her to bed. Right.”
“How'd she get out of her crib?” I ask, incredulous.
“Monkey toes,” Shannon says with a look that makes it clear this isn't Ellie's first breakout.
“She's been asleep for four hours!”
“Sure, bro.” He gives me a hug and a yawn at the same time as Amanda sits up, rubbing her eyes.
“I fell asleep?” she asks, picking up Declan's contagious yawn.
All I can do is nod, now in the throes of my own jaw stretching. Exhaustion washes over me.
“Here,” Shannon says, returning from the kitchen with Ellie on her hip, holding a glass of water. “Drink this.”
Amanda takes the glass without comment and does as told, rubbing the small of her back with her free hand.
Shannon yawns. Ellie pats her chest and says, “Milk,” then gives her the saddest little pouty smile, big eyes used to her advantage.
With a laugh, Shannon heads toward the bedroom. She waves. “Thank you so much, guys, but the queen demands me at court.”
“So does mine,” I say as I put my arm around Amanda's waist and guide her to the door. She leans into me, my instincts correct.
“Thanks,” Dec says, eyes tired, but face filled with more emotion than usual.
“Thank you. She's adorable, and I learned something tonight,” I tell him.
“What's that?” he asks as Amanda yawns again, moving into the hall.
“When they write my real obituary, sixty years from now, it needs to include Uncadoo.”
11
Amanda
“You want a piece of white cheese,” Tyler says to me as Carol and I sit at her dining table, a plate piled with cheese cubes and carrots in front of us. The roasted cauliflower hummus is half gone, most of it in my stomach, feeding the babies.
“Go ahead, Tyler, but that's the last one,” Carol says to him. He snatches two and runs off.
“I thought you said one piece?” I point out to her, chuckling as Tyler glares at me from the door for even mentioning his thievery.
She laughs. “He refuses to take anything in an odd number. Has to be even. If you give him nine Skittles, he'll ask for a tenth. If you don't have any more, he'll make you take one and eat it, so he has eight.”
“That's quirky.”
“That's Tyler.”
Now nine, he's a tiny little thing for his age, and he reminds me more of a five- or six-year-old than the third grader he is. Carol kept him back a year, his summer birthday making it easy. But he turns ten soon, and yet he's so little-kid-like.
“I really like him,” I confess, feeling self-conscious for reasons I don't understand.
Carol beams, but asks, “Why do adults always say that, but poor Tyler can't make a friend his own age to save his life?”
“Really? He's so–”
“Amanda! Four ropes on the rescue game!” Tyler pipes up.
“Yeah?”
“Four! Four more!”
He runs back into the living room, the distinct sound of a video game playing. Then he appears again, iPad in hand, and sits on the chair next to mine, leaning on my arm, chewing what I assume are the two pieces of cheese he took earlier.
“He's so sweet. And happy.”
“Try teaching him to shower,” Carol says with a shudder.
“NO SHOWER!” Tyler yells, but his eyes are fixed on the screen.
“See?”
“Why don't you like showers?” I ask Tyler, who reluctantly gives me a split second of eye contact before going back to the game, but he snuggles in at my side.
“Don't like water in your eyes.”
“I don't, either,” I tell him.
That makes him look up. “It feels yucky.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Yucky is bad.”
“Hmmm. Sometimes,” I say, earning myself a skeptical look.
“Yucky is always bad. Always,” he emphasizes. And then he spends a full minute repeating something from a video game he watches, the words and numbers not making sense.
“Twenty minutes of screen time left, Tyler,” Carol says to him. “See the timer?”
He looks up. “Okay.” Then back to his game.
Carol sighs, motioning for me to follow her outside to her patio. She and the boys live in a simple little Cape, smaller than her parents' home and definitely more run down, but it's a decent place. Until a few years ago, she didn't have a steady, full-time job with benefits like the one she has with Anter
dec. I know Shannon and Declan try to get her to accept their help, but other than help with Tyler’s expensive therapy or access to certain specialists, she turns them down.
Pride is very real in the Jacoby family.
“He's talking to me more,” I say as we settle down, my back groaning from the Adirondack chair. Carol's eyebrow goes up.
“He is. Most of it's nonsense.”
“I thought it was his way of trying to participate in a conversation.”
“It is. It's part of the reason why the specialists say he's not on the autism spectrum. But it's still nonsense half the time.”
“It used to be most of the time, though, so that's progress, right?” Some piece of me needs to be hopeful right now. I'm not sure why, but it's important to think of Tyler as getting better. Progressing.
Improving.
A wan smile is all I get. “You sound like my dad.”
“There are worse things in life than being compared to Jason. I'll take that as a compliment.”
Carol's eyes drift to my growing belly as she takes a sip of wine that I instantly envy. “You're asking me because you're worried.”
I blink. Is it bad manners to admit that? With so much of this pregnancy stuff, and the prospect of actually parenting two little human beings, I feel like I have been dumped into the craziest work project ever without a map or any tools. And there's a looming deadline in twelve weeks that has no room for leeway.
Or mistakes.
“It's normal to be worried,” she adds, as if reading my mind. “Although I wasn't.” She frowns. “When I was pregnant with either of them. I was more worried about Todd than I was about either of my fetuses.”
“He was an actual problem. The kids were just potential ones.” I clap my hand over my mouth before I say more.
See? I was about to call her kids problems.
“I get it. I know what you mean. And Jeffrey was so easy. Smart and talkative and adventurous, and I assumed that's what Tyler would be like. But then we got a totally different kid. He was smart, but wouldn't talk. Didn't seem to listen. Kind of floppy, too. Low energy.”
“I remember when Shannon told me you'd enrolled in early intervention. How scared you were, and how you had to fight Todd about it.”
She groans and rolls her eyes. “He was such a jerk about it. All he kept saying was 'He's fine! I don't produce defective kids.'”
