Just 18 Summers

by Rene Gutteridge

  Beth turned and looked at him. “No, he didn’t.”

  “Yes, he did. I never told you.”

  “My dad? That doesn’t sound like him.”

  “I know. He’s typically a laid-back, easygoing guy. When I asked for your hand, he simply said yes. But he wanted me to know something that day—that I better move heaven and earth to take care of you.”

  “I had no idea.” Beth wiped her hands and ran her fingers through her hair. “But you’re that kind of guy, Larry. You’ve always held a steady job, always had ambitions.”

  “Listen, it’s all going to work out.”

  Beth shook her head, moving into his arms. “I don’t think it will. We always say that, but I don’t think it’s going to work out.” She leaned her head against Larry’s shoulder. “Above all else in this world, I want our kids to be happy.”

  “Beth, Robin is happy.”

  “It’s the kind of happiness that a pizza oven is going to burn to a crisp.” She stepped back from him, sniffling. “You’ve got it easy. Flying kites. Whipped cream fights. The boys are loving it. They seem like they’re having so much fun.”

  “I’m going to have to go back to work in a couple of weeks, and then what?”

  “You and the boys, you’re living in the moment. That’s the way it should be, even if it’s only five minutes.” She sighed. “Maybe I should do more stuff with you guys. With all this Robin drama, maybe I’m not paying enough attention to the boys—though if I feed them and do their laundry, they always seem perfectly content with me.”

  Larry smiled. “I’ll give some more thought to things we can do as a family. We have to make this summer count.”

  CHAPTER 26

  DAPHNE

  THE DOORBELL RANG just as Daphne finished organizing her diapers from smallest to largest in the nursery.

  “Honey, can you get that?” Daphne called, but she didn’t hear Tippy answer, so she went to the door. Opening it, she was greeted by Ava, who walked right in without being invited. But Daphne only smiled.

  “Hi, Butch,” Daphne said. She gave him a hug. “I’m looking forward to spending some time with Ava.”

  “Oh, good. Very good. She is too. Been talking about it all day.”

  Tippy rounded the corner, smoothing his shirt as he walked down the hallway.

  “I’m glad you and Tippy can spend some time together outside work.”

  For some reason Daphne thought Butch looked alarmed by that statement, but she didn’t dwell on it. It was obvious the man was having a hard time. Without Jenny, he probably didn’t know which way was up.

  “Hey, Butch,” Tippy said and slapped him so hard on the back that Butch stumbled. “Oh, sorry. I’m just so excited to go eat hot wings.”

  “Yeah, and watch that game you’ve been so excited about,” Butch said.

  “So excited about,” Tippy said, his head bobbing up and down.

  They both looked at Daphne and smiled.

  “Well, don’t stay too long,” Daphne said. “I can’t stay up late anymore.” She looked at Butch. “My back’s been killing me. I’m getting no rest.”

  Butch smiled. “Just wait until the baby gets here.”

  “We’re doing the Baby Sleep Wave method. It’s where you sync your baby’s sleep waves to your own so she doesn’t wake up unless you do. It’s tried and true. Apparently it’s how the cavemen did it.”

  Butch smirked. “How do they know that?”

  Tippy stepped forward, actually between the two of them, and said, “She knows what she’s talking about. She’s done hours of research and also bought the podcasts and the book. Well, listen, we better get going. We’ll be home soon.”

  “Thanks again for watching Ava,” Butch said, and they were out the door.

  Daphne turned to Ava. “So it’s just us girls! How fun, huh?”

  Ava was glancing around the room. “What’s with the pool noodles?”

  “They’re not pool noodles. Well, they are. They’re pool noodles repurposed as corner protectors. It’s an inexpensive way to keep the baby safe. If she falls, she’ll be totally protected. Every corner is covered. Every ledge.” Daphne made a sweeping motion across the room.

  “See this scar here?” Ava asked, pointing to her forehead. Daphne leaned in. “I fell when I was one and a half and split my forehead open.”

  “Hitting a ledge?” Daphne asked with a small smile.

  “Nope. Just the carpet. Came down so hard it ripped ’er right open.”

  Daphne’s heart skipped a beat. She glanced down at the carpet. “Was it Berber?”

  “No idea.”

  Was her carpet plush enough? She hadn’t even thought of that.

  Ava had her hands clasped behind her back. “So you’re having a girl?”

  “Well,” Daphne said, guiding her into the kitchen, “we won’t know for sure until she’s born. Tippy really wanted to be surprised. But . . .” She lowered her voice even though Tippy was nowhere in the house. “Just between us, there is a 98 percent chance she’s a girl.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “There’s a complex calculation you can do concerning body temperature, the moon cycles, and your consumption of soy the week the baby is conceived. According to Pinterest, it’s extremely accurate.”

  “Oh, cool.”

  “So what would you like for dinner? I can stir-fry some organic bok choy with grass-fed beef.”

  “Oh. That sounds awful. I don’t want that.”

  Daphne gently put her hands on the counter. “I don’t want that, please, is what I believe you were trying to say.”

  Ava’s eyes widened. “I don’t have a mommy to teach me manners.”

  Daphne’s hand moved over her mouth and her throat swelled with regret. “Oh, Ava, I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . I’m just an advocate for manners in young people and I . . . I’m so sorry.”

  Ava looked down and shook her head. When she looked up, her cheeks were wet. “No, Daphne, I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “It’s kind of mean of me.”

  “It wasn’t mean. It was just bad manners not to say ‘please’ or ‘no thank you.’”

  “No . . . it was mean of me to say I don’t have a mommy. I say that a lot when I’m in trouble at school because it gets me out of things. I shouldn’t do that, I know. Sometimes I do it to make my mommy mad because I know she wouldn’t approve, but she’s not here to tell me that and so I do it just to make her wish she were here.”

  Daphne reached for Ava’s hand. “Oh, honey, your mom wishes she were here. Don’t you know that?”

  “People aren’t supposed to want to come back from heaven. She’s probably happy there.”

  “Yes. I think so. But she wants to be with you too.” Daphne bit her lip. She was no theologian and was not sure she was answering it right.

  Ava shrugged. “What’s bok choy?”

  “Will you trust me to make you something fabulous?”

  “I usually eat pizza.”

  “So aren’t you ready for something a little different?”

  “Is this like cooking-show different?”

  Daphne nodded, hoping Ava wouldn’t ask for boxed mac and cheese instead.

  “Okay. I’ll try it. But if I don’t like it, can I not eat it if I’m polite about not eating it?”

  Daphne laughed. “Deal.” She began getting the ingredients out of the fridge.

  “Are you scared to have a baby?” Ava asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “My mom said my dad had his first anxiety attack the day I was born.”

  Daphne chuckled. “There’s nothing to fear if you’re prepared. I’ve done a lot of reading, taken a lot of classes. That’s the key to it all. If you’re prepared, you’ll know what to do when something happens. I even took an eight-week online course. I feel very assured that nothing is going to go wrong.” She tried to say it with confidence as she pulled her stir-fry pan out of the cabinet, t
ook the knife out of the triple-locked drawer, and began thinly slicing the sirloin.

  “So . . . how do you know that knife isn’t going to slip and cut your finger off?” Ava asked, resting her chin in her hand.

  At that very moment, the knife did slip, but only because it was such a shocking question to come from such a little girl. “Well, because I know how to use a knife. I know where to put my fingers and how to hold it so I’m safe.”

  Ava nodded. “You really do seem very safe. My dad’s not safe. You should see him walk across a room with scissors. It’ll make you shiver.”

  Daphne tossed the beef in the oiled pan. “You’ll have to see the crib. No covers, no bumpers, nothing in there that can harm the baby. That’s just one of dozens of things Tippy and I have done to prepare.”

  “Well,” Ava said, “you’re probably going to need to take those handles off the cabinets and drawers.”

  “Why?”

  “When I was two, I walked straight into one and tore the top of my ear off.” Ava lifted her hair. “See? Where that chunk is missing?”

  Daphne peered at it. “Really? From a handle?”

  “Yep. And also, I should tell you about the toilet.”

  Daphne moved the meat and bok choy around in the pan. “I’m on top of that. We have locks on all the toilets.”

  “When I was four, my mom came into the bathroom and I had the plunger stuck to my cheek.”

  Daphne almost dropped her wooden spoon. “What? On your face?”

  “Yeah. I thought it was funny. Obviously my mom freaked out.”

  Daphne felt a little sick to her stomach.

  “And listen, I have to tell you about something else, and it’s really disturbing. But you should know about it.” Ava leaned in and spoke very quietly. “I only heard about it from Carson in my class, who heard about it from Joey. And maybe I shouldn’t tell you because I don’t know if there’s anything you can do about it, really.”

  Daphne braced herself against the counter, staring at Ava. “I should know. I have to know. There’s always something you can do. I have eighteen books to prove it.”

  “Well, apparently head lice is more contagious than the flu. Those little suckers can jump from kid to kid at school, and before you know it, the whole class has them. Then your whole family gets them. It could probably wipe out a neighborhood in a week. Carson said there’s nothing you can do except boil everything in your house.”

  Daphne felt the first stages of hyperventilation. She waved her hand like she understood and dumped the food onto a plate before the vegetables were tender. “Excuse me for a moment. I have to go check on something.” She swiped her phone from the counter.

  “But the thing is,” Ava said, resting her chin on her hand again as she watched the steam rise from the plate, “you can do everything to protect someone. Everything in the world, you know? But then a truck runs a stop sign and they’re gone. My dad says there was nothing Mommy could’ve done. She never saw it coming. So sometimes things just happen that you can’t stop. Can I watch TV while I eat?”

  Daphne nodded, clutched the phone, hurried to the bathroom, and locked herself inside.

  CHAPTER 27

  TIPPY

  BUTCH AND TIPPY ate their hot wings in Dr. Reynolds’s small office. When they’d offered him some, he’d looked heartbroken but said he was pretty sure there was something in some oath he took about not eating while counseling.

  “The wings were a guise, really,” Butch said. “We told our girls we were going for wings. Then Tippy got paranoid and said we better really get wings because his wife could find out, that she has ways of knowing things that sort of blow the mind. So we were trying to cover all of our bases.”

  “We needed to smell like hot wings,” Tippy said. “Plus, we’re kind of nervous about being here, and nothing calms a dude down like third-degree burns on the tongue.”

  “Exactly,” Dr. Reynolds said, gazing at the wing in Tippy’s hand like it was a long-lost lover. “So what can I do for you gentlemen? Are we having relationship problems?”

  “Yes,” they both said.

  “I mean, not with . . . He’s my boss,” Tippy said. “We came together because we’re both having trouble with the women in our lives, and we also thought it would be cheaper to do a two-for-one deal.”

  Dr. Reynolds smiled. “I see. You’re both married?”

  “I was,” Butch said. “My wife died recently, leaving me with our eight-year-old daughter. Tippy is married and about to have a child.”

  “The thing is, Doc, they’re all crazy. Totally crazy. We have no idea what to do,” Tippy said.

  “My daughter baffles me. I’m trying to connect with her, but we don’t speak the same language,” Butch said. Tippy noticed Butch twisting the wedding ring he knew he would never manage to remove.

  “And my wife has gone off her rocker. She used to be so normal. I loved coming home after work to see her, and now I feel like driving around the block a hundred times before I go home.”

  Dr. Reynolds nodded and pulled out a notebook, which made both of them flinch. Tippy didn’t like the idea of someone writing down thoughts about him.

  The counselor looked up at Butch. “Butch, give me an example of a baffling conversation between you and your daughter.”

  Butch didn’t think long. “Just this afternoon I was taking her home from my job site. I’m in construction. And she starts talking about church and how we have to get back into it, and there’s no way she’s not going this Sunday. It has to be this Sunday. When I told her I’d think about it, she burst into tears. When I told her fine, I’d go, she yelled at me for changing my mind and said that I was putting her on ‘an emotional roller coaster.’ She’s also recently scolded me for eating fried chicken. Sometimes she’s this perfect angel, and then other times she gets locked onto something and I can’t get her distracted, not even with candy. Before Jenny died, Ava was just this easygoing kid. We never had any trouble with her. Now that Jenny’s gone, I feel like I’m losing control of her. The thing is, Jenny would know what to do. But I don’t.”

  Tippy looked down. He hated to see the pain his friend was in. He hated to hear Jenny’s name in the past tense.

  Dr. Reynolds nodded. “I understand. And the truth is, you’re probably dealing with a lot of different aspects here. Ava is getting older, and the older kids get, the more attitude they start displaying. But she is also testing you, Butch. She’s testing you to see what kind of parent you’re going to be, how you’re going to raise her.”

  “I’m lucky to get her dressed in the morning.”

  “But you get her dressed, nevertheless. You get her fed. You get her to school, right?”

  “I guess. It’s not pretty, but I guess.”

  Dr. Reynolds turned to Tippy. “What about your wife? Give me an example of what’s going on.”

  “Well, she’s pregnant. And that was good news until she flipped out.”

  Dr. Reynolds smiled knowingly. “Oh yes. I’ve seen a few pregnant women over the course of my career. In fact, just got a new client this week.”

  “Do they all freak out or am I just lucky?” At that moment Tippy’s cell phone dinged with several text messages right in a row. He sighed and rolled his eyes, collapsing into the pillows behind him. “Perfect example, right now.” He held up his phone. “‘We have to take the handles off the lower cabinets. We can no longer keep the plunger in the house. Tonight I’m going to check you for head lice. Also, our carpet is too hard.’ See what I mean? It’s like this every day.”

  Dr. Reynolds chuckled.

  “Somehow, most likely on the Internet, she read about all this and now she’s freaking. You know, I’ve actually thought about sabotaging our Wi-Fi just to keep her from finding crazy stuff like this. Except then she’d go buy another book on it. And when you try to make a commonsense statement, like ‘Our carpet isn’t too hard,’ she accuses you of being uninformed or misguided or ignorant of the demands of parentho
od. The kid’s not even here yet and apparently I’m an utter failure.”

  “Your wife means well. But women typically begin worrying about parenthood before men do, simply because they’re carrying the baby. It usually hits men later, when the baby is born.”

  Tippy looked at Butch. “Is that true?”

  Butch shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, I had a brief moment of hesitation after Ava was born. . . . Fine, more like a seizure of panic.” He sighed. “I was so overcome with dread and fear that out in the hallway I insisted to the maternity ward nurse I was having a heart attack.”

  Tippy cracked up. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. She was like, ‘Honey, you’re just nervous.’ And I’m like ‘My chest literally feels like it’s going to explode. I’m seeing two of you.’ I was drenched in sweat and felt like I was floating.”

  Dr. Reynolds laughed too. They were all three laughing, and Tippy was glad. It was rare these days to see Butch do more than smile.

  “So she sat me down and brought me this tiny box of apple juice with a straw so small it looked made for a baby doll.”

  “Wow,” Tippy said.

  “You get ready, buddy,” Butch said, pointing at him. “You have no idea. It’s nothing like you imagine. Jenny was . . . she was pushing and squeezing my hand and screaming. And then suddenly the baby was out. A little blue. Then bright red. Then the doctor held up scissors and asked me if I wanted to cut the umbilical cord—this slimy thing that looks like an alien tentacle. And the baby’s wailing and the nurses are clapping and Jenny is on the bed in a pool of sweat, looking prettier than I ever saw her. . . .”

  “It is a lot to take in,” Dr. Reynolds said. He looked at Tippy. “When did your wife begin acting this way?”

  Tippy raised his eyes to the ceiling, calculating. His gaze dropped to Butch, then to the floor. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It might.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  There was an awkward silence in the room as Butch looked between Tippy and Dr. Reynolds. “Tippy, what is it? That’s why we’re here.”