"Now you need to wring it out," Anna said. "Before you put it in the diaper pail with the bleach solution."
"This is so nasty. I feel like I'm going to throw up."
"Just hurry and put it in the diaper pail." Anna waited with the lid in her hand.
"Ugh." Lauren dropped the soggy diaper in the pail then peeled off the rubber gloves. "These detestable gloves are disgusting."
"Then don't use them." Anna put the lid back on the pail and washed her hands.
"That's even more disgusting."
"Like I said, hands are easy to clean, Lauren." Anna dried her own hands.
"Excuse me," Eunice stuck her hand in the bathroom. "I can see you're having a lovely time in here, but would it be possible to speak to my granddaughter?"
Lauren looked surprised. "Sure."
"Alone?" Eunice glared at Anna as if she were some kind of international spy.
"Don't mind me. I'm going to go pack up some more of the baby things," Anna told them. "We want to leave as early as possible tomorrow morning, and I'd like to have the station wagon mostly loaded by the time we go to bed."
Anna tiptoed into Lauren's room where she'd already started boxing up the things that she felt the baby would absolutely need. Fortunately, she already had the crib that Dorothy's mom had loaned her. She had called Clark last night—not collect either, which seemed only fair since Eunice had so freely used the inn's phone. Plus, she'd not only cooked last night's dinner but cleaned up afterwards. As a result, she took her time to tell Clark about the plans for bringing Lauren home. And he agreed to have the cabin closest to the house all set up for Lauren and Sarah.
"That's close enough for me to be able to help her, but not so close that she'll expect me to play nanny," Anna told him. "I want Lauren to become somewhat independent."
It wasn't until the next day, when Anna, Lauren, and the baby were well on their way that Anna discovered what Eunice's mysterious private conversation with Lauren was about. "She was trying to bribe me to stay with her," Lauren admitted.
"What sort of bribe was she using?"
"She promised to get Mabel back."
"Oh . . ."
"But I reminded her that Mabel had already made it clear that she didn't like babies. So, really, what was the point?"
Anna just nodded, keeping her eyes focused on the road. She was well aware of her inexperience and that her driving skills weren't as good as she wished they were . . . and that today she was carrying very precious passengers. She had considered asking Lauren to drive, but knew that she was sometimes a bit reckless behind the wheel.
"Then Grandmother even offered to hire a nanny as well."
"That must've been tempting."
"It actually was. But then I thought about what it'd be like to be stuck living with Grandmother and Mabel and a nanny and Donald and the baby . . ." She sighed loudly. "And it just sounded like a three-ring circus."
"It could be a little crazy."
"And I kept thinking about what you'd said about Donald and me and the baby living in our own little house, with me taking care of things. Kind of like those old reruns of the I Love Lucy show. Lucy and Ricky live in that tiny apartment with Little Ricky and yet they seem so happy. And I realized that Grandmother wants to keep me her little girl, you know, always under her thumb."
"That's probably not far from the truth."
"And I decided that I don't want that, Mom. I want to be in charge of my own life."
Anna smiled. "You don't know how happy it makes me feel to hear that, darling."
The trip home took a couple hours longer than the trip out had taken. But with numerous stops to tend to the baby and Lauren, it was mid-afternoon by the time Anna parked the car in town. "Clark is meeting us with the boat," she explained. "It's faster than the back road, not to mention smoother." She glanced up at the sky. "And it's a perfect day for the river. But let's bundle Sarah up just the same."
Anna held the baby as Clark guided the boat up the river. Lauren, to Anna's delight, seemed to be happy just to sit and look at the scenery, occasionally commenting on how beautiful everything was. "I forgot how pretty it is here, Mom," she said happily.
Anna smiled. It was the first time Lauren had sounded happy in days.
As the boat made its way up the Siuslaw, Anna talked quietly to the baby, telling her about the river, about the fish and the birds, about how one day Sarah would paddle her own canoe around the shining waters. "Just like a real Siuslaw princess," she promised as the inn came into sight.
"All those cabins," Lauren said to Clark. "How on earth did you manage to finish them all?"
"Marshall came out during spring vacation and gave me a hand," he said as he slowed the boat.
"Everything looks so nice," Lauren told Anna. "The flowers blooming, the picnic tables—and you even got more boats. It's like a real resort."
Anna laughed. "And you used to think it was the last resort."
"You ladies go in and get settled," Clark said as he tied the boat to the dock then gave them each a hand getting out. "Marshall and I will get all this stuff unloaded."
They were just going up the dock when Babette and Hazel came down to meet them. "Allo, allo," Babette called out.
"Welcome home," Hazel said heartily. Then both the older women oohed and aahed over the baby.
"She ees so beautiful," Babette gushed. "She ees so much like Anna when she was a petite bebe."
Lauren nodded as she looked down at her baby, still in Anna's arms. "Everyone thinks she takes after Mom."
"Eet ees a good thing," Babette told her.
"A very good thing." Hazel put her arm around Anna's shoulders and squeezed her. "We're so glad you're back."
"And I have saved lunch for you," Babette said. "If you are hungry."
"I'm starving," Lauren told her. "And Mom says you're going to teach me how to cook French food."
"I am pleased to teach you." Babette grabbed Lauren's hand, swinging it as they walked to the house. "Just the way I teach your mama."
Anna smiled as she and Hazel followed them up to the house. "Here we are," she said to Sarah. "Home sweet home."
Thanks to Hazel and Babette, and even Marshall, the first several days went relatively smoothly. With her helpful volunteers, Anna was able to spend a lot of time with Lauren and Sarah. She took Lauren through all the steps of caring for her baby. She taught her to bathe Sarah and how to change diapers without rubber gloves. She made sure Lauren was able to sterilize the baby bottles and do the formula on her own. She showed her how to use the washer and dryer, explaining that Lauren needed to be responsible for her and Sarah's laundry. Anna even helped Lauren make a simple daily chores list. As far as Anna could see, they were off to a good start.
Consequently, Anna encouraged her helpers to return to their regular routines, assuring them that Lauren was no longer in need of so much help. And Anna had been glad to return to her routines. A few things had gone undone in her absence, not big things, but some of the little niceties that Anna enjoyed providing for the guests. She was beginning to feel caught up and even had time to work in the garden, but halfway through the second week, it became clear that Lauren was still dragging her heels along the road to motherhood.
"It's not that I don't want to help you," Anna told Lauren for the second time. "It's just that you need to learn to do it yourself."
"But how am I supposed to both do my laundry and watch the baby?"
Anna suppressed the urge to laugh. "The machines do most of the work, Lauren, and Sarah is perfectly safe in her baby seat. It's not hard to keep an eye on her and do the laundry at the same time." She resisted the urge to tell Lauren about how it used to be, back in the good old days when Anna did the laundry in a decrepit wringer washer, hung it on the line to dry, cared for her own fussy baby, nursed her ailing husband, and cooked and cleaned for an entire household.
"So I have to drag everything over to the laundry room and Sarah too?"
"It's p
art of being a mother." She continued stirring the egg salad mixture. "You have to choose how to manage your time. For instance, you can do things like the laundry while Sarah is napping or—"
"When Sarah is napping, I need to take a nap too," Lauren insisted.
"That's your decision. The point is, you have to figure it out."
"Fine! I'll just drag your baby granddaughter to the laundry room and if she gets accidentally put into the dryer with the towels, don't blame me."
"Oh, Lauren!" Anna frowned. "Don't say such things."
"But why can't I just leave her up here with you?"
Anna held up her hands. "Because I just started fixing lunch. The guests expect it to be ready in the next half hour. After that I need to freshen up linens in the rooms, and then there's the—"
"I don't know why I even came out here." Lauren snatched up Sarah from the floor where she'd just settled her on a blanket.
Anna didn't know what to say. She knew that she wasn't asking Lauren to do anything too hard, but the idea of Sarah getting hurt because of Lauren's angry carelessness was unsettling.
"Okay, Lauren," she gave in. "Leave Sarah with me. But just until you get a couple of loads started in the washer. Then you come straight back here and get her."
"Yeah, yeah." Lauren handed Sarah over to Anna. She was barely out the door when Anna's nose told her that Sarah was in a need of a diaper change. Naturally, all the changing things were in Lauren's cabin. Anna had suggested that Lauren use a diaper bag or leave a set of baby things up here, but so far that hadn't happened.
Anna considered improvising with a tea towel for a diaper, but then realized it would all be much easier if she simply went down to the cabin. Lunch might be a few minutes late, but she doubted that anyone would complain. On sunny days like this, she made bag lunches that the guests picked up at their leisure. Most of them liked to eat out at the picnic tables or on the river.
"Come on, Princess Sarah," Anna said as she headed out. "Time to freshen you up."
"Is lunch out yet?" Marshall asked as they met on the stairs. "The Brewsters want me to take them out fishing and we were going to take it—"
"It's not quite ready," she explained. "I'm running a little behind."
"Want me to help? I know how to make sandwiches and stuff."
She quickly explained about Sarah, and the egg salad she was just getting ready to spread onto bread. "Would you mind?"
"No problem."
"You are a good man, Marshall Richards." She smiled gratefully at him then continued on her way. Sometimes she wondered how it was that Marshall, two years younger than Lauren, had matured so much sooner. Oh, he'd gone through a rough spell a year ago. But then he'd straightened up. And now he seemed more grown up than ever. If she didn't appreciate him so much, she might actually feel envious.
"Here we are at your house," she said to Sarah as she went into the cabin that Lauren was calling home. But she'd barely gone through the door, when she let out a gasp. "What on earth?" She looked around the completely disheveled room in horror. The last time she'd seen it, all was clean and sweet and inviting. Now there were clothes and baby things everywhere. No beds were made. A pile of dirty, stinking diapers were over in a corner of the kitchenette. The counter was cluttered with dirty dishes and beauty products and the sink was filled with dirty baby bottles. It was sickening. Anna was so angry she felt tears come to her eyes. How was it possible that her own daughter, in less than a week, was living in absolute squalor?
Anna dug around to find what she needed to change Sarah's diaper. She moved a pile of smutty looking paperbacks from Lauren's bed to make a place to set a changing pad and lie Sarah down. As she began to peel away the baby's clothes, she reminded herself that Lauren didn't really spend too much time down in the cabin. Lauren liked to be in the house or outside with Anna. Naturally, Anna welcomed her company and she always assumed that Lauren had already tended to her own housekeeping.
"Your mama needs to grow up," she told Sarah as she unpinned the diaper. Then as she began to clean Sarah's bottom, the baby started to wail as if in pain. That's when Anna realized that poor Sarah had a severe case of diaper rash. Anna had told Lauren, more than once, how to properly clean the baby to prevent this. Obviously, like with so many other things, Lauren was not listening.
Anna quickly peeled off Sarah's clothing, noticing that she also had a rash under her arms. "When was the last time you had a bath?" she asked the crying baby. Wrapping her in a blanket, and wedging her safely in a corner of the bed, Anna went to the bathroom and began filling the baby bathtub they'd brought from Pine Ridge.
As she gently bathed her granddaughter, she couldn't remember when she'd felt so thoroughly outraged. As she washed Sarah's dark hair, she told herself she would not lose her temper with Lauren. That would do no good. On the same token, she would not back down either.
She was just getting Sarah dressed, in the only clean thing she could find, a soft cotton kimono, when she heard the door open. Bracing herself, she looked up to see Lauren peeking in the cabin. "So here you are."
"Sarah needed a diaper change," Anna said evenly.
"You could've waited for me to come back."
"Never mind about that." Anna sat down on the messy bed. "We need to talk."
"But you need to make lunch," Lauren reached for the baby, taking in her arms without even seeming to notice that she was freshly bathed.
"Marshall is helping with it."
"So now you're going to lecture me?"
"I'd rather you explain . . ." Anna waved her hand around the messy room, "this to me."
"What's to explain? I'm not like you. I'm a bad housekeeper."
"No, you're not a bad housekeeper. I've seen you, Lauren. You know how to pick things up. You are simply lazy."
"Fine. I'm lazy." Lauren jutted out her lower lip.
"I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I'm just very, very concerned."
"I don't see why. It's not like you have to live here. Besides, I was going to clean it up."
"When?"
"After I did the laundry. I figured I'd just put everything away at once. No big deal."
"It's not the mess in here that concerns me most, Lauren. Oh, some parts of it worry me. I do not like seeing Sarah's baby bottles like that in the sink. Every one of them needs to be thoroughly washed now, with soap and water, then boiled for several minutes. You might even need a bleach solution to rinse them in." Anna got up and opened the small refrigerator and looked in. "And it looks like you don't even have a bottle ready for her next feeding. What did you intend to do about that?"
"I'll just quickly wash one out."
"And sterilize it too?"
Lauren glanced away.
"Lauren, do you understand that Sarah is completely dependent on you? Her survival is in your hands. What if she gets sick because you do something wrong with her formula? Would that concern you?"
"Of course it would."
"And when I changed her, she had a nasty case of diaper rash. And I could tell she hadn't been bathed in days."
Lauren looked up with angry eyes. "I can't believe you're going on like this, Mom. You're part Indian. How do you think your people raised their children?"
Anna was too stunned to answer.
"Think about it, Mom. They didn't sterilize their baby bottles."
"No, they breastfed their babies, Lauren. But it's too late for you to do that."
Lauren made a face. "And do you think they did laundry and changed diapers and bathed their babies every single day?"
Anna thought hard about this. "To be honest, I don't really know the answers to those questions. But I know someone who does." Anna reached for the baby and Lauren didn't resist. "Now, come with me."
"Huh? Where? What are you—"
"Come on, Lauren!" With the baby in arms, Anna led the way, marching over to Hazel's cabin. As she rapped on the door, she hoped that she was in.
"Oh, hello." Hazel gave them a q
uizzical look.
"Lauren wants to raise her baby the way her native ancestors did, Hazel." She glanced back at her daughter. "Or, at least she thinks she does. However, I'm not sure how that's done. So I thought you might like to help educate her."
"Well, certainly." Hazel grinned. "Where do we begin?"
"Back at Lauren's cabin," Anna said. "If you don't mind."
Lauren looked fit to be tied as Anna led their little entourage back to Lauren's hovel, throwing open the door. "Come on in, Hazel. And let Lauren tell you all about her theories on child rearing." She handed the baby back to Lauren. "If you'll excuse me, I need to go finish fixing lunch now." She paused to pick up an unwashed baby bottle. "You can pick this up in my kitchen, Lauren. It will be sterilized and ready for formula." She glared at her daughter. "That is, unless you intend to feed Sarah the old-fashioned way, the way your ancestors did."
Hazel laughed heartily.
Anna tossed Hazel an apologetic look as she closed the door. Walking back to the house, Anna had no idea what she was going to do about Lauren. She even doubted that levelheaded Hazel would be able to talk sense into her clueless daughter. It hurt to admit this, but it might've been better if the baby had been given up for adoption. She frowned at the crusty baby bottle in her hand. Really, did Lauren even want little Sarah Pearl?
17
To Anna's relief and surprise, Lauren attempted to turn over a new leaf in the following days. And thanks to the wisdom of Hazel and Babette, Lauren had a small village of older women looking after her, instructing her, gently encouraging her, and sometimes scolding. Anna wondered if this might not be similar to how it was a hundred years ago, back before the "moving man," as Grandma Pearl called the white man, took over. However, unlike Anna's ancestors, little Sarah wore diapers, continued to be bathed daily, and was fed formula in sterilized bottles.
"I'm exhausted," Lauren announced as she came into the kitchen where Anna was just starting to work on dinner.
"Being a mommy is hard work." Anna paused to smile at Sarah, who was nearly asleep in her mother's arms.
River's Call Page 13
