Hush, Little Baby

by Judith Arnold

  “Allison teaches classes on fathering skills in a program called the Daddy School,” Levi explained as they drove through the swampy afternoon heat. “She and a friend of hers started this Daddy School. I heard about it from a friend of mine, a divorced father with custody of his kids. Allison’s a neonatal nurse at Arlington Memorial Hospital. She knows her stuff, particularly when it comes to babies.”

  “Okay.” Travis looked only slightly mollified. He was wearing another silk shirt, and Levi considered warning him that silk was an impractical fabric to wear in the presence of young children. If Allison didn’t mention it, Levi would give Travis a lesson on machine-washable clothing.

  “I mean, I just feel way over my head,” Travis muttered.

  “No kidding.” Levi smiled wryly. “That’s how I felt when I came home with D.J., too.”

  “What happened to your lady?” Travis asked, apparently done discussing D.J. for now. “I thought she was going to be here for the weekend.”

  “She had to go home,” Levi said, trying to ignore the pain and anger that sliced through him when he thought of Corinne, of how he’d counted on her, how she’d let him down. Before his mood could turn from blue to black, he reached Jamie’s driveway and steered up it to the house. He nodded for Travis to get D.J. out of his seat, then winced as Travis struggled to reach over the folded front seat and wrestle D.J. out of the straps that secured him. D.J. fussed a bit, swatting at Travis and poking him with his foot. What Levi could have done in ten seconds took Travis two whole minutes.

  But he had to learn. Levi had learned by doing; Travis might as well learn by doing, too.

  They knocked on the door and Jamie answered, dressed in a navy-blue cotton T-shirt that had seen better days and a pair of green athletic shorts. “Come on in,” he welcomed them.

  Once the cool air of the foyer enveloped them, Levi performed the introductions. “Jamie, this is Travis Justice, D.J.’s father. Travis, this is Jamie McCoy. You might have heard of him. He writes a syndicated newspaper column about men. It’s called ‘Guy Stuff.’ Your column is carried in one of the Los Angeles papers, isn’t it?”

  “‘Guy Stuff’?” Travis exclaimed. “Hey, I used to read that column.”

  Jamie laughed, refusing to take offense. “Used to? Why’d you stop?”

  Travis smiled sheepishly. “Well, it was really funny until you started writing about babies and fatherhood and all that.”

  “Oh.” Jamie exchanged a quick look with Levi. “I’ll tell you, Travis, it would be a good idea for you to develop a sense of humor about babies and fatherhood if you’re planning to take that little guy home with you.” He scruffed a hand through D.J.’s fine hair. “No way a man can survive the fatherhood gig without a sense of humor.” He led them into the house, calling out, “Allison? Your tutee has arrived.”

  Allison greeted them in the brightly lit kitchen. She held several sheets of paper stapled together, and she waited until Levi had introduced them and Travis lowered D.J. to the floor before handing the papers to her student. “Here are some reading suggestions, books about early childhood development. Also a check-list of items you’re going to need to have on hand for your baby. The most important item on that list is a pediatrician,” she said, pointing it out.

  The two of them settled at the kitchen table, and Jamie ushered Levi into the den. “You want a drink? I’ve got beer, iced tea, lemonade, water—”

  “No, thanks.” If he were a heavy drinker, he’d want to be chugging whisky straight from the bottle right now, but hard liquor had never appealed to him.

  Jamie’s daughter appeared in the doorway. “There’s a baby in the kitchen,” she announced, hands on hips and head tilted as if she deeply resented having not been informed of this visit.

  “That’s Levi’s little boy,” Jamie said, then caught Levi’s eye and corrected himself. “His nephew, actually. You can play with him if you want.”

  “I don’t want to play with a boy.”

  “At his age, his being a boy hardly matters,” Jamie informed her.

  “I’d rather have a baby girl. Can I have a baby?”

  “Maybe when you’re thirty,” Jamie answered, “and only after I’ve fully vetted the guy you want to have it with.”

  “Daddy, you’re so silly,” she scolded him. “I don’t want a guy. I just want a baby.” With a sigh, she turned and stomped out of the den.

  “She reminds me of my sister,” Levi muttered. “She didn’t want a guy, either. Just a baby.”

  “And that’s the guy she didn’t want?” Jamie motioned in the direction of the kitchen with his head.

  “That’s the guy.”

  “Do you think he’s got what it takes? Not to father a child—I mean, we know he’s got what it takes to do that. But to be a father.”

  “He’s got what I had when I took custody of D.J.: the desire to do the right thing.”

  “You think that’s enough?”

  “It was enough for me.”

  “I think maybe it takes more than just desire to be a good father,” Jamie argued. “It even takes more than top-level instruction from a Daddy School teacher.”

  “All right—a sense of humor,” Levi added.

  “And patience. And a healthy ego. The ability not to care if you’re making an ass of yourself.” He glanced toward the kitchen and snorted. “A lack of regard for good grooming.”

  Levi chuckled. “The silk shirt worried me a little, too.”

  “And the fancy hair, and the pricey sandals. A guy who cares that much about looking cool had either better have a wife on hand to deal with the baby, or a full-time nanny. He’s got a job, right?”

  “He works for a production company in Hollywood.”

  “So he’s going to have to hire a nanny.”

  “I don’t know. That’ll be his problem,” Levi said, although his heart seized at the possibility that Travis might not be as good at hiring a nanny as Levi had been. What if he hired someone who wasn’t up to the task? What if D.J. didn’t like her? What if he missed Levi and cried non-stop? What would Travis do?

  How would Levi stand knowing that D.J. might be crying on the other side of the country, and he could do nothing to console him?

  He’d thought he would have Corinne to help him through this. He’d been trying to put a positive spin on it, knowing he was doing what he had to do. But he’d counted on Corinne to back him, to help him through the sadness of losing a baby he’d grown to love.

  She’d abandoned him.

  And that hurt even more than losing D.J.

  *

  GERALD SWUNG into Corinne’s office, carrying two lidded plastic trays of take-out food. “One chicken quesadilla with rice,” he said, placing one of the trays onto her blotter with a flourish. “One cheese enchilada special, extra mild,” he continued, settling into the visitor’s chair across the desk from her and putting down his meal. He dug into the deep pockets of his cargo pants and removed two cans: “Diet ginger ale for you, and Orange Crush for me.”

  “Thanks.” Corinne would have found it odd that her boss was the one racing out for dinner when they had to work late—but he had more energy than she, and was more easily distracted. While he’d been out of the building procuring their food, she’d finished proofreading the new contract the Bell Tech people had agreed to. It was a good contract. It had an especially lovely payment schedule.

  But unlike Gerald, she wasn’t feeling triumphant. A huge payday couldn’t cheer her up. Nothing could.

  “I had the worst date of my life this past weekend,” Gerald reported as he snapped off the lid of his tray.

  “Really?” She forced herself to care. She’d much rather discuss Gerald’s social life than think about her own.

  “This woman was gorgeous. Blond, short, a little plump in the right places. Mensa-smart. We went to the Planetarium and decided the show was too commercial. Then we went out for espresso and pastries and she didn’t once say, ‘I really shouldn’t’ bef
ore digging into her cheese cake.”

  Corinne picked at her rice and attempted an interested smile.

  “I took her back to her apartment. We made out for a while, and then we stopped because we both sort of felt we should go out a few more times before we got carried away.”

  “I’m waiting to hear what was so bad about this date,” she goaded him.

  “It was awful, Corey. I enjoyed every damned minute of it. I didn’t feel superior to her. I didn’t feel intimidated by her. She scraped the cheesecake from her fork with these beautiful white teeth… It was absolutely awful.”

  “One of us is not making sense,” Corinne muttered. “Why was it absolutely awful?”

  “I’m in love.”

  She sighed and twirled the tines of her plastic fork in the melted cheese of her quesadilla. “Why is that awful?” she asked, even though she could come up with plenty of answers herself.

  “It’s easier not being in love, Corey. It’s risk-free. I used to love it when I assumed you and I would wind up together. It would have been so easy, you know? We could work together, we could eat take-out together, we could spend weekends at the house in Arlington together, and we’d never have to get carried away or out of control or…I don’t know, whatever happens when you fall in love. I’m scared.”

  “You could get hurt,” she suggested.

  “Exactly.”

  “Or you might hurt her.”

  “Which I really don’t want to do, because I’m in love with her.”

  “She could do something that disappointed you so deeply, you couldn’t stand the pain.” Corinne heard the scratchy emotion in her voice. She hoped Gerald didn’t notice.

  He did. Lowering his fork, he leaned forward, angling his face so he could peer into her eyes. “What happened? Did something go wrong between you and Levi this weekend?”

  “Yes.” She couldn’t lie to Gerald. She didn’t want to lie. He was her best friend, and she’d been feeling so wretched since she’d left Levi’s house Saturday morning. Now it was Monday night and she only felt worse.

  “What, Corey?” Gerald reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “What happened?”

  “He did something that disappointed me that deeply. It hurt. So I hurt him.”

  “Ah.” He kept his hand folded around hers, warm and soothing. “What did he do?”

  “He gave up custody of the baby.”

  “You’re kidding! Who’d he give it to?”

  “The baby’s a he, not an it. And he gave him to the birth father, who only just found out he had a son and wanted custody of him.”

  Gerald mulled that over. “Sounds like Levi did the right thing.”

  “I know.” She quit trying to hide her tears. A few slid down her cheeks, and she wiped them with a napkin that said “Paco Rico” in bright orange letters. “That’s the worst part of it, Gerald—he did the right thing. I should have praised him for his courage. I should have admired him for his sacrifice. But all I could think of was that he was giving away D.J. I love D.J.”

  “More than you love Levi?”

  “No.” She let out a damp, shaky sigh. “But when Levi told me he was giving up the baby, I felt as if I was falling out of love with him. I thought, he should have fought to keep D.J. He should have refused to give him up.”

  “Would that have been the best thing for the baby?”

  “Probably not.” She sighed again, so deeply her lungs ached. “It would have been selfish. But it was what I wanted him to do.”

  Releasing her hand, Gerald leaned back and forked a bite of enchilada into his mouth. “You know what I think?”

  “What?” She had never imagined she’d be asking Gerald for advice on romance, but she was desperate.

  “I think you’ve got a problem with that biological clock thingy. I think you want a baby.”

  So much for expecting any useful advice from him. “It’s not that at all,” she snapped impatiently. “Maybe I can imagine myself having a baby someday, but no—this was specifically about D.J. There was just something about that one special baby.”

  “I didn’t see it.” Gerald shook his head. “I met the kid, and sorry, but I just didn’t see anything special about him.”

  “Don’t apologize. It was something between D.J. and me. Something magical. I never felt about other babies the way I felt about him. He made me sing.”

  “Wow. I’m glad I missed that.”

  “I happen to have a very nice voice. But I’m not often inspired to sing. D.J. inspired me.” She let out another deep breath and nudged her plate away, sorrow sabotaging her appetite. “I still can’t believe Levi gave him up to that—that skinny hot-shot twerp from California.”

  “Well, if he’s the baby’s father—”

  “I know. But I love the baby. That hot-shot twerp doesn’t even know the baby. How can he love him?”

  “You women drive me crazy,” Gerald griped. “You complain when fathers don’t take responsibility for the babies they create, and now here’s a father who is taking responsibility, and you’re putting him down. Do you think he’d be a better man if he hadn’t showed up and taken responsibility?”

  “No,” she conceded. “But I’d be a happier woman.”

  “Well, maybe your happiness isn’t the most important thing here.”

  She jerked her head up. She and Gerald were always honest with each other—but rarely so honest that the words stung. His statement was like a slap on the cheek. She felt her skin tingling with heat from it.

  “And I’ll tell you something else, Corey,” he continued, pulling Corinne’s barely touched dinner toward himself and scooping up some rice with his fork. “You’re only making yourself more miserable by turning your back on Levi. You lost the baby—even though he was never really yours to lose. So what’s to be gained by losing Levi, too? What’s the point of making yourself feel even worse?”

  She sipped her ginger ale and sank back in her chair, wishing the upholstery were softer, wishing it would swallow her up. “One of the things I loved about Levi was how devoted he was to D.J., how hard he worked to make a good life for him. The first time I met him—met them both…” Her voice cracked as she recalled that morning at his office. “He cancelled a meeting with me because D.J. was teething. He wanted to give his full attention to making D.J. feel better. At first I was ticked off, because he was screwing up my schedule. But then I realized how wonderful he was, putting a baby’s comfort ahead of everything else. Taking that baby’s pain away. Trying to make up for the tragic loss that baby had suffered. Accepting a complete upheaval in his own life to accommodate this tiny little invader. That kind of selflessness and dedication… That’s why I fell in love with him.”

  “And—what? This past weekend, you discovered he wasn’t so selfless and dedicated?”

  “I thought he would fight for the baby. He was D.J.’s champion, and I thought he’d stick by that baby through thick and thin. Everything always changes in my life,” she lamented. “My parents used to come and go, my step-parents, my addresses, even my cat.”

  “You had a cat?” Gerald’s eyes grew almost as round as the frames of his eyeglasses.

  She ignored the question. “All I ever wanted was a stable home, something that wouldn’t change. It would be just what I wanted it to be, and it would stay that way. Levi, D.J. and me. A real home. And Levi threw that all away.”

  “So your complaint is, he wasn’t selfless when it came to what you wanted. Only when it came to what he wanted, or D.J. wanted, or D.J.’s father wanted.”

  A fresh spate of tears filled her eyes, and a few leaked out. “Oh, God. Levi was selfless, wasn’t he. He wasn’t thinking about me, but he wasn’t thinking about himself, either. He was thinking only about what would be best for D.J.”

  Gerald devoured a chunk of Corinne’s quesadilla. “Of course, it’s always possible he was secretly glad to give up the baby. Maybe he wanted his bachelor life back.”

  She dismissed that p
ossibility with a shake of her head. “Levi wanted D.J. to grow up knowing his father. If anyone should understand that, I should. I had all those fathers—more fathers than I wanted, but I couldn’t even depend on my own real father. Levi wanted D.J. to have his own real father. Not a step-father. Not a surrogate. Not a substitute. The real thing. For God’s sake, I should understand that.”

  “Okay. So now you understand it. What are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m going to let you eat my dinner,” she mumbled, dabbing her cheeks with her soggy napkin. “I should go throw myself at Levi’s feet and beg him to forgive me for being so thoughtless,” she admitted. “He probably won’t want to see me, though.”

  “He’s not an idiot,” Gerald pointed out, his eyes brimming with affection, the sort of love best friends had for each other. “He’ll want to see you.”

  She glanced at her watch. “It’s seven-thirty. I don’t know how late the trains run to Arlington—”

  “I’ll drive you,” he offered. “I’m paying a fortune to park that damned Range Rover in the garage of my building. I might as well get some use out of it.”

  “You’d really want to drive all the way up to Arlington at this hour?”

  “Corey. You always fix everyone else’s mistakes, but this time you’re the one who made a huge mistake. You never make mistakes. This is probably the first mistake you ever made in your life. I feel privileged to witness it.”

  She threw a wadded-up napkin at him, then managed a limp smile. “If you’re serious about driving me, I’m not going to say no. That would be an even bigger mistake.”

  “Then let’s hit the road.” Gerald rose, grabbed Corinne’s hand and hauled her out of her chair. “Let’s go and see if there’s still a home waiting for you in Arlington.”

  *

  LEVI HEARD the rumble of an engine and the crunch of large tires on driveway. He wasn’t expecting anyone, but he couldn’t get up and peek through the window while he was in the middle of changing D.J.’s diaper. D.J. squawked and squealed and attempted risky maneuvers with his feet while Levi scrubbed his bottom clean with a clutch of Wet-Wipes. He heard the doorbell ring and slid a clean diaper into place between D.J.’s legs. His thighs were losing their fat, he noticed, and his legs were getting straighter. All that exercise—the walker, the crawling, the new trick he’d demonstrated just an hour ago, when he’d positioned himself at the bottom of the stairs and then moved his hands up to the second step, pulling himself to his feet—were turning his legs from baby legs to real legs, legs that would someday run, kick, jump, climb and carry him through the world.