Ten Acres And Twins

It took one extra baby rotation before the seat was secure, but after Abby’s more practiced hands took over the chore, Wyatt was in the seat with a pacifier and she was heading back across the parking lot toward her parents.

Jack frowned as he sat in his car and watched her go. Her purposeful walk belied the reluctance she must have felt, and he knew she had to be upset.

He wished he could think of a better way. He glanced down at Wyatt, whose eyelids were droopy by now, and back out the window at Abby.

Her stride hadn’t faltered, but somehow, in a morning of mixed-up feelings, her walk made him smile. It wasn’t her speed or the lack of artificial sway, so much as the perfection of well-used legs and a sweet round bottom that couldn’t help but wiggle. That no-nonsense walk was as entrancing as any he’d seen.

That walk, and his reaction to seeing it, were the only right things about the morning. He kept grinning as he started his car. Quite unintentionally, Abby had graced him with a moment of pure delight.

“ABBY? IT’S ME,” Jack said, pleased that she had answered her phone. During the last call she had definitely sounded riled. He’d been afraid she would take the phone off the hook, and he needed her advice.

“Yes, Jack. What do you need?”

“I finally got this formula mixed and heated, and then the phone rang and I didn’t get Wyatt fed for thirty minutes. Do I have to start over completely?”

“Hang on,” she said with a long sigh. She spoke to someone in the background. The string of babbling that followed must be Rosie, playing. In his five hours with Wyatt, Jack had heard nothing but wailing.

“He’s been waiting for his bottle for thirty minutes?” Abby asked abruptly. She sounded as if she was right there beside him. He could picture her with her hands on her hips and that preachy look on her face. “What’s he doing?”

“Lying on the floor, sucking on a pacifier.”

“For thirty minutes? What did you do with the bottle?”

She made a tsk-ing sound, which was totally unnecessary.

There was no possible way for Jack to feel any more inept than he already did.

“It’s on the counter, in the kitchenette.”

“For Pete’s sake, feed the kid. Why didn’t you do it while you were talking on the phone?”

“Sometimes I need to get on my laptop to figure out how to solve a client’s problem. I needed my hands free.”

“Jack, wake up. You’re a parent now,” she said, her tone implying exactly how dim she thought he was.

“You may have to call a client back now and then.”

After hanging up, Jack retrieved the bottle from the kitchen and settled down with Wyatt on the hotel sofa. He popped the pacifier out of the baby’s mouth and watched in horror as the tiny back stiffened and the tinier mouth opened wide to shriek.

Frantically, he stuck the bottle in. And relaxed. Once that first taste of formula hit Wyatt’s tongue, he quieted quickly. “That’s my boy,” Jack said, feeling as if he’d conquered a major obstacle.

He was going to get this baby business down and get back to Kansas City. Back to his life. Things would go much better there—he’d have his speakerphone, his main computer and his girlfriends to ask for advice. They might not know as much as Abby, but they’d never make him feel unfit, either.

Under the circumstances, Abby’s snappy attitude made sense, but he was certainly not dim. He loved a challenge. He could make this work.

Wasn’t he the same guy who’d managed to finish high school a full year early? In spite of having little help from a mother who was busy running through boyfriends.

Jack had to keep Brian occupied and fed on many nights, and he’d still been able to attend college, keep a string of girlfriends happy and start his own business. He could learn to care for a person too young to walk or talk.

Besides, for all practical purposes he’d already raised a boy. Although Brian had been older by the time he had taken over the chore, Jack knew that if he could just persevere until Wyatt was about school age, the job would be old hat.

The most important thing, he thought, was a desire to do the job well. Motivation was half the battle with anything.

He could always deal with the guilt later.

But a few minutes after Wyatt finished the bottle, he started fussing again. Jack changed a diaper that was only slightly wet, but the baby kept screaming. Jack couldn’t figure out why. He’d have to call Abby again.

“Hullo?”

“Abby, he’s been crying for fifteen minutes straight,” he hollered above the noise.

“Did you feed him?”

“Yes,” he said in horror, thinking there must have been something terribly wrong with the formula. “He drank the whole bottle.”

“Did you burp him?”

“Oh…uh, no. I didn’t. Hang on, I’m picking him up. Talk me through it,” he implored. “Talk loud.”

He held Wyatt out in front of him, hoping against hope the child simply needed burping. The baby howled as if a pin was sticking in his belly, but these diapers had Velcro. That formula must have been spoiled.

Next time, his client would wait.

Abby described the burping position she found most effective, and several others to try if that one didn’t work. Within a few minutes, the tiny boy had produced three burps that could vie for a record with Jack’s beer guzzling buddies. All of the sudden, Wyatt was gurgling and waving his fists in the air contentedly.

Once again Jack thanked Abby for her help and hung up.

After that, the Kimball men had a fairly decent evening. Jack found a soft blue blanket in the diaper bag and spread it on the floor. He let the baby kick around on that while he ate a room service dinner.

Later, they took in the end of a baseball game together. Wyatt hadn’t actually developed a fondness for sports yet, but if Jack sat on the floor beside him and spoke animatedly about the wisdom or folly of each play, the baby seemed happy to respond to the conversation.

When Wyatt started sobbing again after the game, Jack fed him—brilliantly, this time. He had the baby fed and burped within a half hour, without a single snag. Then he changed a dirty diaper, congratulating himself on that, too. It had been his first poopy diaper, and he managed it without needing a bit of advice.

He called Abby only one more time that night.

“Hullo, Jack. What is it?” she asked tiredly, after just one ring.

“How’d you know it was me?”

“Are you kidding? You’ve called at least once every hour for the past six. I was wondering where you’d gone.”

“Oh.”

“Well, what is it?”

Abby had worked her magic again: he felt foolish. He considered hanging up, but he still needed to know the answer to his question. “How do I take a shower?”

She giggled. “Now you’re kidding, right?”