Raising Baby Jane

Allie just nodded, pushing back a dangerous rush of tenderness at the sight of those rosy little cheeks and heavy lids.

“She’s finished her bottle,” Connor said. “I’ll feed her her fruit in here, and she might be asleep before she’s even done. Now, let’s think. Where’s the high chair?”

“There’s a high chair here?”

“Believe me,” he drawled, “in the Callahan family, there’s always a high chair.”

She laughed in sudden delight. “That’s nice!”

“Is it?” He flashed her a look that was curious and ready to be convinced.

“It says something about a family, when there’s always a high chair.” Her face had softened with her smile.

“Yeah, I think so,” he agreed, then added, “Actually, here there’s probably two high chairs. Tom and Julie have twins, just one year old. Adorable little monsters, they are. I’ve been doing a fair bit of hands-on uncle-ing over the past six months or so, and I’m speaking from experience!”

“Boys?”

“Girls. My mom had eight boys. This generation, so far, is specializing in the other kind.”

“Your mom must be thrilled.”

“She is. And as for Dad…”

He didn’t say anything further for a while, just found one of the high chairs folded away in a storage closet and brought it out. Then he sat Jane in it, put her in a bib, heated a jar of pureed apricots in the microwave, stirred and tested it carefully and began to feed her with a rubber-tipped spoon. As he’d predicted, her little head was nodding by the time he got to the bottom of the jar.

Watching him ease her gently out of the high chair, Allie asked in a distracted tone, “Shall I set the table in here, or…?”

“Nicer to eat by the fire, don’t you think?”

“Uh…yes, it would be.”

“Want me to take her up to bed while you start setting everything up on the hearth?”

“Thanks. Yes.”

There was a tiny pause.

“Want to give her a good-night kiss?”

Another pause.

“Okay.”

He brought the baby over and held her out for her kiss, his blue eyes fixed steadily and thoughtfully on Allie’s face.

I’ve never done this before. I’ve never kissed her, she thought.

But she managed it, and it didn’t last long, just one little press of lips—dry lips—on a soft, velvety cheek. Somehow she kept those flooding feelings dammed back.

When he’d gone, though, tiptoeing from the kitchen with Jane’s head resting heavily on his shoulder and her breathing slow and even, Allie had to lean against the granite counter to keep from buckling at the knees.

Karen called while Connor was still upstairs. She sounded tired but resigned at the far end of the phone. And Allie was resigned to what she knew the news would be.

“Where are you?” Allie demanded.

“Albany. I’ve just checked into a motel. Sorry I didn’t call earlier, but the trip down was a nightmare. The snow started just after the Saratoga exits and, boy, did it hit thick and fast! When I got here, the camera store was about to close. I had to sweet-talk the guy into staying open and taking a look at the thing.”

“How is it?”

“Fixed. He had the part. Took him half an hour. Then I started out on the Interstate to get back up to you.”

“That was crazy, Karen!”

“I know. But I kept hoping maybe it hadn’t gotten so heavy up there. I mean, the sky was still blue…well, half-blue…when I left! And they turned me back. They’ve closed the road. If the snow eases off by morning, which it’s supposed to do, if I can believe the Weather Channel, they’ll have plowed and I can get back.”

“Plowed all the way up to—” Allie began, but Karen didn’t let her finish.

“How’s Jane?” she demanded.

“Asleep. Connor took her up, oh, about twenty minutes ago.”

“Okay, then.” Karen took a deep breath. Clearly, she wanted to ask more about the baby. Did she play? Did she take a bath? Did she seem upset? But Karen apparently decided to hold the questions back.

She didn’t say, “Kiss her for me,” either, and Allie didn’t tell her sister that she already had.

“I’m going to call you again first thing tomorrow,” Karen promised. “And I’ll give you the number here if you need to call me.”

Connor came back downstairs just as Allie was winding up her conversation. He paused halfway down and for a few moments listened quite shamelessly—she’d turned and seen him, so it didn’t feel like eavesdropping—intrigued by the mystery and complexity of the woman he was just beginning to get to know.

He listened to the way she handled her sister, soothing her anxieties, teasing her a little. She was clearly comfortable with their loving and supportive relationship. And yet they “hadn’t spent a lot of time together lately.”

He thought about the quilt she’d made for Jane, and what that said about her creativity and her care for beautiful things. I really must find out about her career, he decided. He’d been assuming it was something high-powered but rather cold. The sort of job where she’d wear a power suit, size eight, and deal with money or property or corporate clients. Accountancy or law or international banking.

But how many international bankers took the time to create a beautiful handmade quilt for their niece? And how many people, no matter what their profession, would make a quilt for a baby they couldn’t even hold or touch without stiffening as if they’d been turned to ice?

He felt this overwhelming need to take her by those fine-boned shoulders and demand, “What happened to you? What damaged you? And how can I help you to heal?”

And that last question was completely insane, because he’d only known her for three hours. It didn’t make any sense at all.

Abandoning the unanswerable issue, he reached the bottom of the stairs as Allie put down the phone. “Everything okay?”

“She’s in Albany, at a motel. The camera’s fixed,” she summarized, and added a couple more details.

“Are we ready to eat? It smells great!”

“Karen’s a fabulous cook.”

“I know. I’ve tasted her chicken potpie and her lasagna.”