Page 48 of Turning Back

“I wanted to call you,” she says, looking down at Adley instead of me.

“When?”

“That day. Every day. I wanted to tell you everything.”

“So why didn’t you?”

She shrugs and stands up in the tub, holding Adley close to her breasts. “Will you get a towel so I can wrap her up?”

I grab a towel from a row of shelves filled with them, and then walk forward, holding it out. Rochelle pushes Adley at me and says, “Take her for a second, will you? I don’t like stepping out of the tub with her in my arms. I have a little floaty seat I usually set her in, but obviously I don’t have it right now.”

I take a deep breath and take squirming Adley. She balks, twists, and there’s a moment when I just know I’ll drop her.

I don’t. But it’s not a seamless transition, and Adley begins to cry.

Rochelle steps out, grabs a white robe off a chair, and wraps herself up.

I can’t take my eyes off her, but she’s not looking at me. She’s paying no attention to me at all. She only has eyes for very fussy Adley.

I hand her over when Rochelle reaches out, kinda relieved. I have no clue what to do with a baby. I’m an only child so I never had nieces or nephews. None of my friends have kids. And Smith’s rat dog does not count, regardless of what he thinks.

Fucking Smith. What was all that bullshit back at the hotel? It’s like he’s got a personal grudge against Rochelle. And while it’s flattering that he’s kinda protective of me, that he paid her money this whole year just so he could ambush her into an explanation if she ever came back, it’s also… very weird.

Bric and Smith have been my best friends for so long, I sometimes take it for granted that we all want the same things. But I’m wrong. We don’t. And Smith’s quick exit from the game once Chella came along just proves it.

“Can you grab the diaper bag?” Rochelle asks, walking past me and into the bedroom.

“Sure,” I say. How hard can that be? But when I go back out to where Rochelle’s stuff is, I can’t decide which one it is. They all look like suitcases to me.

“It’s this one,” Rochelle says, picking up something she brought with her when we first got here. I thought it was her purse.

Nope. It’s a diaper bag.

I suck at this new game.

“Hey, Quin?” Rochelle asks a few minutes later.

“Yeah?” I say back.

“Can you put that little porta-crib in the second bedroom for me?”

“Sure.” Porta-crib. It’s gotta be this massive folded thing, right? I feel confident it is, so I pick it up and take it into the second bedroom. Rochelle is busy doing a million things, it seems. She talks to Adley in a soft voice the whole time, like she’s trying to convince her to be happy.

Adley is not convinced.

I flip the crib open and have a moment of satisfaction. “See. I can adult.”

I look over my shoulder to see if Rochelle heard me. She didn’t.

“Does she always sleep in a separate room?” I ask.

“Yes,” Rochelle answers. “God, I made the mistake of sleeping with her when she was little and it took me weeks to get her to go to bed in the crib. I won’t do that again.”

“Did you have a two-bedroom hotel room?” I ask, trying to imagine how much that costs. I don’t know why I’m so focused on her lifestyle while she was gone. But it’s sorta irritating that she was living like a princess this whole time and I was so damn miserable.

“No.” She laughs, coming into the room with a bottle.

They are both dressed now. Rochelle is wearing shorts and a t-shirt that is way too big for her. It says “Mineral Springs Resort” on the front. Adley is wearing a pink one-piece thing that looks like underwear, and says, “The coolest people are from Pagosa Springs, Colorado.” It’s like everything they own came from a tourist shop.