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Hannah was late.
First day of work, and she was a no-show. Great sign.
Thanks, Gran.
Technically, this wasn’t her first day. My grandmother wasn’t leaving until tomorrow, so that would be Hannah’s official first day with Lily.
I’d been able to shuffle some of my meetings at the expo, and Vincent was stepping up so I could come home earlier and help out. I wasn’t planning on monitoring Hannah, and God knows, I was no expert myself, but maybe between us, we could figure some of this out.
I wished I could bottle whatever innate kid smarts my grandmother possessed, but alas, no. It probably also had helped that she’d raised her own daughter then partially raised me when my own parents had been lackadaisical at best. Not neglectful exactly. They’d just found much more interesting things to do with their lives than being good parents.
My father was on the west coast now with his new wife and his stepchildren, whom he seemed to have a better rapport with than me. I truly wasn’t bitter. Sometimes the fit wasn’t right, even when the people in question were related. My father and I were opposites in every possible way.
As for my mother, she lived in Rhode Island, and I saw her now and then. We also weren’t close. We weren’t distant either exactly, just more like acquaintances who shared a last name than mother and son.
Thank God for Gran and my grandfather. Because of them and their influence, I’d once believed I had a chance of doing right by my own kids someday. Assuming I was blessed with any. I’d never thought much about the possibility.
That was for someday, along with considering marriage. Dating was one thing, at least occasionally. But serious relationships were on the distant horizon. Possibly after retirement once I wasn’t working day and night.
Then there was Lily. My plans had flown out the highest window, and I was still trying to catch them before they hit the ground.
I couldn’t expect my grandmother to give up her life for me and my responsibility. She’d already done so much. Hannah would be a huge help to fill in the gaps.
If she ever arrived.
As Lily started to cry, I crossed the living room to turn her swing on a higher setting. I’d had it on the lowest one, but she seemed to enjoy more motion. A flick of a button and a piped-in kiddie tune filled the room. She only cried harder.
This wa
s going well so far.
I scratched the back of my neck before crouching to rummage through the baby bag my grandmother had packed for me in case we needed to go out. She’d put together several of them, as if I couldn’t possibly assemble the needed items in a hurry without help.
She wasn’t completely wrong.
After four months plus, I should’ve been better at all of this. If I hadn’t immediately thrown myself even harder into the newspaper, I might have been.
But I understood how to balance profit and loss sheets. I grasped how to make up shortfalls in advertising revenue, even if I hadn’t yet deciphered how to plug all the holes. I knew how to innovate when the tried and true no longer got the job done.
I did not know how to cuddle and soothe and sing lullabies.
For one, my singing voice sucked.
I also wasn’t a cuddler. I wasn’t even much of a hugger, despite what my grandmother insisted on calling me. What I’d done when I was seven didn’t have a ton of bearing on my personality at thirty-two.
Christ, thirty-two with an eight-month old and I still didn’t have one clue what I was doing. And worst of all? Those knowing brown eyes, so like my best friend’s, didn’t hesitate to accuse.
Anyone else could do this right. Not you. You’re just a glorified pencil pusher.
Fine, she probably wasn’t thinking that in those exact words. Billy wouldn’t have been either. He just would’ve grinned and said he’d given me ample opportunities to hold her, but I’d always begged off.
No begging off now.
I glanced up at the ceiling.
Bet you’re laughing at me up there, buddy. I can practically hear it.
Lily continued to cry, pumping her chubby bare feet. She wouldn’t keep on socks or shoes, no matter how hard we tried. Almost as soon as we put them on her, she was wrestling them off.
