about this …”
“C’mon, Maddy, lighten up. I’ve held babies before. I’ve been holding them for years.” Elin’s eldest two were in their midteens.
“Yeah, but this is my baby,” Maddy joked, in a slightly wobbly voice.
Okay, so it was a new-mother thing. Fair enough.
But there was that feeling in the air again, everyone seeming to hold their breath, everyone watching Jodie a little too closely. Mom, Lisa, Dev. Dev, especially, his body held so still he could have been made of bronze.
The accident. The coma. That was why.
When she was one hundred percent fit and well, would they finally stop?
“Shouldn’t be such a fuss, should it?” Dad muttered from behind the barrier of the barbecue grill. No one took any notice.
Jodie held the baby, smelled the sweet, milky smell of her breath, the nutty scent of her pink baby scalp covered in a swirl of downy dark hair, and the hint of lavender in her stretchy cotton dress, from the special baby laundry detergent. Oh, she was so sweet, just adorable, and if everyone was staring at the two of them, well, that was fine and normal. It was one of the rightest sights in the world, a person tenderly holding a newborn child.
“Oh, you sweet, precious thing,” she crooned. “Thank you for not crying for your auntie, little darling.”
She bent forward and planted a kiss on the silky hair, and took in those sweet scents again, close to tears. As she straightened again, she could smell onions frying, too, the aroma unusually intense and satisfying, as if she’d never smelled frying onions before. Sometimes her brain reacted this way, since coming out of the coma. It was as if all her senses had been reborn.
And then suddenly they hit overload, like little Lucy hitting overload when she was due for her nap.
“Can you have her, Maddy? My arms are getting tired.”
“You did great,” Maddy said, and too many people echoed the praise. Dev growled it half under his breath.
But maybe they were right. She felt wiped. Dev leaned toward her. “Are you okay?”
“Need some lunch.”
“Just that?”
“Well, tired …”
Baby Lucy yawned on her behalf, and Maddy murmured something about taking her upstairs.
“To Jodie’s room,” Mom said quickly. “Not in—”
“No, I know,” Maddy answered, already halfway inside.
“But I definitely need lunch,” Jodie admitted.
“Sit,” Dev ordered. “I’ll grab whatever you want.” There was a tiny beat of hesitation. “You did great with the baby.”
“So did you.”
“Uh, yeah.” A quick breath. “Hot dog with everything?”
“Please!” She managed the hot dog, covered in bright red ketchup and heaped with those delicious onions, managed replies to various questions from family members, and to a comment on the kids’ soccer game from Dev, managed probably another half hour of sitting there—Maddy had come back downstairs with the baby monitor in her hand—and then she just couldn’t hold it together, couldn’t pretend anymore, guest of honor or not, and Dev said, “You need to rest. Right now.”
Mom didn’t quite get it. “Oh, but Devlin, it’s her party! We’ve barely started!”
“Take a look at her.”
Jodie tried to say, “I’m fine,” but it came out on a croak.
“You’re right, Devlin,” Mom said. “Jodie, let’s take you upstairs.”
“But Lucy’s asleep on her bed,” Maddy said.
“Couch is okay,” Jodie replied. “Nice to hear everyone talking.” She joked, “I mean, it is my party.”
“Here,” said Dev, the way he’d said it to Maddy over an hour ago, about baby Lucy. He helped her up and she leaned on him, and he smelled to her baby-new nose like pine woods and warm grain and sizzling steak. He didn’t pass her the walking frame, just said, “Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” and she found that he did. He was so much better than the frame, so much more solid and warm, with his chest shoring up her shoulder and his chin grazing her hair. Her heart wanted to stay this close to him for hours, but the rest of her body wouldn’t cooperate.
They reached the couch and he plumped up the silk-covered cushions, grabbed the unfinished hand-stitched quilt top her mother was working on, tucked it around her like a three-hundred thread-count cotton sheet and ordered, “Rest.”
“I will.”
“I’ll leave your frame here within reach, if you need to get up.”
“Thank you, Dev.” She’d already closed her eyes, so she wasn’t sure that he’d touched her. She thought he had, with the brush of his fingertips over her hair, but maybe it was just a drift of air from his movement. She didn’t want to open her eyes to find out, or to discover he’d gone. Touch or air, she could feel it to her bones.
He must have gone. She hadn’t heard his footsteps on the carpet, but now there was that sense of quiet.
Sleepy quiet.
In the kitchen, making coffee and cutting cake, Elin said, in a voice that wasn’t nearly as soft as she thought, “I don’t think she was ready for this many people so soon.”
“It’s just family,” answered Lisa.
“It’s a big family,” Maddy pointed out.
“Mom wanted a celebration for her coming home.” Lisa again.
“We should have waited a week or two for that.” Elin.
“But by then …” Maddy.
“I know. I know.” Elin sighed.
Jodie shut all of it out, the way she’d learned to shut out the noise and the interruptions in the hospital and rehab unit, and drifted into sleep. When she woke up again, her sisters were still in the kitchen.
No, she amended to herself, in the kitchen again.
They were cleaning up this time, and the way they were talking made it clear that most people had gone, including Maddy, Lucy and John. She must have slept for a couple of hours, and the house had grown hotter with windows and deck doors open. Was Dev still here? She could hear the vigorous, metallic sound of Dad cleaning off the barbecue out on the deck, and Elin and Chris’s kids still playing in the yard, but no Dev.
She felt refreshed but stiff-limbed. Here was the walking frame within reach, just as Dev had promised. She twisted to a sitting position, inched forward on the couch and pulled herself up, automatically comparing her strength to
