tease was a running joke between them.
“Hi.” She smiled at her niece. “Hello, sweet girl. Come to Auntie Dawn?”
Sydney grinned and that was all the encouragement necessary for grabbing her up and squeezing her close. “Ooh, you feel so warm and soft and good. And you smell like a baby.”
“She is a baby.”
“Trust me. They don’t always smell like flowers.”
“Tell me about it. She got a quick bath after you called. I figured that would give us more time to visit.” With her index fingers, Marina added air quotes to the last word. Clearly she knew there was something out of the ordinary going on. “Let’s talk in the other room. Are you hungry? I can throw something together.”
“No. Thanks, though.” She carried the baby through the kitchen and into the adjacent family room where a baby gym was set up on the carpet.
“You can put her down there and let her play. She likes that toy, don’t you, sweet Sydney?”
Of course the baby didn’t answer but Dawn put her down where directed. The two women sat on the rug, watching Syd bat at all the bright-colored things that dangled and rattled.
Marina met her gaze. “So, what’s up?”
Instead of answering Dawn asked, “Do you ever think about that night?”
“The wedding and reception last July Fourth.” Her sister wasn’t asking a question. The two of them were close and somehow always on the same wavelength. “I do think about it. But I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”
“Syd was conceived that night. Along with a lot of other babies.” She met Marina’s gaze. “It seems crazy what happened.”
“It is crazy. Whatever was in that punch made a lot of people behave in ways they never would have otherwise.”
“Irresponsibly?” Dawn asked, remembering what Clifton had said.
“I suppose so. But Homer Gilmore is the one at fault for spiking the punch in the first place.” Marina’s blue eyes darkened. “They say crisis reveals character and I found that to be true. When I told Gary I was pregnant he dropped me like a hot rock. In his defense our relationship was still new when we went to the wedding together.”
“Don’t defend him. Everything he did before that night telegraphed to you that he was serious. If you hadn’t believed that you never would have slept with him, punch or no punch. He has the character of a toad and that’s an insult to toads. I’d like to punch him for not being a man and supporting you.”
Marina took her daughter’s tiny, flailing foot in her hand and smiled lovingly. “I can’t regret what happened because now I have this beautiful, precious little girl.”
“She is precious.” Dawn studied the blue-eyed, red-haired baby who was going to be a clone of her mom. “And she’s healthy.”
“I’m so thankful for it. Sometimes I forget that you see a lot of children who are sick.” Marina’s eyes filled with empathy. “That must be hard for you.”
“I just focus on what will help them get better.” She recalled how Clifton had explained the timing for the triplets’ flu shots. And how he patiently answered new parent questions, no matter how routine. There was no way she could say he wasn’t good at what he did. “And we see a lot of kids for regular checkups to chart their growth and prevent them from getting sick.”
“True.”
“In fact Jamie Stockton brought the triplets in to see Dr. Clifton yesterday.”
“The new doctor?” Her sister’s eyes grew bright with curiosity.
“Yeah. He told him—”
“What’s he like?”
That was what their mother had asked. But unlike Glory, her sibling knew the unfortunate, the bad and the ugly about the last new doctor Dawn had worked with. That was why she was here, to confide in someone who had all the facts.
“He’s really good-looking.” Gorgeous, in fact.
“Yeah. And?”
“Everyone likes him. Patients. Parents. Clinic personnel. They’re all singing his praises.”
Marina turned serious. “What do you think of him?”
“Do you want the good list or the bad?”
“You just did the good.”
Dawn shook her head. “That was general. There are specifics. Just to be fair...”
“Okay. Do specific good,” her sister encouraged.
Dawn tapped her lip as she thought over the last two days. There was a sizable amount of good specific, she realized. “He made Jamie Stockton smile.”
“Wow. Sounds like a miracle. That man doesn’t have a lot to smile about.”
“I know, right? He actually got two smiles and a full-on grin when he’d warned Jamie that it was going to get better and worse when he was wrangling three toddlers.”
Marina frowned as she looked at her little angel. “I didn’t want to know that. What’s to smile about?”
“I guess you had to be there.”
“If you say so.”
“Then there was his tips for new moms. Sensible and helpful. Like the pacifier.”
“For or against?” her sister asked.
“Neutral, but with information for the ‘for’ group.”
Marina studied her. “And? Throw me a bone here. A new mom needs all the free professional advice she can get.”
She smiled, remembering his wry comment about all things on the internet being true. During that conversation he’d made her want to smile or laugh at least three times. But she held back. “He listed pointers to promote sleep, like sitting on the dryer—”
“I did that!” Marina exclaimed.
“So I told him.”
“You didn’t.” Her sister groaned. “He probably thinks I’m a lunatic.”
“I think you’re a lunatic,” Dawn clarified. “He apparently doesn’t judge.”
“Wow.” Her sister looked awed. “Where was he when Sydney was little?”
“She’s still little. Aren’t you, sweetie pie?” Smiling at her niece, Dawn laughed when the baby smiled back and kicked her chubby legs in response. “But I know what you meant.”
“After that it’s impossible for me to believe there’s anything bad about him.”
“He
