“He’s just hungry. Aaron said he fell asleep before he had his bottle.” Eli carries him to the kitchen where he pulls a clean bottle from the drying rack on the counter, fills it wi
th water from a jug on the counter that has a picture of a baby on it, and he adds a couple of scoops of formula to the water.”
“Who are you?” I whisper to him.
He laughs. “Tonight, I’m a baby whisperer. Tomorrow, a shack cleaner-outer. I am a man of many talents.”
“Well, if you two have this under control, I’m going to bed.” Mr. Jacobson spins toward the door.
“What?” I turn around to ask what he means, but he’s already out the front door, closing it loudly behind him. I hear his golf cart start up.
“What time is it?” Eli asks, as he sits down in a kitchen chair with Miles in his arms. His voice isn’t much more than a whisper. He tilts Miles back and sticks the nipple of the bottle in his tiny mouth, and Miles settles peacefully into his arms.
I glance at my watch. “It’s almost two thirty. Should we go and get Aaron?”
“No need,” Eli says. “He’ll go back to sleep after he’s fed.”
“But who’s going to sit with him?”
Eli shrugs, jostling Miles a little in his arms. “I will.” He looks up at me. “You can go back to bed.”
“Well, I’m awake now.” I pace from one side of the kitchen to the other. “Are you sure we don’t need to go get Aaron?”
“Aaron needs his rest.” He rocks slowly back and forth as Miles finishes his bottle. “He had a tough day, from what I heard.”
I sit down in a chair next to Eli. “He was pretty sick when we got home.”
“He never did eat anything.”
“I know, but he drank a few juice pouches. I kept giving them to him because he seemed to tolerate them well.”
“How was he during the treatment?”
Eli and I haven’t said this many words to one another in months. It feels strange. But not unpleasant. And that, in itself, is strange.
I shrug. “He was Aaron.”
“That good, huh?” Eli chuckles.
“He wanted to reminisce,” I admit. Then I want to bite it back as soon as I say it.
“About what?” I can see his face in the light from the window, and I know he’s wearing a soft smile. I used to love that smile. I never see it anymore.
“Old times,” I say. I shrug again. “Nothing important.”
“Like what?” he insists.
I’m not going to get out of this, so I say, “The skee ball game. The leader board, and that day that you knocked my top score off the board.”
“The day we met,” he says softly.
“Yeah.”
“Best day of my life,” he says. That smile doesn’t fade.
My heart starts to ache. Those days are gone. They’ve been gone. I jump to my feet. “If you’re okay here, I’m going to go back to bed.” I don’t wait.
I hear him say, “Okay, Bess,” very softly from behind me as I close the door.