I pushed my glasses up to rub my temples. Was Jaz fucking with my mind the whole time, trying to make me give her more? Had I fallen straight into her trap? I definitely couldn’t afford fifty an—
“I’m messing with you,” Jaz said, leaning over to give me a shove on the shoulder—a touch that left me slightly breathless. “Can we go with minimum wage? That way I won’t be ripping you off, but it won’t be slave labor either.”
I let out a breath. “That would work.” Passing Gretchen to her, I added, “But I can also supplement that wage with unofficial advice on your thesis… if you want it.”
It was weird, I’d seen them together a hundred times before… but today the sight of Jaz cradling Gretchen made me melt a little. When she brushed an eyelash off that baby’s chubby cheek, I thought I might actually coo out loud.
“That sounds great,” she said, hooking the baby sling around her neck. “Maybe over a beer, if it’s unofficial.”
She wasn’t asking me on a date. I didn’t want it to be a date.
“Let’s say Friday night,” I said. “I’m buying.”
* * *
I tried my best to focus on Gretchen instead of Jaz that week. Not hard considering she demanded a lot of attention. This whole baby thing was a lot of work, to say the least.
Bye-bye to full nights of sleep. Farewell to clothes without spit-up on them. Toodles to having any approximation of a social life.
Gretchen was always there. Crying, screaming, eating, needing.
When I could hand her off to Jaz, it was like taking a weight off my shoulders. I didn’t know what I would’ve done without her.
She did more than just carting her off while I worked. She stuck around after, holding my hand—figuratively—as I figured out just how I was supposed to keep this tiny human alive and in good spirits.
There didn’t seem to be an infant care instruction manual. Google helped, but not enough.
With the Internet, I’d managed to get food into Gretchen… but half the formula had ended up on the floor. Jaz showed me how to get a majority of it into her stomach.
Bathing? If it were me alone, she’d’ve gone without a bath for a solid month before I thought of it. When I ran to Jaz in a panic, asking if babies too little to sweat still needed to bathe, she laughed at me and said she’d been giving Gretchen baths. Then she took me to the restroom sink and taught me I could, too.
As for soothing, Jaz still had me beat there. As far as I could tell, her ability to calm that kid down was nothing short of magic.
But I was getting better. I learned to change a diaper without decorating the walls with baby poop. I figured out how to get things done while Gretchen was napping. My sleep schedule was even adjusting to waking up five times a night.
Slowly, I was getting used to having Gretchen in my life.
Sometimes I still thought I’d go crazy. Sometimes I still threw up my hands and asked why this had happened to me.
But slowly, surely, I was figuring out how to handle this.
* * *
“What the fuck is the matter with her?” I asked on Thursday night.
Through the baby’s screams, I could barely hear Jaz’s voice over the phone. “What’s going on, Faye?”
“I’d tell you if I had a goddamn idea.” I hit the speaker button and threw the phone on the couch. It bounced, landing under the cushion. I pulled it out and threw it down again. “This fucking demon from hell won’t shut the fuck up, and that’s about all I know.”
So much for handling this. I spoke far too soon. A saint couldn’t handle this. Hell, Jesus Himself couldn’t.
“Whoa, chill,” Jaz said. “I’ve never heard you this worked up.”
Did she not hear the ear-splitting sounds that I’d been enduring? How could she tell me to chill?
“You don’t understand,” I growled. “She’s been going on like this for a goddamn hour.” I readjusted Gretchen in my arms, glaring down at her. “She’s fed. She’s clothed. She’s changed. I’m giving her more than enough attention. What the fuck else could she possibly want?”
“Okay, just breathe. This happens to everyone.”