Babies By The Busload. Raye Morgan

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      She nodded reluctantly. “I got it,” she echoed, her voice as sad as her eyes.

      He sighed and lay back against the pillow for one last moment, his arms behind his head. Marguerite was in the kitchen. Now he was going to have to get up. What did you call it when the hired help made almost as many problems as she solved? A dilemma, at the very least.

      He glanced down at his daughter. “Okay, I’m getting up. You go get dressed and we’ll meet in the kitchen, okay? And whatever it is that Marguerite’s cooking, we’re going to love it. Right?”

      Annie made a face, her teeth on edge, and dashed off toward her own room to change. Jack willed his body to rise, and surprisingly, it did as he asked, but it creaked along the way.

      “Getting to be an old man at thirty-five,” be muttered as he made his way to the shower. “Raising babies saps the strength right out of you.”

      As if on cue, the first sounds from the babies’ room came wafting in through the doorway, and he hesitated, then opted for a quick shower before going to them. And quick it was. He barely lasted long enough for the drops to hit his skin before he was back out, toweling down and hurrying to reach the babies. For just a moment he had fleeting thoughts of the old days when he’d luxuriated in a warm shower, letting the stinging drops hit him for minutes at a time. Those days were gone. Now it was slapdash and make it faster. The babies called.

      For just a moment, the image of his new neighbor spun into view again. She’d seemed to have plenty of time to wallow in her hot tub. He remembered when he’d been young like that, with every possible path still in front of him, and for a brief moment, he envied her.

      But he quickly shoved the thought away. He couldn’t let stray impulses cloud his horizon. He’d made a commitment to these kids and he was going to keep it, even if everyone on earth seemed to think he was nuts.

      “Give a couple of them up for adoption,” someone had actually suggested. “You can’t possibly take care of all four at once by yourself.”

      “Send them home to your mother” was another refrain he often heard.

      “Don’t they have child-care professionals who can come in and take over running the house and raising the kids so you won’t have to?” said another helpful soul.

      He’d reacted to every such comment with good-natured humor on the outside, and outraged horror on the inside. These were his kids. They’d already lost a mother. There was no way they were going to have to be raised without a father—a one hundred percent, there-for-you-whenever-youneed-him father.

      So, despite the attractions living right next door, there would be no lusting after beautiful neighbors. Indulging himself in that sort of thing would bring disaster, and he wasn’t going to do it, not even for a moment.

      But the time for thought evaporated as his day began at its usual frantic pace. Marguerite’s voice was calling him, and so were the voices from the next room.

      “Mister? Mister?” Marguerite shouted from the kitchen. “I got you food ready. It gonna get cold!”

      He hopped on one foot as he wrestled with his slacks. “You’ll have to keep it warm for me, Marguerite,” he called. “The babies are awake.”

      The banging of pans was her only answer, and he winced, but he went in to see his little ones. Three cribs lined one wall, three mobiles hung over them and three little children were each standing up and leaning on the railings, little fingers curled around the edge.

      Three. It always gave him a beat of panic when he saw them like this, their sweet round faces gazing at him eagerly. They wanted so much, needed so much. How could anyone possibly minister to three at once? It was impossible. But somehow, he had to try.

      He got to work quickly, swinging up the first baby and heading for the changing table. Annie arrived, dressed in jeans and a little red shirt, and pitched in as she always did. Jack spoke softly to each baby as he cleaned and changed and dressed him or her. Luckily they were usually good-natured in the morning, cooing and laughing while Annie amused them. Still, it was half an hour later before they were through. He hurried out to the kitchen with one baby under each arm, while Annie lugged the third one.

      All seemed quiet on the cooking front. Marguerite was nowhere to be seen, but two plates of cold pancakes sat at nicely set places at the table, and three dishes of congealed oatmeal sat on the counter. Jack took in the situation at a glance and, knowing his hired help, plunked his two babies down in walkers and motioned for Annie to do the same with hers. He knew the babies were hungry, but they would have to wait. There were times when a man had to do what a man had to do.

      “Sit down, quick,” he whispered to Annie. “We’ll eat and then feed the little ones.”

      The babies had no problem with the order of things. They were gurgling with laughter and careening together in their walkers like little round bumper cars. Meanwhile, Jack poured syrup over his pancakes and said very loudly, “Wow, these are really good. Marguerite sure knows how to fix a good breakfast, doesn’t she, Annie?”

      Annie sat on the edge of her chair and stared down at the plate before her. There were blueberries in the pancakes.

      Jack saw her look and gave her an encouraging smile. “All together now,” he urged under his breath. “We love it!” he said aloud. “Don’t we, Annie?”

      Annie mouthed the words but her heart wasn’t in it and rebellion brewed in her brown eyes. Still she managed to put a bite into her mouth by the time Marguerite reappeared, looking at them suspiciously, her green eyes darting a glance from one plate to another. Her blond hair was a little wild this morning and her thick, shapeless body was rendered even more lumplike by the plain housedress she wore. A woman of middle years, she had seemingly lost all interest in looking attractive.

      “Marguerite, these are the best pancakes you’ve made yet,” Jack lied, raising his voice to be heard over the din of the babies attacking each other with the walkers. “Delicious.”

      Marguerite’s face began to relax. “You really like?” she asked hopefully.

      Jack nodded. “Great stuff,” he said with his mouth full.

      Marguerite smiled. “Okay. I warm up this oatmeal for the babies, okay? Then I help you feed them.”

      Jack felt the tension in his shoulders let go just a little bit. She wasn’t going to quit this morning at any rate.

      “That would be wonderful,” he said with real conviction. He took another huge bite of the cold pancakes and she smiled more happily, dusting her hands against her white apron.

      “Okay,” she said again, bustling about the stove. “Okay.”

      Jack glanced at Annie. She was still chewing on her original bite, her face filled with tragedy. He opened his mouth to say something to her, but before he got the words out, one of the baby walkers crashed into another a little too hard and both babies began to shriek. He jumped up to take care of things, but something inside was beginning to feel the same rebellion he’d seen in Annie’s eyes. There was a part of him that would have jumped at the chance to run off with. say, the nicely proportioned neighbor he’d met the day before in her hot tub. Run off with her to some nice warm beach in the tropics and laze the day away.

      But that wasn’t going СКАЧАТЬ