Rooted (Pagano Family #3)(81)

21



“How about this one?”

Carmen gave the item in question a skeptical examination. “It only has three sides.”

“It’s for co-sleeping.” Andi pointed to a sign next to the display. “Look. You put the crib up against the side of your bed, so baby’s right there with you. When she’s hungry, you just drag her over and pop a boob in.”

“I don’t want her up in the loft. Carrying her up and down that staircase probably isn’t a good idea.”

“Aren’t you going to move down to the other bedroom?”

“It’s too small. With my office stuff, it’ll barely hold the crib.”

“You’re putting her crib in your office?” Andi’s expression would have been more appropriate it Carmen had just suggested tying the baby to a surfboard and letting her sleep on the waves.

“Well, where else do you suggest I put it? The living room?”

“No, you should move your office out of there and make it a bedroom. For you and her both. Put your office stuff up in the loft.”

That was a completely impractical idea. “Getting my bed up there took scaffolding, Andi. I’m not moving it from where it is. Maybe ever.”

“You need a new house, my friend. Your house is not baby-compatible.” Andi sighed and moved on to the next nursery display in the baby superstore. The very idea of a baby superstore had flummoxed Carmen, but in the past several weeks, since Little Ben had come home and since people had started leaning on Carmen to make preparations for a baby who was still more than ten weeks away, she had become quite familiar with the layout here.

“No. I only need a crib. I can work the rest out. I can. What makes you think you know so much, anyway? You’re not a mother. You’ve never done this.” Andi took a step back, her eyes wide, and Carmen could have kicked herself. “Fuck, Andi. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” Andi had had two miscarriages and then had given birth to a stillborn son several years ago. The trauma had ended her marriage. Coming through it had changed her from Andrea to Andromeda and had made her the spiritual soul that she now was.

“Yes, you did. You are feeling querulous and said something to shut me down. But I am a compassionate person, and I recognize that your body and mind are not entirely your own right now, so I forgive you.” She pointed to a white crib with a canopy top. “What do you think of this one?”

Happy to follow along down the safer route of discussion, Carmen said, “Too fussy. What about this?” She went to a plain maple crib, which hadn’t even been given a fake nursery as a display. It simply stood against a wall, a white bumper and sheet inside it.

Andi sighed. “Really, Carm? Don’t you want to celebrate your daughter? Give her a space befitting the miracle she is? Aren’t you excited at all?”

Carmen rubbed the swelling at her middle. She would be thirty weeks along next week. Was she excited? She had no idea. She loved the baby inside her with a ferocity that awed her. Teresa. Every time her daughter rolled or kicked—or had hiccups!—Carmen stopped what she was doing, her attention entirely consumed by the life she was creating. She talked to her. She fell asleep some nights thinking about what kind of woman she would someday be, and stayed awake others worrying about what kind of mother she herself would be.

Other nights, she fell asleep feeling lonely, aching for Theo, wondering whether she had made a mistake in leaving him. Feeling certain that she had.

But in the morning, she would remember the response his lawyer had sent, the way it had set Carmen up as the reason Teresa would grow up in a broken home, setting Theo up as the victim of a demanding and vindictive woman, and demanding fifty-percent custody, with half of Teresa’s time to be spent in Maine. From the time of her birth. He was playing hardball. Fine, then. He would get a taste of the real bitch she could be.

Was she excited? No. She was in love with her daughter, but she was sad and afraid. Everything was so f*cked up. Nothing was the way it should be. In that scheme of the world, what crib she bought, whether she painted the walls in her office petal pink and moved her desk to God knew where, whether she chose cloth diapers or disposables, a Maclaren stroller or a Peg Perego, none of that really seemed to matter. She needed a place for the kid to sleep. End of story.

“I like this one.” She ran a hand over the side rail of the plain maple crib. “This one will do fine.”



oOo



When the crib was delivered two days later, she had decided to make one concession—she would move the desk and file cabinet out of the bedroom. She stored her dining table and chairs (she almost never had anyone over to eat, anyway, at least not inside), figuring that the two barstools at the kitchen counter would serve fine for her own needs, and she turned her dining area into an office. If Andi was right that she’d want to be closer than the loft, Carmen would sleep on the daybed until that was no longer the case.

Luca and John came over and moved her furniture, and then they built the crib, as well as a basic, matching changing table, and the gliding chair Andi had insisted was an absolute necessity. She fed them pizza and beer, and they hung around after and watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail with her—something they used to do when they were kids and living together at home. They all three had the entire film memorized and called out the dialogue all the way through, taking parts interchangeably. Carmen sat between her brothers, tucked under Luca’s arm and with her feet in John’s lap, and she felt better than she had for a while. When Teresa rolled and kicked, they both put hands on her belly, grinning like idiots to feel their niece dance.