I just knew it.
Twelve
Stop thinking about everything so much. You’re breaking your own heart.
—Searcy to Calliope
CALLIOPE
“What the hell is your problem?” my sister asked as she patted her infant son on the bottom as she swayed back and forth.
She looked wrecked.
Would it be rude to point out that she needed a shower?
I could smell the throw up on her from here.
“My problem is,” I said, taking the crying baby from her arms and settling him on my shoulder. “You’re exhausted. You need a fucking shower. And you need to eat something so that you’re not so crabby. Now, start with the shower, because you really stink.”
Searcy looked at me for a long second before she said, “That was rude.”
“Rude and truthful,” I said. “Now go, for the love of God. Even the dog won’t get close to you right now.”
Searcy looked down, then sideways as if she fully expected her dog to be there. But he was nowhere in sight. I doubted it was due to her smell, and more likely the screaming infant that was in my arms, but still.
“Shit,” she said. “I’ll go.”
Her other two were down for naps—I’d made sure to put them there—and there was one left to go.
Searcy left, and I grabbed a towel off the dryer to lay down beside the sink in the kitchen.
Once I had the water to temperature, I plugged it with the stopper and laid a kitchen towel into it before starting on Dalton’s clothes.
He was covered in puke, and I couldn’t stop the wrinkle in my nose as I tossed the clothes to the floor.
The next to go was his stupid cloth diaper—yet another thing that Searcy was kicking ass at—and tossed that to the floor, too.
I didn’t fuck with cloth diapers.
I’d do the disposable ones, but diapers weren’t really my jam. And spraying shit off of them into the toilet wasn’t really something I wanted to do.
I’d just gotten the screaming infant in the bathwater when the doorbell rang.
I ignored it.
Whoever it was must’ve realized no one was coming because they let themselves in.
“Searcy? Calliope?”
I narrowed my eyes as I reached for the discarded pacifier that I’d accidentally tossed to the floor with Dalton’s clothes.
I was just washing it off and plugging Dalton’s mouth with it when Jasper arrived.
“You know he has an infant bathtub, right?” Jasper asked.
“Sure, but a sink works just as well.”
“Sinks are gross.”
