That was the first time he had held Diego, and it dawned on me that, when he took Charles from Travis—Brando didn’t want him handing the baby to me because he probably felt the act was too personal—it was the first time he had held ababy. He refused to hold any of Violet’s kids, not until they could talk.
“What now?” Brando said, making a funny face at the screaming baby. Diego was having none of it, letting out a cry that made Brando take a step back.
“It’s all right,mio angelo,” I said, smiling up at him, trying to be reassuring. “Take his legs and move them back, not hard and not fast, just like this—” I demonstrated one-handed on Charles, pushing a leg back and then forward, back and then forward. Brando picked up the rhythm with Diego’s legs.
Eunice looked on with a knowing eye, not quite a smile on her face, but something close to it. “I’ll put on coffee!” she said suddenly. “Anyone up for it?”
Murmurs of consent went around like a catching yawn.
“How do you know all of this?” Charlotte snapped at me.
Diego let out a humongous gas, and if a baby could sigh, he certainly did. Brando took another step back, eyeing the baby warily. The bomb had exploded.
“He busted something,” he said, straight-faced.
The entire room exploded in laughter. Carmen gave the baby a dropperful of the medicine, and not long after, Diego was back to himself, chirping and kicking his feet. Brando made another face at him, and this time he giggled so hard that the entire room followed behind, even kidnapped Father Zullo.
“Angels,” he said, “make them laugh that way.”
Charlotte stuck her nose up in a familiar way. I prepared myself for the onslaught, for her to snatch Charles because she was hot at me, so I told Gwen to get his pacifier. Then I asked her when they gave him his bath.In the morning.They should do it before bed, I said, and put lavender in the water.
“How do you know this?” Charlotte almost screeched.
The entire room became quiet.
“Grandma Evelyn,” I said, patting her son’s bottom. “I spent a lot of time with her after Elliott died. Everything she knew, she wanted me to know. Little tips that had been passed down for generations. And not just about babies. So I wrote them all down.”
“Give me the book,” she demanded.
“No,” I said, as sweetly as I could manage under the circumstances. “You should’ve taken the time to get to know her. Then you could have written them down yourself.”
“Mati!” She whirled on my mother.
“Leave your mother out of this,” my father said, surprising me. He never usually got in between our fights. “Your sister is right. You should have spent time with your grandmother before she died.”
I saw a hint of pride in my father’s eyes at the mention of his mother. She was the exact opposite of my own. Though both women ran a tight ship, they did so with a glaring difference—lack of hands on said ship. Grandma Evelyn took care of her own children and husband, and the only time she required help was with a sizable dinner party. Eunice and her mother were there mostly for support.
“Everett…” my mother said.
He held a hand up, silencing her.
Charlotte stood taller, her chin coming up in defiance, chest swelling with indignation. “Well!” She turned on me again. “Why would you even need it? You don’t have a child!”
“Perhaps one day I will.”
She looked at Brando and grinned in a malicious way. “I doubt that. And then the information will get no use! It will die with Grandma Evelyn!”
“Then it won’t see the light of day. But it’s still mine. I don’t mind sharing some of it with you, but I’m not giving you my book.”
“If you don’t,” she said, low-voiced and full of heat, “I’ll make you sorry.”
What’s the old saying?I thought cynically.If I had a penny for every time I heard that…
I smiled at her in response. I knew her hate toward me had nothing to do with the book, or lack of. It had to do with what she saw when she came into the kitchen, between Brando and Travis.
Although I felt for the situation, I refused to carry the burden of it. She knew what she was getting when she married him. Her jealous nature created the beast. Whatever I had, she always wanted—it had forever been that way—and I was never sure if she couldn’t truly see that, or if she didn’t care enough to change the behavior.
I was sick and tired of always being the one to point out the obvious:It’s not my fault!I didn’t ask to be like Maja. I just was. At some point, Ihadto stop caring. It had started to eat me from the inside out.
