Page 86 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

Around four in the afternoon on her fifth day there, I was sitting at the kitchen island with my laptop open, trying to review logistics manifests for the jewelry store. Trumai was strapped to my chest in one of those gray fabric baby wraps Truth had forced me to learn how to tie. I had two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle and scar tissue strapped into six yards of breathable cotton, with a baby snoring softly against my sternum.

Delphine was standing at the stove, stirring a pot of white beans and smoked sausage. The smell filled the entire first floor—garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and pork fat sizzling down into the broth.

“You holding her too stiff,” Delphine said without turning around.

I frowned, looking down at Trumai’s head, which was covered in a little yellow knitted cap. “She’s sleeping fine.”

“She sleeping fine because she’s a baby and babies don’t know no better,” Delphine said, turning with a wooden spoon in her hand. She was wearing a floral apron over her denim dress, her hair pulled back smooth, gold hoops catching the sunlight from the back window. “You holding your shoulders like you expecting somebody to kick the front door in. Relax them muscles. Children feel that tension right through your chest. You want her to grow up jumpy like you?”

“I’m not jumpy,” I said.

“You got cameras on every tree outside and four phones on the counter,” she countered, walking over to the island. She tapped the side of my shoulder with the handle of the spoon. “Drop ’em.”

I let out a slow breath and dropped my shoulders an inch.

Trumai shifted against my chest, let out a tiny sigh, and buried her cheek deeper into my shirt.

Delphine looked at her, then looked at me, her sharp brown eyes softening just enough for me to see it before she hid it behind that usual stern look. “There. See? She ain’t made of spun glass, Amai. You don’t gotta hold your breath every time you touch her.”

“She small,” I muttered, looking away. “Smaller than I thought she’d be.”

“She’s a newborn. They supposed to be small.” Delphine moved a stool closer to mine and sat down, leaning her elbows on the counter. “When Truth was born, she wasn’t no bigger than a bag of sugar. Her daddy looked at her one time and told me he was scared he was gonna break her collarbone just changing her diaper. Men always think they too rough for babies. But babies ain’t delicate the way you think. They survive us.”

I was quiet for a second, listening to the hum of the refrigerator and the gentle bubbling of the beans on the stove. “My daddy didn’t hold us,” I said, the words coming out before I had a chance to filter them. “Not unless he was showing us how to hold a grip on a blade or checking our knuckles after a fight.”

Delphine didn’t flinch. She didn’t offer no pitying look, either. That was the thing about Delphine—she knew what the Landry name meant in New Orleans now, and she didn’t pretend the dirt didn’t exist.

“Well,” she said, “your daddy was a fool about a lot of things. Don’t mean you gotta carry his foolishness into this room. You her daddy now. What he did don’t dictate what you do with this little girl.”

She reached out, her fingers warm and calloused, and adjusted the fabric of the wrap where it crossed over my shoulder, tucking the edge under so it didn’t rub against Tru’s neck. It was a small gesture—the kind of casual, motherly correction nobody had ever done for me in my thirty-odd years on this earth. My mother, Odette, had loved us in her own quiet, broken way, but she spent most of her life surviving Winston’s shadow. She didn’t have room left over for soft lessons.

“Look here,” Delphine said, leaning in. “When she wake up in a few minutes, you gotta burp her proper. None of that little sissy tapping you was doing yesterday. You tap a baby’s back like you knocking on a screen door. Firm. Cup your hand like this.”

She demonstrated against her own palm, making a hollow thump-thump-thump sound.

“You cup the hand so the air pocket does the work,” she explained. “Don’t hit her with a flat palm. That just stings. Cup it, start from the lower back, and work your way up to between the shoulder blades. That air gotta travel up, Amai. It ain’t gonna find its own way out.”

“Cup the hand,” I repeated.

“Cup the hand,” she affirmed. “And stop putting that damn bulb syringe up her nose every time she breathe hard. You gonna irritate her mucous membranes. You hear her whistling, you put a drop of saline in each side and let her sneeze it out. God gave her a nose that work. Let it work.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

A soft sound came from the archway. I looked up and saw Truth leaning against the doorframe, wearing a soft gray robe, holding an empty mug. She was watching us with a quiet, knowing smile that made me feel like I’d been caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing.

“How long you been standing there?” I asked.

“Long enough to hear Mama giving you remedial parenting classes,” Truth said, walking into the kitchen. She stepped behind my chair, resting both hands on my shoulders and leaning down to press a kiss to the top of my head, then another one to Trumai’s little cap. “You doing good, Daddy.”

“I know what I’m doing,” I grumbled.

“Sure you do,” Delphine said, standing up and heading back to the stove. “That’s why you called my cell phone three times yesterday while I was at the beauty parlor, asking if babies supposed to have hiccups for ten minutes straight.”

Truth burst out laughing, leaning her weight against my back. “You called my mama at the salon?”

“The pediatrician’s office put me on hold,” I said, completely unashamed. “Mama D answers on the second ring.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Delphine shouted over the clatter of her spoon. “Now, Truth, go sit your ass down in that recliner and let this man bring you a bowl of beans. He need to learn how to serve his family instead of just ordering people around.”