The Curve Ball - Samantha Lind Page 0,15
sleeper to keep her cozy for the night. “You sure did give your daddy a run for his money tonight, Evie girl. Way to break him in,” I tell her as I zip up the sleeper. I snuggle her into my arms and head for the kitchen to make her a bottle. With that established, we hunker down on the couch. I flip the TV on, finding a rerun of Friends to watch while she works on her bottle.
“That was the grossest thing I’ve ever encountered, and I’m in a locker room with twenty-four other guys daily,” JJ tells me as he plops down on the couch next to Evie and me.
I laugh after seeing the disgusted look on his face. “Just wait, I’m sure something will outdo this event. But be proud, it’s a rite of passage for parents to get peed, pooped, or puked on.”
“I would have been just fine without ever experiencing that,” he deadpans.
“At least you survived,” I tell him, holding back my laughter.
“Hardly. If you wouldn’t have come back when you did, we’d probably still be in that bathroom, but both of us would be crying by now,” he says, reaching out and sliding the pad of his finger down Evie’s cheek. She’s lazily suckling on the bottle now, obviously not as hungry anymore as she starts to drift off to sleep. I take the bottle from her, shifting her to lie against my chest so I can burp her and allow her to fall into a deeper sleep. I snuggle her close, dropping some small kisses to the top of her little head. I breathe in her clean baby smell and just let it fill my senses. Not much smells better than a clean baby.
“I’ll be right back, I’m going to go lay her down,” I tell JJ as I stand and take Evie into my room and place her in the pack-n-play that I put in here for the time being.
“Do we need to worry about her poop-explosion?” JJ asks as I sit back down on the couch next to him.
“I don’t think so; she doesn’t show any other symptoms of being sick that I’ve noticed. Sometimes babies just have a blowout. She might even be trying to cut her first tooth, and that can cause babies to have explosions,” I tell him, and his eyes go wide once again.
“I’ve got so much to learn.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll learn as you go.”
“What if I don’t? What if I screw things up so bad for her?” he asks, and I can see the worry in his eyes.
“I’m sure every parent feels the same way. You’ll get through this. I’m sure if you called up your parents, they’d tell you they were scared shitless when they first had you. No babies come with a manual, we just have to figure things out as we go and do the best we can to shape them into productive members of society.”
He runs his hands through his still damp hair as he leans forward, placing his elbows on his knees as his face falls into the palms of his hands. “I’ve only had her in my life for twenty-four hours, and I already feel like a failure,” he finally says.
“Justin,” I say his name, closing the space between us as I place my palm against his back between his shoulder blades. “You’re not a failure. You’ve given Evie everything she needs in the last day. A safe place to be, food, and most of all, love. Not only from you, but from everyone around you that’s come into contact with her so far. That little girl is lucky to have you, and you’re lucky to have her. She might completely turn your world as you know it upside down, but give it a few weeks or months, and you won’t remember a time without her in your life and wonder how you made it this far in life without her.”
He turns his head, still resting in the palms of his hands, and looks at me. I can tell by the look in his eyes that he wants to believe me, that he wants that picture I just painted for him. All he has to do is reach out and take it and make this the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
“I hope you’re right,” he says as he leans until his back is against the couch. He grabs my hand with his own, dwarfing my hand in the