An Act of Persuasion - By Stephanie Doyle Page 0,105
into that assisted living place that’s better for them. You’ll still see them as much as you want. They’re not going anywhere. Certainly not your grandfather, he walks like a snail.”
There it was. For one brief second the corner of her lip curled up. The semblance of a smile. Then it was gone.
“It’s, like, everything is changing so fast.” Her eyes filled with tears.
He reached out to take her wrist. She kept her hand in a fist, balled around another napkin, but she didn’t try to pull away. “It is, kid. Because of a stupid freak accident your mom, who should be here, is gone. Your grandparents should have stayed the same forever, but they can’t stop age. And I should be in a camp somewhere in southeast Afghanistan, but I’m here.”
“Do you miss it?”
“No.” This he could tell her truthfully. “I enjoyed working for the government but my time there was done. I was ready for this. I was coming home, Sophie. To you. No matter what.”
She seemed to take all that in. Then she tugged her hand away so she could nibble at the tips of her fingernails.
“So...did you, like, kill people and stuff?”
“Classified.”
“Did you know where Osama Bin Laden was hiding?”
“Classified.”
“Can you tell me anything?”
“George Bush is shorter in person.”
“That blows.”
No, he thought. It didn’t blow at all. In fact, it had been their first real conversation. “How about another slice? Then we can take all this stuff to the baby who, you know, won’t really care about any of it.”
* * *
“YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.”
“I’m doing it fine.”
“It’s not snug enough. It’s going to fall off.”
Mark and Sophie had left an hour ago, and Anna and Ben were getting ready to settle their child, and themselves, down for the night.
Ben looked at his baby girl who was squalling her head off in irritation over being exposed to the cool air as he replaced her diaper. Anna kept making him undo the sticky plastic tab and pull it in even farther across her tiny little body before reattaching it.
“I’m going to cut off her circulation.”
“Let me.”
He pushed her away with one arm, careful not to jostle her. She was still slightly bent over from where her cesarean stitches pulled on her stomach.
“I will master this. I will not be defeated by the diaper.” So declaring it, he finished the task and handed Kelly over to her mother.
Both mother and daughter instantly sighed with contentment.
Anna took the couch and kept their daughter cradled in the nook of her elbow. She was still so tiny, but the doctors had no concerns and, based on her ability to screech to the high heavens when she wasn’t one hundred percent happy, Ben knew there was no problem with her lungs.
He sat across from them and thought, for the first time, how tired he was. He hadn’t slept much since he’d come back into the house to find Anna bleeding at the top of the stairs. His body, which at its best was still only eighty percent recovered, was letting him know he’d gone as far as he could go. He leaned his head against the recliner.
He’d been able to pick limited pieces of furniture from his home to move here and that one, as agreed, was relegated to the basement. Everything else he planned to sell. He was hoping the potential buyer for the house might want it fully furnished.
“You should go upstairs and get some sleep. We’re going to chill down here.”
“I’ll sleep down here with you.”
No stairs was a condition of her release, so she’d been sleeping on the couch with Kelly in the bassinet next to her. Ben figured the recliner would be fine for another few nights.
“Ben, you’ve been pushing yourself now for days. I don’t want you to get sick. It could lead to a setback. Go to bed and we’ll be here when you wake up.”
He opened one eye because he didn’t have the energy to open both. “I’ll stay here with you.”
He could hear her chuckle. “So, is that the plan? You’re never going to leave me alone ever again.”
“That’s my current working plan, yes. But to clarify, I’m never leaving the two of you alone...ever.”
“Kelly, your daddy is a nutcase.”
“Kelly,” he murmured. “Your mommy almost died and made Daddy a nutcase.”
He’d meant it as joke, but not really. He didn’t think he would ever forget how it felt in those moments when he was holding her and feeling the damp heat of her