The Delivery of Decor (Shiloh Ridge Ranch in Three Rivers #7) - Liz Isaacson Page 0,101
the suction going. Ward picked up a blue blanket and started to hum the tune he’d been working on for the past couple of weeks. Maybe months.
The boy quieted completely, his eyes drifting closed as Ward continued to bounce him. He wrapped the baby up tightly and tucked him into his arm like a football before turning to the little girl working her way toward a scream.
“Come on now, Judy.” He bent to get the little girl out of the playpen and spotted the bottle sitting on the windowsill. He suddenly knew what Ida had been cleaning off her blouse, and he reached for the bottle too.
He took both babies to the rocking chair Ida obviously used, as her phone sat on the nearby table, along with a big glass of water, and her reading glasses. Ward settled into the chair, the song already coming out of his mouth again.
He grabbed the blanket from the side of the playpen and tucked Judy into his body too. “She always drives away when she should stay,” he sang, his tenor voice barely hitting the lower notes. He slipped into a hum, wishing the song he’d written wasn’t about Dot.
But it was. Everything in Ward’s life had become about Dot. He fitted the bottle into Judy’s mouth, and she started eating again. Ward toed himself and the twins back and forth, back and forth, the way he had with Etta and Ida when they were newborns and he was five years old.
Of course, Mother had swaddled them like dolls and set them in his arms, but Ward had wanted to hold them so badly. He had pictures of himself beaming at the camera with one twin in each arm, and he’d loved his sisters from the moment he’d met them.
Ida’s heels clicked as she came back down the hall, and she paused, looking at him. He smiled at her and said, “Judy’s eating, and I hope that’s the right thing to be doing. Johnny seemed hungry too, so maybe I should’ve fed him.”
Ida burst into tears and threw both hands into the air. “It’s official.” She marched toward the kitchen. “I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve been trying to get those silly babies to stop crying for an hour. Brady got called into work, and now we’re going to be late to the party, and honestly, I can’t wear these heels.”
She kicked them off, her voice becoming high enough to audition for the part of one of the Chipmunks. “I won’t let Etta come over, because then she’ll see what a mess everything is.” Ida kept her back to Ward and leaned into the counter in front of the sink.
He wanted to get up and go soothe her, but the babies….
He’d been led to Dot’s, and she wasn’t home for a very specific reason. He’d really been led to Ida’s, so he could help her with the babies.
“Come sit down,” he said, and Ida turned toward him.
By some miracle—perhaps his father with his angel hand held Judy’s bottle for her—Ward managed to get up without disturbing either baby. “Right here, Ida.”
She did, tears covering her crumpled face. “Take Johnny,” he said, slipping the baby from his arms to hers. “I’ll get him a bottle, because I think he has to eat too.”
“He does,” Ida said. “I started to make it when the water boiled over on the stove.” She sobbed as she looked down at her son. “I think it’s still in the microwave. I’d just fixed the stove when Judy woke up. She’s so shrill, so I fed her first. By then, Johnny was pretty mad he had to go second again, and then she threw up all over me, and by then I seriously thought—is this my life now? How did I get here?”
She sobbed again, and Ward wished he could take her desperation and despair from her. “It’s all right, Ida. You cry as much as you want.” He turned to get the bottle from the microwave. He took it to her so she could feed her son, and then he noticed that Judy’s bottle was almost gone.
“You’re done, Little Miss,” he told her, slipping the nipple out of her mouth. “You give me a big burp now, okay?” He put the little girl over his shoulder, and she molded right to him, melting and stealing his heart all in one single second. He patted her back as he stutter-stepped back into the kitchen.