He put the diaper in the pail and wrapped Billy in a towel he found lying on the floor. When Holly had been tiny Emma had bathed her in the kitchen sink. Darcy carried the baby to the kitchen and surveyed the basin filled with dirty dishes and scraps of food. Not an option.
Now what? How had he come to be standing in this filthy apartment with a crying baby in his hands? Darcy felt a little like howling himself. All he’d wanted when he came over here was to make sure Emma was okay, get a peek at his son and go on his merry way content in the knowledge that she was happy, had what she wanted and he didn’t need to feel guilty about a thing. He’d expected her to be under the weather, not having mental problems.
This was partly his fault. By not insisting he take an active role he’d pushed her into trying to do it all herself. The stress had been too much for her.
There was no point casting blame when he had a cold, wet, hungry, naked baby literally on his hands. The kid needed a bath. He explored the rest of the apartment. No laundry room. Great. The crying was really starting to get to him. How did the baby keep that up? His throat must be so sore. Which no doubt made him cry even more.
“Your mum won’t be too much longer, kid,” Darcy muttered, pacing the short hall. “Then we can get you cleaned up.”
How long had she been in there? Must be over ten minutes. Emma didn’t waste water. Even after the drought had ended she still limited her showers to two minutes, four if she washed her hair—
Oh, no.
She wouldn’t. Would she?
Darcy banged on the door, his heart racing. “Emma! Answer me.”
All he heard was the sound of running water.
He flung open the door and stepped into the steamy room. Behind the frosted glass shower door Emma stood naked and motionless, hands at her sides and her face turned into the spray.
Thank God. Oh, thank God. Darcy’s knees crumpled. He sat on the edge of a bathtub separate from the shower. She hadn’t heard him call out or come in, wasn’t even aware of his presence in the bathroom. She was lost somewhere in her head, hiding under a waterfall. He could hear her singing to herself, faint and tuneless.
He wasn’t leaving this room until the baby was bathed. Suddenly that seemed of vital importance. Surely he could manage that, if nothing else. Billy was half-asleep, exhausted by crying and illness.
Clutching him to his chest, Darcy leaned over the bathtub and ran the water, testing the temperature with his elbow. Why the elbow? He’d always wondered that. The elbow had to be one of the least sensitive places on the human body. And a baby’s skin was ultrasensitive. But maybe he had that wrong. When Holly had been born, Emma had given him a stack of baby-rearing books which he’d never read.
Why would he read about babies when playing with Holly was so much more fun? He’d been an expert on getting her to giggle and blowing raspberries. Not so much on, say, when to start a child on solids. Emma took care of all that. He only breezed in for a couple of hours, got Holly hyped up, as Emma would say, then went to the pub. If he didn’t do anything that mattered, then he couldn’t screw up.
When the tub held a couple of inches of warm water Darcy unwrapped the baby and carefully lowered him in. Billy woke up and flung both arms out, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping. Snot hung from his nose in two yellow-green ribbons. He began to cry. Of course. What other response would a baby have to a bath?
Slippery little devil, too. He wriggled and twisted, slipping out of Darcy’s grip and flipping over with his face below the water. Crap! Darcy grabbed him and whipped him out and upside down to drain any water that might have filled his nostrils. Darcy was sweating in the humid room and he could smell his own fear.
“What are you doing?” Emma asked.
He glanced over his shoulder. The shower had stopped and he hadn’t noticed. Emma stood directly behind him, naked and dripping, watching his clumsy handling of her precious baby with a curiously detached expression. Even though she was shivering with the cold she