tired. Merry Christmas, dear.”
“Merry Christmas.” It sounded hollow somehow. And once he was in his room stretched out on his bed, sleep wasn’t quick in coming. He was exhausted. How could he not sleep? Easy. All he had to do was take his imagination across town to the hospital. Up to the third floor to where he knew a young woman was probably staring at a ceiling with the same intensity he was.
After half an hour Mike surrendered. He picked up the cordless phone on the bedside table and punched in the numbers of the hospital. The switchboard was long closed and he got the long series of recorded instructions. While he listened to them drone on, he cast about frantically in his memory for Lori’s room number.
Finally at the point where the recorded message was repeating itself and he was sure he didn’t remember the number, it popped into his head and he punched it in. One ring, then two. What if it wasn’t the right number? He had this vision of waking up somebody that had finally taken his or her sleeping pill and drifted off.
“Hello?” That was Lori’s voice, wasn’t it?
“Lori?”
“Yes.” She sounded puzzled. But then, Mike reasoned, the woman had no family around here, and precious few friends. It was probably kind of odd to get a call in the middle of the night in the hospital, on Christmas.
“It’s Mike. Mike Martin. I couldn’t sleep, and I wondered how things were going. I woke you up, didn’t I?”
“No, you didn’t. We’ve got Tyler on this cool fold-out recliner thing, and he’s sound asleep. Mikayla is in her bassinet, and she’s asleep too. She’s fun to watch sleep, Mike. I’d forgotten what kind of squinchy little noises newborns make. They squeak.”
There was a touch of laughter in her voice. Mike marveled at it. How could somebody go through everything Lori had, and still be able to laugh about squeaky babies?
“Now that I’m talking to you, I have no idea why I called.” It felt better admitting it. “I’ll let you get to sleep like your kids.”
“No, I’m glad you called. I was lying here doing the craziest thing. You’ll think I’m even stranger than you do already, but I was connecting the dots on the ceiling tile.”
“What do yours make? Our house has this textured ceiling paint, and in my bedroom there’s a rabbit. Or a llama or something.”
“Lucky you. Best I’ve come up with is an amoeba.”
“That’s one ugly ceiling.” And one strange conversation. But somehow it was comforting. “So do you think they’ll still let you out before noon?”
“Looks like it. Everybody’s healthy, and the nurses have been so sweet about keeping Tyler here. Not that there’s much of an alternative, unless we talk about temporary foster care. And nobody wanted to do that to us at Christmas, thank heavens.”
“And you’ll let us bring you here?”
Lori sighed. “I will. I hate to take charity from total strangers, but watching Mikayla sleep has been the last straw. I can’t go back out to the country, with no phone, a car that only starts when it wants to and this tiny baby. But I am going to be doing that housecleaning by next week.”
“Next year. That could be after next week.” Or it could be in a couple months, like spring, when Mike might feel more ready to let this pixie of a woman clean anything in his mother’s house.
“We’ll see.” She was quite a determined pixie. There was a pause for a moment. “I did think of one thing we need tomorrow. Do you have access to a car seat?”
Now that had him stumped. It took a minute for the reality of this to sink in. He was bringing home a real, live newborn baby. On Christmas Day. “I’ll call Carrie. I’m pretty sure fire-and-rescue loans them out to parents who don’t have one, so that nobody goes home from the hospital without. Besides, she’ll love getting a call about six in the morning on Christmas Day.”
“You hound. Wait until at least eight or nine when she’s up. I think single people sleep in past daylight on holidays.”
“Maybe. I still think I’d have more fun my way.”
“For about ten minutes. Then she’d be figuring out ways to murder you, wouldn’t she?”
Mike had to laugh. “Yeah, she would. Even Carrie isn’t a good enough friend that she’d let me get away with that. Hey, I had one other question. What’s the Santa situation for a certain young man asleep in your room?”
“Not real great, I’m afraid.” There was sadness in her voice. “I haven’t exactly had the time or the money to go out and get much. Especially with him tagging along. He’d figure things out pretty quickly if toys that showed up in a shopping cart he was sitting in came from Santa.”
“True. There’s a lot to this kid business that I have to learn.” Mike’s own statement stopped him cold. He didn’t know anything about kids, except what he remembered from being one. And that was pretty sketchy. But how he wanted to learn, for Lori’s sake, and maybe for his own.
This was getting way too deep with somebody he’d only met this morning. Lori must have thought so, too, because she hadn’t said anything for a while. “Hey, I’ll let you go. Want me to call in the morning before I come by to get you?”
“Please. Tell the rabbit good-night for me.”
Huh? Oh, yeah. The rabbit on the ceiling. “Will do. And you tuck in that amoeba.” Mike hung up. This was way, way too deep already. And he knew things could only get deeper. Why wasn’t that bothering him?
Chapter Five
Carrie found a car seat. And two stuffed animals from the ambulance supply that they gave to transported kids. And a bright shiny red fire truck that Mike suspected came from somebody’s private stock, meant for a son or nephew. Fire and rescue folks were generous that way.
Tyler had no problem believing that Santa made a drop-off at Carrie’s house when jolly old Saint Nick found out he wasn’t home. It made perfect sense to him that his toys would find him, no matter what.
The fire truck was an instant hit. Stuffed animals were okay, and got a few seconds of perusal before being put down. But Mike could see that the kid was probably going to sleep with that fire truck before he let go of it. That small thing meant a lot to him. Kids were so resilient.
He could see the thanks in Lori’s eyes. Of course she couldn’t say anything out loud without giving away the game. Carrie had also brought a fluffy pink receiving blanket and some amazingly tiny sleepers for Mikayla. “She looks like an elf.” Carrie settled a matching pointed hat on the sleeping baby. “Doesn’t she, Mike?”
She actually looked like a red, squashy baby to him, but he suspected admitting that would be trouble. Silence was probably the best route here. He smiled, hoping to look sincere. “Can I carry anything down to the truck?”
“Not much to carry.” Lori looked around the room. She had her hospital supplies, issued on admission, and a bag that must have contained yesterday’s outfit. It was then Mike realized that what he’d taken for a relatively attractive matching shirt and pants were hospital scrubs lent to her by a nurse. Even a day after giving birth she managed to make the outfit look like tailored separates.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “We were so busy getting stuff for Tyler and the baby. I didn’t think about you.”
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