Charity nudged Grace. “Did you see? He winked at me.”
Grace scoffed. “He did not. He has something in his eye. Look at those long, long eyelashes. Oh, he smiled at me.”
Charity scoffed. “Nah, he’s just passing gas. He’s the mirror image of his daddy. Almost makes me want another.”
“Almost?” Grace asked, snickering.
Charity grunted as she got up from her knees. “It’s been a long time since I kneeled beside a tub to wash a baby. Stick a fork in me, I’m done, sis.”
Grace glanced at Seth, who was still talking to Emma, and turned to Jayne. “So…what happens now?”
Biting her lip in complete and utter confusion, Jayne replied, “I don’t know. I think we wing it tonight and see what happens.”
Grace patted her. “You know you can call any of us, if you have questions or need help.”
Charity nodded. “And there’s always Google.”
A weird unsettled feeling lodged not quite comfortably in her chest as she watched Emma show Seth how to easily get the baby into his sleeper, which one of the girls had found in the stuffed diaper bag Tamar had left behind.
Grace patted Jayne’s shoulder. “Once Toby gets settled in, that weird, out-of-body-experience feeling will ease up. Seth seems like he’s handling it well. Are you okay?’
“I feel like I’m in a dream.” Toby made eye contact with her from across the hallway, in the bedroom, and gave her a droopy-eyed half smile. The clench in her heart was undeniable. He was already on his way to owning her heart too.
* * * *
Thinking that fate could turn life upside down, and make it seem terrifying and so right all at the same time, Seth smiled at Jayne. She looked as though she was having an experience similar to his own, her heart and uncertainty in her eyes. He could almost read her thoughts in her expression. A sleepy but fairly contented Toby yawned from his nook in Seth’s arms, and Emma, Grace, and Charity took that as their cue to say good night.
Smiling and sympathetic at the same time, Grace said, “I made a bottle for him, and it’s sitting in a pan of warm water on the stove. Don’t forget to eat. I put lasagna on two plates for you and put the rest in the refrigerator.”
With the house quiet, Seth felt drawn to Jayne and took her in his free arm and held her for a minute. “Will you stay?” He asked out of want and not need.
She nodded and seemed to relax as though she’d been waiting for him to tell her what he wanted her to do. She slid her arms around him and squeezed then caressed his son’s cheek. Seth tilted her chin up and claimed a kiss from her.
She laid her head against his chest and stroked Toby’s silky, black hair. “Can I rock him?”
“Sure.”
Toby went to her easily, and she settled in the recliner again. He brought her the bottle of formula and watched as she tested it. Thankfully, Toby took it without any more fussing.
“Seth, did Tamar leave you any means of contact? A phone number or e-mail?”
“There were papers in his diaper bag, including his birth certificate. That’s how I knew his name. She didn’t even bother to tell me his name, Jayne.” His disgust was directed at himself, that he’d spent time with Tamar, and had thought he’d loved such a self-centered creature.
Seth removed everything from the diaper bag. He found clothing, disposable diapers, cloth diapers, two changes of soiled clothing, meaning she’d recently left wherever she’d been staying, most likely Henri’s, if his assumption about Mimi was correct. The thought of his son being anywhere near that odious man’s influence sickened him. He recalled the trace of nervousness she’d shown in wanting to leave Toby behind. She’d been in a hurry, and he wondered if it wasn’t for another reason besides the taxi cab that had been waiting.
Seth retrieved Toby’s birth certificate, immunization records, and several other documents from the inner pocket of the diaper bag, along with a photograph of a familiar dark-haired woman he suspected was Mimi. Mimi Durand. On the back of the photograph was that name and short message scrawled in French and what looked like an e-mail address. What little French he knew, he hadn’t used in a long time and wouldn’t do him much good with the message. He needed to get it translated and contact her for details about the baby.
The bag had been packed with care, the inner pockets filled with over-the-counter medicines Toby might need, ointment for his rash, books, a few toys, and a sun hat. Seth owed Mimi a debt of gratitude because he had the distinct impression that the bag had been packed by someone who’d loved Toby very much. He knew that person hadn’t been Tamar. So why had she suddenly appeared on his doorstep?
“Is that her? The one he asks for?” she asked as she handed him the picture back.
“I think so. I’ll try to find out.”
Unfolding the other documents and reading them, Seth was equal parts shocked and relieved. There was a handwritten, notarized letter from Tamar, dated the day before, relinquishing all parental rights to Tobias, as well as an e-mail printout dated ten months prior from Tamar’s parents to her, cutting her off completely and clarifying that they had no interest in grandparental privileges to her illegitimate child. He read them to Jayne.
“At least she covered all her bases,” Jayne murmured as she stroked Toby’s head.
He looked at Toby again and wondered at how callous Tamar and her parents’ hearts were to do this. At the same time, he was grateful that he could expect no interference from them. For that matter, he felt grateful that she’d gone to the trouble of bringing Toby to him at all rather than abandoning him in France. One of the first things he planned to do was visit an attorney and have everything clarified.
“So…how are you doing?” Jayne whispered. An uncomfortable, unknown, almost scary feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. Adrenaline would only take him so far. He knew he was ill-prepared for the transition that was coming.
“I feel lost.” He wasn’t afraid to admit that to Jayne. He never would’ve admitted that to Tamar. It wasn’t her business how he felt about all this. He worried that the little surprise on his doorstep this evening had been too much for Jayne. “Worried what this means, for me, for us.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Seth. You didn’t plan for this and you have a right to however you feel.”
“I’m angry, too. Was I that awful that she felt justified in keeping him from me? Then to just decide to show up on my doorstep and dump him, or threaten to abandon him somewhere else if I didn’t want him. Of
course
I want him. I’m just not sure…” It rankled in his soul that he felt so clueless. Changes were coming in his life that he’d never have been able to predict.
“What to do next?”
“Yes. I wanted you to stay, but not because I need you to. I
want
you to. But I understand if it’s too much.”
She met his eyes. “I’ll stay. He’s your son and it’s your call. I love you and I want to help.” He cleared his throat of the lump growing there and she whispered, “You’re going to be a great dad.”
Just then, Toby snuggled closer beneath Jayne’s chin. Seth watched as Jayne bit her lip, and a rosy flush came to her cheeks.
She looked so beautiful there, holding his son. Love for her swelled so big in his heart he thought it might burst. He wished that things had been different and that she’d been Toby’s mother.
Going down on his knee, he leaned forward and kissed her again, communicating without words how he felt about her, then whispered, “You’re the most beautiful, caring woman I’ve ever known. I’ll turn down the bed and make a place for him between us.”
Jayne’s smile was tender and warm as she nodded. Toby let out a blissful baby sigh as he fell deeper asleep in her arms. Whatever choices had to be made could wait until the morning.
Of course those lofty thoughts did nothing to help him sleep, and he woke up during the night and lay there watching the two of them slumber. Toby must’ve been exhausted because he’d stirred only once or twice. He’d curled as close as he could to Jayne in his nest made of pillows and a receiving blanket, his thumb in his mouth. She slept with one arm curled around Toby, dressed in one of Seth’s T-shirts. It had ridden up during the night, revealing the lower end of the rose tattoo on her hip and thigh. She’d trusted him on so many levels, physically. It made him happy to realize that the trust went both ways. Even though this child wasn’t hers, she was helping him to adjust the best way she knew how. She hadn’t called it quits with him last night, when Seth’s priorities and practically his whole life had changed. She wouldn’t just walk out, like Tamar. And she was helping him to close the door on that past.
Careful not to disturb them, he brushed an errant curl from her cheek and then lay there watching the moonlight caress her skin. Toby’s eyelashes fluttered, but he drifted back to sleep after taking hold of the finger Seth held out to him. Unable to resist, he leaned forward a few inches and kissed Toby’s forehead. He still couldn’t believe he was a dad but he’d do the best job that he could.
When he finally gave up on sleep altogether, Seth got up, closed the bedroom door so Jayne and Toby wouldn’t be disturbed, and went into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. To gather his thoughts, he sat down with his sketchbook and started drawing, committing from memory the image of Jayne curled up with Toby on the plain white page. The drawing brought words to mind and he flipped the page and wrote them down for her. Recalling the photograph with the message written in French they’d found with Toby’s papers, he pulled out the picture and turned on his laptop.
He found a website that could do a French-to-English translation, and twenty minutes later he read the translation of the message on the back of the photograph.
My name is Mimi and I have cared for Toby this past year. It is my hopeful prayer that this message is found by his father or someone else who cares about him. He is a good baby and very loving. I am employed in the home of a man who has no care for him and believe Tamar is doing her best to take Tobias where he will be safe and cared for. If she has abandoned him, as I fear she may do, please love him and take good care of him. Tamar has not spent much time with him and I fear the lack of mother bond may cause her to make a rash decision. I’ve packed this bag with some of his toys and any medicines he might need. He is a strong, healthy boy. There is a birthday present located beneath the removable bottom of his diaper bag. His birthday is September 1
st
. Will you please give it to him with my love? He has my heart with him, no matter where he goes.
Sincerely,
Mimi Durand
Seth chewed his lip as he looked at the e-mail address beneath her name. It was a generic internet e-mail address, much like his. No harm could come from letting Mimi know that Toby had made it into good hands and would be taken care of. He noted the wobbly quality of the handwriting, as though her hand shook as she had written it. He knew how defensive and attached his mother was to him and Lucy and imagined it must’ve torn Mimi’s heart out to part with Toby. Decision made, he opened an e-mail message window.
* * * *
Jayne woke earlier than normal when Toby stirred and started playing with his toes. Jayne smiled when she caught his lispy, softly phrased passage from a song that had evidently been sung to him each morning. That thought, that someone had loved him enough to sing to him when he woke up, stirred gratitude in her heart for that person and she wondered if they missed Toby as much as she would’ve if the situation was reversed.
“Good morning,” she whispered, noting the empty spot on the other side of them. She’d had a feeling Seth wouldn’t be able to sleep, probably consumed with thoughts of this new responsibility.
Toby smiled at her and mumbled something unintelligible. Unable to resist, she sang the morning song she heard while growing up. “Birdie with a yellow bill, hopped upon my windowsill. Cocked his shining eye and said, ‘Ain’t you ashamed, you sleepyhead.’”
When she’d begun singing, Toby had gone motionless, fascinated. As she finished, he gurgled happily and patted her face.
In the tone of a question, he whispered, “Mimi?”
She didn’t know how to answer him, so she sang the song again, wondering what would become of that relationship. There was always Skype, if the e-mail connection led to a friendship.
Why do I have a feeling I’m about to dust off my conversational French from high school?
Through the closed bedroom door, she heard the sound of muffled knocking and quiet male voices. She looked down and noted the oddest thing. Rather than showing burgeoning curiosity at his surroundings, Toby was as still as a statue. His eyes flitted to the door as he listened to Seth and whomever he was talking to. Steps on the hardwood floor of the hallway came closer, and Toby clutched her arm, but he remained silent.
Seth entered the room, closing the door behind him. He saw that they were awake and smiled at them both. He greeted her with a kiss and smiled as he caressed Toby’s cheek with a knuckle. “Hey, buddy.”
Jayne released the breath she’d been holding when Toby returned the same small hint of a smile to his father and gurgled, reaching for him. Seth leaned forward as he lifted Toby into his lap and kissed the top of his head.