How long would he get to cradle his daughter in his arms? Cheryl had her for nine months; now it was his turn.
Josh brushed aside his selfish thoughts. “Let’s see Mommy,” he said in a soft, childish voice he didn’t know he had. Saying “Mommy” out loud, having it be true, overwhelmed him with unexpected warmth and love.
Cheryl looked exhausted but content, too excited to rest. He brought Lydia close, and she smiled at child and husband equally.
“Where’s Dad?” she said.
Josh lifted his daughter to his face, then whispered nonsense syllables into the tiniest ear he’d ever seen. He took his time, waiting to cradle Lydia in the crook of his arm before answering his wife. “He’s in the waiting room. I was going to call my parents in a minute, share the good news with them and Lewis at the same time.”
“Get Dad,” Cheryl said. “He should be here now.”
“Okay.” Reluctantly, he lowered his daughter onto the hospital bed beside Cheryl, then left to find his father-in-law.
The old man was grinning ear to ear when Josh found him. Neither of them had to say a word.
Lewis followed him to the delivery room, his usual weary gait replaced by an enthusiastic scramble. His ever-present limp had nearly disappeared.
He hunched over Cheryl’s bedside. His arms reached out.
No, Josh thought. Don’t touch our child. You haven’t seen the DVDs.
“Go ahead,” Cheryl said.
His hand reached closer to their infant.
You don’t belong here, Josh thought. This place is sacred. You’re not worthy.
Instead, Lewis closed his hand around the dangling speaker device. He held it to his throat and said to Cheryl, “She’s perfect.”
Then to his granddaughter he said, “You are beautiful. [Beau]tiful tiny girl.”
Josh wondered what his wife must be thinking. This was the kind of praise the earlier Lewis Hampton had never bothered to bestow upon his own children. She should resent him, even now. Especially now.
Cheryl smiled. On her back on the mattress, the baby waved her arms. She reached blindly for the strange, familiar sound.
“I could [just] eat you up,” Lewis said.
Many parents brace themselves for competition over the new baby’s affection. When PopPop visits, he’s not at work or finishing home projects: He can devote all his time to playing with his grandkids. Same for Mee-Maw, who bakes cookies instead of steamed broccoli and lets the kids stay up late when she babysits. Grandparents never have to punish their grandkids. Their visit is always a special occasion, while parents—with the tougher, permanent job—get taken for granted.
But Josh hadn’t braced himself. His parents lived on the other side of the country and he knew they’d rarely visit. Cheryl’s mother had passed away, and her father… well, he was supposed to be out of the picture.
He’d always assumed he and Cheryl would be the sole important adults in their child’s earliest years. No competition.
So he let himself indulge in some resentment at his father-in-law’s unlikely return. He grew angry, almost, at Lewis’s stubborn refusal to revert to former behaviors—a crude or cruel comment that would justify denying him further access to their home and child.
I knew you hadn’t changed, Josh would say, and Cheryl would stand firm in agreement. They’d usher Lewis to the front door and slam it after him. Banished.
But he never slipped up. He’d actually mellowed into a sweet older man. He was even funny sometimes, the comical effect typically heightened by the strange contrast of his voice to the content of his words. Although he stayed even-tempered with people, and was perfectly tender with Lydia, he frequently got flustered with inanimate objects.
The voice device itself was a frequent target. “Holy mother. Can never get this damn thing to work,” he might say—of course, during a rare moment he managed to pulse out each syllable flawlessly. “Out [of] my way, darn table,” after he barked his shin against the furniture. “Fort Knox bread ties,” he said, then handed the sealed package to Josh for help. An awkward battle with disposable diapers was especially funny: “evil stick tape,” he said, then tried to buzz out a word that sounded like origami. Especially memorable was that diatribe at a Marie Callender’s TV entrée, the time he’d tried to fix his own meal.
Josh grew to appreciate the occasional bits of amusement his father-in-law provided. Those first weeks at home with Lydia were exhausting. Such a beautiful child, a joy most of the time, but needing so much attention. The feeding, the changing, the lifting and singing to, the dancing distractions of rattles and colored lights and bean-bag animals. Josh had never imagined life could be this full and this challenging.
Because when their daughter began to cry, almost nothing could stop her. Without warning—no flash of mischief in her eyes or even a slight downturn of her tiny mouth—Lydia would launch into a marathon stretch of wracking sobs and shrieks. Josh and Cheryl always checked first to see if she was hungry or if her diaper was wet, then would wear themselves out trying to calm her. Among the trial-and-error amusements they paraded before their daughter’s attention, none could be guaranteed to work. Lydia didn’t have a favorite blanket or toy, and the rubber-tipped pacifier rarely lived up to its advertised function. During such moments, she sounded like she was in agony: It pained them to hear their daughter’s cries, both from the siren-shrill piercing that drilled headaches through their eardrums and from the overwhelming fear and emotional empathy that affected parents of any newborn.
Only one thing worked with any reliability: the mechanical, strangely comforting voice of Lydia’s grandfather.
“Let [me] try.”
“No, Dad, we’ve got to learn.” Cheryl reached up to flick the mobile above Lydia’s crib, then cupped the hand back over her ear. Josh wore a brave smile, his fingers plugged in his ears. “Look at the butterflies, Lydia. Pretty colors.”
Lewis moved to the crib, leaned close, and pressed his speaker device to the hole in his throat. “Butt [-erflies], Lydia. Pretty [butter-] flies, Lydia.”
The infant fell immediately quiet. Her eyes turned to her grandfather, small arms lifted, tiny fingers grasping his mechanical words from the air.
“I don’t believe it,” Cheryl said. “She’s actually cooing. Isn’t she, Josh?”
The comforting ability of Lewis Hampton’s voice was an undeniable gift. It brought rest and routine back into the household. Sanity.
“Aren’t you glad now that he’s staying with us?” Cheryl would say, and Josh couldn’t deny it.
His father-in-law had become a crucial part of their home. If he’d wanted, Lewis could have blackmailed them: Get me a new color television for my bedroom, or I’ll stop speaking to Lydia. You wouldn’t want that, would you? A protection racket with the looming threat of siren days and sleepless wailing nights. Lewis could have run the household according to his own petty whims, demanding elaborate meals or a nicer lounge chair in the den. He could kick his feet back, smoke his favorite cigars, slip into the Hydelike cruelty he favored during Cheryl’s youth and teenage years. He could insult his son-in-law mercilessly, insist that the marriage was a mistake and that they deserved a screaming child. Lydia knows how worthless her father is. That’s why she’s so upset. He could say or do whatever he wanted. They needed him now.