Touch by AccioBourbon

Touch

3:00 a.m. The crying wakes us both, and Alice rolls over and begins to struggle out of bed.

I put my hand on her back and push her back down gently. “No. I’ve got this one. You stay here and go back to sleep.”

She grunts, then mumbles something that sounds like “Yeah, okay.” It’s the third time tonight he’s been up, but Alice just fed him an hour ago, so he can’t be hungry.

I shuffle down the hall to Patterson’s room, my eyes adjusting quickly to the dark. We could both walk this route with our eyes closed and still turn into the baby’s room at precisely the right spot.

“Sshh … hey buddy, what’s going on, huh?” I reach down into the crib and lay one hand on his chest. His little heart beats fast with the exertion of crying. As soon as I put him up to my shoulder I hear the problem: his cold is worse and his head is very congested. He sounds tired and angry. I’d be pissed too if I was that stuffed up and couldn’t do anything about it.

Remembering a tip that Esme told us, I head for the hall bathroom and close the door behind us quietly. I turn the shower all the way to hot and let it run while we pace, the room filling quickly with steam. I rub his back slowly, the thin fleece of his sleeper soft and smooth under my hand. After ten minutes of breathing steam, he sounds much better, though we’re both a bit sweaty. He’s certainly calmer now.

And wide awake.

And so we’re off to the kitchen to get Daddy something to drink. After three and a half months, I’m pretty good at maneuvering with a baby on my shoulder while I forage, one-handed. Two minutes later I’ve got a mug of hot chocolate, topped with lots of whip cream. Even with Alice asleep right now, her voice still fills my head and I remember to hold the mug far away from the baby.

In the living room, we settle into the big leather rocker-recliner … the first piece of furniture that we bought together after we got married. I lay Patterson in my lap while I get situated with my mug and the book I left next to the chair earlier that day. I used to finish a book in two or three days; I’ve been reading this one for three weeks now.

It’s hard to read with someone staring at you, and Patterson does just that, wide-eyed and patient, like he’s sizing me up. He’s got blue eyes, like me, but he has Alice’s dark hair, which makes his eyes seem all the more blue. He was born with a lot of hair, which he never did lose as everyone said he would. I run my fingers over a shock of it, the texture silky but still damp from our makeshift sauna.

“Now that you’re breathing a bit easier, buddy, you need to go back to sleep. Daddy’s got a big day tomorrow.”

I settle him on my chest and tip back slightly in the chair. Being upright like this will make it easier for him to breath and he seems to like being on his belly as long as it’s someone’s chest that’s underneath him. I try the pacifier in his mouth, and he pulls it in contentedly.

Again, I rub his back slowly but firmly, up and down, up and down, while I start to sing.

“Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind,
Possessing and caressing me.”

Sometime later, I stir awake as the baby’s weight leaves my chest. I open my eyes to see Alice by the chair, Patterson in her arms. The smell of brewing coffee fills the house and the first rays of sunshine spill through the windows.

Alice reaches down to run her hand through my hair, and her smile is sleepy-soft. “Time to feed my guys.”