* * *
Ten minutes later, Keely made her way back down the hallway, careful to loudly hum a tune, so that Jack would know she was coming.
She turned the corner into the baby’s room, to see Jack standing next to the changing table, his shaggy dark blond hair sticking up stiffly in a couple of spots, one hand on the baby’s bare belly, and a where-the-hell-have-you-been glare on his face.
He even said it: “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been stuck with a screaming kid for an hour now.”
“An hour?” Keely repeated, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, I doubt that, considering I only stepped into the shower a half hour ago, and Mary Margaret was sound asleep at the time. I know, because I checked.”
“Yeah, well maybe it just felt like an hour. I’ve got a lot to do, you know, and I don’t have time to be baby-sitting M and—what did you call her?”
“Mary Margaret,” Keely said, feeling just a little bit silly. “Or Margaret Mary. That would work, too, right? I just can’t keep on calling this adorable child M and M. I told you that.”
“Mary Margaret Morretti. Sounds like every teacher’s pet at the local parochial school.”
“You like Magenta Moon Morretti better?”
Jack looked down at the baby. “I wouldn’t do that to a dog,” he said, then picked up Mary Margaret and walked toward Keely. “Here, your turn. I’m outta here.”
Keely quickly followed after him—she wouldn’t quite call it “dogging his heels,” but the term fit pretty well. “Got places to go, people to see, huh? Busy, busy, busy. Doing what? Taking a class in Japanese? Composing a letter to Cecily, telling her you turned this sweet little baby over to some child welfare agency because you have this burning need to go overseas and make an ass out of yourself? How can you be so... so selfish!”
Jack had gotten as far as the top landing of the back stairs before he stopped, raised his spread hands to shoulder height, and turned around, fire in his eyes. “Shut. Up.”
Keely took a single step backward, made a big production out of pulling Mary Margaret closer to her. “Ooooh, now we’re scared,” she said, using the sarcasm her Aunt Mary had warned her would someday end with needing her jaw wired shut for six weeks, if not worse. But she didn’t care. Somebody had to consider Mary Margaret’s best interests, and it looked like she’d been elected, or drafted, or something.
Jack raised his hands further, slammed them against either side of his head. “I’m paying you? I’ve got to be out of my tiny mind!”
“Yeah, well, you are out of your tiny mind, Trehan,” Keely went on, squeezing Mary Margaret so tightly that the child began to whimper, struggle in her arms. “I didn’t ask for this kid either, you know, but I’ve got her, and you’ve got her, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you walk away from her. She’s not just a responsibility, or an inconvenience. She’s a baby. She needs her family.”
“We’re not her family. Her family is certifiable, but we’re still not her family, even if I am thinking about committing myself, because you’re driving me nuts. M and—Mary Margaret is not my problem. I don’t even like kids.”
Keely kept her mouth closed for about ten seconds while Jack stood there, glaring at her. “Saw you,” she said then, lifting her chin.
“Saw me? Saw me what? You saw me? What in hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means, Mr. Jerk Trehan, that I saw you with Mary Margaret. Blowing bubbles on her belly.” She sort of stretched her compressed lips, smacked them together a time or two, making a sort of popping sound, then said it again: “Yup.” Smack, smack, pop, pop. “Yes, indeedy. Saw you.”
She watched, smiling, as Jack Trehan turned on his heels—not before his cheeks had flushed an angry, guilty red—and slammed down the steps.
Keely then turned to head back down the hall, to change Mary Margaret’s diaper, get her dressed after her nap. “Japan my trim and shapely patootie! He’s going to stay right here with you, sweetheart, and you’re going to stay right here with him. Because that’s the way it’s supposed to be, if only he’d stop feeling sorry for himself long enough to figure out that one door doesn’t close unless another one opens, as my Aunt Mary used to say. You’ll get him yet, kiddo, I promise,” she told the baby, kissing Mary Margaret’s forehead.
She laid the cooing infant on the changing table and began unsnapping her pajamas. “We’ll get you dressed, you can have a bottle, and then we’re going to go buy us a couch, and that’s just for starters. You like going bye-bye in the car, don’t you, sweetheart? But first, let’s practice some more, all right. Here we go. Da. Da. Da-da-da.”