Patricia Rockwell - Essie Cobb 02 - Papoosed (6 page)

            “I hope you’re not killing that child with that stuff,” added Opal, “You heard what Lorena said about it, Essie! She called it dreck!”

            “He seems just fine,” said Marjorie.  “I think we did the right thing!  I see you’re in your pj’s, Essie.”

            “Yes, and hopefully, that means that no one else will come knocking on my door!”

            “Until morning,” said Opal, deflating the group mood.  “What are you going to do when your morning aide arrives, Essie?”

            “I guess I’ll figure that out tomorrow.  Isn’t that what Scarlett O’Hara said?  Tomorrow is another day!” replied Essie. “Maybe Santos will have found Maria by then.”

            “Oh my God!” said Marjorie with disgust.

            “What’s wrong?” asked Essie.

            “ Mother Nature!” said Marjorie, “Antonio just pooped his pants!  Guess that
Vigor
went right through him.”

            “Eww!” added Opal from the doorway, holding her nose.  “That smells disgusting!”

            As the new odor began to waft around the small room, Fay quickly turned her wheelchair around and headed into Essie’s small bathroom.

            “Now, where has she gone?” asked Marjorie.

            “To get away from the smell,” suggested Opal.

            “I hope she doesn’t expect to find diapers in there!” added Essie.

            “If you have them, Fay will find them!” said Opal, as Fay returned holding a pink cardboard box on her lap.

            “That’s not diapers, Fay!” cried Essie.  Fay held up a box labeled 
Reliables. “
Where’d you find that?  That’s a box of those adult incontinence pads my daughter Claudia bought me ages ago, hoping I’d try them.  I refuse to wear those stupid things.  I’d rather make a mad dash to the restroom than to run around all day with wet pants.”

            Fay quickly opened the box and extracted one of the thick pads.  Expertly tearing and reshaping the item, she reassembled it until it was designed to perfectly fit a little baby boy’s bottom (and front).  As the other three women saw what Fay was doing, Essie zipped back to her desk in the living room and returned with scissors and sticky tape.  Marjorie gently removed the disposable paper diaper presently on the baby and handed it to Opal who disposed of it in Essie’s kitchen waste basket. Then, Fay slipped the clean homemade diaper on baby Antonio who cooed quietly throughout the entire procedure.  Marjorie then handed Antonio to Fay who rocked him gently in her arms. 

            “You have enough of these
Reliables
in this box, Essie, to last Antonio for a few days,” noted Opal.

            “Hopefully, he won’t need them,” said Essie, “Hopefully, Santos will find Antonio’s mother soon and our babysitting days will be over.”

            “Hopefully,” agreed Opal.

            “Hopefully,” repeated Marjorie.

            Fay just smiled at little Antonio, the two of them seemingly lost in a spell.

            “What about that cut on his face?” asked Marjorie.

            “And the bruise on his leg?” added Opal.

            “I’ve got disinfectant for the cut,” suggested Essie as she whizzed back to her bathroom and returned with a tube of cream.  Opal quickly swabbed a small amount on the baby’s facial cut.

            “Ladies!” said Essie.  “This baby is our responsibility now.”  The four women looked at the baby and then at each other.  Their group smile quickly turned into a look of worry.

Chapter Six

“People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.”

–Leo J. Burke

            Hours later after her three friends had–somewhat reluctantly–left her room and their opportunity to cuddle and coo over baby Antonio, Essie now found herself alone with the infant.  It was unlikely, she reasoned, that anyone else would come knocking on her door at this time of night.  The hands on her golden perpetual clock that Pru’s oldest child Arthur had given her, pointed to exactly midnight.  The last time Essie remembered seeing the hands of a clock register midnight had occurred the previous evening when she was making one of her many middle of the night bathroom runs. 

            “I guess we’re a lot alike,” she whispered to baby Antonio, lying beside her on her bed.  When she spoke, Antonio shook his tiny fists gleefully and gyrated his pudgy legs back and forth as if he were riding an imaginary bicycle.  “Only you don’t have to make bathroom runs when you need to go!” He made a sweet gurgling noise and appeared to look right at Essie.    

            “I know you don’t know me,” she said to him, “but you are a cheerful little guy!”  She smiled over at him and tweaked his cheek.  Antonio giggled and pedaled his feet faster.   Essie looked him over from top to bottom.  He appeared to be full-term and healthy—at least if size and weight were any indication.  She guessed him to be about eight or nine pounds—a good chunk for a newborn.  He sported a full head of black hair which looked beautiful against his lovely tan skin.  His cheeks were round and the right one had a dimple directly below the gash.  Every time he smiled, it dipped in.  Essie was enjoying trying to make him smile just so she could see the dimple. 

            “Doesn’t look like you plan on doing any sleeping, little guy,” she said with a sigh.  She looked around her small bedroom.  It wouldn’t be safe to let the baby stay in bed with her.  She’d heard horrible tales about some mothers doing just that and suffocating infants when they rolled over on them in their sleep.  “Guess I’d better transfer you back to your walker basket before either one of us drifts off.”

            Essie scooted to the edge of her bed and dropped her feet down until she found her bedroom slippers.  Then, standing carefully with the help of her walker which was beside the edge of the bed, she stood up.  Turning back to the baby, she reached out for him and pulled him closer to her.  As she slid him along the sheets, baby Antonio started fussing and by the time Essie had him on the bed’s edge, he’d started to howl.

            “Oh, no!” she said out loud.  “I thought this was going too well.”  She looked at the alarm clock on her end table.  It was well past midnight now.  The child was probably hungry.  Anticipating that this would happen, Opal and Marjorie had prepared an extra rubber gloveful of
Vigor
and left it on Essie’s kitchen counter.  “Wait here, Antonio,” she whispered to the baby as she scooted the infant further towards the center of the bed for safe keeping.  Then, grabbing her walker, she headed toward her kitchen, grabbed the filled glove and zipped back to the bedroom before Antonio had emitted a second cry.  Essie parked her walker and sat on the bed next to him, leaning against the headboard.  She removed the rubber band that Marjorie had tied around the finger with the needle opening and, picking up Antonio in her arms, gently slid the rubber appendage into his awaiting mouth.  The little boy latched onto the finger immediately and started sucking furiously.

            “Holy coyote!” exclaimed Essie to the little boy in her arms, “you are one hungry fellow!”  Almost instantly, Antonio’s violent feet and arm movements slowed and he calmed as he drank the make-shift formula.  “Sorry I can’t provide real mother’s milk, Antonio, but I’m all dried up in that area!”  She chuckled to herself and Antonio seemed to respond to her joke and giggled back at her while he drank.

            When the infant finished the formula, had a new
Reliables
diaper on, and was sleeping soundly again, Essie gently transferred him to the basket in her walker and covered him with several soft towels from her bathroom.  Then she wheeled him with her as she moved to her kitchen and prepared another serving of
Vigor
for when he next became hungry.  She took the spare formula-filled glove back to the bedroom and placed it and several spare fake diapers on her end table so she could get to them if she needed them in the middle of the night.  Then, as Antonio appeared to be sleeping soundly in the walker basket, Essie crawled into her bed and fell almost immediately to sleep.

            Normally, Essie never slept deeply.  Because of her weak bladder, she frequently awakened several times at night to go to the bathroom.  Tonight was no different.  When she felt the urge to pee, Essie roused herself and started to climb out of bed.  Abruptly, she remembered the infant in her walker next to her bed.  Cautiously, she glanced at Antonio who was sleeping peacefully.  Essie glanced at her clock.  It was now after two in the morning.  She made her way into her bathroom holding onto the wall because she didn’t want to chance disturbing the sleeping child by moving the walker.  When she returned and was climbing back into bed, she realized that her biggest challenge was looming and that she probably shouldn’t avoid considering it until morning.  That was, what to do with Antonio when her morning aide, DeeDee, arrived at seven to get her dressed and give her her morning medications. 
Hmmm.
  DeeDee always came directly into her bedroom.  She just knocked to announce her presence, but then she walked right in.

            A plan began to hatch in Essie’s mind.  DeeDee typically didn’t go into Essie’s bathroom unless Essie asked her to.  It would be close, but if Antonio would cooperate by being quiet during the few minutes that DeeDee would be in her apartment, maybe Essie could manage to maintain her secret for a while longer.  She lay down on her bed and dozed for a few more hours, but at six she decided that she’d better get busy if she was going to pull off operation “secret baby.” 

            As Essie started to slide out of bed and move around her small bedroom, holding on to furniture and walls for support, she could hear her charge stirring in the walker.  Little cooing sounds began to emanate from the basket.  She realized that she’d probably have to feed Antonio first before she could do much else.  Sitting on her bed, and grabbing the glove device from her end table where she had left it, she scooped up Antonio in her arms and quickly began to feed him.  The baby was hungry and quickly made short work of the entire contents of the glove.  Afterwards, Essie changed the diaper that she now expected to be soiled.  One thing for sure, this was a consistent little fellow.  She hoped she could rely on his consistency for just another hour or so, until DeeDee was gone, and perhaps Santos had found his mother. 

            After changing the baby’s makeshift diapers and placing him back in the walker basket, Essie quickly maneuvered the walker to her bathroom.  She pulled out every towel she had from her cupboards and arranged them softly in the bottom of her bathtub and deposited the infant in the middle of her bathtub.  Then, she gently closed the bathroom door, returned to her bedroom and opened her drawers and brought out a clean outfit to wear—a flowered blue shirt, navy pull-on trousers, white gym socks, clean panties and bra.  She laid these items on the end of her bed and placed her tennis shoes on the floor beside them.  As she looked at her clock again, the hands were just a few minutes before seven.  DeeDee was often early.  Essie could never really figure out why some days her aide was early and some days she was late, but Essie could pretty much count on DeeDee arriving within ten minutes one way or another of seven o’clock. 

            Today DeeDee was early.  There was the typical knock on her front door and then Essie heard DeeDee Pritoni’s cheerful voice, “Miss Essie!  Time to get up!”  DeeDee’s face appeared in the bedroom doorway.  A look of amazement replaced her casual expression. DeeDee’s beautifully curved eyebrows rose alarmingly and her black ponytail bobbed. 

            “Miss Essie!  You’re up!” said DeeDee as she entered Essie’s bedroom.  “And you have clothes set out!  Are these what you want to wear?”

            “DeeDee,” replied Essie, quickly and quietly, “I just couldn’t sleep, so I decided to get up.  I picked out what I want to wear so you can just help me slip these clothes on and give me my pills and I can get going.  Okay?”

            “Of course, Miss Essie!” agreed the young woman, moving into the room and expertly helping Essie dress for her day.  This was a routine that the duo had accomplished together many times and each knew exactly when to stick out an arm or pull up or down.   Soon, Essie was dressed and DeeDee headed to the living room and removed the pill box in the kitchen just as Lorena had done the previous evening.  Essie followed her, carefully closing the bedroom door behind her. 

            “You surprise me, Miss Essie!” said DeeDee as she handed Essie a glass of water and a handful of five or six pills.  “You’re usually such a sleepyhead!  Just what made you want to get up and get going so early today?”  DeeDee tapped her toe as she eyed Essie slurping down her pills as if she were drinking a tasty daiquiri.

            “Gumgle,” mumbled Essie, continuing to swallow pills.

            “No scowl?” questioned DeeDee, as she took back the glass Essie handed her.  “You usually hate taking your pills.”

            “No,!” argued Essie, “I’m just anxious to get going.”

            “I know,” said DeeDee, conspiratorially, “I bet it’s Hubert Darby, isn’t it?  I think I heard someone say that he’s sweet on you.  Maybe you two have a rendezvous planned?”  DeeDee’s perfectly manicured eyebrows  gyrated up and down lasciviously.  

            “I have no such thing!” exclaimed Essie.  “And you can stop your Groucho Marx eyebrow routine, DeeDee!  I’m an old lady and the only man I ever rendezvoused was my husband!”

            DeeDee laughed as she put away the pills and glass. 

            “Okay, Miss Essie,” she sang out as she opened Essie’s front door, “if you say so!  But that Hubert is one snazzy dresser, if you ask me!”  Still chuckling, DeeDee closed the door and headed down the hallway.

            “Hubert Darby, my foot,” mumbled Essie, just as a cry sounded from her bathroom.