From the beginning it sounded reckless, leaving you two babysitting like that. Your girlfriend's sister winked as she left, as if leaving her four-month-old baby's life in your hands were just a prank, like decorating your car with shaving cream or giving your girlfriend a gift of lingerie. She winked as she followed her husband out to the car, pulling the door closed behind her with a firm thud, and the sound hung in the air like lightning waiting for thunder.
An hour later the baby has been screaming for almost an hour and babysitting doesn't sound reckless anymore, it sounds like criminal neglect. You can't believe the noise. You run from room to room. "The pacifier!" your girlfriend calls, a thin chime barely lifting over the baby's full brass band. The screams were like a car alarm at firstóexpectedóbut have since pitched to the height of a siren, a fire engine coming closer and closer until you realize it's your own house on fire. The baby screams like an emergency. And the pacifier, a tiny piece of plastic, is lost in this suburban house filled with unfamiliar, useless pieces of plastic.
You come back, empty-handed, and argue for a minute before your girlfriend hands you the baby. You start to say No! but she's already left you alone to go search herself. You're terrified of dropping the baby and you're irritated that she's irritated and then you realize that the baby has hushed, surprised at being held by someone new. You look at it carefully, visions of dropped baby and shaken baby, and you hold the real baby very, very carefully. You're ready for the screams to start again. It looks at you with its glassy blue eyes crossed...and then it farts.
You and the baby look at each other, surprised: neither of you knew the baby could do that. You watch as it drops its open mouth onto your hand and sucks, its neck still not very strong. You sit down carefully in a rocking chair, trying to eliminate any chance of dropping, and you don't hear your girlfriend come back until she says, "Wow, good job. You're going to make a great Dad."
She looks down immediately. You look down immediately. She starts chattering about gas and childcare and should-have-held-her-upright-all-along, but the embarrassment stays there, hanging, the words filling the air where the screams used to be. Finally she makes an excuse about warming up a bottle before the crying starts again and she leaves, still looking down.
You're still annoyed; you have enough pressure from her family without her starting in. She claims she's just having fun. But the baby falls asleep on your chest in the quiet nursery with only the light from the hallway washing in on the braided blue rug, and it's hard to stay annoyed. It's hard not to fall asleep, but you fight it: You might drop the baby, the house might catch fire, a foreign army might invade with grenades, and you have to stay alert.
Years later, you will hold your own baby on your chest and maybe you will remember this quiet room, this half-light, and the girl you were in love with back then. But today you throw your body onto a grenade. You realize you're dreaming, and start awake. You feel the baby's hot little chin pressed on your collarbone. You feel your arm asleep under the baby's weight. You see your girlfriend sitting on the floor, reading a magazine in the light from the hallway, and you see her smile without looking up. "You'd make a great Dad," she says, and the words this time soften around you, sinking with the hall light onto the rug at your feet.
