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Gina can see through the peephole that Jake is Not Okay, but when she swings the door open she says, “Girl, you can’t just show up unannounced when someone’s just had a baby” as she waves him inside. Jake ducks his head, sheepish, and alarms are going off in Gina’s head because Jake does not do sheepish.
She heads back to her couch, which has basically become her bed and her dining table and her kitchen and her entire friggin’ life over the past nine days. Enigma’s already fussing in her arms, rooting around for a boob, and Gina reaches for the leopard-print nursing shawl Terry and Sharon got her – it was a registry item, but she was still pleasantly surprised – as she settles back down into her nest of blankets and pillows. Jake’s hovering at the edge of the living room, eyes all over the place except on the baby. But he must sense Gina watching him because he looks up just as she’s pulling up her sweatshirt and drawing the baby to her breast.
“Gina!”
“It’s called feeding my baby, loser. Sit down and get over yourself,” she says, and drapes the shawl like a curtain over her chest.
Jake hasn’t been to see her since the baby was born, and honestly, Gina gets it. She saw him, briefly, the day he got home – long enough to hold him too-tight against her enormous belly and stroke a hand through his greasy hair and tell him his beard was gross but weirdly hot at the same time – and then later that night she went into labor. Anyway, she knows he’s had a lot on his mind. And it’s not like Enigma is remotely interesting at this point. Jake could probably wait a year or two to meet her and it wouldn’t make any difference to anyone.
Still – Jake is literally her oldest friend, he’s basically a brother, and Gina literally just experienced the miracle of birth and nearly died doing it because Jesus Christ, that shit is no joke. She realizes, now that he’s sitting across from her, perched on the edge of the armchair like he’s ready to bolt any second, that she needs him to meet her kid. And also, Jake needs it too. He looks like crap, all droopy-eyed and droopy-haired and frowning.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Gina says. She winces as Enigma clamps down rather harder than necessary. The baby took to nursing like a champ, and Gina’s nipples are having a hard time keeping up.
Jake rubs the back of his neck and Gina knows it’s bad. “I, uh. Had kind of a rough day.”
Gina nods and doesn’t press it. Everyone’s been keeping her up on the work gossip. She knows he’s two days back and already assigned himself desk duty.
“Where’s, uh-” Jake hesitates, looks around the living room.
“Milton’s helping dig wells or something in Northern Canada,” Gina says.
“He’s- wells?”
“Or something.”
“Cool cool cool cool.” Jake finally looks back at her, gaze dropping to the bulge of baby under her shawl and not meeting her eyes. “Are you okay, on your own? I mean, you have a baby.”
“Good detecting, detective,” Gina says, catching the flash of a smile, there and gone, on Jake’s face. “Nah, Iggy and I are good. Honestly, all we do right now is eat and sleep and shit – and I mean we, as in both of us. I’ve got my bodega guy leaving food at the door every other day so I don’t even have to put on pants.”
“And yet, here you are, all pantsed up,” Jake says, nodding to her sweats-clad legs.
“It’s like I knew you were coming,” Gina says, and there’s that split-second smile again.
Gina realizes the baby’s stopped eating, is now just nuzzling at her boob, so she pulls her off and burps her, already economical in her movements, passing this tiny creature from one arm to the other and throwing her over her shoulder like a sack of (tiny, precious) potatoes. She can tell Jake is deliberately looking away, though she’s not entirely sure why.
“C’mon,” she says, pushing herself up off the couch with a heartfelt groan.
Jake gets up, fluid and graceful like he’s trying to annoy her. “Where are we going?”
“The nursery. You’re changing a diaper.”
+++
Jake sputters behind her down the short hall to the baby’s room, which of course is just Gina’s room but with a bassinet on one side of the bed. Almost all of the baby furniture and supplies are stacked up against a wall, still in their boxes. So far they haven’t needed them and Gina hates putting together furniture, it’s so menial and she’s bad at it and she hates being bad at things.
She kneels and lays the baby on the changing pad spread out on the floor, and motions for Jake to join her.
“I don’t-”
“Quiet. I’ll walk you through it,” Gina says, and she does.
She unwraps the blanket that’s bound loosely around the baby, then tells Jake to unsnap the crotch of the onesie – “Are you allowed to say ‘crotch’ about a baby?” Jake says, and she tells him that her child will only be taught the appropriate words, no dumbass made-up ones – and gather the baby’s ankles in one hand and lift.
She hands him a fresh diaper to slide under the old one, then passes him the wipes, one at a time, and reminds him to be thorough. She tells him to make sure the new diaper is nice and secure, tighter than he’d think it should be, because the last thing anyone wants is a blowout. When he’s finished snapping the onesie back in place he looks up at her, wide-eyed and triumphant, and she grins at him and says, “You did it, kiddo.”
She wraps up Iggy in her swaddling blanket again and leans against the end of the bed, and Jake gets up and hands her pillows and grabs one for himself, and they make themselves comfortable, right there on the floor. When Jake’s settled, she hands him the baby and he gets real close to her, makes Jake-faces at her – scrunched up eyebrows, tongue sticking out all askew – while Iggy blinks up at him slow and milk-groggy.
Gina tells him about the birth, about how brave and amazing she was. “You have no idea, Jacob,” she says, and he nods and says, “John McClane should’ve been a woman” and it’s true, he should have.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Jake says, tucking the blanket back around the baby’s feet where she’s managed to kick herself free. He’s sitting cross-legged and he’s kicked off his shoes. His socks aren’t matching.
Gina doesn’t know what he’s referring to but she doesn’t think it’s the birth, because obviously he wasn’t expected there. She says, “It’s cool, boo,” and she means, ‘It’s not your fault,’ because duh.
They talk about Previous Babies They Have Known, which includes the kids Gina used to babysit when they were freshmen and sophomores in high school and Jake would sometimes come over and not-help. From there it’s an easy segue to reminiscing about their shared childhood, and when Iggy starts fussing and Gina takes her back to nurse again, Jake doesn’t looked panicked this time, just stretches his legs out in front of him and curls his toes.
Gina passes the baby back when she’s done, and she drapes a burp cloth over Jake’s shoulder and shifts Iggy so she’s sitting up in Jake’s arms, curled up into his chest. She coaches Jake on burping – to use the ball of his hand, to hit her harder than he thinks he should because she’s not as fragile as she looks.
“She’s resilient,” Gina says, enunciating, and she doesn’t meet Jake’s eyes when he looks up at her.
Jake thwacks her on the back, twice, and Iggy’s burp is loud and meaty, echoing off the bedroom walls. Jake barks a startled laugh and Gina says, “That’s my girl.”
Jake’s still laughing, only when Gina looks back at him, she sees that no, he’s crying now, his hand rubbing slow circles over the baby’s back, his nose pressed into the feathery hair on her head, and his body shaking. His eyes are closed, tears spilling down his cheeks already.
Gina moves to sit beside him, beside her baby who is soft and gentle and smells so nice. She lets Jake have this, for a little while.