He shook her hand and felt the weight of it—the opportunity, the impossibility, all of it pressing down at once. “Thank you, Chef.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank Marcel. And by then, you better figure out your childcare because your competition is…not in that situation.”
He gave a tight smile with no idea how to answer that. Hewasin this situation, but that didn’t make him less of a cook.
And for the first time, there was just a little break in her armor as she reached out and put one of her small hands on his arm. “I like you. Marcel likes you. He says you have the right stuff. Don’t disappoint either of us.”
“I won’t, Chef.”
But he might, he thought as he walked out, disappoint his son with too many…Sunny Days.
He climbed into the Honda and put the windows down, letting the magnitude of what he was facing sink in before he pulled out his phone and checked his?—
Oh,man.
Sunny Days had texted three times and called twice.
Swearing under his breath, he called back and felt his heart roll around while the phone rang nine times. Nine! Finally, Brenda answered.
“Oh, Mr. Lawson? We’re sorry, but Atlas hasn’t settled since you left. He’s been crying almost continuously. We’ve tried everything—rocking, bottle, pacifier, the swing—but he won’t take comfort from any of our staff. He’s refusing his bottle entirely and he’s getting himself pretty worked up.”
Jonah closed his eyes. “How bad?”
“He’s not in distress medically, but he’s very unhappy. We like to call parents when a child has been inconsolable for more than two hours because, honestly, some babies just need more transition time and some babies need?—”
“I’m coming.” He turned the key. “Fifteen minutes.”
He made it in twelve.
The infant room sounded like a war zone from the hallway—Atlas’s cry rising above the ambient noise of the other babies, who had apparently been inspired and joined the chorus. Brenda met him at the door looking frazzled, her singsong voice notably absent.
“I’m really sorry, Mr. Lawson. We tried everything.”
Atlas was in the arms of another staffer—not Nora, thank God. This young woman looked almost as worn out as the baby in her arms.
Atlas’s face was blotchy red, his striped shirt damp with sweat and tears, and the name sticker—ATLAS L.— peeling off his chest like even the label wanted to escape.
The second Atlas saw Jonah, the crying stopped.
Not gradually. Not a slow wind-down. It stopped, like someone had flipped a switch.
Jonah scooped him out of the poor woman’s arms and pressed him against his chest, the baby letting out a long sigh and going limp with relief.
Something inside Jonah’s chest cracked like the whole foundation of his life had shifted. Not quite enough to collapse, but enough to know that something structural had changed and if it didn’t get fixed—everything was coming down.
“I’m sorry,” Brenda said again. “Some babies take longer to adjust. You’re welcome to try again?—”
“Thank you,” he said. “But we’re good.”
He collected the diaper bag—which had been stuffed in a wholly different cubby. He spied the elephant that Atlas had apparently hurled across the room at some point, and the backup pacifier that had never made it out of the bag. He peeled the name sticker off his son’s chest and dropped it in the trash on his way out.
In the parking lot, he buckled Atlas into the car seat. The baby was half-asleep, the way he always crashed after a hard cry—deep, boneless, wrung out. One fist was curled around the collar of Jonah’s shirt, and he had to gently pry the tiny fingers loose to get the harness buckled.
He sat in the driver’s seat and stared at the steering wheel.
All this and he had to go prove himself against some nameless competition who didn’t have “his situation.”
All for…what?