Coming Home by Annette Lyon

Author:Annette Lyon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deseret Book Company

Chapter 16

Kim—Paying It Forward

Monday, October 18

Return + 8 weeks, 5 days

Baby Bri splashed in his morning bath water, practically covering Kim and the tiny floor of the bathroom in their apartment with water. “Careful, kiddo,” she said with a laugh, wiping water from her left eye. The apartment had a double vanity just outside the toilet and bathtub area, which she found ironic. So much space out there, but not much here by the tub, where she could really have used it when it came to bath time.

Her cell phone beeped in her pocket. She checked it—confirmation from Brenda about this week’s lunch, this time at Red Robin in Provo. Brenda added a postscript to her text about how she needed a bowl of their french onion soup, blaming it on pregnancy cravings. Kim smiled to herself then turned back to Brian, who seemed intent on biting the head off a rubber ducky.

Their lunches were heading toward an every-other-week thing; with their husbands home, everyone’s time seemed to be taken up by family more than before, and there was an unspoken agreement that now that the deployment was over, really, did they need the same support? They all said they did, aloud, but the quiet undercurrent of questioning was always there.

I still need my friends and our lunches. Kim had been married almost a year and a half, but she had no practical experience as a wife, just as a mother. Some days she felt as if she had an arranged marriage for as much as she knew Justin. She knew him more as their child’s father than as her husband.

So weird.

She grabbed the baby shampoo and scrubbed Bri’s blond hair, which went a bit curly when it got wet. Kim prided herself on doing better trusting Justin with the baby. Granted, she still didn’t let him do baths—she was too paranoid that he’d leave the tub for even a minute—but Justin changed diapers, fed Bri rice cereal, and several times now had taken care of him when Kim left home, usually to grocery shop.

Best budget saver ever, she thought with a laugh as she poured bath water over Bri’s head to rinse out the shampoo. Whenever she shopped without the baby, she worried so much that instead of leisurely walking through the aisles—and spending more on ice cream and Twizzlers—she hurried through the store and stuck to her list, anything to get home faster to be sure her little boy was all right. She’d spent almost a hundred dollars less this month than last on groceries.

Her worry didn’t make Tuesdays and Thursdays when she worked any easier. Justin didn’t have class, and if he hadn’t been so insistent about saving money on day care and that he could be trusted with his son, she wouldn’t have done it. Her two days a week felt like twenty.

She used a soapy washcloth to clean between the chubby folds of Brian’s little body—he tended to have dried milk under his chin and in the creases of his wrists.

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