Love, Charleston by Beth Webb Hart

Author:Beth Webb Hart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2010-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

Drew guided Lish through the next couple of days. Though she moved in slow motion, she felt better, especially when the sun hit her face, blinding her momentarily, or when she stood in the shower watching the steam rise up and form beads of moisture along the thick windowpanes in Nana’s old bathroom.

The baby smiled at her every time she walked into her room, though this bothered Lish. She didn’t deserve a smile from Cecilia. Her heart ached when she saw those rosy lips tilt upward to reveal the pink gums behind them. She tried to smile back and meet her daughter’s eyes, but she was ashamed of the kind of mother she had been to her so far.

As for Andrew and Mary Jane, it seemed to Lish that they had never asked so many questions:

“What’s for supper?”

“Where’s my Triggerhappy Transformer?”

“What are sequins made from, and how do they get to be different colors?”

“How do you get cooties?”

“Can we go to the Piggly Wiggly and buy the Popsicles like Uncle Peter has in his freezer?”

“What are you staring at, Mama?”

“Did you hear me?”

“How come you say, ‘Uh-huh,’ and you don’t know what I said, Mama?”

Rosetta didn’t usually take care of the children, but she had been willing to help with the baby. She fed Cecilia every two and a half to three hours and changed her several times a day. She bathed her in the nursery sink in the mornings, and then she laid her on her stomach on the floor of the den and put a shiny silver rattle in front of her.

“Don’t want her head to get flat,” she told Lish.

Lish knew this was a good idea. She remembered writing a column titled “The Value of Tummy Time” shortly after Mary Jane was twelve weeks old. The column warned against positional plagiocephaly—a condition where the skull flattens if a baby is left on his or her back too long—and it outlined the benefits of tummy time, including trunk stability, limb coordination, and head control, all of which would aid the baby in turning over and crawling as he or she grew.

However, Lish could hardly stand to watch Cecilia on her belly. The child grunted and struggled to lift her head in a way that made Lish cringe in both sorrow and sympathy.

On Tuesday, she stood in the doorway and watched her daughter’s pink arms collapse. Her little chin hit the floor, and she did an out-and-out face plant where she breathed into her blanket and made a muffled cry that tore at Lish’s gut for whole minutes until Rosetta grabbed Cecilia, rocked her, and stuck the pacifier in her mouth.

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