Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan

Author:Annabel Monaghan [Monaghan, Annabel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

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When Gracie was born in December, Sam dutifully visited her mother at the hospital. Bill placed Gracie in her arms without even asking. Sam handed her right back. Travis was home for the holidays, and the apartment was too small for a family of four plus a crying baby. Gracie slept in a bassinet in her parents’ room, but the every-three-hours wailing seeped right into Sam and Travis’s room and worked Sam’s already agitated nerves. It was her father who had caused the breakup, but in truth it was Gracie who was the last straw. Sam wasn’t about to admit to Dr. Judy that she resented a baby, but there it was.

Sam babysat for the first time when Gracie was six weeks old. She woke up from her nap screaming, and Sam found her in her crib sweaty and red-eyed. “You stink,” Sam said, lifting her up and placing her on her parents’ bed to change her. Gracie looked Sam right in the eye, like she wanted to tell her something.

Sam grabbed the bottle her mother had left her and plopped onto the sofa with Gracie in her arms. She reached over to grab the TV remote and startled Gracie into a smile. Gracie looked up at Sam with the bottle between her gums and a big grin on her face, and Sam felt the hardness in her soften a bit. She leaned back and let herself feel the weight of Gracie in her arms, a whole human being with a whole future ahead of her. She wondered who was going to break Gracie’s heart.

Sam started jumping in to help with Gracie whenever she could. She liked to wear the baby carrier on her chest while she walked around the city. She wore her dad’s parka because it was big enough to close around the two of them, and she warmed her lips on the rim of Gracie’s tiny pink hat. The weight of her and the smell of her made Sam feel like she was connected to something permanent.

When Gracie was three months old, Sam offered to take the bassinet into her room for a few nights. “You look exhausted, Mom. And I’m up anyway.”

Laurel placed her hands on Sam’s cheeks. “I’m so worried about you. You need to start sleeping. You’re going to fall apart.”

“Ha. Too late. Just let me have her for a few nights. Leave me the three a.m. bottle.”

The first night they shared a room, Gracie woke up at two. Sam had been lying awake listening to her breathe. There was a rhythm to Gracie’s breathing that went well with the hum of the First Avenue traffic. Another thing she would have liked to have told Wyatt. Sam changed Gracie’s diaper and settled back into her bed to give her a bottle. Gracie gave Sam a sleepy smile in thanks. Apparently, they both fell asleep, because the next thing Sam knew, it was seven and time to get up for school. It was the best night’s sleep Sam had had in months.

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