The Hard Count by Ginger Scott

Author:Ginger Scott [Scott, Ginger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ginger Scott
Published: 2016-07-14T21:00:00+00:00

13

“Mom? I can’t find my nice shoes!”

On my knees, I burrow into my closet, tossing loose clothing from the floor. It’s picture day at school, and I have one pair of nice shoes—the ones I wear to church.

Church!

I leap to my feet, remembering taking my shoes off on Sunday on the ride home. I’m sure they’re still in the back seat. I sprint down the hallway, sliding in my socks. I stop hard when I see Vincent standing in the front doorway, close to Momma.

“Vincent!” I shout, running to my brother.

“Shhhh,” my mom says, twisting to face me with a finger over her lips. She’s holding a tiny baby, bouncing lightly, and there are tears in her eyes.

Whose baby is this?

“Nico? I’d like you to meet your niece…Alyssa,” Momma says.

I step closer to see the tiniest person I’ve ever seen. She’s wrapped in a pink blanket, her mouth moving like a fish’s, her hand struggling to pull loose from the blanket.

“She’s hungry,” Momma says. She looks up at Vincent. “Do you have a bottle for her?”

My brother is shaking. He balls his fists and pushes them into his eyes.

“I don’t know. I…I don’t know how to do any of this. And she just left. This morning, I got up, and she was gone. And I don’t know how to do any of this,” Vincent says.

He lets his hands fall and his eyes dart from me to our mom to the tiny baby, and his chest begins to shake. My brother starts to cry, and he covers his mouth with his hand while our mom bounces the baby lightly and whispers softly in the tiny girl’s face.

“It’s okay, isn’t it Alyssa?” she says.

The baby…my niece…starts to make more noise, almost like hard hiccups. And in a second, her face turns red and her lips curl down as she begins to cry.

“Vincent, bring the bag. I’ll show you,” my mom says.

She carries the baby into the kitchen and tells my brother to sit in a chair. She hands him the baby—his baby—and he holds her close to his chest, his eyes almost frozen open. The little girl looks so breakable in his giant arms and against his chest. His arms are covered in grease marks, and the number tattoos he had before are marked over with designs and pictures.

“What happened to those?” I ask.

My brother glances to me quickly, then looks back at his child. My mom begins shaking a bottle, spilling a small amount on her arm. She wipes the drops off on the front of her shirt then hands the bottle to my brother, guiding his hand as they both work the tiny tip into Alyssa’s mouth. She starts to suck on it instantly, her cheeks pushing in and out, and the look of it makes me giggle.

“It’s pretty cute when she eats, isn’t it, Nico?” my mom says.

“Yeah,” I say, dragging my chair closer so I can watch.

We’re all silent for more than a minute, and then Alyssa makes a suckling sound that makes me laugh again.

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