Tripp by Kristen Kehoe

Author:Kristen Kehoe [Kristen Kehoe]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2015-04-16T07:00:00+00:00

23

Past

“I think she just threw up on me.”

Rachel looks over her shoulder. I’m now holding Gracie like a ticking time-bomb instead of a seven-month-old. My neck is wet and I can smell that horrific scent I’ve come to associate with regurgitated formula—the kind this kid constantly spits up, because she won’t slow down when she eats.

“Why does she do that?” I cringe, setting her on the blanket on the floor, and standing to strip off my shirt. Rachel stays where she is, her laptop balanced on her legs where she sits on the couch. She is speed-typing an assignment for her online class that was assigned two weeks ago—and is due in less than three hours.

“Do what?” she asks absently.

“Spit up all over me. Why can’t she just burp like a normal person?”

“You do realize she isn’t a normal person, right? She’s a baby; their digestive systems don’t work the same as ours.”

Of course I didn’t know that, but I’m not about to admit it. “I’m just saying—it would be nice to leave here without smelling like dog shit.”

“Aren’t you the one who’s always blathering on about my language and how she hears it even if she can’t understand it?”

“Bite me,” I say, walking into the small bathroom off the living room to wash my hands, my neck, and my shirt. Wringing the water out of the cotton, I hang it over the lip of the sink and hope it dries a little less smelly.

“Hey, I heard you guys are already training,” I say as I stop in the kitchen for a soda. Heading back into the living room, I check to make sure the monster hasn’t rolled herself under a table to chew on plugs or stick her fingers in any outlets. When I see her on her stomach, face buried in her stuffed bear as she mauls him, I nod and sit back in the recliner.

Rachel still hasn’t answered me, but her fingers aren’t clacking away at her keyboard anymore either, so I repeat myself.

“Rachel? Training already? Katie said Coach already has you guys doing six o’clock individuals and three o’clock team trains. How’s it going?”

She closes her laptop without looking at me, setting it onto the couch. “Um, I don’t know.”

I frown when she stands, and bends down to scoop up Gracie and put her in the playpen—where she can be contained, and can’t electrocute herself or try and climb on the stairs and fall off, again. Rachel heads into the kitchen. I follow her, brushing my hand over Gracie’s golden curls on the way.

She’s a gorgeous kid. I know Rachel panics a little because she thinks she looks like Marcus, but honestly the more I’m with her the more I see that she’s all Rachel…the cat eyes with heavy lids, the ever-changing sea-green to gray color, the full pink lips—the stubborn stares. When Gracie was learning to move, she didn’t want anyone to touch her or help her. She kicked those feet until she got mad enough to roll, and then pushed up with her hands.

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