He heard her, and abruptly sat up. "Where's Kelly?" he asked.
"She took the baby up to the nursery," Lou told him.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, excited. "I want to go see her!"
He went upstairs and found Kelly. "What's the little one's name?" he asked.
"Her name is 'Kelsey'," Kelly replied softly. " 'Kelsey Brett-Johnson'."
_______________
Just then, Regina arrived. "Oooooh, I just got your message!" she said to Lou. "How is Kelly?"
"Too damned tired to know that she needs to sleep," Lou replied.
"I, on the other hand," Lou continued, "am NOT 'too damned tired' to know I need to sleep--I've got a shift at the hospital starting late afternoon, and I've been awake for nearly 24 hours!"
"You go home and get some shut-eye, honey," Regina said, hugging her. "I'll take over from here."
Regina went up to the nursery, and found Peter tending to the baby,
and Kelly barely able to keep her eyes open,
"Come on, mommy," Regina said. "Let's get you to bed."
_______________
Regina successfully convinced Kelly to lie down (though under protest--"But I don't want to leave her!" Kelly had wailed),
and saw Declan off to school,
before making coffee for Peter and herself. "Do you know if Kelly called Derek?" she asked.
"Hmmm," Peter said. "Lou didn't say anything about it to me, and neither did Kelly.
"You'd think she might ask one of us to call him on her behalf," he mused.
"You never know," Regina replied. "Kelly's been so emotional lately. I honestly don't even know how much she's examined her feelings about Derek.
"I think she was so crazy worried about the baby that THAT'S why she didn't want to get into any sort of deep discussion with him. So, not talking to him at ALL foreclosed that possibility.
"But now that Kelsey has been born--healthy and happy--maybe Kelly will calm down a bit and take time to address the issues in her marriage."
"We can only hope," Peter said, draining his cup. "Well, I'm off--Bill and I are going to the hardware store to pick up some stair railings for the second floor landing. Kelly told me this morning that she wants them put in pronto."
_______________
Alice came over as soon as she woke up (Regina had left her a note on the fridge telling her that Kelly had had her baby). "Oh, so sweet," Alice murmured.
"Is there ANYTHING better than a new baby?" Alice asked aloud.
Regina reflected for a moment on how far Alice had come from her binge-drinking/partying/fooling-around-with-other-women's-men days.
No comments:
Post a Comment